Oh Crap!

In an “Oh, crap!” moment over spring break, I realized I forgot to write this entry. It got lost in the midterms and essays all due right before the week off, and somehow made its way out of my mind. I’m mad at myself because I had what I thought to be a solid argument as to why there is no need to credential journalists.
Looking back at some of the big-name scandals in recent years, the Blairs, Glasses and Leopolds of the world all got their chops busted big time as soon as it was discovered that they were fabricating sources, facts and stories. Now tell me, how would this have changed if they had been “officially credentialed” by some review board?
They all worked at highly-esteemed papers across the country and knew what the consequences would be if they ever got caught. The fact that they chose to continue with the dishonest behavior, to me signals that there was nothing that could be done prior to them lying that would have stopped them.
What it would take for these review boards to create any feeling of relevance would to catch reporters well before their stories go into publication. The boards would need some sort of department of pre-crime where deadly accurate psychics predict what is going to happen before it actually does. (Sorry for ripping an idea out of “Minority Report”). Once the lie is out there, it’s impossible to fully take it back.
Since the previous scenario would be impossible to enact, there would be no practical use for these boards other than to waste papers’ and journalists’ time. Liars and fabricators that get caught are already effectively blackballed by the industry and are shunned by those in the profession. It’s the same thing that would happen to a doctor who loses his medical license or teacher that gets her teaching certificate ripped up.
By creating these boards, it would, for a short while at least, appease the masses that claim the news medium have no more credibility or honesty. But soon, they would realize the boards do nothing to prevent new cheaters and liars from acting, and the beat of their drums would sound again.
The only reason left for creating review boards would be to appease the gigantic egos and quiet the incessant whining of some who have gone through years of training in journalism school. While I’m proud of what I have accomplished and learned in my time at MU, I think it is ridiculous to suggest that there aren’t people out there who couldn’t competently do the job we do. As proof, there have been many successful people with no journalism degree, such as Peter Jennings or even my sports editor, Greg Bowers who have been more than competent in their jobs.
Let’s put the effort into checking stories more thoroughly when they come through copy desks and randomly checking sources, so we can be proactive for once.

Equality

I’ve been thinking a lot about the question of whether or not journalists should be certified all week. I’m still going with my original answer of no for several reasons—there are many great journalists without educations, it would be hard to decide a way to measure whether someone should be certified, etc.---but I’m not as sure about it as I was Monday.
I’ve heard the notion before that journalism school is a waste of time. Newspapers hire kids off the street to come in and write stories and work their way up. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I don’t want my degree to not mean anything. I don’t want to be held in the same esteem as a kid off the street or someone with no journalism background who creates a website to rant and rave about Mizzou sports.

The good thing, though, and the reason I still don’t feel a pressing need for certification, is that I think we ARE given more merit. I don’t feel threatened that I am going to lose my spot on press row to a blogger, not if I’m working for a newspaper with any kind of a reputation in a community.

Maybe that’s just me being naïve, but I don’t think so. It’s up to a newspaper to earn the public’s trust in their communities enough to be held above less qualified potential competition. Likewise, it is up to me to show that my education was worthwhile, through my work, not by holding up a certification card. I am confident that I can do that, and my work will be representative of the first-class education I have received.

Wednesday, the topic was whether we, as journalists, are “more equal” than others. My answer is simple: absolutely. When I cover a sporting event, I have credentials that give me the opportunity to go where the average person can’t. That pass obligates coaches, players, and whoever else, to talk to me in a way they may not feel obligated to talk to a fan in the crowd. In the same way, politicians and government officials are obligated to talk to reporters on the news side.

Certainly, then, we are more equal. It’s a privilege, and it’s a responsibility. We have to ask the questions that those who don’t have the opportunity to do so would ask. When public figures deserve to be called into question, we have to be there to do that. We have to act like their equal, if we feel below them or intimidated by them, we won’t ask the questions that need to be asked in order to show the public the truth about a corrupt cop or a lying politician.

To do our jobs, we have to be equals, especially in our own minds. By considering ourselves to be "more equal" we are not being cocky or putting ourselves on a pedestal, we are just acknowledging the truth.

A plastic card could say a lot

Blair, Glass, Leopold, we know their names; most of us probably despise them. And it is because of people like them, and of course bloggers too, that I think journalists should be required to have “credentials.” I think the morals and ethics of journalism in today’s world have to a great degree become a distant memory. As all our studies on blogging and the new media revolution have shown, many believe that anyone can be a journalist.
Are we okay with this? Are all the years we spent pounding into our brains the qualities that will make us thrive as writers simply a waste? Well, when those less-than-savory characters fabricate a story or get their facts wrong, it can sometimes seem so.
But for many journalists it is a point of pride that we’re not licensed or credentialed. Many think that to do so would be a ghastly violation of what we call a free press. In the past I may have agreed with this. But too much has changed these days, honesty and commitment to truth are not so valued, it seems. Trained journalists could gain so much by having some form of licensing or requirements before working for a news outlet.
First of all, it would make it much easier to blacklist the scoundrels that taint the name of journalism. If you fabricate a story, or maliciously lie, your license could be taken away. This would mean the end of the road, no chance of making a buck as a writer and justice would be served.
Next, a form of journalistic licensing would protect the integrity of our profession. No more would you have frauds such as Jason Leopold lurking around the newsroom. If you go to school, put in the time and effort required, you can work for a news outlet. I don’t think it should be any other way. Perhaps I’m partial because I went through the hell of the Missourian, but I’m sure most true journalists would agree. Along these lines, bloggers that term themselves “journalists” would become a rarity. I find it totally absurd that some guy sitting in front of his computer in his underwear is allowed to even be considered in the same sentence as journalists.
We work extremely hard for our profession. I don’t think any real journalist would have any objection to licensing that requires a journalism degree to work in a newsroom. If someone does object, it might be a good idea to do a little fact-checking in their stories.

License to Report

We live in messy, complicated world. The sheer amount of information affecting the average person is mind-boggling. Much of that information is quite esoteric: Making sense of financial data or policy numbers with which journalists and readers are confronted each day, and doing so responsibly, can be well beyond readers, even when that information has a direct effect on their lives. And the people we pay to make sense of this mess for us have the power to shape how we act (assuming we act on information). So, it seems pretty reasonable for us to demand some sort of guarantee that the people to whom we entrust the arduous task of sorting out and delivering important, contextualized information will do so well and responsibly. A case, you might say, for licensing journalists. It’s in the public interest.

There’s another argument for licensing journalists. The news industry has data to show that readers and viewers tend to view all journalists as one monolithic block, unified in its efforts, intentions and ethics. (I’ll break here while you chuckle.) Media savvy viewers/readers and news junkies excepted, many news consumers understand neither the vast differences in values inherent to different media (i.e., the broadcast news ethic vs. the newspaper ethic vs. the magazine ethic) nor the vast differences in practices among organizations within each medium. (Though viewers/readers certainly do have a in inkling about what goes on inside a news organization – “This paper is so conservative” or “This station is so sensationalized” – they don’t tend to have a grasp on the competing theories of journalism that generate the results they see.) Because readers/viewers tend to see all journalists as representative of a unified group, the folly of one journalist damages the reputation and credibility of all journalists. If credibility is the journalist and news organizations’ most valuable asset and one journalists’ folly can damage all journalists, then it’s in the interest of journalists and news organizations to license journalists and make sure they conform to and uphold a set of values common to the endeavor.

So that, in my view, is what licensing journalism would solve: It would be a guarantee that the people we pay to analyze and deliver our information are competent and it would help protect the credibility of and trust in journalism overall, which is at a low ebb. But let’s look at some of problems with credentialing journalists.

First, there’s this question: Who’s going to license journalists and how will it be done? In other words, who’s interests will be represented in selecting who’s a journalist and who is not? After all, the entire idea of licensing journalists is predicated on keeping out some people who want to be journalists. The government can’t be involved in licensing journalists, right? That would be a clear case of censorship: The government doesn’t want person X to become a journalist and denies person X his/her credentials. But what happens when journalists are licensed by a media body? That body will inevitably be controlled by monies interests and readers will certain know that. It’ll be a tough sell to convince readers/viewers that corporate censorship is any better than the government variety.

Another question: Who enforces the licensing of journalists? If a lawyer or doctor practices without a license, they’ll be thrown in jail. Would journalists want to be pulled away from their keyboard in cuffs for reporting without a license? That seems dangerous.

These are big problems. There’s also the fact that licensing or distinguishing journalists would require homogenizing practices and ethics within journalism – a major threat to the robustness of ideas in journalism. Overall, licensing journalists or making them formally “more equal” than others has dangerous consequences for journalism.

Unleash the Watchdogs

I don't think any industry has ever been as clueless about its future role as journalism is today. The telegraph after the invention of the telephone, I suppose, could also be lumped into the same category.

