Journalists should be covering news, not making it. However, the minute the sports writer casts his vote for an end of the season award, a pre-season poll or any other ranking, he is directly affecting the outcome of it. He is affecting the very news that he will cover in the upcoming days.
Numerous newspapers, including the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, The New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles Times have already banned their sports reporters from casting votes for certain awards and/or polls. I argue that other publications need to follow suit.
The arguments on the other side are somewhat convincing. We’ll use baseball as an example here. Many argue that the beat writers who cover teams day in and day are the experts. They are the ones who have seen the players across the course of the season and have a great vantage point in which to compare talent. They know the statistics inside and out. Therefore, the argument is that there is no one more qualified than these “experts” to cast votes.
But is there a point in which this beat writer may lose his objectivity? Is he truly an expert on the sport, or does his allegiances lie with the team he covers? These are beat writers who, from the beginning of Spring Training until the end of pennant races and playoff games, spend a significant part of their time with the players and coaches of these teams. Therefore, is it possible for them to put aside these relationships and possibly friendships to cast an objective, non-biased vote for post-season honors? I am not convinced that it is all that easy to do so.
It is an honor to be among a select group of journalists to have the power to vote for postseason awards and rankings. But with that power comes the proclivity to abuse it. That power may be abused to feed the ego of the sports writer, or the integrity of the votes may be compromised to feed the needs and desires of specific teams and/or players. When a sportswriter casts his vote for a postseason award, he is essentially casting a vote with a multi-million dollar affect. Players have clauses in their contracts for bonuses contingent on postseason awards. Not to mention, winning an MVP Award, for example, will likely lead to more endorsements and an increase in public appearances. The bottom line: votes equal money. And when this money belongs to the player you have a strong relationship with or the team that you cover, objectivity may be compromised. There is a conflict of interest too strong to ignore.
On the other side of the coin, because the voting system is set up to make each voters’ votes public, sports writers may face criticism for their votes even if those votes have been made in an objective and honest manner. Fans - who are likely readers and a source of the newspaper’s profit – may object if the hometown writer doesn’t vote for the hometown player. Furthermore, if a player or a manager believe that he or the team should have received a high vote than you gave him, they have the power to diminish your access and the amount of information that they are willing to give you. There are too many toes that can be stepped on and too many parties with a vested interest in the votes for writers to have to jeopardize their ability to cover a team simply to exert the power to vote.
When I worked as an associate reporter for the Atlanta Braves with MLB.com last summer, I dealt with a great group of players. Well, all but one: Jorge Sosa. To put it honestly, Sosa was a pain to deal with. It never ceased to amaze me how he could speak English after a solid pitching outing, but had to silently disappear for a translator after blowing a save. He would usually never return. Members of the media dreaded having to try and waste their time trying to get information out of him, as Sosa was never willing to go out of his way for anyone in the media. Now Sosa was lucky to still be in the Majors midway through the season with the way he was allowing home runs leave the park. But imagine for a moment that he had been a star on the team. Imagine that he were, say, a star such as Barry Bonds or Albert Belle, one of those players who despised the media and who the media rolled their eyes at in return. When it comes time to vote for awards, does the media’s propensity to like certain players over others play a role in how votes are cast? As I ask myself that question, I am skeptical that it does. Going back to my example of Sosa, had he and pitcher John Smoltz been in contention for the same award and had comparable statistics, I wonder if I would be able to completely put aside my dislike for Sosa and my great relationship with Smoltz and vote objectively. I wonder if maybe the unparallel access that some use to justify the beat writers voting may actually be the source of an unjust bias.
If you take away the writers, then who should vote? I argue why not the baseball fraternity itself? Have current members of the Hall of Fame vote on new members. Who should be a better judge of talent than those who are among the game’s elite of all times. And as for postseason awards, I argue that managers should be the ones to cast the votes. Some will argue that managers have an even stronger alliance to a team than do writers; however, I don’t see this as getting in the way of their objectivity. You see coaches voting in NCAA football and basketball polls all the time. And if you were to compare these coaches polls with corresponding AP polls, you won’t find many discrepancies. If college coaches can put aside their allegiance and vote objectively when recruiting and postseason tournaments or games are at stake, then I argue, so can Major League Baseball managers.
In a 2005 column in which San Diego Union-Tribune sports columnist Tim Sullivan wrote about his decision to abstain from using his voting privileges, he brings up another risk writers now face. Because we are in the midst of a steroid era in which certain players and records are under scrutiny because of the possibility of performance enhancing drugs, a writer’s decision on whether or not to vote for Mark McGwire on the Hall of Fame ballot or for Barry Bonds on the MVP ballot is putting that writer in a position to make a judgment on whether or not McGwire, Bonds and others used performance-enhancing drugs. Sullivan writes: “Neither should I accept the responsibility of deciding whether Mark McGwire is still entitled to the presumption of innocence following his clumsy evasions before Congress…Better to recuse [sic] oneself than to render a judgment based on unsubstantiated suspicion. Better to stick to the sidelines than to get in a game in which you never really belonged.”
There are too many risks to credibility and too many traps set to eliminate objectivity for sports editors from newspapers to allow their writers to continue voting for awards. This may mean shaking an institution and a tradition that has been in place since the mid-20th century; however, in doing so, sports writers may gain much more than the power they may feel that they are losing. Randy Harvey, the sports editor of the Baltimore Sun, justified his decision to ban his writers from voting with this humorous, yet thought-provoking analogy: “You know, I wouldn't want baseball players voting on the Pulitzer Prize winners, so I'm not sure why we should be voting on baseball awards.”
Sources:
“Most Valuable Sayers” http://www.onthemedia.org /transcripts/2005/11/18/08
“Voting for baseball honors, ‘Ron Mexico’ test ethics of sports coverage.” http://talkingbaseball.wordpress.com/2005/12/20/voting-for-baseball-honors-ron-mexico-test-ethics-of-sports-coverage/
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The journalist's silver spoon
When Prof. Steffens asked in class today “Are we more equal than others because we’re journalists?” my knee-jerk answer was
“Heck yes. I just spend a lot of money on this degree, and it better count for something.”
Wow. I know. It sounds elitist and snobby, right?
