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Home Front: Culture Wars
A quest for more sensation is killing journalism
2004-04-02
From the Financial Times
The recent story of American journalism is a tale of sorrow and shame. Last year The New York Times suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge in print that one of its young reporters, Jayson Blair, had plagiarised and fabricated stories. This scandal led to the resignation of its two top editors. Now USA Today, America’s largest circulation daily, is plagued by a similar scandal. Its star foreign correspondent, Jack Kelley, quit in January under a cloud of suspicion that he, too, had concocted a string of stories over a decade - stories considered so outstanding that they were nominated for a Pulitzer prize (he never won the prize). USA Today then appointed a panel of three veteran journalists to investigate the Kelley mess. Their report is expected soon.

How easy it has been in this febrile atmosphere to point the finger at these miscreant journalists. Didn’t they, after all, deserve the opprobrium of editors, publishers, producers and the public for violating the basic tenet of journalism: truth-telling without fear or favour. Yet, by making it seem as if the fault lies mainly with a few sick or overly ambitious reporters, the management of newspapers and networks oversimplifies or deliberately downplays a far more important problem. The fact is, the culture and the business of journalism have been degraded in recent years - and corrupted by a pursuit of prizes and profit that distort values and inspire non-stop, often silly chatter on around-the-clock talk shows.
Actually, the degradation and corruption have been going on for at least 25 years ... post Vietnam and Watergate ... accelerated with the tawdry Clinton years. We’re now down at the gutter level. BUT ... that said ... this writer doesn’t want to say so, since he is attacking networks like CNN & FoxNews in favor of the old networks.
Leonard Downie, editor of the Washington Post, talks of the "celebrification of journalism," which sadly drives even the best in the business to hype a story, to exaggerate "just a bit", to sensationalise what is just ordinary and, on occasion, go over the top to simply "create" a fact, a quote or a whole story.
WaPo had a lady resign a few years ago for making up a few interviews out of whole cloth, too...
So hungry are some journalists for a bigger pay cheque or an editor’s praise or an invitation to appear on a popular talk show that they are seduced into selling their professional souls. They know better, of course, but they also know that in this competitive climate, it helps to suck up to the mores of the moment in order to be recognised and treated as one of the stars. "I lied, I lied, and I lied some more," admits Jayson Blair, as he shamelessly rides the joys of a new book, a likely movie deal and one television appearance after another. There is a price. That is painfully clear. USA Today reported recently that only 36 per cent of Americans believe what they read, see or hear in the media. Where, then, are they to get information they can believe and trust? Young people turn to the internet, because it’s cheaper and because they consider it more objective.
true
More mature people either bypass news completely or turn to cable or radio talk shows for "news" already pre-packaged and digested. author is clueless on this one
Conservatives have an ideological lock on many talk shows. Liberals are only now starting a radio network to put their own spin on the news. The airwaves are noisy with nonsense at a time when we need serious, substantive information.
That statement is demonstrably false. The number of liberals running talk shows, without any pretense of being "fair and balanced" far outweighs the number of conservatives doing the same. What the author's bitching about is the influence of the conservatives and the amount of trust reposed in them...
A 500-page study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism highlights a long-term decline in US journalism. Since 1990, 2,200 newspaper jobs have been lost, as circulation has slipped more than 11 per cent. National "penetration" of newspapers has dropped from 75 per cent to 50 per cent; and, as internet usage soars and ethnic newspapers spread, this drop in penetration is likely to continue. Since 1993, viewership of evening TV newscasts has plunged by 28 per cent, from more than 40m viewers on an average weeknight to fewer than 28m; and in a pattern similar to newspapers, as cable TV grows, network viewership declines.
So we're still watching the terriblevision, we're just not watching the Big Three...
Last year, for the first time, more Americans watched cable TV than network TV. One ironic consequence is that cable TV has replaced the networks as the place for coverage of serious news events, such as wars and primary elections.
That was actually CNN's fault. Their coverage of Gulf War I entirely outshined that of the Big Three. This Gulf War Fox and MSNBC walked all over them, by doing what CNN did before, only better...
Once news was a treasured commodity that helped smooth the edges of clashing ideologies; now news - old-fashioned and solid - is a rare species in a world coarsened by simplistic generalisations about good and evil.
and this started during the Vietnam war, liberals. You did it to yourselves.
Where are the gatekeepers, the editors and news managers who kept watch on mistakes, editorial insinuation and fabrication? Have they now sanctioned fictionalised, hyped journalism to boost circulation and help win a Pulitzer? A USA Today reporter in Chicago bravely commented: "Yes, Jack (Kelley) fabricated many, many stories. But he was aided and abetted by editors who were hungry for prizes and weren’t nearly sceptical enough of these fantastical tales". Advance word has it that USA Today’s investigation will scold Mr Kelley, recommend stricter sourcing requirements and lament the state of modern journalism. And then what? Will any of the big-shot editors or publishers be publicly blamed (or fired) for consistently missing or ignoring warnings that Mr Kelley was a troubled star who needed help? Sandra Mims Rowe, editor of the Portland Oregonian, observed pointedly: "Editors have the responsibility - it’s in their job description - to be the most sceptical reader there is. When that slips, there is real danger." Indeed, today’s mangled journalism presents real dangers, unless leaders of the news business accept their moral responsibility to put their obligations to society ahead of their preoccupation with the bottom line.
how about balance and objectivity too??
The writer, a former correspondent and anchor at CBS and NBC, is founding director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University
Newspapers are another incidence of liberals taking over an entire industry and then wondering why people don't want them anymore. The major newspapers in every major city are liberal: Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, LA Times, you name it. Most people don't want their news filtered and predigested and interpreted. That's the function of editorial pages. I think most of us prefer to be given factual information, which can then be strung together into ideas. But then, I'm not a journalism major, so I wouldn't understand.
Posted by:rkb