Unlike those telegraph operators, though, I think journalists still have things they can/should do that no one else can/will do. and if we can do those things better than anyone else, suddenly all the hand-wringing and bots of industry-wide depression (see: Romenesko) are suddenly wholly and fully moot.

We need to look at the new media landscape like a failing TV station looking to make a killing. We need to find out what is and is not happening in the market, taking into account all the avenues for communication and news delivery, find out what's not happening and exploit it. Shall we?

Getting news "first" is no longer neccessarily possible, nor is it important. Bloggers, TV stations, and -- hell -- even interest groups or companies or other PR machines will get the information out faster than us. Entertaining our audience is equally worthless; because of the sheer volume of stuff(TM) on the Internet(TM), the best we can hope for is to not seem to far out of touch with what's actually entertaining. It's also pointless to act as a catch-all repository for the major events of the day; Yahoo and Google have a monopoly on that market, with niche sites reaching out to interested parties across geographic markets.

So those are out. What's left is essentially two of the roles as defined by Kovach and Rosenstiel in the Elements of Journalism:
1) "a discipline of verification"
2) "An independent monitor of power"

In an interview with E&P, The Seattle Times' David Boardman backed up that second assertion with strong support of increasing investigative reporting in newspapers, saying the effect would help the bottom line and newspapers' relevance. "You’re not going to see Bill Gates do it or the bathrobe-wearing bloggers."

And both these disciplines -- hard-edged watchdog reporting coupled with a tireless effort to verify fact -- helps add a valuable layer in world that is being increasingly created by advertisers on behalf of their clients. The ability to cut through the crap they try to foist off as truth or try to ignore is going to become increasingly valuable. The ability to force an institution to address something they'd rather sweep under the rug, to call statistics from the latest press release into question, to poke holes in the spotty logic of a blogging public too caught up in the scandal of the day: these are the skills of journalists in the world we're heading into.

I love to turn a phrase as much as the next guy, but that's no longer our role. Snark is available for free. Lampooning culture is the essence of many a successful website. Style and prose are a dime a dozen. We, unfortunately, have to realize that the content of our work is now king, that a feature story is rarely going to cut it anymore.

Again, this industry has to find what it can do that nobody else is doing, and do it so well no one ever tries to compete. To verify and to investigate; those are the things we can do that will let us continue to be viable. and if we do those things, people won't talk about journalists in the same way we (never) talk about telegraphs.

Roles and Responsibilities

Journalists assume a laundry-list of roles: watchdogs, investigators, moderators, entertainers, analysts, informers, editors, commentators, and advertisers. In many ways we are community activists, agenda-setters, and voices for the voiceless. We are public servants, keepers of public record, protectors of democracy, and promoters of public dialogue. In large part, we are defined by the journalism we produce and the function that our journalism serves for society.

Yet for all of these roles – roles of the utmost importance and impact – they come with no license, no certification, and no credentials. Nor are they by any means exclusive to those with training; the profession’s poster boy, Joseph Pulitzer, is a testament to as much.

Nevertheless, journalism is undoubtedly given the distinction of a profession – an esteem typically reserved for those occupations entailing extensive training, mastery of specific and specialized knowledge, and, more often that not, formal licensure or certification. With such professional status and recognition comes the journalism industry’s concern in the rise of citizen, grassroots, and participatory journalism; efforts which emphasize the inclusion of the general audience in the creation of news content. Such models of journalism, and the technologies that have aided their evolution, seek to break down the barrier between professional and amateur journalist and further blur the lines of just who is capable of practicing journalism. Dan Gillmor comments on these consequences in his book We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People.

It in this debate over the distinction of who is a journalist that the answer to the journalist’s role can be best understood. The overarching role of the journalist, first time citizen contributor or career New York Times correspondent, is all of the aforementioned functions from the opening. It is to use news, in the broadest of interpretations, for any one of those many powerful purposes through any one of a number of ways; to rank each function’s value in some sort of hierarchy would be as insufficient as it would be impossible.

However, the role of the professional journalist then does deviate from that of the recreational – the professional’s role is to do so responsibly. This obligation is well engrained in the institution. Through education, professional associations, and the profession’s deep-rooted culture, notions of fairness, accuracy, objectivity, transparency, and accountability are upheld.

The citizen journalist, who quite literally practices journalism, is held to no such standards. The information they produce is consumed with no such expectation for ethics and the degree of trustworthiness readers place in it is reflected by this.

Why we as professional journalists worry so much over their encroachment on our sacred ground then is beyond me. So what if our society has an appetite for entertaining glorified gossip and the speculation of truth; it’s good for our imaginations and the development of good judgment. At the end of the day, when those same readers want to know who to vote for in the upcoming election or what the mayor had to say about the recent weather emergency, they turn to us, the professionals.

An appropriate analogy can be drawn in the field of medicine. In theory, anyone can practice medicine. Joe Schmoe can treat a wound and Jane Doe can administer a physical. But when it comes to diagnosing a potentially cancerous growth or delivering a child, most if not all would opt for the experience, access to resources, and authority of the professional.

So long as we uphold the quality of our product and the processes that go into it its formation, professional journalists will always have the upper-hand in the one thing that matters most in our profession: truth. No matter how critical or cynical the public may pretend to be with the “media,” they nevertheless continue to grant implicit trust in what we report as truth.

While public relations tries its best to disrupt this trust through the disguising of propaganda and a few bad seeds try their best to ruin it for the rest of us (see: Jayson Blair, Jason Leopold, etc.), the credibility of the profession remains intact if not largely indelible. This isn’t to say irreversible damage can’t be done over the course of time; wide-scale disregard for these very roles as professionals, and the principles that police them, would certainly do the trick. But after all, there is a certain protection that comes from the role of the professional journalist: it’s such an important role, it can’t be readily replaced. Not by the internet and certainly not by an army of untrained novices.

I'm a fan. Sue me.

If you've ever spent a lot of time at the Missourian sports desk, you know there are a few rules drilled into a writer's head.

Most of them are fairly simple and easy to follow, rules like "Team is an it" or "No hugging at the sports desk". There is one rule, however, which I have trouble following, one I have voiced by displeasure about.

No fans at the sports desk.

Yeah, I know that sports writers are supposed to be objective and not let their rooting biases get in the way of coverage. I understand and agree with that. When I cover events, I don't cheer for a team to win, I cheer for the best story. That objectivity is what makes our coverage worth paying for and differentiates us from bloggers and Bill Simmons. But when Greg Bowers tells us that we shouldn't be fans of any sports team, whether we cover it or not...

I can't help but disagree.

If I were a fan of MU sports, that would obviously be a problem. When the basketball Tigers won games this year, I interviewed them with a bland disposition. And when they lost, I used the exact same disposition. If they, or anyone around them, cared to notice, I would hope they would say Sam and I covered the team objectively. I rarely wore any black or gold. Heck, my collection of MU shirts has been relegated to undershirt or "Oh my God it's laundry day and I have nothing else to wear" status.

I would hope that nobody, especially my editor, would think I am a fan of MU basketball. Any and all pro-MU leanings I may have had were muted this past season. Partly because of some of the stress caused by covering the team, but mostly because I made sure to act professionally and objectively at all times.

However, I don't see what the problem is if I openly cheer for the Chicago Cubs to win. They aren't one of the teams the Missourian covers, nor are they even in a league the paper covers. The same thing goes for the Bears, Bulls and to a lesser-degree the Blackhawks. It's not as if my coverage of the MU men's basketball team was ever compromised by my love of the Cubs. (That's not exactly true. When I got a text message during a November MU game that Alfonso Soriano signed with the Cubs, I think I blacked out for at least five minutes.) If anything, talking sports with some of the players was a good way to get to know them better, and for them to see me in a way other than a guy with a recorder and notebook.

But more importantly, it's the passion of being a fan that made me want to be a sports writer. I love being a part of a good debate with somebody who knows as much as I do and can defend their points. Every day it seems I get into some Cubs-Cardinals debate with my writing partner Sam. We both know a ton about both teams and love ripping each other on rather minor statements. Yes, when I said Alfonso Soriano could be a five-tool player this season I deserved to get made fun of. But when Sam said on Wednesday that Tony La Russa was the smartest manager in baseball I let him have it. And, by the way, I think the events of the last couple days have probably proved Sam wrong about La Russa's intelligence.

It's that love of sports that continues to drive me to work as hard as I occasionally do. I like hearing a player explain why he didn't call that time-out or why his coach put him in that position to fail. And it's a curiosity that I don't think some robot could have. Sports aren't like politics or anything "serious" where every person holds a stake in what is going on. I know that in some way, the things Matt Harris or my cousin Marc currently report on have an affect on me. But those same things are drier and more academic, things that aren't nearly as exciting as a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Gilbert Arenas or a perfectly-executed free kick by Cristiano Ronaldo.

If I am forced to stop being a fan of my teams, I will gradually lose that passion for the rest of sports. See, it's my love of the Cubs that inspired me to become more of a fan of baseball. Because of them, I like knowing what is going on in the rest of the National League. Same goes for all the other teams I mentioned and their respective leagues.