I’ve always imagined that old-school journalists were blue-collar guys who wore fedoras with press badges in them. They rolled up their shirt, smoked the strongest cigarettes, drank the blackest coffee, and didn’t have a college education. And because they were the Everyman, they had their pulse on what the people really wanted. They had it out for the elites, which is, I think, one of the great things about journalism. (Just watch the movie Newsies.) This is what drew me to journalism. (Plus, I really wanted a fedora.)
But when I got to college, I was reading Chaucer and Aristotle, having conversations debating the existence of God, and writing words like "usurp." Not exactly the dingy, earthy newsroom I expected.
I don’t believe that journalists are the aristocracy for the people. I think they’ve become just plain aristocracy.
In two months, I’ll be a college-educated woman. I come from a college-educated family. But most of the country doesn’t. The American Association of University Women says that in 2003, only 25 percent of Americans had a college degree.
I think that many of us would agree that we come from semi-privileged backgrounds, at least. And while my salary won’t show it when I graduate, there’s a lot of room for high-paying jobs in the business. So when we, as privileged, college-educated journalists set the agenda, are we setting one that really matters to Everyman?
I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe that accounts for the decline in readership. Maybe that’s why Dan Rather said in a speech on March 12 to South by Southwest Interactive that “journalism has lost its guts,” and “more journalists have become lapdogs instead of watchdogs.” Maybe we, as human beings and as journalists, just have a tendency to empathize with people who are more like us—the powerful interviewing the powerful, as Prof. Steffens said.
As I finish writing this, I realize it’s pretty gloomy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I think we can still write for the Everyman, and maybe civic journalism is the answer—not so that journalists can loose power, but so that the people can gain it.
“Heck yes. I just spend a lot of money on this degree, and it better count for something.”
Wow. I know. It sounds elitist and snobby, right?
I’ve always imagined that old-school journalists were blue-collar guys who wore fedoras with press badges in them. They rolled up their shirt, smoked the strongest cigarettes, drank the blackest coffee, and didn’t have a college education. And because they were the Everyman, they had their pulse on what the people really wanted. They had it out for the elites, which is, I think, one of the great things about journalism. (Just watch the movie Newsies.) This is what drew me to journalism. (Plus, I really wanted a fedora.)
But when I got to college, I was reading Chaucer and Aristotle, having conversations debating the existence of God, and writing words like "usurp." Not exactly the dingy, earthy newsroom I expected.
I don’t believe that journalists are the aristocracy for the people. I think they’ve become just plain aristocracy.
In two months, I’ll be a college-educated woman. I come from a college-educated family. But most of the country doesn’t. The American Association of University Women says that in 2003, only 25 percent of Americans had a college degree.
I think that many of us would agree that we come from semi-privileged backgrounds, at least. And while my salary won’t show it when I graduate, there’s a lot of room for high-paying jobs in the business. So when we, as privileged, college-educated journalists set the agenda, are we setting one that really matters to Everyman?
I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe that accounts for the decline in readership. Maybe that’s why Dan Rather said in a speech on March 12 to South by Southwest Interactive that “journalism has lost its guts,” and “more journalists have become lapdogs instead of watchdogs.” Maybe we, as human beings and as journalists, just have a tendency to empathize with people who are more like us—the powerful interviewing the powerful, as Prof. Steffens said.
As I finish writing this, I realize it’s pretty gloomy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I think we can still write for the Everyman, and maybe civic journalism is the answer—not so that journalists can loose power, but so that the people can gain it.
The Golden Press Pass
In class we discussed whether journalists were “more equal” than other people and if they have earned the privilege of meeting presidents and esteemed figures.
I think it’s important to remember the role of journalists in society. In Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel list monitoring power and giving a voice to the voiceless as two of the responsibilities of journalists. In order for us to do that, we need to have access to places and people that are not accessible to the average person. This is not saying that journalists are above average. It means that we represent the average person.
I think giving a voice to the voiceless is the most important role a journalist plays in society. Not everyone has the opportunity to fly to Baghdad and see the war.
Journalists bring the war into people’s living rooms. How else would a person living in Columbia’s First Ward learn the differences between two candidates? Most people are not willing to or do not have the time to sift through information and get stories for themselves. Journalists go out, experience the story and bring it back. We aren’t aristocracy, we’re liaisons. We can’t provide information without access to whom the information is about.
An example of journalists giving voices to the voiceless is the Missourian’s coverage of the last election. The reporters served as representatives and when asking a question phrased it, “Jackie Smith from the Third Ward wants to know….” This is also known as civic journalism.
Also, we need the special access to monitor power. If the elites are the only ones with access to meetings and hearings, or they didn’t have a physical person interrogating them, we’d be in trouble.
As journalists you get to see things you would never have the chance to otherwise. I think that is what draws some people in. I do NOT think most newspaper journalists go to school so they can be famous. If they did, they should try Hollywood or politics. I decided I wanted to be a journalist because I love to learn. When I do a story I want to learn everything there is to know about that subject. I find it fascinating. I also wanted to save the world, of course. I have a strong distaste for injustice and decided journalism was the best way to fight it, or at least, tell everyone about it.
I thought the discussion in class on this topic was rather negative, like journalists don’t deserve the access. I disagree. I’ve worked hard in journalism school and I take my job seriously. I’d like to think that the citizens of wherever I work will trust me enough to know that I don’t take that access for granted, yes, I earned it, but it has also been grated to me by the people.
I think it’s important to remember the role of journalists in society. In Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel list monitoring power and giving a voice to the voiceless as two of the responsibilities of journalists. In order for us to do that, we need to have access to places and people that are not accessible to the average person. This is not saying that journalists are above average. It means that we represent the average person.
I think giving a voice to the voiceless is the most important role a journalist plays in society. Not everyone has the opportunity to fly to Baghdad and see the war.
Journalists bring the war into people’s living rooms. How else would a person living in Columbia’s First Ward learn the differences between two candidates? Most people are not willing to or do not have the time to sift through information and get stories for themselves. Journalists go out, experience the story and bring it back. We aren’t aristocracy, we’re liaisons. We can’t provide information without access to whom the information is about.
An example of journalists giving voices to the voiceless is the Missourian’s coverage of the last election. The reporters served as representatives and when asking a question phrased it, “Jackie Smith from the Third Ward wants to know….” This is also known as civic journalism.
