Tag Archives: journalism

News About the News

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I am puzzled by an Opinion piece published in the Washington Post, entitled “It appears CNN and the New York Times forgot a lesson of the Trump years.” https://wapo.st/3v3aynM

The lead paragraph says,

Two of America’s most important news outlets, CNN and the New York Times, are signaling that they will continue and even increase some of the both sides-ism, false equivalence and centrist bias that has long impaired coverage of U.S. politics and therefore our democracy itself. I hope they reconsider.

The ensuing argument suggests that these decisions have something to do with limiting coverage intended “to reaching people whose views might not be in the mainstream,” including in particular Black people who “disproportionately lack power and influence.”

The changes, according to author Perry Bacon, Jr., are wrapped in the cloth of “independence,” citing, importunings that Times’ staff not use Twitter so much and a CNN memo saying the network “must return to largely covering ‘hard news.’”

Mr. Bacon notes that,

Twitter was essential to the rise of Black Lives Matter — and also was a useful platform for former president Donald Trump. Trump is now off Twitter, but it remains a powerful tool for movements and activists, particularly on the left and outside both parties’ establishments.

In terms of independence, let’s be honest, the Times and CNN are declaring freedom from the left — they are not worried about being cast as too aligned with the Republicans.… I suspect independence and not doing advocacy are just updated terms for problematic forms of objectivity and neutrality that mainstream news organizations have long favored. During Trump’s presidency, the Times and CNN played an important role in signaling to the nation that he was behaving in extreme and at times anti-democratic ways. This honest coverage was nothing to be ashamed of. Now, these news executives are implying some of that coverage was misguided and won’t happen in the future.

I worry that what these executives want in the future is for their coverage of political issues to be perceived as equally independent from Republicans and Democrats. Such an approach is likely to lead to false equivalence and obfuscation — for example, reporters being worried about forthrightly identifying inaccurate statements by politicians. It basically encourages Republicans to continue to lodge bad-faith claims of media bias. It will put Black reporters in a bind, since honestly describing that the aim of some GOP-sponsored voting laws is to make it harder for Black people to cast ballots might sound like what a civil rights advocate or a Democrat might say.

The problem here, I suspect, is that of which view of journalistic history we take here. My experience, and that of many, many others inside and outside of journalism, was that CNN helped Trump’s campaign and his presidency with its non-stop coverage of his every utterance, no matter how false or destructive. CNN became Fox-Light for a very long time. If there was a turn-around at all, it occurred during the worst days of the pandemic, when Trump’s dissembling, lying, incompetence and malfeasance regarding COVID, supported across the board by the Republican Party, was daily killing Americans by the thousands and tens of thousands.

Mr. Bacon speculates that what is coming is, “replacing political commentary with more reporters standing in front of buildings like the White House and summarizing the words of elected officials. Such an approach will no doubt limit anti-Republican commentary and make GOP officials happier. But the goal should be to inform the audience, not appease officials in each party equally. When I watch cable news, I learn the most from the commentators ….”

Maybe what’s at the root of the problem is that the Trump-era media, here looking mainly at New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and the old MSM networks, became confused about the distinction between actual “news” (what happened, when, etc. focusing on genuinely significant facts about significant events) and “arguments.” With the view that a 24-hour news cycle must be covered, and that “breaking news” was the only item of interest at any moment, it wasn’t surprising perhaps that major media bought into the Trump/Bannon “flood the zone” approach.

An alternative, still available, would be to revert to the model that worked well back in the day. For example, CBS’s Walter Cronkite, a news figure trusted by most Americans at the time, presented the “news” every evening. He was followed by Eric Sevareid who “analyzed” or “interpreted” a selection of important events. They did not need constant panels of political shills arguing endlessly and repetitively about what was happening, what it meant, and who was winning.

This is how Wikipedia summarizes Cronkite’s career:

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as “the most trusted man in America” after being so named in an opinion poll. Cronkite reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson’s Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program …. Cronkite is known for his departing catchphrase, “And that’s the way it is”, followed by the date of the broadcast.

When Cronkite spoke editorially, it was clear what he was doing, as in his famous report on the Vietnam War after the Tet Offensive:

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi’s winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that – negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate…. To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. [https://bit.ly/3L3DxgY]

Clear separation between “news” – the facts – and “opinions, interpretations, evaluations” is still possible but it requires a major change of focus by the media, an end to click-bait headlines followed by often inaccurate and confusing mixtures of “what happened” and “what it means.” It also requires resistance to the idea that “news” consists of constantly covering the most clownish and false claims just because someone “famous” said them. The best case in point was the constant coverage of the daily “press conferences” held by Trump to promote himself and his administration’s alleged response to the pandemic.