Sportswriting is a tough business, one that a lot of people would like to get into. But many of them don't really know what it truly takes to be professional. Many of those charlatans find a way to get into the lower rungs of the business, but realize their skills aren't adequate to stay in it. At this point I think my skills are more than adequate. One of those skills is the ability to turn off that fandom, so to speak. I have seen reporters and other people in press boxes cheer. It makes me nauseous and makes their newspaper look amateurish.

Any good sportswriter, at heart, is a fan. But that same sportswriter also knows they have to turn that side of themselves off and view the games they cover objectively. Telling a sportswriter not to be a fan is not trusting their professionalism. More importantly, it's taking away the reason they got into the business.

no need for a news council

Something that sets journalism apart from other professions is the lack of a licensing board, or formal disciplinary procedures. The “Amish” method of shunning journalists who cross the line is what prevails today. News councils have been proposed and formed as a way to put professional checks on journalists ethical missteps. One of these was formed in Minnesota in the 1960s.
The Minnesota News Council is made up of 24 volunteers and a chairperson. Twelve are from the public, and the rest represent the media. Media members do not represent specific news outlets when they sit on the board. According to the Minnesota news council website, it was formed in response to the dwindling faith the public had in the media. The council fields complaints and rules on cases where journalists are accused of abusing the public trust. The Council has received more than 1,680 complaints since 1971. Of these, about half have been upheld and half have been rejected. This seems to be a costly and time consuming way to find that only half of complaints filed are legitimate.
In the March/April 1997 Columbia Journalism Review, Mike Wallace argued for news councils, saying that there is an anger toward the press grown out of journalists’ arrogance and dismissal of the public. He suggested that it was “irresponsible: for a news organization to “refuse to play” if a complaint was lodged against them with a news council. It has been 10 years and news councils have not caught on. Minnesota is one of the more well known ones, where anyone can apply for membership.
There are two very good reasons that news councils have not become the norm. These are: there are legal resources for misbehaving journalists, and shunning is pretty powerful. You can argue that the reason there is no formal, professional disciplinary procedures is that when journalists do something wrong, they are usually facing a libel suit. Because the protection of the press is enshrined in Constitutional law, it is appropriate for the punishment of journalists to happen in the courts. Discipline of journalists by some in-house, professional standard is unnecessary. There’s nothing wrong with the current double threat of legal action and professional shaming. News councils would only fill a need that the law and the profession have already taken care of. Shunning is particularly effective because it is a powerful threat. What purpose does being found ethically guilty by a news council serve when you have been blacklisted for employment? Moreover, there are much better ways to regain public trust, namely by being better champions of the public good. Fulfilling this role makes news councils obsolete in their mission and procedures.

News Councils: a good idea . . . in theory

Journalists have a lot of jobs. They must be watchdogs, gatekeepers and investigators. They also are charged with informing the public of the news in a fair and accurate way. With these jobs comes a good deal of power. Journalists, to a certain extent, determine what is worth paying attention to on any given day. So it makes sense that such a powerful group of people is checked up on periodically.

Journalists work on the assumption that the public is reading and trusting the work they publish, so they should be held responsible should the public call this work into question. A news council can be a method for members of the public to address the media with concerns as well as a method for ensuring more ethical journalistic practices. The potential good a news council can do is great, though problems do exist in how such a group would work in practice.

Many studies today show distrust in newspapers growing as readership declines. Countless efforts are being made to reverse this trend, several focusing on the Internet and other forms of multimedia to engage larger audiences and get people involved in the news. Yet while this may be bringing people to the newspapers, trust and confidence people have in the reporting must be strong in order to maintain the audience.

“ . . . Journalists cannot restore public trust and credibility alone, any more than any other profession could do that. They need help from citizens . . . .”(Hamer and Silha, The Seattle Times).

This help can come in the form of news councils. Members of the media and the public form the few councils that exist in the U.S. today, including those in Minnesota and Washington. Citizens are encouraged to bring their problems before the council in a hearing.

This gets communities involved. It shows the public that journalists are listening and that measures are being taken to hold newspapers and other media outlets accountable.

An example is a case brought before the Minnesota council by a local mayor claiming an editorial run in the Star Tribune inaccurately portrayed his actions. The council decided to uphold what was run in the paper, but at least the issue was discussed and some attention was brought to the concern of this person - even if he was a public figure (Brown, Star Tribune).

News councils can serve as monitors of journalism. Reporters are supposed to be monitors too, informing the public of what they uncover. If reporters can take on this role, then they should be willing to be monitored themselves. It would promote greater transparency and a more trusting public.

Inevitably, problems arise when considering the possibility of news councils. The few that there are today are state organizations. But maybe it would be better to have local councils that are more aware of the media in the area and more knowledgeable of the news being covered there. Or maybe too many councils would be ineffective.

Along with where the councils would be formed is who will make up these councils? It makes sense to include members of the media, but there is an obvious conflict of interest there. Regular citizens need to be part of the process, they are the reason news councils are so necessary. But are these people qualified to be making judgments about the ethics of journalism?

And when a news council does make a decision, and determines that, for example, a newspaper was wrong in its actions, how will that paper be held responsible? For the paper’s sake, it probably should comply and come forward to apologize or print a correction, but legally it does not have to do anything. It can stick by what it did and ignore the council’s decision, seemingly making the council useless.

These problems all come about when considering how a news council could actually work. So maybe it’s slightly ideal to think that many news councils will be created or that those in existence will have much of an impact on the world of journalism. But it’s also ideal of reporters to think that their work matters and that people are paying attention to it. And in the way of achieving that ideal, trying to make news councils work could offer some help.

What kind of dog...

As Thomas Jefferson once said the press is supposed to be the watchdog of the American government. But as my dad often likes to say in this post-Watergate era the press has become the lapdog of those it favors in government and the attack dog of those it dislikes.

This criticism of the press isn’t limited to one of my father’s favorite sayings. There are many people who don’t trust the press, which they see as all too often conforming to a liberal agenda.
In a 1997 interview in the Columbia Journalism Review (March/April 1997) endorsing news councils, Mike Wallace commented about the state of American media.

“There is growing skepticism, it seems to me, about all our credible institutions. There’s been skepticism about the press for two-hundred odd years since we became a nation. But now there seems a different quality, at least from any that I’ve understood in my lifetime There seems to be a genuine anger toward the press that I’ve not seen previously,” Wallace said.

Although some debate this criticism, in the newsrooms I’ve been present in the agenda of the editors is often clear. This agenda may not be the agenda of the American people, but what the editors, who are far more “educated” by their own standards, than the average public. The public distrust of today’s media can be attributed to the perceived bias and the belief that journalist are out for their own interests not the interests of the public.

Ten years later, Wallace’s vision of the news council has not been achieved and the sentiment of the American people toward journalists is very much the same. Recent crises such as those of Jason Blair have reinforced negative opinions about journalists from the public. Wallace’s assessment of the media also mentioned the increasing divide between journalists and the public.

“I think that we are dismissive of public concerns. I think that there is a certain degree of arrogance. There is a certain degree of elitism in the press that didn’t use to be there.”

Minnesota and Washington have established news councils to battle this problem. In Washington the news council’s mission is “to help maintain public trust and confidence in the news by promoting, fairness, accuracy and balance, and by creating a fourm where the pubic and the news media can engage each other in examining standards of journalistic fairness and accountability.”

At first the idea of a news council did not appeal to me, but after some contemplation I realized the positive role they could play for newspapers today. News councils provide an opportunity for the public to gain trust in the media, as well as to serve a more active role in the media. The Washington News Council emphasizes that though media organizations' participation is voluntary, it helps to promote trust of the media.

It is unclear whether or not news councils are the answer for the lack of trust that people possess in today’s media, but it is one of the viable solutions being presented. It is clear that the public does not have the degree of trust in newspapers they once did. The accountability of news councils could both help the cause of journalists and help the public they serve.