Also, we need the special access to monitor power. If the elites are the only ones with access to meetings and hearings, or they didn’t have a physical person interrogating them, we’d be in trouble.
As journalists you get to see things you would never have the chance to otherwise. I think that is what draws some people in. I do NOT think most newspaper journalists go to school so they can be famous. If they did, they should try Hollywood or politics. I decided I wanted to be a journalist because I love to learn. When I do a story I want to learn everything there is to know about that subject. I find it fascinating. I also wanted to save the world, of course. I have a strong distaste for injustice and decided journalism was the best way to fight it, or at least, tell everyone about it.
I thought the discussion in class on this topic was rather negative, like journalists don’t deserve the access. I disagree. I’ve worked hard in journalism school and I take my job seriously. I’d like to think that the citizens of wherever I work will trust me enough to know that I don’t take that access for granted, yes, I earned it, but it has also been grated to me by the people.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Fencing in the watchdog
Accountability – all journalists strive to hold leaders accountable. In fact, in our recent class discussion, it was this watchdog role that won out as the premier purpose of journalism. But as the public confidence in news organizations declines, to whom do wayward journalists answer? To whom are mistaken journalists accountable?
One possibility lies with news councils. These independent organizations hear and investigate complaints of unfair and inaccurate reporting. While they often cannot sanction, typically they make public statements of their findings. Such statements are newsworthy by nature and the thinking is that public denouncements are punishment enough (Silha). Currently, news councils are popular in Europe and Canada, but in the United States, only Minnesota and Washington states have implemented them. Much of news councils’ unpopularity in the U.S. has to do with their historical failure. The National News Council, the short-lived U.S. experiment, died out from lack of support and participation (Boeyink).
On the surface, the arguments for such a council are compelling. It would offer more effectual accountability. Journalists would have to answer to waning public trust and disgruntled sources. The Jason Leopolds of the industry would no longer be able to so easily hop between jobs and hide from mistakes. Also, a hearing in front of a news council offers a much cheaper alternative to a libel suit. Journalists and their companies’ lawyers would no longer quake at the cost of a lawsuit – even a winning one (Jenkins). Furthermore, the industry is changing – journalists are becoming better educated and better paid. Their personal stake in the splash a story makes is higher than ever. (Jenkins) A news council can hold the reckless individuals to industry and public standards.
However, I would argue that the impracticality, lack of support and deterring effect of news councils outweighs their possible contributions to journalism. As the industry changes rapidly with technology, the identity of a journalist becomes increasingly nebulous. Who now, will these councils hold accountable as bloggers and citizen journalists chime in? But the practical questions only begin there. The largesse of such councils, if implemented nationwide, would be excessive. There would be a professional bureaucracy of news moniters, an unnecessary venture and one that may invite its own corruption and biases. (Jenkins)
The support for such councils is mixed among journalism professionals. Unfortunately, such councils cannot survive with sparse and sporadic participation. The National News Council failed because some of the major organizations refused to play (Boeyink). These nonparticipants, such as the New York Times, have not changed their positions since, saying it’s part of their job to uphold industry standards. A news council cannot survive without the major players’ cooperation. Since that seems unlikely, forming a council would be in vain.
The more theoretical concern with news councils lies with the potential “chilling” of investigative journalism and the inability of the councils to address modern journalism’s failures. Many journalists think the regulation by councils which are partially outside the industry, its training and its challenges constitutes a slippery slope. They fear the stringent regulation that has historically challenged free and independent journalism. Independence is high on journalistic values and responsibility to an outside bureaucracy seems to injure that principle. Also, as pundits and infotainment capture and alienate audiences, news councils stand powerless to affect necessary change (Jenkins). While basic locality and institutional coverage wane, how will news councils provide an answer? In short, they can’t.
Superficially, news councils seem to apply accountability – that journalistic favorite – to the industry. But the implications of such councils may in fact injure other journalistic fervor and principle – a large price to pay in the face of impractical organization.
Sources:
Jenkins, Evan. "News Councils: The Case For and Against." Columbia Journalism Review: March/April 1997.
Silha, Stephen. "News Councils: A Meeting Place for Communities and Their Storytellers." Christian Science Monitor: August 29, 2005.
Boeyink, David. "Public Understanding, Professional Ethics and the News: A Response to Jane Rhodes." www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v47/nol/boeyink.html
One possibility lies with news councils. These independent organizations hear and investigate complaints of unfair and inaccurate reporting. While they often cannot sanction, typically they make public statements of their findings. Such statements are newsworthy by nature and the thinking is that public denouncements are punishment enough (Silha). Currently, news councils are popular in Europe and Canada, but in the United States, only Minnesota and Washington states have implemented them. Much of news councils’ unpopularity in the U.S. has to do with their historical failure. The National News Council, the short-lived U.S. experiment, died out from lack of support and participation (Boeyink).
On the surface, the arguments for such a council are compelling. It would offer more effectual accountability. Journalists would have to answer to waning public trust and disgruntled sources. The Jason Leopolds of the industry would no longer be able to so easily hop between jobs and hide from mistakes. Also, a hearing in front of a news council offers a much cheaper alternative to a libel suit. Journalists and their companies’ lawyers would no longer quake at the cost of a lawsuit – even a winning one (Jenkins). Furthermore, the industry is changing – journalists are becoming better educated and better paid. Their personal stake in the splash a story makes is higher than ever. (Jenkins) A news council can hold the reckless individuals to industry and public standards.
However, I would argue that the impracticality, lack of support and deterring effect of news councils outweighs their possible contributions to journalism. As the industry changes rapidly with technology, the identity of a journalist becomes increasingly nebulous. Who now, will these councils hold accountable as bloggers and citizen journalists chime in? But the practical questions only begin there. The largesse of such councils, if implemented nationwide, would be excessive. There would be a professional bureaucracy of news moniters, an unnecessary venture and one that may invite its own corruption and biases. (Jenkins)
The support for such councils is mixed among journalism professionals. Unfortunately, such councils cannot survive with sparse and sporadic participation. The National News Council failed because some of the major organizations refused to play (Boeyink). These nonparticipants, such as the New York Times, have not changed their positions since, saying it’s part of their job to uphold industry standards. A news council cannot survive without the major players’ cooperation. Since that seems unlikely, forming a council would be in vain.