#7   I lost all faith in the newspapers during late 80's I was "quoted" in various local papers(little stuff-man in street,opening new store).In each case the reporter taped my comments and the words in paper were not what I had said.In one instance the "quote" was so wrong,that I complained to paper,and was told in essence,so what?.
The NYT has stated that the official position of paper on quotes,is if printed version reflects what person meant it is ok to use qoutation marks,even if those were not actual words used by person.And they wonder why the mass media has lost respect of American public.
Posted by: Stephen   2004-04-02 9:01:36 PM  

#6  Anon, I'm with Dotcom--Megadittos!
I quit taking my local rag not long after 9/11 when I realized how slow and untimely the news was and how Liberal Left the slant.
I knew I was reading it only for the obits and found that kind of creepy! I've been to enough funerals anyway.
Posted by: Jen   2004-04-02 8:50:44 PM  

#5  Lol! Killer post, Anonymous. Pick a posting nym and stick around!

Your analysis certainly strikes me as dead right - there are actually very few sources from which a majority of stories are merely repeated... and the bias from these sources is breathtaking. When they actually do stories themselves, the editorial agenda customarily mirrors that same bias.

And, like you, so many of us have bailed out and decided to seek it out on our own. As someone who was once married to a print reporter, I have a special interest in what's transpiring - mainly thanks to bloggers. Again, please stick around!
Posted by: .com   2004-04-02 8:28:15 PM  

#4  I see the problem here as way more then they will admit. We've seen this argument before, and only couched in these terms before, but it's not the real problem.
Pick up most of your newspapers in the US and you will see that their stories come from the AP, Reuters, and maybe one or two other new sources, except for local news. And that is it.
But this business model is dead, dead, dead.
Rantburg gives out more news better and faster than the New York Times! My own personal links page gives me the AP wire THREE DAYS before I see those articles in the local paper, which I don't even bother to read anymore, even for the comics.
I've even suggested to professional journalists that they should be scouring the Internet, surfing like there's no tomorrow to get the REAL news.
Their responses: variations on "Oh, that's just NOT DONE. Tut, tut! Not sporting and all!"

Hooey. Their business models are more stagnant than are the RIAA's. These are the same people who were utterly shocked when USA Today started to publish. They just couldn't believe it--too radical--it's just NOT DONE.
USA Today? There was nothing radical about it at all, really, except their pea brains just couldn't handle the idea of something different and better.

Bah. Long live the new flesh.
Posted by: Anonymous   2004-04-02 8:20:00 PM  

#3  Killing journalism, hell - it committed suicide a long time ago. I know more about true journalism from my mid-1960's high school class that the "mainstream" clowns do today.

The "journalists" (read: leftists) think they' just naturally smarter than we common folk are, but I think it's the other way around.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2004-04-02 7:05:04 PM  

#2  Isn't the fact that the Beeb is missing from his article somewhat GLARING? I heard their new leader took over the reins today, so I am surprised by this omission...
Posted by: .com   2004-04-02 3:00:45 PM  

#1  "...now news - old-fashioned and solid - is a rare species in a world coarsened by simplistic generalisations about good and evil."

Part of the problem is that the press thinks that good and evil are simplistic generalities, rather than easily described and obviously identifiable attributes.

Is there any doubt about the evil-ness of the scum animals in Fallujah, Kim Jong Il, Saddam, etc.? Not to us simple non-media types, there isn't.
Posted by: Hyper   2004-04-02 2:50:49 PM  

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