The separation of news and opinion will require more work from editors to be sure that “reports” are factual, clear about the unknowns in situations in which facts are unclear, and free of opinions of reporters about the importance of “facts” reported. Have reporters stick to facts and interpreters do the evaluating. Forget the panels of political shills and when an interpreter makes claims that are false, tell the audience that there is no evidence to support the statements made. It’s not easy to do this, obviously, but being clear will be appreciated by the audience in the long run.

The Free Press on the Brink

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I read in Sunday’s New York Times an “Opinion” piece, entitled “The Free Press Needs Our Help.” https://nyti.ms/32c2wNh where the title is “Independent Journalism Is at Risk. Here’s How to Save It.” The article is co-authored by a Nobel Peace Prize winner (Maria Ressa) and a former NYT chief executive and director general of the BBC (Mark Thompson). Their argument is a familiar one.  It makes a compelling case for its main point: “around the world, independent journalism is on the brink of extinction.”

Their solution is the creation of the International Fund for Public Interest Media that will be funded by governments, foundations and private companies and then make grants to “promising and trustworthy independent news providers worldwide.” Clearly an ambitious undertaking, likely to be challenged by, among other things, the reality that governments in some cases have been the primary force undermining the free press. That said, it’s a good idea.

I was most intrigued, however, by the reference to “trustworthy independent new providers.” What exactly is that? Is there a commonly understood meaning for it? In the United States, how does that concept square with the existence of entities like Fox News, Breitbart, OAN, Newsmax and the others? Not a day goes by that I don’t see someone in social media screaming for the government to “shut down Fox!” That, of course, is not going to happen as long as TrumpPublicans do not control the government and those entities continue to toe the right-wing line with the proper fervor. [There is also the First Amendment, but a second Trump administration faced with (however improbably) an insufficiently sycophantic Fox News would likely have no problem with a direct attack to compel compliance or else].

These random thoughts led me to reflect on certain “realities of American life,” the main one being that if it’s not prohibited, you may, legally, do it. That is one of the root/core principles that govern the American legal and political systems. On the other hand, the “ideal” of total freedom had some dire consequences. Thus, we regulate practices like law, medicine, hair-styling and other occupations who, absent qualifying instruction and demonstrations of minimum [or minimal] competency could make a real hash of things.

Still, even those principles have a fuzzy edge. Some people with doctorate degrees call themselves “Dr.” and mostly no one objects. Most people with doctorates don’t add that appellation outside interactions within their discipline, but some do. It burnishes one’s image in some circles to be known as “Dr.” Mainly, in the U.S., the status of having earned a Ph.D. is added at the end of one’s name, as in ShiningSeaUSA, Ph.D. (or JD for lawyers).

As with all such matters, the history is fraught and complicated. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_(title) if you have time on your hands.

My central idea (at last!) is that in “journalism,” almost anyone can claim the title, regardless of training, certification, experience or, well, regardless of just about anything. Thus, I can claim to be a journalist when I’m covering a protest at the Supreme Court for a potential blog post and who is to say nay? Armed with a camera (Nikon, if you please), and, if needed, a home-made “press badge,” I am indistinguishable from the other “real” journalists who write for actual media like the New York Times and Washington Post.

It occurs to me, then, that we have an opportunity to improve our situation by establishing some criteria of legitimacy for people who want to use the term “journalist.” We could, for example, establish national standards for the use of the term that, like the practice of law and medicine, would sanction persons with demonstrable relevant education and knowledge to call themselves journalists.

I well understand this would be complex and controversial. And, of course, someone (likely someone wanting to be considered a journalist but having neither education, training nor demonstrable knowledge of the field) would bring up the First Amendment. A good argument can be made that the 1A would not be implicated in a proper regulatory system because the requirements do not prevent anyone from speaking or reporting. They would only forbid the unqualified from calling themselves journalists.

I can hear the screams of outrage now, but I think this is an idea worth considering. It would not shut Fox News or Breitbart down, but a properly constructed code of ethics could go some distance to prevent such entities from passing themselves off as journalism. And, by the way, the same goes for the likes of CNN which, over time, has made a practice of presenting right-wing shills as “journalism” when it’s really something else.

This suggestion will not solve the entire problem, which is obviously complex, but this may well be a situation where we should be careful not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.  Something to think about.

 

Journalism and Democracy

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I have just finished Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now by Alan Rusbridger.

Based on the title, you might think this book is all about Donald Trump and his attempt to sell the idea that the press is the “enemy of the people.” While the Trump menace to freedom of the press is mentioned, the book is not mainly about that. It’s about the process by which The Guardian, one of the UK’s most storied newspapers, has navigated, with varying success, the rocky path from the traditional ways of journalism to the world brought about by the internet and the digital globalization of information.