The more theoretical concern with news councils lies with the potential “chilling” of investigative journalism and the inability of the councils to address modern journalism’s failures. Many journalists think the regulation by councils which are partially outside the industry, its training and its challenges constitutes a slippery slope. They fear the stringent regulation that has historically challenged free and independent journalism. Independence is high on journalistic values and responsibility to an outside bureaucracy seems to injure that principle. Also, as pundits and infotainment capture and alienate audiences, news councils stand powerless to affect necessary change (Jenkins). While basic locality and institutional coverage wane, how will news councils provide an answer? In short, they can’t.
Superficially, news councils seem to apply accountability – that journalistic favorite – to the industry. But the implications of such councils may in fact injure other journalistic fervor and principle – a large price to pay in the face of impractical organization.
Sources:
Jenkins, Evan. "News Councils: The Case For and Against." Columbia Journalism Review: March/April 1997.
Silha, Stephen. "News Councils: A Meeting Place for Communities and Their Storytellers." Christian Science Monitor: August 29, 2005.
Boeyink, David. "Public Understanding, Professional Ethics and the News: A Response to Jane Rhodes." www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v47/nol/boeyink.html
Journalism: bearing witness to the storm
I’ve always thought I’d use journalism as the means to an end. I like to think and write and probe, and these are skills I figured I could stand to hone, no matter the career I chose later on. Interestingly, my time as a journalist in college has afforded me the opportunity to get a sneak peak, so to speak, on the profession I truly want to pursue. Recently, after interviewing the UM System’s top lobbyist, Steve Knorr, for a profile piece, I decided I almost certainly want to be a lobbyist. I had numerous meetings with Knorr and others, together and separately, to gauge what the lobbyist’s role has been in passing the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative, better known as the MOHELA plan. To better get at the role of a journalist, I’ve offered my recent experience with Knorr as an example.
The role of the journalist is to bear witness to the storm -- and then to make it out alive to report on it. The week and days following up to the publication date of my profile on Knorr was a whirlwind: I wasn’t done reporting until the day I was editing. Even though it made for a more difficult time in terms of getting it ready to run, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
My meeting with Knorr up until the last minute, in addition to Sen. Chuck Graham, meant I had the most current information. With an issue such as the MOHELA plan and other time-sensitive subject, it’s important for the journalist to keep up. Otherwise, he or she seems wooden and distant. About a month ago, when I first met with Knorr and Rep. Jeff Harris, Harris’ withdrawing his support for the initiative seemed like the most important element of the MOHELA debate. Now, it seems like a mere sliver.
As a journalist, one must be in it for the long haul, willing to see all sides and, if necessary, divert from the original course of action to get a more accurate glimpse of the story.
Working with Knorr was tough. He was skeptical from the beginning, and I’m still not sure why he let me meet with him. I think he thought I seemed harmless. So, initially, I always played this up with him. I would ask questions I knew the answer to. This may seem too canny, but I believe it worked for me with him. He felt like he was guiding me along on the MOHELA plan, letting me in on what it’s like to be a lobbyist. I would argue I was let in on his world by questioning and observing him, even in a somewhat stressful circumstance. (Initially, our meeting was more staged and formal; later, it was less so.)
As a journalist, one has to be willing to play the part of the person whom he or she is interviewing. In fact, the reason I believe Knorr allowed me to report on him was that, though I was young, I seemed prepared and wouldn’t necessarily “stick out” as he was making his way around the Capitol to meet with legislators.
When we first met, he was also less consumed with MOHELA, more optimistic. A month later, he was in the middle of it and seemed more worn down. Because we had sort of built up a relationship, he let me stay "in" anyway.
As a journalist, a person also has to be sensitive of timing and the way the subject fits into the debate.
Knorr has a lot riding on getting the plan passed, including, maybe, his job. I tried to be careful with this. And because he let me “in” on his world, I felt grateful. Interestingly, my recognition of this rare access I was getting meant I felt sort of loyal to him. This wasn’t a problem, really, until I spoke with Graham. Up until the very end, no one was willing to speak openly against Knorr, no one willing to allude he might curry too much favor with the governor’s office. Even in private with Harris, Harris always spoke highly of Knorr.
Perhaps the biggest thing I’ll take from this story is that reading blogs pays off. When I began researching Knorr and his background and people’s perception of him, I stumbled across an entry on the Web site firedup.com, a sort of liberal political blog on Missouri state politics. The blog, while not really substantiated, seemed to speculate that Knorr was knee deep in the Republican Party and, it argued, too close to the governor.
Whether it is true, I don’t know. But I found a source, Graham, who was willing to say it. And I think he said it somewhat candidly because he was tired from the debate. People seem most willing to talk when they’re tired. So, that was the hook. But that didn’t happen until the day before the story ran. And although I felt “bad” about making Knorr look a little bad when he had let me profile him, I knew it had to be in there no matter what.
This, to me, is a journalist’s supreme job: to take all the elements of a story, even if initially it’s mere speculation, and break it down into something more manageable for the reader.
I’m not sure why I loved working on this story so much or why, for that matter, I used it as an example of journalists' role. Certainly, I made mistakes and still wonder if I covered everything I needed to cover in this debate.
But perhaps this experience as a journalist sticks out to me because I felt truly fascinated by what Knorr does, how much clout he has in the legislature for someone who’s largely unknown to the general public. This fascination seemed to carry me through -- and made me wish I felt this way about every story I work on.
Sources, I believe, can tell when you’re interested in who they are and how they get by in life. I would argue, then, that journalists have to feign interest, no matter how disinterested they are, in order to find the crux of a debate. And perhaps, too, journalists have to seem far removed, no matter how much he or she wants to jump in on a debate (as was my case with Knorr), so as not to seem too vested.
The role of the journalist is to bear witness to the storm -- and then to make it out alive to report on it. The week and days following up to the publication date of my profile on Knorr was a whirlwind: I wasn’t done reporting until the day I was editing. Even though it made for a more difficult time in terms of getting it ready to run, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
My meeting with Knorr up until the last minute, in addition to Sen. Chuck Graham, meant I had the most current information. With an issue such as the MOHELA plan and other time-sensitive subject, it’s important for the journalist to keep up. Otherwise, he or she seems wooden and distant. About a month ago, when I first met with Knorr and Rep. Jeff Harris, Harris’ withdrawing his support for the initiative seemed like the most important element of the MOHELA debate. Now, it seems like a mere sliver.