Let the public decide

In France they call us “The Fourth Estate.” In the United States, we’re sometimes jokingly called “The Fourth Branch of Government.” Both terms symbolize the way journalists are viewed and treated. Journalists are the people’s aristocracy –I sincerely believe that.
I pull back and say I don’t believe all people are journalists –nor do I believe that when you graduate from a journalism school you become one. I believe with time, good work, and the cumulative effort to make a difference in your work you become a journalist. This is why English had a wonderful way of creating words to describe job positions within journalism: reporter, editor, designer, photographer, graphic artist, sports reporter, etc.
I believe people throw the term journalist around too much. I sometimes think I am in the minority when I say this.
In 1841, philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote this passage to describe the media. He said, “…in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, —very momentous to us in these times. Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent writing, democracy is inevitable. Writing brings Printing; brings universal everyday extempore Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority.”
I quote this because I think this reflects the question of news credentialing, and journalists’ position with the masses and the people in power.
I don’t believe news credentialing is necessary even in this world of mass media we live in because the one thing that journalists have that non-journalists don’t have is mass-credibility. Where when a person write you take at their word almost 100 percent of the time. People like Peter Jennings, Nick Kristof, David Stout or Ted Koppel who produced works that meant something to the general populace.
News credentials aren’t necessary because there would be no way to punish someone for violating the credentials, but most importantly – the people can decide. The readers and listeners of the world do just exactly that – and they let you know when you get something wrong. Oh, goodness they let you know when you get something wrong.
Slate’s Jacob Weisberg wrote this statement on the advent of the Internet regarding “Who is a Journalist?” --- “At another level, the ability for readers to respond to the mainstream press is raising standards of accuracy, care, and professionalism. Simply put, you can't get away with being lazy or careless anymore, because too many self-appointed patrolmen are trying to catch you jaywalking.”
We represent the people, and because there are so many voices out there, I think it’s important for us to do an even increasingly better job being aspiring journalists. There’s a ton of people out there now writing from their bedrooms about everything from latest sock trends to politics. For us to become journalists, we need to rise above the mundane and provide items that the masses can react to – to get emotional about.
That’s why, in the end, the readers en-masse turn to us angrily to get into the deepest reaches of our government – why The New York Times and Washington Post is breaking national political stories and our local papers are unveiling local scandals.
Not everyone is a journalist. We can aspire to be one – and should let the public decide.

To sell or to describe?

In the last two decades, newspaper design has evolved dramatically, from dummy sheets pasted up in the composing room to today’s sleek, elaborate pages designed with the help of computer programs. Technology has given designers more flexibility and creativity in their designs. Today, many designers have developed a keen eye for visual storytelling, designing layouts that improve a reader’s understanding of the story.

But changes in newspaper design have had both positive and negative effects on the product. Anne Van Wagener of the Poynter Institute explains that good design doesn’t always equal good, valuable news. “Newspapers became more aesthetically pleasing,” she says, “but often at the cost of accuracy of the report and the credibility of the visual journalist.” (1)

Now that newspapers are focusing more and more on selling the paper, the designer’s role is changing. Design has traditionally focused on telling the story visually, on making information accessible and easy to read and on giving readers as much information and news as possible in a short time and in limited space. But with an emphasis on getting readers to pick up the paper, more and more designers are facing pressures to excite and dramatize the news through cool, sexy, powerful layouts. Although this approach produces some amazing, impressive design work, it also has the potential to create a false sense of drama and mislead readers about the tone and content of a story. The new Weekend Missourian provides a perfect example of the debate over the role of design in “selling” a story.

The first Weekend Missourian edition, published March 3, was a collaborative effort involving nearly everyone in the Missourian newsroom. It was especially important that the first cover story, about a new plan for redeveloping downtown Columbia, be designed to catch readers and draw them in to this new publication. Our managing editor said the first cover needed to have “energy, motion, movement, excitement” for our readers. Instead of trying to tell the story on the cover, he said, we needed to focus more on what would get readers to pick the paper up off their driveway and actually read it. Thus, “sell, don’t describe” became our mantra for the Weekend Missourian. The first edition used a full-page photograph of downtown Columbia at night on the cover, which embodied the “energy, motion, movement, excitement” that the paper was aiming for.

Unfortunately, the cover story was about city planning and was, through no fault of the reporter, pretty bland and static. The story inside contained none of the “energy” or “excitement” that the cover design seemed to promise. To some, it may have seemed misleading.

Journalists talk a lot about accuracy, and design is as much a part of accurately representing a story as is the reporting and editing. When we give a story more drama or attention than it deserves, designers run the risk of damaging accuracy and leading readers to believe the story is something it’s not. What may seem overdramatic to one person may seem appropriate to another, making it difficult to judge what sort of presentation best serves the reader.

It is impossible for any designer today to ignore the expectation that design will both convey information visually and entice readers to read the paper. However, these two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Jan White, author of Editing by Design, explains that designers must combine the two seemingly incompatible ideas of product-making and storytelling.(2) In the end, a successful design strikes a balance between the two, communicating specific messages to an audience within the context of the newspaper as a product for sale. The challenge for designers, therefore, is to balance the need to sell the story with the need to convey information accurately and appropriately. Good design, created with a thoughtful analysis of the story and a consideration of the needs of both the newspaper and its readers, can accomplish both these tasks.

(1) Van Wagener, Anne. “Looking good and getting it right: SND develops an ethics code.” Poynter Online. . 24 February 2006.
(2) White, Jan V. Editing by Design. New York: Allworth Press, 2003. pp. 2.

The thrill of power

It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That sentiment has been proven historically accurate by many dictators, politicians and executives. It also rings true in the case of sportswriters voting for national awards.

In baseball, many national awards, such as American League and National League MVP, are voted on by sportswriters. Placement in the top 10 of the voting for many awards is used in contract negotiations and the basis for monetary incentives to be written into players’ contracts. So, clearly, they are not just popularity contests that should be taken lightly – they can have a monetary effect on a player and his career.

I see problems with this system. Many sportswriters, at least a lot of the ones I have encountered, are sports fans. They have favorite teams and favorite players just like the general public. This can lead to bias in the voting. In addition, beat writers can be so focused on the team they are covering that they do not have an adequate general knowledge of the league’s other players. Yes, they man know who is leading the league in certain statistics, and they may have seen each player play a couple of games in a season, but that should not be the basis for such important awards.

Beat writers, at least one who is satisfied with their jobs, tend to have a bias toward the team that they cover. This can also lead to skewed voting. They may see a player on that team play 162 games and believe that they truly are the best player in the league or the best player at their position, leading them to cast their vote for that player. Alternatively, they may just like a player on their team better than a player on another team who actually deserves a vote.

Chicago Sun-Times White Sox beat writer Joe Cowley cast an interesting MVP ballot this past season. In one of the closest MVP races in years, Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins edged Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees. Cowley placed Jeter fifth on his ballot, the lowest of any voter, and included White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski in his top ten. Did he do it because he is good friends with A.J. and they like to joke around – probably. Many similar voting mishaps have occurred, but the system has not been altered.

There are probably many solutions to this problem, but I have two that I believe would work well. First, you could have only national baseball writers vote for the awards. This way they would not have an allegiance to just one team. Also, because of the extensive travel they do, they get a chance to see different teams play several games over the course of the season. While this would make for an extremely small voting pool, the voters would be very educated. Alternatively, the managers and/or players could vote for the awards. Some say that this could turn into a popularity contest, but the same argument could be made against the current system. The players have seen each other in action and are probably the most qualified to judge skill. It is one of the jobs of a manager to know what players out there are the best – so this would just be using their knowledge for a good cause.

A half-hearted argument for licensing journalists

One of the charms of print journalism -- historically, at least -- is the perception that anybody can do it. Many famous journalists never actually studied it formally, and the story about the kid who starts out working the press and eventually breaks the big story never gets old. Of course, these sentimentalities should have little or nothing to do with the argument as to whether journalists should be licensed.
There are a few reasons I can think of why we shouldn't license journalists. One, there really isn't a point. Is there an epidemic of poor journalism going around in America right now? Even if there were, what kind of test or licensing would really fix it? Would Jason Blair not have been able to pass a basic current events/ethics test? I think there's no doubt he would have. Not to knock down the profession a knotch, but how can we really compare journalism to medicine, law or even plumbing? There really are very few basic requirements. Those include telling the truth and attempting to be fair. That's basically it.
We can talk about our role as gatekeepers, as watchdogs of the government, as forums of democracy, but none of those are really requirements to be considered a journalist. Otherwise sportswriters, fashion editors and designers would be out of luck.
The second and more pressing reason not to license journalists is the angry confused public reaction that would undoubtedly follow, not to mention the level of acidic debate it would necessitate within the journalism community. Journalists, already unpopular figures according to all the latest polls, would be further villified by bloggers, who, even if included as possible licensees, would overwhelmingly disapprove of any attempt to further centralize the media. Licensing would be met with skepticism, doubt and conspiracy theories -- none of which would probably be worth treading through.
But there is legitimate reason for licensing journalists, and that's to legitimize shield laws. As we all know, journalists go to jail occasionally for refusing to reveal their sources in the face of judicial subpoenas. The most recent examples have been Judith Miller, who outed Valerie Plame, and the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who investigated Barry Bonds and baseball's steroids scandal.
The problem isn't quite as widespread as you might think from the amount of coverage these jailings tend to generate, but it does exist, and it is a concern, especially for those of us who plan to enter the profession. There should be no ethical dillema between informing the public and keeping a source hidden. The two should be parallel goals, not exclusive.
Further, I personally don't believe licensing is necessary for Congress to pass a federal shield law. I think bloggers, writers, tv reporters, columnists and whistleblowers should all be protected -- with limitations -- from being forced to reveal sources in the face of jail time, whether they possess some sort of license or not. But licensing might not be a bad idea to help facilitate the whole thing. By licensing, I don't mean that we should force anybody who practices journalism to take a test, I just think that for anybody who wishes to be under the protection of shield laws, it might be a good idea, if only to get some swing voters firmly on the side of shield laws.

journalism licensing across world

In 2005, the White House admitted the first blogger to the White House press corps. It was a revolutionary step in acknowledging a new field of journalism and granting authority to a new type of journalist. However, the blogger admitted to the press corps previously worked closely with John McCain on his political campaigns. This fact was not reported by many large news agencies, including the New York Times.

