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. |
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