As a journalist, one must be in it for the long haul, willing to see all sides and, if necessary, divert from the original course of action to get a more accurate glimpse of the story.
Working with Knorr was tough. He was skeptical from the beginning, and I’m still not sure why he let me meet with him. I think he thought I seemed harmless. So, initially, I always played this up with him. I would ask questions I knew the answer to. This may seem too canny, but I believe it worked for me with him. He felt like he was guiding me along on the MOHELA plan, letting me in on what it’s like to be a lobbyist. I would argue I was let in on his world by questioning and observing him, even in a somewhat stressful circumstance. (Initially, our meeting was more staged and formal; later, it was less so.)
As a journalist, one has to be willing to play the part of the person whom he or she is interviewing. In fact, the reason I believe Knorr allowed me to report on him was that, though I was young, I seemed prepared and wouldn’t necessarily “stick out” as he was making his way around the Capitol to meet with legislators.
When we first met, he was also less consumed with MOHELA, more optimistic. A month later, he was in the middle of it and seemed more worn down. Because we had sort of built up a relationship, he let me stay "in" anyway.
As a journalist, a person also has to be sensitive of timing and the way the subject fits into the debate.
Knorr has a lot riding on getting the plan passed, including, maybe, his job. I tried to be careful with this. And because he let me “in” on his world, I felt grateful. Interestingly, my recognition of this rare access I was getting meant I felt sort of loyal to him. This wasn’t a problem, really, until I spoke with Graham. Up until the very end, no one was willing to speak openly against Knorr, no one willing to allude he might curry too much favor with the governor’s office. Even in private with Harris, Harris always spoke highly of Knorr.
Perhaps the biggest thing I’ll take from this story is that reading blogs pays off. When I began researching Knorr and his background and people’s perception of him, I stumbled across an entry on the Web site firedup.com, a sort of liberal political blog on Missouri state politics. The blog, while not really substantiated, seemed to speculate that Knorr was knee deep in the Republican Party and, it argued, too close to the governor.
Whether it is true, I don’t know. But I found a source, Graham, who was willing to say it. And I think he said it somewhat candidly because he was tired from the debate. People seem most willing to talk when they’re tired. So, that was the hook. But that didn’t happen until the day before the story ran. And although I felt “bad” about making Knorr look a little bad when he had let me profile him, I knew it had to be in there no matter what.
This, to me, is a journalist’s supreme job: to take all the elements of a story, even if initially it’s mere speculation, and break it down into something more manageable for the reader.
I’m not sure why I loved working on this story so much or why, for that matter, I used it as an example of journalists' role. Certainly, I made mistakes and still wonder if I covered everything I needed to cover in this debate.
But perhaps this experience as a journalist sticks out to me because I felt truly fascinated by what Knorr does, how much clout he has in the legislature for someone who’s largely unknown to the general public. This fascination seemed to carry me through -- and made me wish I felt this way about every story I work on.
Sources, I believe, can tell when you’re interested in who they are and how they get by in life. I would argue, then, that journalists have to feign interest, no matter how disinterested they are, in order to find the crux of a debate. And perhaps, too, journalists have to seem far removed, no matter how much he or she wants to jump in on a debate (as was my case with Knorr), so as not to seem too vested.
Journalism and why I love role-playing
There are many different hats that journalists wear. One minute, we’re informers. The next, we’re entertainers. We’re facilitators — moderating the social conversations between officials and citizens. Then maybe we take a break for lunch. Nice pastrami on rye, some jalapeno chips, maybe even a beer if it has already been a long day. Back from lunch, we may have to put on our watchdog hat — corruption is all around us, after all. Maybe late in the day we’ll champion the voice of the unheard. I don’t know, maybe there won’t be time. The point is, depending on beat assignments, breaking news, location and myriad other elements, journalist’s roles can be a lot of different things — maybe even at the same time.
Above all, I would say journalists are informers. We’re “Johnny-on-the-spot” if you will. While this might not be the most important role journalism plays, the content that fills up most papers around the country is straight information. From the beginning, we’re told the easiest way to write up a story is by giving the who, what, when, where, why and how of a given event. Many people simply look to the paper to get this from the headlines and lead paragraphs of a story. When this happens, journalists are fulfilling their role as informers — whether the news is international, national or local is of little importance.
Moving into a role of greater importance, journalists provide a checks and balances to government, business and other institutions. Because of journalists, I think that city and public officials are held accountable for promises and practices. This also ties in with journalists’ roles as investigative watchdogs. Obviously, corrupt officials or business owners would not simply inform local news outlets of wrongdoing and, thus, journalists serve an important role as the people who dig for and unearth these stories. This is something the public clearly expects of the press, since a lot of criticism was meted out following the discovery that the Bush administration had misconstrued facts about findings in Iraq.
When it comes to issues like the War in Iraq, the Enron scandal, or high-profile court cases like the recent one of Scooter Libby, journalists must also play the role of analyst. Because of the complexities of many stories, and the fact the journalists have access to sources and documents the general public does not, it is an important for journalists to go beyond the five W’s and H to explain the multiple facets of stories. In is one thing to report the scandal surrounding Enron — it is another entirely to connect it to issues of energy privatization, its effect on the economy as a whole, the implications for the future of its employees, etc. People turn to journalists to tell them what these stories mean.
While on the topic of Enron, another important role of journalism is to provide a voice to the underprivileged and disenfranchised. Without the ability to call press conferences or access the media in the form of press releases, journalists must give the everyday person a platform for telling their story. Journalists must serve minority groups, public stockholders, laid-off employees and more.
As I was discussing the five most important roles of journalists with my group on Monday, we found it difficult to rank them, and I think this has a lot to do with what I just mentioned — journalists are often wearing multiple hats. Journalists are always acting as gatekeepers and moderators — simply by choosing to pick one story over another, importance is being communicated to an audience. Similarly, while we didn’t include entertainer in our list, journalists are nonetheless writing entertainment stories every day, and entertainment might be tied in with our role as informer. Journalism is a business constantly in flux — it changes according to societal, technological and professional developments. Because of this, journalists must be ready and willing to fulfill several roles.