The position of White House correspondent is a coveted among many journalists. Journalists chosen for this beat and granted White House credentials are assumed by the public to be highly qualified and able to report without a bias. With such a vast arena of “journalists,” however, who is able to determine which are qualified for access to major sporting events, the White House and other restricted newsworthy forums and information outlets?

Among professional journalism organizations and politicians, there is debate concerning the possible licensing of journalists. In this matter, certain qualifications would be required for a journalist to receive a license and there would be penalties for unethical behavior (such as the suspension of a person’s license). This debate is not only being held in the United States, but in countries all over the globe. Licenses would help determine which journalists are credible and should be allowed in restricted events.

An op-ed piece published in The Statesman, the oldest newspaper in Ghana, argues in favor of licensing journalists due to a recent influx of unethical behavior and unprofessional practices in the field. In Ghana, there is a professional organization for journalism, recognized in the country’s constitution, which lists expectations for journalists and accepted practices. Journalists, however, are not living up to these expectations and the organization – the GJA – has no power to penalize journalists who do not abide by its standards. The op-ed piece argues that the GJA should license journalists who meet certain qualifications, and without this certification, a journalist cannot be employed. Furthermore, a journalist’s license may be suspended for unprofessional behavior.

Restricting journalism employment to only licensed journalists, however, would not be practical in the United States. There are too many modes for journalism, such as blogs, newspapers, magazine, television and radio, to restrict their employment methods. Underground news outlets would develop. This would also violate the First Amendment of the Constitution since it would, in effect, restrict freedom of the press.
In Venezuela, the Supreme Court ruled that licensing journalists is incompatible with the Western Hemisphere’s convention on human rights. This is in regard to Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which says that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought and expression” and that the “exercise of that right shall not be subject to prior censorship” – a clause very similar to the U.S. First Amendment. Furthermore, licensing “would contain restrictions to freedom of expression that are not authorized” by the American Convention, and “would consequently be in violation not only of the right of each individual to seek and impart information and ideas through any means of his choice, but also the right of the public at large to receive information without any interference.”
There are, however, methods in which licensing could benefit the practice of journalism in the United States. Licensing could be a method for external agencies to easily determine who, out of a group of journalists, is credible and therefore qualified to report on an event. For instance, when the NCAA chooses journalists to be admitted to the NCAA basketball championship tournament, they do not have time to review the credentials of all applying journalists. Many times the NCAA and other agencies will choose based on name recognition. If journalists were licensed, then the NCAA would know a journalist is credible and not John Doe from Johnny’s Weekly Babbles Web site. This would allow for the NCAA to diversify by choosing journalists whose name they do not know, but can be confident it their credibility since he/she is licensed. Therefore licensing would be a method of weeding out unqualified journalists. But there is still the question of how to determine who receives a license?

Aside from basic writing and editing skills, determining the legitimacy of a journalist is subjective. Some of the best journalists do not have a formal education in the profession, therefore if education was used as a determining factor the profession could suffer. Secondly, if a test is used, what kind of questions would be presented? Even journalists who break or bend ethical boundaries usually know the right thing to do, they just choose to ignore it. Therefore their answers to ethical questions on a test could present the person as ethically sound and credible.
Since there is no plausible method for licensing journalists without restricting individuals that are qualified or making the licensing requirements so easy that anyone could receive them, it is not practical for the United States. There already exist journalism agencies that recognize credible news outlets, such as the Missouri Press Organization. Such organizations may be used to weed out who is credible and who is not without the complications that licensing of individual journalists stirs up. Therefore although licensing would have its benefits, it is not plausible for the United States based on our freedom of speech laws and the numerous outlets of information and journalists practicing in this country.

Want it?

On Monday we discussed the journalist’s role in society. The question of the day: Why journalists deserve the privilege of disseminating information to others?

The answer: Because we’re the ones that want it.

Without a system of credentials, a Hippocratic Oath or some sort of omnipotent association watching over us, that’s the best answer I think anyone can come up with. And given the history of our profession (or occupation or plain-ol’ job), that answer is acceptable – even though no Walter Williams-fearing reporter would ever accept it from a source. Simplistically, the American free press, the First Amendment, was created just because our Founding Fathers wanted it there. Some even thought they needed it. Practically, that answer makes sense: If you’re willing to live on a salary that rivals poverty-level, work 60-70 hours a week, get regularly reamed out by sources, editors, readers… well, that all has to be worth something (right?). We’re granted this privilege because we choose to make the necessary sacrifices.

In the short run, the simplistic and practical reasons make sense.

In the long run, though, “wanting it” is no longer good enough. It has always been that anyone can want the privilege, but now times have changed so that anyone can disseminate information, true, false or opinionated. Which brings us back to the original question. Without anything besides a strong, idealistic desire to inform the public, why do journalists worthy of such a special right?

Unless the industry makes some sweeping changes, I’d say journalists aren’t deserving. Now it’s about wanting to be worthy, not just wanting the power, and it’s our task to make ourselves deserving again. And talk about a daunting task. The notion of a free press, an open forum for discourse, make regulation challenging. Can you create credentials when doing so would discriminatory? A college degree, for instance, requires a certain influx of money.

News councils seem to be a better option. If we wish to be watchdogs, it’s only fair that we be willing to be watched ourselves. That’s a main difference between bloggers and journalists anyway: Reporters have an editor looming over their shoulders, they can get fired or promoted for their work; bloggers are often their own boss. News council oversight would explicitly separate professional journalists, giving readers a reason to trust the news, a reason to award reporters the privilege of informing. From the reporter’s standpoint, news councils could provide more concrete methods for determining ethical decisions. It may also make mistakes more tolerable. From my own observation, reporters are often afraid to disclose mistakes or missteps (especially in the foggy areas of technology) because doing so usually means losing his or her job. News council assessments could come up with appropriate penances, rather than just firing the reporter because the readership is calling for his or her head.

That said, news councils still might not be the best answer. I’d say they’re a good start, though, and, more importantly, a necessary start. In such a tech-savvy world, this conversation is already old. If journalists want to be privileged, they have to prove they are worthy. And the only way to do that is by taking real action.

Public/Private Priority

Journalists have two lives that are meant to be kept separate but are invariably intertwined.

They are observers of the public and members of the public itself.

They are keepers of the public interest and have self interest.

They are watchdogs that are watched.

So what is their main role? And how is that role upheld?

Some of journalists’ most important roles (serving a watchdog, informing and seeking the truth) are included in the larger concept of accountability. A journalist’s role is to keep public and private institutions accountable for their actions. But news media are usually private institutions that operate in the public interest.

News councils are intended to uphold journalists’ role as keepers of accountability.
These councils are accessible to the public, and even incorporate laypersons to hear complaints against the media. The accessibility of the councils is certainly positive for the media because courts are avoided. News councils enable complaints to be settled without legal involvement, which means no legal fees and no legal reparations – a benefit for citizens and the media.

Doesn’t the public already hold the media accountable for its actions? We run corrections, we avoid libel, we use direct quotes …. And if wrongdoing is done, there are consequences in place in accordance with the legal system. Why is the legal system not good enough? Are the decisions the courts make lacking in some way?
I don’t think so.

And the courts are arguably just as public as a news council would be. If anything, I think journalists take the courts more seriously than they would a news council. Harsher punishments are a good way to stave off libel.

A benefit of complaints filed through a news council and not the courts is accessibility. By involving laypersons and journalists in the decision-making process, complainants’ and journalists’ interests are well represented. The Minnesota News Council requires a waiver from complainants “agreeing to use the News Council, rather than the courts to resolve” their issues with the news organization.
But does working directly with the public to solve discrepancies help journalists’ credibility more than stepping around the court system could hurt accountability?
It seems that by instituting a news council, the media would be saying to the public: we need to be regulated more than the courts regulate us, and we need the public to hold us accountable for more than they already to. Is that the truth? Do the courts not work enough? Does the public feel so disconnected from the media that they feel stepped on by the same entity that is meant to help them?

The public needs to know that the media’s role is accountability – to them and to itself. Audiences should be able to tell from a medium’s news coverage that the media are accountable to them and are serving them. If audiences don’t see that, then they either aren’t being served correctly or the audiences’ opinion of the media has been warped by negative experiences or naiveté. Instead of instituting news councils, the media should start by evaluating their practices and how they are serving the public before they consider how they are serving themselves as a private business.

Can a council promoting fairness be fair itself?

A news council's mission is to promote fairness, accuracy and balance within the media. More so, it's to encourage punishments for members of the media that don't abide by these journalistic guidelines.

