Welcome to You're Doing It Wrong, a weekly column taking the Powers That Be (PTB), especially the media and talking heads, to task for poor information and poor framing.
I'm so pissed I could spit at the so-called 'journalists' these days. I was trained as a journalist and did some work in news writing and reporting several years ago, so it chaps my hide when I see the pap that gets called news in these modern times.
People go into the field of journalism, generally speaking, to report what's going on around the world or in their locales. They don't go into the field to be lackeys and stenographers for those in power. The folks that budding journalists are inspired by (at least it was that way when I entered the field) are folks like Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Unfortunately these days, those aspirations get doused somewhat quickly, I think for a myriad of reasons. It's not completely the actual journalist's fault some of the time; it's hard to make a living and they've got to do what they've got to do, and the Editors and Producers for print and broadcast carry a lot of the blame. But it is shared blame to be sure. I'd like to think that Murrow and Cronkite would be ashamed at the state of journalism today. Fourth Estate my heinie!
To this end, Glenn Greenwald had an excellent column this week titled "Inept Stenographers".
A common criticism of establishment journalists entails comparing them to stenographers, on the ground that most of them do little more than mindlessly write down and uncritically repeat what government officials say. But stenography is a noble and important profession: they’re the court-licensed officers who, with astonishing speed and accuracy, transcribe the statements of all witnesses, lawyers and judges in judicial proceedings. If establishment journalists were to replicate actual stenography, it would be an improvement on most of the work they produce.
A confession in yesterday’s New York Times reveals that even the stenography produced by our nation’s most esteemed media outlets is anything but accurate: rather, it’s contrived and distorted by the very people whom these media outlets purport to cover adversarially. The article describes how many American media outlets, including the NYT, give veto power to the Obama campaign (and, less so, to the Romney campaign), as well as political offices generally, over the quotes of its officials that are allowed to be published...
The excuse given by journalists for why they agree to this is the same one they haul out every time they try to justify their equally subservient practice of allowing political officials to hide behind a protective wall of anonymity. We have no real choice, they claim, because if we don’t agree to their demands, then they won’t speak to us at all, and it’s better to have anonymous/doctored quotes from them than none at all (the NYT yesterday: reporters agree to quote-approval powers because they are “desperate to pick the brains of the president’s top strategists”; ”It is a double-edged sword for journalists, who are getting the on-the-record quotes they have long asked for, but losing much of the spontaneity and authenticity in their interviews”).
Really guys? 'We have to or they won't talk to us'? Gimme a break. Then don't talk to them, There will be other ways to get a story, and if you've got a story that's good, don't even bother with selective quotes from the PTB. Screw 'em. If the major media today stood up and gave a collective ignore to the PTB hen they acted this way, believe me, it wouldn't take long for the PTB to change; they are dependent on the media as the media thinks they are on them.
If you're a journalist, grow some courage and be the watchdog you are expected to be. That Fourth Estate for which part of the First Amendment exists to protect. Do you think the Founders meant to protect the PTB after what they went through with King George? No. So start doing your damn job folks! No one said it would be easy. If you're a journalist, you should be able to call a source and ask them to go on the record, and if they balk or want approval for their quotes most of the time, you should be able to say "Thanks but no thanks then. Good day." If you can't do that, and you consider yourself a journalist, or an editor, or a producer, well, You're Doing It Wrong, and you're screwing the public out of information as well.
Comments
Murrow and Cronkite must be rolling over...
in their graves.... sigh....
It's a sad day
and has been for years. I understand that even back "in the day" didn't report on what was obviously not "news" such as JFK's affairs, but at some point fame became more important than facts and truth.
Ugh
exactly. that Greenwald article is awesome! :D
.
spokespeople...newsreaders
In fact in England they call the TV people "newsreaders". There's no real thinking involved. I suppose many go into journalism hoping to be reporters but enough want the money and recognition. Those are the ones who are chosen by the media. Sort of like politicians, I guess.
yeah, it very much is like politicians...
and the blame lies not only with the journalists, but with their editors and producers. i know sometimes those folks are the ones who make the call.
it's sad, the state of journalism today. we the people don't get good or even accurate info what with the spin-wringer most articles go through. it's a full on propaganda machine now... sigh...
they're looking to become celebrities through
outlets owned by entities that have no real interest in anybody knowing too much of anything that's true.
oh totally - i think most of the younger gens who...
go into the journalism field do it more for the fame bit... and they've never really known actual news - it's always been this tabloidesque for them...
journalists have also gotten lazier. no more running down their info. instead they're reliant on what they themselves have been spoon fed...
i hate even calling them journalists. most of them aren't.
yeah and I thought
Woodward and Bernstein had changed everything. Well- yeah, yeah right up to and past the point where you're having cocktails with the people you're supposed to be covering. And isn't that what every good reporter should aspire to?
yeah, Woodward at the very least has become one...
of the water carriers... not that he's doing reporting anymore...
Mike Royko thought they made it worse
I grew up reading Royko and loved his style. I actually tried to get him to give the commencement speech when I graduated college but he didn't do public speaking. He wrote that Woodward and Bernstein ruined the reporting profession. His reasoning was that when he began working for papers it was a very definite track from covering fires and writing obits to actually getting that first real assignment. The vast majority of reporters never went to college. They learned by actually doing a very long apprenticeship under the stewardship of veteran reporters. Then along come Woodward and Bernstein with very little experience and they get this enormous story. They had college degrees. Suddenly, a degree became more important than experience. A person could graduate and have a byline the next year. It changed everything because the new reporters did not have any experience in digging for stories. I don't know if Royko was right or just being contrarian as usual. I do know that corporate owned media is a terrible idea.
I think they made it worse too
and in more ways than that.
it's an important job...that's why they have made it meaningless
Being a reporter is the only job specifically mentioned in the constitution. A free press has been at the forefront of most, if not all, of the real civil rights battles Americans have fought for nearly two centuries. Labor, environmental, financial, prison reform, wars (secret and otherwise), these were issues that citizens learn about from the press. That's why the corporations wanted to make the focus on non issues like Tom Cruise. Do you read Mother Jones? Do you see what they do with a tiny budget and dedicated journalists? Imagine what the big players could do if they had the will.
exactly sartoris! it was meant to be an adversarial
relationship - the check on government and they've instead made it and let themselves be made into water carriers for the PTB.
and yeah, thankfully, real honest-to-gawd journalism is still practiced, it's just not mainstream; it more boutique, but some of those boutiques do it really really well... Murrow would be proud of them.
This reminds me exactly of the politicians, too...
...sort of. If the politicians would just fight for good policy without shrinking up because they think other people won't support it, shame on them.
Good policies always equal good politics. Something that a lot of the pols forget.
yep. screw being water carriers for the PTB. a story can be
just as good and effective without them. in fact, some stories would be more powerful with the addendum at the end that 'so and so was asked about this and declined to comment for the record.'
i am hoping that maybe we'll eventually see some actual journalism break out amongst the MSM. I'm not holding my breath, but i gave up on politicians doing the right thing a long time ago and this Admin has pretty much sealed that up for me.