Above all, I would say journalists are informers. We’re “Johnny-on-the-spot” if you will. While this might not be the most important role journalism plays, the content that fills up most papers around the country is straight information. From the beginning, we’re told the easiest way to write up a story is by giving the who, what, when, where, why and how of a given event. Many people simply look to the paper to get this from the headlines and lead paragraphs of a story. When this happens, journalists are fulfilling their role as informers — whether the news is international, national or local is of little importance.
Moving into a role of greater importance, journalists provide a checks and balances to government, business and other institutions. Because of journalists, I think that city and public officials are held accountable for promises and practices. This also ties in with journalists’ roles as investigative watchdogs. Obviously, corrupt officials or business owners would not simply inform local news outlets of wrongdoing and, thus, journalists serve an important role as the people who dig for and unearth these stories. This is something the public clearly expects of the press, since a lot of criticism was meted out following the discovery that the Bush administration had misconstrued facts about findings in Iraq.
When it comes to issues like the War in Iraq, the Enron scandal, or high-profile court cases like the recent one of Scooter Libby, journalists must also play the role of analyst. Because of the complexities of many stories, and the fact the journalists have access to sources and documents the general public does not, it is an important for journalists to go beyond the five W’s and H to explain the multiple facets of stories. In is one thing to report the scandal surrounding Enron — it is another entirely to connect it to issues of energy privatization, its effect on the economy as a whole, the implications for the future of its employees, etc. People turn to journalists to tell them what these stories mean.
While on the topic of Enron, another important role of journalism is to provide a voice to the underprivileged and disenfranchised. Without the ability to call press conferences or access the media in the form of press releases, journalists must give the everyday person a platform for telling their story. Journalists must serve minority groups, public stockholders, laid-off employees and more.
As I was discussing the five most important roles of journalists with my group on Monday, we found it difficult to rank them, and I think this has a lot to do with what I just mentioned — journalists are often wearing multiple hats. Journalists are always acting as gatekeepers and moderators — simply by choosing to pick one story over another, importance is being communicated to an audience. Similarly, while we didn’t include entertainer in our list, journalists are nonetheless writing entertainment stories every day, and entertainment might be tied in with our role as informer. Journalism is a business constantly in flux — it changes according to societal, technological and professional developments. Because of this, journalists must be ready and willing to fulfill several roles.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Journalism Ethics and Technology
To say that technology can have a negative impact on certain aspects of journalism and the practice of journalistic ethics isn’t necessarily wrong (in fact I’m sure it’s true in a lot of cases), but it is a little bit misleading. Technology does bring added pressure to be the first with the story, to tell the story in a flashy way, even to tell the story people want to hear rather than what they probably need to hear. But desire to be first rather than best has been around for over 100 years, since Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst squared off in the late 1800's. It is not by any means a new phenomenon, and I’m sure there were people denouncing the rise of yellow journalism as a byproduct of the new desire for speed (weeklies had become dailies) and sensationalism then as there are now.
Of course, the numbers have changed a little bit. Days have become hours, minutes and seconds, and there’s no doubt that the pressure to post stories early and often has heightened over the past several years. But keep in mind, we are talking about newspapers, here. The argument that technological advancement in the print industry has led to the ability to move quickly, which has in turn led to a greater propensity for error, hinges on the idea that newspapers have really bought into the hype. And I think that’s a difficult argument to make.
In other media, I’d agree, the need for speed really has changed the game. In the early days of television, for example, the news was updated only a few times a day, once in the morning and once or twice at night. That changed in the early ‘80s with the advent of CNN. Suddenly, the news spun on a 24 hour cycle. Not only did producers have to come up with more news to fill the void, they had to do it more quickly and in the face of greater competition. This of course led to some mistakes, a notable one I can remember involving the West Virginia mining tragedy of a few years ago, when news outlets initially reported that all but one of the victims had survived. They eventually had to go back and inform the public (and some of the families) that somebody had heard wrong, and that they’d jumped the gun. In reality, all but one of the victims had died. In this case, the desire to be the first with the story led to a tragic bit of misinformation.
But when newspapers hit the stands the next day, they got the story right. There wasn’t a mention – outside the coverage of the original gaffe – of the error that had caused the broadcast media so much embarrassment. The point is that newspapers remain the most poured over, edited medium, even the online versions. In certain cases, they have the luxury of watching the news cycle evolve from outside it. They can take their time and decide what to report and what not to report, what is credible and what isn’t. On that front, I’d be curious to know how many newspapers actually update their websites on a regular basis more often than once a day. I’d venture to say the online aspect doesn’t change error frequency as much as one might think. The paper I grew up reading (the Post-Dispatch) very rarely updates their website more than once per day (unless it’s to run new AP stories or to run updated versions of stories from the previous day), so the likelihood of error on that front isn’t all that great.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems on the horizon. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there is panic spreading through the newspaper community: readership is falling, apathy and competition are rising. But there will always be a niche for newspapers in some form. Online readership, while low relative to circulation numbers, is at an all-time high, and there will never be a better way to produce and distribute local news than through the newspaper. As long as the editors and reporters who make up the medium keep in mind that there will always be room for newspapers – and by that I mean for informative, accurate and trustworthy information – maybe the pressures of technological innovation won’t be too much to bear.
Of course, the numbers have changed a little bit. Days have become hours, minutes and seconds, and there’s no doubt that the pressure to post stories early and often has heightened over the past several years. But keep in mind, we are talking about newspapers, here. The argument that technological advancement in the print industry has led to the ability to move quickly, which has in turn led to a greater propensity for error, hinges on the idea that newspapers have really bought into the hype. And I think that’s a difficult argument to make.
In other media, I’d agree, the need for speed really has changed the game. In the early days of television, for example, the news was updated only a few times a day, once in the morning and once or twice at night. That changed in the early ‘80s with the advent of CNN. Suddenly, the news spun on a 24 hour cycle. Not only did producers have to come up with more news to fill the void, they had to do it more quickly and in the face of greater competition. This of course led to some mistakes, a notable one I can remember involving the West Virginia mining tragedy of a few years ago, when news outlets initially reported that all but one of the victims had survived. They eventually had to go back and inform the public (and some of the families) that somebody had heard wrong, and that they’d jumped the gun. In reality, all but one of the victims had died. In this case, the desire to be the first with the story led to a tragic bit of misinformation.