But where the problem comes in is that the council is simply a collection of people, a collection consisting of former members of the media as well as the general public. Can this group of people really decide if another person has been fair and accurate in describing some event without the group having experienced the event itself? No person, or group of people, can truly be objective him or herself. So how is one person to decide if another has done its job objectively?

Debates last for hours deciding which TV stations or newspapers are more balanced and accurate than others. Yet by implementing a council, we would be suggesting that objectivity (or lack thereof) is fact. It's far from it. Without going through a reporter's notes, I can't assume whom that reporter talked to, which opinions that reporter included/excluded. I can't assume how accurate his or her story is comparison to the events that actually took place without having been there myself.

It's something I mentioned in class, but I think it serves as the best example. NBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas last month brought back mixed reviews from sports columnists. Vegas was an important site for the NBA All-Star festivities, as the city is trying to get an NBA team some time in the future. It was crucial for the city to provide a positive outlook and prove it was worthy of an NBA franchise. Following the even, many columnists wrote about how great the city was and what a great time they had visiting it.

But Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock, writing for AOL sports for this particular issue, took another angle (http://sports.aol.com/whitlock/_a/mayhem-main-event-at-nba-all-star/20070220103009990001). He focused on the "mayhem" of the weekend in Vegas, pointing out the high number of crimes that took place. Included are events of gang violence, fights, robberies, a shooting and of course, the Pacman Jones incident at a local strip club. Whitlock, for describing what he calls a "unmitigated failure," gets chastised by his fellow sports columnists.

Columbia Journalism Review writer Dan Goldberg was very critical of Whitlock's column, as was ESPN Page 2 writer Scoop Jackson (who Whitlock has been critical of in the past). While Jackson's article, "What really happened in Vegas?" (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/070228) does not mention Whitlock by name, it is a direct refute of his column for AOL Sports. Blogs across the country also bashed Whitlock for putting All-Star weekend in a bad light. Very few defended Whitlock, until Bill Simmons, who like Jackson is a writer for ESPN Page 2, did so in a Vegas follow-up (http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/page2/blog/entry?id=2784283&searchName=simmons&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fespn%2fpage2%2fblog%2fentry%3fid%3d2784283%26searchName%3dsimmons).

I can't help but wonder how the news council would view this situation. With most people speaking out against Whitlock's analysis of the events of NBA All-Star weekend, it would seem as if he was in the wrong, as if most of the information was inaccurate, unfair or unbalanced. CJR's criticism focuses more on Whitlock's lack of sourcing (despite the fact he was in Vegas to actually witness the event himself). By the news council's definition of its mission, Whitlock would deserve some sort of punishment. In a round-about way, Jackson goes as far as to claim that Whitlock's accounts are unbalanced and biased, saying the issue is about race and little else.

Judging by other sports columnists’ reactions (as well as many blogs), it would seem as if Whitlock’s views of the event were in the minority. Sure, one has to allow for the possibility that his information and account might have in fact been misleading.

But at the same time, you must allow for the possibility that Whitlock was the one writer who had the guts to tell what really happened over the weekend. He didn’t follow suit and talk about
how great Vegas was for the sake of promoting the NBA. And what if his version of the event was the most accurate? I have a hard time believing that a news council would believe his version over all else with other writers claiming his article was biased and inaccurate (exactly what the council would be trying to get rid of). In this case, they would encourage punishment for Whitlock. And punishing the writer who had the guts to speak up isn’t what journalism is about.

I’m afraid that by establishing a news council and maybe even allowing it the power to punish writers, we would be discouraging them from having an opinion that may be in the minority or one that may shed an unfavorable light on an otherwise positive event. And if we set the standards for journalism as "going with the majority," we have discredited the profession. We will have taken the watchdog role out of journalism.

Sports writers should continue to vote

The primary role of journalists is to act as news informers. They are responsible for communicating to citizens what is important and what they should be aware of. However, sometimes journalists can cross the line from news informer to news maker. Sports writers are one group that often becomes victims of this transformation. Sports writers often become news makers when they are obliged to vote on certain postseason awards such as the league’s Most Valuable Player award. A prime example is during last season’s American League MVP voting when Chicago Sun-Times sports writer Joe Cowley voted Derek Jeter sixth on his ballot – lower than any other voter. As a result, Cowley made national news for his bizarre ballot and received about 500 e-mails from angry Yankee fans – many of which were personal attacks such as, “hope your cancer comes back” and “hope you have a short life.” It is exactly this type of situation which has some newspapers now forbidding their sports writers from voting on such awards. However, I don’t believe this is the right move by those newspapers.

The argument by some newspapers is that they don’t want to put their sports writers in the position that Cowley found himself in. They don’t believe a reporter should be a household name because of his vote. "Voting on awards like this puts reporters in the position of making the news, and that's not our job," said Tom Jolly, sports editor of The New York Times. "Our job is to report on the news, not to make it." I agree with that statement to a point, however, people need to remember that Cowley was the exception, not the norm. Most sports writers do vote in an objective manner. The only reporters who become household names because of their vote are the ones who show such clear and unfair bias like Cowley did. Obviously, there’s always going to be a little bias for anyone, even journalists. If you’re covering a team day in and day out for months at a time, you’re bound to be more knowledgeable about someone and likely think more favorably of them if you’re following them all the time. The key for journalists to be aware of that inherent bias and to make sure you’re voting honestly and for the right reasons.

Many players have contracts that pay a bonus for MVP awards and other honors. When a sports writer's vote can have a direct impact on the salary of a player who is also a news source, that creates a conflict of interest that is unmatched in any other area of journalism. I understand the argument, but I think there’s a stronger one the other way.

If sports writers should not vote because it’s a conflict of interest, then who should? Fans? Obviously, that’s completely out of the question. Fans are more biased than anyone. Most of the fans who vote for the All-Star starters don’t care what their stats are or who actually deserves a spot. For example, in last season’s American League All-Star voting, Detroit Tigers catcher Ivan Rodriguez and his decent season (.308 – 7 HRs – 39 RBIs) was named the starter over Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, who was leading the majors with a .378 batting average. It doesn’t make much sense but it happens time and time again. Fans voting on the All-Star starters are one thing, but postseason awards are another story. Clearly, the managers and players voting is a better idea than the fans, but I still don’t believe they would be any more objective and less biased than sports writers. One thing people forget is that managers and coaches already do get to vote on one postseason award: The Gold Glove award. Managers and coaches cannot vote for anyone on their own team, but this still produces some strange results. In last season’s Gold Glove award for AL second basemen, the Royals’ Mark Grudzielanek won despite the A’s Mark Ellis setting the all-time fielding percentage record for a second baseman. If managers are so qualified to vote for postseason awards, they surely haven’t showed it with the Gold Glove award voting. If players voted, it’s hard to imagine any situation where a team with a player contending for an award, would vote for anyone but the guy on his team. Players and managers have just as much if not more of a conflict of interest when it comes to bonuses being handed out for winning awards. They are most likely going to want to see their friend and teammate take home that extra million bucks more than a journalist would. Having someone else vote would eliminate the problem for writers, but that would just cause more problems than are actually being fixed.

Postseason honors are staples of their sports. These honors are a big criterion for the Hall of Fame and they often define the players’ careers. They are an irreplaceable part of sports. To have un-qualified people voting diminishes the sport. That is bigger than something such as the appearance of a conflict of interest. Sports writers are the most qualified to vote because they are most knowledgeable and they are aware at least of their biases because they’re trained to be. There is no perfect system out there. Someone is always going to be unhappy no matter who votes or who wins. However, the one that works best is when the most qualified people vote: The journalists.

Knowing where to draw the line (theoretically and literally)

Reporters have the responsibility of gathering information, holding public officials accountable and then writing it up for their audience. Editors have the responsibility of making sure the story is easy to understand, holding the reporter accountable with fact checking and then producing the most accurate story to be published. Designers have the responsibility of making a layout accessible and easy to navigate, making the design interesting enough that a reader will want to learn more and representing the story through the design in the correct tone and way. But the last two responsibilities of designers aren’t always regarded in the same terms.

Designers are journalists in their own right – they help to tell a story through typography, photos or illustrations, break out boxes and other extra elements within a page design. Although journalists are taught to tell a story to it’s complete accuracy and truthfulness, these rules or guidelines seem to get altered in small ways sometimes in regards to design. The problem is that newspapers are a business, too. They have to think about what sells the paper and how to get people to read the publication. Although content is a driving factor in whether people decide to read a story, most of the time how the page looks is going to be the first reason someone picks up the newspaper.

So as a designer, you know a lot rests on your shoulders in regards to selling the product. But how do you incorporate the ideals you’ve learned as a journalist into making something “look good” as well? Sometimes stories aren’t as engaging as you were anticipating and then you’re stuck with whether to make your design reflect the story or dress the story up with your design. Often the feedback is to make the page as exciting as possible, but that could mean you’re being inaccurate with the story.