Rusbridger is not a household name in the United States like, perhaps, Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post. Rusbridger was editor-in-chief of The Guardian from 1995 to 2015, the seminal period during which the digital challenge to top-down journalism manifested and ran roughshod over traditional ways of delivering the “news.” He is, among other things, a hell of a great writer and a compelling storyteller who confesses throughout that he was usually at a loss to know what to do to save The Guardian from financial destruction and from loss of its moral compass.

Rusbridger’s book is a remarkable explanation of the transition from a news operation funded by a trust, but still dependent upon advertising revenues for survival, to a multi-element news machine adapting to the digital age. Some of the financial details may challenge your interest, but the overall story line is as powerful as anything in great fiction. But, of course, it’s not fiction, not fake news, but truth.

Along the way, Rusbridger explores the meaning of “news” in a digital world, how news is discovered, vetted for importance and interest, and delivered to a global audience still interested in “truth” mediated by trusted investigators, writers, editors and publishers. He narrates the stories of Wikileaks (Julian Assange) and Edward Snowden and the issues their pilfered documents raised about what was responsible to publish, how governments attempted to prevent publication and much else. Readers from my generation will, of course, remember Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers, the New York Times and the ultimate victory in court that enabled the world to understand how the United States government had misled the people about the Vietnam War. Even then, the Nixon administration tried to imprison Neal Sheehan under the Espionage Act for his journalism in breaking the story.

The struggle over the Snowden documents was no less dramatic with the special twist – something I did not know – that the United Kingdom has no equivalent to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press. In the UK publishers, editors and even individual journalists are subject to lawsuits by “offended” parties, including giant corporations, who object to unfavorable news being published about them. Even members of Parliament and the British government itself were ominously threatening to punish difficult publish/don’t publish decisions about matters to which they took serious umbrage. Editors could go to jail for publishing the “wrong stories.”

Early in the book, Rusbridger discusses the period during which UK competitors of The Guardian began to dumb down their news to attract eyes, with considerable success and adverse effects on more traditional news organization that continued to publish in the old style. The conflict is described as “an ongoing concern for complexity, facts and nuance versus a drift towards impact, opinion and simplicity.” [Breaking News at 91] In ruminating about the divergent paths before them, Rusbridger raises question to which no ready answers existed at the time or even now [Id. at 92-93]

“What … should a news organization do, faced with legions of apathetic readers?

Did we have any kind of responsibility to tell our readers things they might not think they wanted to know?

Would a move to less complexity end up reinforcing a pattern of ignorance, or carelessness about things that ultimately do matter to us all? … Most of public life was not faithfully representable in either black or white. Somebody – surely – had the duty to paint in the greys.

Fast-forwarding to the second decade of this century, Rusbridger observes that “an ever-more polarized public – favouring either black or white answers to complicated problems – had lost either interest or trust in a world of greys.”

Another interesting observation lies in the discussion of the “long tail” of news. In traditional newspaper journalism, the story was developed during the day, published late and delivered for morning consumption. The story was effectively “over” until at least the next day’s paper was distributed. In the digital world of social media, however, “a story had a life independent of the news organization which created it.” Breaking News at 157. The story “was now a living thing – being shared, critiqued, rubbished, celebrated, clarified, responded to, rendered irrelevant, added to, challenged – maybe all of the above – while [the reporter] was trying to take a well-earned break.”

The battle that ensued after The Guardian published some of Snowden’s documents led many UK papers to line up against The Guardian. Rusbridger listed a series of legal challenges over the years to newspapers’ publication of controversial material, almost always sustained by the courts. Rusbridger:

“Journalists may often make wrong  decisions – but the assumption has to be that newspapers are free to make those wrong decisions and, if necessary, be held responsible afterwards. It was so strange to see writers and editors in 2013 willing to concede this principle when judges had, in general, been so much more robust in their defence of the press.” [Breaking News 321]

The attacks on The Guardian will look familiar to anyone paying attention to the rhetoric of Donald Trump who, in his paranoid desperation to deflect criticism, has labeled the press the “enemy of the people.” Rusbridger discusses that and the issue of “fake news” at length in the Epilogue to the book. Of course, his views will be of no interest to people who have forfeited their ability to think in favor of abject adoration of everything Trump. For the rest, though, whom I still believe to be the majority, the centrality of a free press to the survival of democracy will resonate. The current challenge to genuine journalism is deadly serious, one among many such threats that now arise from the kleptocracy that Trump and his family, with full support of the Republican Party, seeks to establish in the United States.

The story of The Guardian is our story as well and should be read by everyone who cares about the survival of democracy and personal freedom in America.