But when newspapers hit the stands the next day, they got the story right. There wasn’t a mention – outside the coverage of the original gaffe – of the error that had caused the broadcast media so much embarrassment. The point is that newspapers remain the most poured over, edited medium, even the online versions. In certain cases, they have the luxury of watching the news cycle evolve from outside it. They can take their time and decide what to report and what not to report, what is credible and what isn’t. On that front, I’d be curious to know how many newspapers actually update their websites on a regular basis more often than once a day. I’d venture to say the online aspect doesn’t change error frequency as much as one might think. The paper I grew up reading (the Post-Dispatch) very rarely updates their website more than once per day (unless it’s to run new AP stories or to run updated versions of stories from the previous day), so the likelihood of error on that front isn’t all that great.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems on the horizon. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there is panic spreading through the newspaper community: readership is falling, apathy and competition are rising. But there will always be a niche for newspapers in some form. Online readership, while low relative to circulation numbers, is at an all-time high, and there will never be a better way to produce and distribute local news than through the newspaper. As long as the editors and reporters who make up the medium keep in mind that there will always be room for newspapers – and by that I mean for informative, accurate and trustworthy information – maybe the pressures of technological innovation won’t be too much to bear.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Let's do what we do best
Technology constantly is improving upon itself and creating new forms of communication. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, telephones, the Internet and who knows what is next — all are a result of technology and improved our ability to be better journalists. With that, they also improved our ability to become more ethical journalists.
With the spread of communication, our ability and speed to check information in our stories, in theory, should be near perfect. You can double check information with sources in person, over the phone, through e-mail or by message over a social networking Web site. You can check information you get in documents or from sources against countless other sources online, many of which are accurate. If discrepancies pop up, it’s easy to contact experts you look up on the Internet or talk to the people involved.
With greater technology, we can now figure out who good sources might be for stories. This is no substitute for going to an event, as proved by Jason Leopold in his book News Junkie, but it is a great starting point to do great reporting on an event. We also have the ability to easily figure out what other stories have been done on a topic in the past. Vast databases contain many papers’ works, so writers’ originality can be checked and new ideas can be easily formulated.
And seeing how many journalists in recent memory have been busted for making up sources, information and stories in their entirety, you would think that if nothing else, the fear of being caught lying would be enough to keep journalists ethical. After all, names can be looked up in a fraction of a second, a paragraph cut-and-pasted into a story is quickly traceable and made up events can be debunked by a quick check on the Web.
So why do these lies, in an age where our work should be better than ever, continue happening?
To start with, I think there’s too much of a rush to get things up on the Internet first. Leopold clearly wanted to be the one breaking news about the California energy crisis, and I think his situation is very similar to those other journalists across the country face. If you simply replace the words “California energy crisis” with any other significant breaking news event, I’m sure there are people willing to sacrifice a little integrity in order to be the one to break the news.
Integrity, to me, is putting out the most accurate and well-reported story you can. Yes, there’s always a source that breaks the news, but if you break with something that contains inaccuracies or is flat-out wrong, what’s the point of doing it?
The stories that break almost always bypass the copy desk, an essential part of putting out a quality story. The errors in a story could be caught within 20 minutes. Putting something up 20 minutes after another source, but having the story grammatically correct and error-free seems worth the wait to me.
I've had friends who go to news Web sites and read online editions of papers point out mistakes many of these sites make in a rush to be first. I was reading a breaking story about the Royals signing a player on ESPN.com just a few months ago, when it mentioned a player named Billy Buckner, a hot minor league prospect. I was confused for a moment, but soon realized they must have meant Billy Butler, a good-hitting outfielder. Mistakes like these make it look like journalists could care less about being right as long as they slop something together quickly. It’s an embarrassment to the profession.
There will always be competition for the title of who breaks a story first, but I still think there’s a demand for the best-reported, best-written story out there amongst the readers. It’s the reason I chose the newspaper path, because I think we ultimately have the ability to do just that. Leave the competition for who did it first to the other guys, and let’s put out the best work that we can. I think people want and need it.
With the spread of communication, our ability and speed to check information in our stories, in theory, should be near perfect. You can double check information with sources in person, over the phone, through e-mail or by message over a social networking Web site. You can check information you get in documents or from sources against countless other sources online, many of which are accurate. If discrepancies pop up, it’s easy to contact experts you look up on the Internet or talk to the people involved.
With greater technology, we can now figure out who good sources might be for stories. This is no substitute for going to an event, as proved by Jason Leopold in his book News Junkie, but it is a great starting point to do great reporting on an event. We also have the ability to easily figure out what other stories have been done on a topic in the past. Vast databases contain many papers’ works, so writers’ originality can be checked and new ideas can be easily formulated.
And seeing how many journalists in recent memory have been busted for making up sources, information and stories in their entirety, you would think that if nothing else, the fear of being caught lying would be enough to keep journalists ethical. After all, names can be looked up in a fraction of a second, a paragraph cut-and-pasted into a story is quickly traceable and made up events can be debunked by a quick check on the Web.
So why do these lies, in an age where our work should be better than ever, continue happening?
To start with, I think there’s too much of a rush to get things up on the Internet first. Leopold clearly wanted to be the one breaking news about the California energy crisis, and I think his situation is very similar to those other journalists across the country face. If you simply replace the words “California energy crisis” with any other significant breaking news event, I’m sure there are people willing to sacrifice a little integrity in order to be the one to break the news.
Integrity, to me, is putting out the most accurate and well-reported story you can. Yes, there’s always a source that breaks the news, but if you break with something that contains inaccuracies or is flat-out wrong, what’s the point of doing it?
The stories that break almost always bypass the copy desk, an essential part of putting out a quality story. The errors in a story could be caught within 20 minutes. Putting something up 20 minutes after another source, but having the story grammatically correct and error-free seems worth the wait to me.
I've had friends who go to news Web sites and read online editions of papers point out mistakes many of these sites make in a rush to be first. I was reading a breaking story about the Royals signing a player on ESPN.com just a few months ago, when it mentioned a player named Billy Buckner, a hot minor league prospect. I was confused for a moment, but soon realized they must have meant Billy Butler, a good-hitting outfielder. Mistakes like these make it look like journalists could care less about being right as long as they slop something together quickly. It’s an embarrassment to the profession.