A design editor at Poynter Institute defines bad design as getting “in the way of the information instead of enhancing it.” Knowing where to draw the line theoretically between selling and telling is a very important part of being a good designer – but knowing where to draw the line literally to make an intelligent and enticing design is also important. Too often the news agenda is not set by what story is most important for the public to know, but is set by what the editors think should be played big because it’s a local story or because it’s not a dry, complicated topic.

While the Columbia Missourian doesn’t provide the exact setting of a real news room, designers do have the opportunity to make the decision – with a little help from others – on what story should be played as a lead on the front page. Those decisions should be based on the content of the story and whether it has valuable information. But newspapers – in the face of declining circulations – have shifted their focus to what might be more visually appealing or how to visually pump up a story even if that means the design is misrepresentative.

Although designers should try and come up with creative ways to visually tell a story and draw readers in, they should not give up their standards or previous teachings on how to be truthful, objective and descriptive.

My encounters with ethics

One way ethics has impacted my job as a journalist has been conflict of interest. My first encounter with this problem was between publications. I started working at the Maneater my freshmen year, but in 2005, The Missourian hired me for the summer to do the sports scores page. At the time, I was aware of this as a conflict of interest and informed my employers. The sports editor said it would be fine to return to The Maneater in the fall as long as I didn’t have any affiliation with the Maneater over the summer.

My second encounter with the “act independently” part of the Code of Ethics had to do with sports itself. It has always been a rule at the sports desk that no one is to wear any sort of Mizzou apparel. (I have gotten around this by wearing a scarf over my fleece with a tiger logo on it.) While I agree with this rule, it is the unspoken rule that my sports editor enforces which is: No sports logos of any kind should be worn on the sports desk. He says that this is not a hard and fast rule, but we are all striving to be professional, and you can’t be professional if you are a fan.

Now, in no way am I a fan of any sort for any sport. Let me put it this way, I have to ask others the names of sports teams and what cities they are from. In other words, I have very little knowledge of sports, let alone have any sort of admiration for any particular team. However, there are others on the desk who do have their favorite teams.

I have several opinions on this subject. On one side, I think my editor is right about not showing any bias toward a team. When a reporter is covering a team, he should not be wearing a Texas Longhorns hat to report on the Tigers. My editor provided some words of wisdom. He said it’s one thing to have a passion for something at heart, it’s another thing to broadcast it. In other words, you can like the Dallas Cowboys, but in the newsroom and on the field, you should appear to be an objective journalist.

On the other side, I think that as a designer, if I want to wear my Mizzou polo to work, I should be allowed to. Here are my reasons: 1) By wearing the shirt, I am showing support for the school of which I attend, not the sports teams. 2) I am never courtside covering a team for the Missourian. My job involves coming into the newsroom and putting words and photos on to the pages. But in the name of objectivity, I have refrained from wearing any visible Mizzou apparel.

So whether it is deciding how to play a story on 1A or setting aside my Mizzou jacket, journalism ethics do play a role in my work as a designer. I am the last person to make decisions about my pages before they are sent to the press, I am have to be completely accountable for everything I do. Even though my job doesn’t really entail a lot of content related issues, my job does have impact on what readers focus on and how they are drawn into the story, so I feel like I am contributing to the greater good. The integrity of the publication and my role as a journalist is important.

Providing an Extra Check

I have always been a firm believer that democracy cannot exist without a free press. During a communications class my junior year the professor asked for all the journalism majors in the room to raise their hands. I quickly scanned the room hoping for tons of hands to shoot up, and not one budged. I knew I was in trouble as I timidly raised my hand. He had me come to the front of the class and then asked the class: “Who here believes that a free press is a fundamental element to democracy?” Out of a class of about thirty maybe five raised their hand. The professor then looked at me, and said it was my job to convince the class that my “future occupation was more important than theirs.”

The discussion was a little awkward at first as I tried to navigate through my explanation without hurting anyone feelings and sounding too egotistical. But by the end of the class I had close to three-fourths of the class now believing a true democracy must contain a free press. Journalists have a responsibility to watch over the government, businesses and organizations on all levels and make sure proper procedures and actions are being executed. I am excited about this role of a watchdog, acting as another “check” in the checks and balances system.

It’s hard to concretely define the role of a journalist when the definition of a journalist is constantly debated. There are no standardized tests or required curriculum to pass to be labeled as a journalist. A 2002 study conducted by journalist and author Hugo de Burgh found that the primary reason people become journalists is a love for writing. The enjoyment of reporting and interviewing was the second most popular reason. The third and fourth most common reason cited was a desire to be involved in public events and an interest in politics. I was surprised that “being a watchdog,” or “lending a voice to the overshadowed” didn’t even break the top ten.

I can not tell you how often I have walked into a legislative meeting and had a group of men in their fancy suites stop discussing their plans because a reporter was now in the room. We hold a lot of power. We hold a lot more power than we realize. But just like Spiderman, “with this power, comes great responsibility.” Journalists set the agenda and tell readers what to be discussing at dinner parties and what to be outraged over. By what we cover and how we cover it, we decide what’s important for society to be thinking about. In my opinion, “news” has become too entertainment oriented and we need provide better news coverage.

I like to believe that leaders and people in high positions have made a decision not to do something bad or unlawful because of what would happened if the press found out. People tend to make more ethical decisions if they know someone is watching. It is important for people to know they are going to be held accountable. If a fire kills 10 people in a facility that was not required to have a sprinkler system because lobbyists bought off lawmakers because it would cost a lot of money and time to install sprinklers, the public deserves to know this information.

Journalists also act as information filters for society. It is very easy for people to go online and find out information on their own, that they don’t rely as much on journalists as in the past. However, journalists must continue to sift through information, and place the facts in context and explain to the reader what certain information or news means to them. Journalists have the obligation to analyze and provide context and meaning to current events to make people understand the importance or impact of an event. It is one thing to know that something happened, it is quite another to understand the significance of the event, what led up to it, and potential consequences. Journalists need to continue to perform this analytical role to create a more informed society. It is important that society is informed so it can fully and knowledgeably participate in the democratic process.

A Reason to Read

As journalists, we dictate what topics are on the minds and lips of our readers. We plastered our radios, Web sites and news sections of papers with word on Anna Nicole Smith’s death. Watergate caused people to be acutely aware of political scandal. We gave credence to the threat of a possible influenza pandemic, and we also discussed performance-enhancing drug use within our athletes.

There is a fine balance to find between giving people what they want vs. giving people what they need. Much of the news Americans ingest comes in the form of infotainment, at the loss of critical context and information on other more serious, life-changing topics. We as journalists give them that information because that is what the public wants; that is what sells our newspapers, magazines and commercial spots.

On Wednesday, ESPN.com highlighted NCAA women’s basketball when the second round of the Tournament was completed. Maryland, the defending national champion, was eliminated. That was news. But unless there is a scandal, or Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris breaks her leg, women’s basketball, or women’s sports in general, will not see the same press exposure as men’s sports.

I never saw myself as a champion for women’s sports and certainly not women’s basketball. I was in love with boy’s basketball. I didn’t even like girl’s basketball, and I played it growing up. But then I had a chance to cover the sport, and I saw things that made me change my mind and become increasingly more passionate about a game I already loved, only this time, played by females.

I can understand how people would not respect women’s sports. But that doesn’t mean I agree with that fact or have to allow others to complacently continue in their thinking.

A journalist’s job is to give people enough information to make informed choices. Our stories should reflect not only what people are talking about, but also what they should be talking about. By holding on to the status quo of promoting male sports over female sports, we are hurting no one but those that come after us.

I could go into all of the injustices done against women in history, but I won’t. We haven’t even had a hundred years of voting to our names yet. Every time journalists place women’s basketball at the bottom of an inside page, we uphold the historical barriers that have been placed on women as the weaker sex. And it’s not just basketball, it’s all women’s sports.

Then you have low-revenue sports. Lacrosse. Rugby. Gymnastics. They aren’t considered the norm for American sports, so how can they deserve space on page one? The sports aren’t riddled with high-profile athletes or deep-pocketed sponsors. Again, we perpetuate stereotypes and prevent these sports from possibly becoming high-profile because of our media coverage decisions.

In the 1970s, NASCAR founder Bill France wanted more media coverage for his races and for the sport. Autosports were a hard sell to traditional fans of stick-and-ball sports. But as the sport began to grow in fan base, television networks responded by broadcasting portions of races, and maybe a few highlights on newscasts. But in 1979, France and CBS reached an agreement to broadcast the entire Daytona 500. The race garnered one of the highest ratings in television history when the former lap leaders got into a brawl on the front straightaway after crashing into one another. That fight was watched by millions and then stuck on the front pages of newspapers across the country.

And look at NASCAR now.

People really do read into what we write and how we write it. It especially makes a difference where we place it on a page. What does this mean for our objectivity? Just because we place high school girls tennis as a sports centerpiece, doesn’t mean we like that sport more than another. It simply tells our readers that we feel it is worthy of a first-glance. We can’t make people read stories about teams they don’t want to read about. But if a subscriber finds the WNBA’s New York Liberty front and center, time and again, it might give that reader a reason to read. And that’s what my job is all about.

Giving a Voice to the Voiceless

As journalists, we have a very important role, which is to set the news agenda for the public. In other words, we’re an informer.

As an informer, we’re expected to provide the news of the day to our audiences. We’re supposed to investigate and be a watchdog. But we also need to give a voice to the voiceless.

We are required to expose the injustices of society- whether they occur in our backyards or halfway across the world. But in the fast-paced world we live in, how do we make time to expose the injustices halfway across the world? How do we convince our new outlets that it serves a highly important cause? How do we find room in the budget to research and report these stories? But most of all- how do we get our audiences to care about the injustices halfway across the world?

Most people living in the U.S. don’t care about things happening outside of their community, not to mention outside of their country or continent. But I think that’s where we- the journalists- come in. We are supposed to make them care. We are expected to find a way to make them care. Because after all, it’s for the good of humanity.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has devoted his time and work to exposing the atrocities in Darfur. He brought the Darfur genocide to the forefront of media attention and governmental pressure. Nichols Kristof began writing about the violence in Darfur in 2003 when almost no other media, non-governmental organization, or governmental agency spoke the word Darfur, let alone genocide. He described the Janjaweed’s tactics of destroying Darfur villages. The Janjaweed’s main strategy was to ensure that the village would be forever uninhabitable so they poisoned wells by stuffing them with corpses of people and donkeys.

Kristof also has heavily criticized Bush and Kofi Annan’s efforts in the Darfur genocide.
I hate to say it, but the way things are going, when he dies his obituary will begin: “Kofi Annan, the former U.N.
secretary general who at various points in his career presided ineffectually over the failure to stop genocide, first in
Rwanda and then in Sudan, died today.”
Kristof also suggests the U.S. should stop the Sudan government from using its aircraft to terrorize civilians by imposing a no-fly zone, force economic sanctions on Sudan’s leaders, and push for an expanded security force in Darfur.

And Kristof has even ridiculed his own profession, the media, for not giving Darfur the coverage it needs. According to monitoring by the Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly news in 2004, NBC News had only 5 minutes and CBS only 3, which is about a minute of coverage for every 300,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks. In 2005, ABC had 11 minutes about Darfur, NBC had 5, and CBS only had 2. In contrast, the networks gave the Michael Jackson trial in 2005 a total of 84 minutes of coverage.

The media plays a significant role in agenda setting for the public. Thus, if the media gives more priority to the sex, cheating, and drugs associated with movie stars than Darfur, the public is never going to be convinced that Darfur is something worth caring about. Nicholas Kristof has made a commitment to informing the American public of the Darfur genocide in hopes that someone- anyone will stand up and try to do something before it’s too late.

Nicholas Kristof, “Dare We Call It Genocide?” The New York Times, (June 16, 2004)
Nicholos Kristof, “Reign of Terror”, The New York Times, (September 11, 2004)
Nichols Kristof, “All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt”, The New York Times, (July 26, 2005).
Nicholos Kristof, “Helping Bill O’Reilly”, The New York Times, (February 7, 2006)

A minority stance

I believe that a journalist’s credibility is the most important attribute for us to protect. If we don’t work to ensure our work is credible to the public, to the highest degree possible, the news industry is worthless and will eventually die.

The message on the blackboard on Wednesday read, “We are the arms dealers in the war of words.” When the trust to be the public’s voice is questioned or distrusted, we will have lost the war.

The widely held belief that “anyone can be a journalist,” only belittles the credibility that those of us with extensive news training have earned. In this sense, I am for requiring journalists to be licensed and/or credentialed. We should be held to higher standard than CNN I-Report or the millions of bloggers.

I don’t mean to say that there aren’t quality journalists out there who aren’t journalism school trained. Peter Jennings didn’t even graduate high school and he was one of the most trusted newscasters of our time. But, when a profession is based on credibility I want to be able to show the public how much I have put into being a trusted voice. And if that means being held accountable to a “News Council” when journalism codes are broken, I’m still for it. We scrutinize other professions’ job performance, why are we any different?

Doctors, lawyers, and even teachers need to be certified and that is why their expertise is rarely if at all questioned. I want to have the best doctor operate on me just like I want to trust the journalist who covers the White House. People like Jason Leopold, Jason Blair, and other unethical journalists make up just a tiny percentage of journalists, but their reputations create a cloud that covers the rest of us. Credentialing and de-credentialing journalists will help put up a much needed wall between those to be trusted and those that don’t deserve that respect.

We are granted an unbelievable privilege in this country. Journalists are the gatekeepers of the public interest, we create knowledgeable citizens; we analyze institutions, and hold those in power accountable.

I’m not a big fan of clichés, but one seems to work here: “To whom much is given, much shall be expected.”

Professor Steffens asked if journalists are more equal to others. In the sense of the responsibility we are granted, the access we need and enjoy and the forums we use to disseminate news, frankly, we are more equal. We should be held to lofty standards.

Journalists are also chosen to award our society’s highest honors in entertainment, athletic achievement, and journalistic success amongst other prestigious awards. Only those that are trained in the science of objectivity should be allowed to make these decisions that can make or break a career or even determine who can earn incredible amounts of money. And when the MVP of the National League or the Academy Award is being announced, I want the San Francisco Chronicle’s baseball beat writer and the Los Angeles Times’ movie critic to have voted, not the basement blogger on MLB Gamecast or voters on imdb.com.

Whether it be a 3x5 card that fits in my wallet, a diploma that I can frame for my office wall or just a passing grade on a credential exam, I want it, and I think the industry would be better off.

Regaining the public trust

It’s no real news that public trust in the media is declining. That’s a notion that has been around since the mid-1950s. It’s also something that constantly confronts journalists – just last weekend, the Missourian received countless e-mails about a “Belief in Brief” article on L. Ron Hubbard and scientology, with the stereotypical complaint that journalists often mischaracterize information or report on their own conceptions. This response was to a section of the article concerning the controversy revolving scientology and Hubbard.

Members of the media have a hard time at combating this image. We consider ourselves to be professional, but we have no license, testing or competency requirements, other than requirements set by our employers. I don’t believe we need to be licensed – fear of losing one’s license may keep reporters from uncovering the truth. However, journalists do need to have a check on their power – a sort of watchdog for the watchdog.

Enter news councils. In the industry, news councils are defined as “independent, independent, nonprofit organizations that promote trusted journalism by investigating accuracy and fairness complaints against news outlets.” It is the role of a news council to determine facts involved in the dispute and provide forums for the citizens and journalists to discuss media ethics, standards and performance. (http://www.knightfdn.org/default.asp?story=news_at_knight/releases/2006/2006_06_28_newscouncils.html)

The Minnesota News Council was formed in 1970 when the Minnesota Newspaper Association realized this declining trust in the media. (www.news-council.org) It was set up to have 24 voting members – 12 journalists and 12 mainstream – plus a sitting justice of the state Supreme Court who would serve as chairperson at hearings to determine if there was any wrongdoing on the journalists’ part and whether he or she should be sanctioned for their writing. There is an area on the Web site to fill out a complaint about state and national newspapers and news stations, and the site states that most complaints do not involve a public hearing. According to the site:

Since 1971 the Minnesota News Council has received more than 1,680 complaints, 142 of which were adjudicated through our hearing process. Of these grievances, about half have been upheld and half have been rejected.

However, the industry isn’t openly embracing news councils. The one in Minnesota is one of only a handful. However, they are being encouraged. In July 2006, the Minnesota and Washington News Councils announced that Southern California and New England had won a national competition to create news councils. (www.knightfdn.org)
News councils aren’t necessary – that’s something Gary Gilson, director of the Minnesota News Council, wrote in a 2004 article. (http://news-council.org/archives/04gg.html) However, he writes that it is a good thing to help build public trust. In light of fabrications and failed attributions such as Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg, news councils help restore some of that trust, though.

All in all, I think news councils are a good idea in theory. It gets the public involved in journalism by showing them they do have a voice if they believe they have been wronged and teaches them more about the processes, standards and ethics of the profession. The public sanction that could occur definitely keeps journalists and their employers in check. However, it seems that news councils bring about quite a few slippery slopes. How do you determine who is a journalist? We’ve had several conversations in class over whether bloggers should qualify. Will a sanction actually hurt them? And if they aren’t considered a journalist, their case shouldn’t even have standing in the news council.

Will news councils be a part of the future of journalism? I think they will remain, but play a small role. For the most part, news organizations will listen to reader complaints and get to the bottom of the problem. And we’ve seen in cases such as that with Jayson Blair and The New York Times that the newspapers work to be transparent and right the wrong. News councils can play a role in winning the public trust. But I think newspapers and organizations can do the same thing.