There will always be competition for the title of who breaks a story first, but I still think there’s a demand for the best-reported, best-written story out there amongst the readers. It’s the reason I chose the newspaper path, because I think we ultimately have the ability to do just that. Leave the competition for who did it first to the other guys, and let’s put out the best work that we can. I think people want and need it.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The greatest opportunity
I don’t think technology is the problem here. It’s the teaching and development of ethics that are at fault.
The problem with rapidly-developing technology and journalistic ethics is that the technology is actually developing past journalism’s ethical development. Journalists have been developing ethical philosophies for since Americans were granted free speech – and they still haven’t perfected an absolute, widely-accepted philosophy, beyond “don’t plagiarize” and “don’t make things up.”
Rather than focus the discussion on journalistic ethics as applied to technology, the conversation should concern ethical basics. The problem is that we – not just as journalists, but as general people – don’t know how to deal with ethics. It’s just not something that everyone learns as they grow and mature. Even if our parents did teach us that it was wrong to lie, we didn’t learn much more than that: it was wrong and you’d get a spanking. We need to learn about ethics early, often and in context.
This applies to budding journalists, too. Perhaps journalism students should be required to take a full course on journalistic ethics, as opposed to discussing it in a few class periods of each journalism class we take. We should learn what ethics are early in our education and not wait to have these discussions until our final class in our final semester of study. And perhaps that course shouldn’t just be about journalistic ethics. To understand such a complex subject, we need to have broad understanding of how ethics apply to daily life. For example, is it okay to change the date and time of a late blog post to make it appear you turned it in on time? (Obviously, according to my ethics it is not.) It’s not just about how to make an ethical decision – we need to know the actual definition of “ethical” and how it relates to societal values and personal morals.
And, as both journalists and regular people, it needs to be okay when we make mistakes. No, you can’t constantly make bad decisions and expect to keep your job (or A+), but you should be able to make a slip up or two as you go. Just like technology, the components of ethical decision-making are ever-changing. It has to be okay to make some less-than-kosher ethical judgments, partly because we are always learning, partly because the situations are always changing and mostly because there is no universal correct answer.
Technology hasn’t created problems for this business; it’s created opportunities. Opportunities for 24-hour news services, Internet source databases, convergence of all news mediums. But the most important opportunity offered is the one that allows journalists to reassess our ethics – the process of decision-making, the teaching – and make true advances in perfection.
The problem with rapidly-developing technology and journalistic ethics is that the technology is actually developing past journalism’s ethical development. Journalists have been developing ethical philosophies for since Americans were granted free speech – and they still haven’t perfected an absolute, widely-accepted philosophy, beyond “don’t plagiarize” and “don’t make things up.”
Rather than focus the discussion on journalistic ethics as applied to technology, the conversation should concern ethical basics. The problem is that we – not just as journalists, but as general people – don’t know how to deal with ethics. It’s just not something that everyone learns as they grow and mature. Even if our parents did teach us that it was wrong to lie, we didn’t learn much more than that: it was wrong and you’d get a spanking. We need to learn about ethics early, often and in context.
This applies to budding journalists, too. Perhaps journalism students should be required to take a full course on journalistic ethics, as opposed to discussing it in a few class periods of each journalism class we take. We should learn what ethics are early in our education and not wait to have these discussions until our final class in our final semester of study. And perhaps that course shouldn’t just be about journalistic ethics. To understand such a complex subject, we need to have broad understanding of how ethics apply to daily life. For example, is it okay to change the date and time of a late blog post to make it appear you turned it in on time? (Obviously, according to my ethics it is not.) It’s not just about how to make an ethical decision – we need to know the actual definition of “ethical” and how it relates to societal values and personal morals.
And, as both journalists and regular people, it needs to be okay when we make mistakes. No, you can’t constantly make bad decisions and expect to keep your job (or A+), but you should be able to make a slip up or two as you go. Just like technology, the components of ethical decision-making are ever-changing. It has to be okay to make some less-than-kosher ethical judgments, partly because we are always learning, partly because the situations are always changing and mostly because there is no universal correct answer.
Technology hasn’t created problems for this business; it’s created opportunities. Opportunities for 24-hour news services, Internet source databases, convergence of all news mediums. But the most important opportunity offered is the one that allows journalists to reassess our ethics – the process of decision-making, the teaching – and make true advances in perfection.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Technology and Dissemination
I have often worried about monopolies on information. If one corporation controls what people read, hear and watch, it can affectively control what people know and maybe even how people think. Journalists began expressing this concern as more and more cities lost competing newspapers. It came about again with the Telecommunication Acts when corporations began controlling multiple forms of media in a single city.
High speed Internet, in theory, should rest my troubled mind. Today, Americans can compare multiple news sources. The New York Times’ version of the truth can be checked against a U.S. government website, which can be compared to reports from television stations abroad. Information flows unrestrained and freely across different media, corporations, cities, and countries. This technological development is nothing short of a democratic necessity today.
Before I sing praise and glory to online journalism, I must point out a serious flaw: it is a medium for the middle class and elite.
According to 2003 U.S. Census data, only 54.7 percent of American households had Internet access at home. Unsurprisingly, the relationship between Internet access and household income was inversely correlated. A staggering 92 percent of households making $100,000 or more had Internet access, while only 41 percent of households making less than $25,000 a year had access.
If newspapers are attempting to follow the money in America, they would be wise to focus resources on their websites and online reports. Corporations could even be advised to hurry along the seemingly inevitable deaths of slower, costlier and less interactive print media. However, if there are CEO’s out there who believe in informing the masses and journalism for democracy, perhaps they find this new emphasis on technology in the newsroom slightly bothersome.
The emergence of the penny press in the 1830’s was another type of information revolution. Average American’s could now afford to read about the political and economic happenings in their cities. Moreover, these papers were written in a way that the average man could understand. While the content strayed towards entertainment and sensationalism, the ideal of news for the masses was there. Technology has seemingly outgrown the desire to inform the masses that was present with Gutenberg’s invention and golden days of newspapers.
Where the fine line between elite interests or financial success and serving the greater good falls is hazy at best. The amount and depth of information on the Internet is staggering and inspiring for those who seek to inform. It takes very little to get swept away in enthusiasm for the endless possibilities of technology. The simple invent of search engines and archives have changed journalism for the better, adding background and context to stories, which were once ephemeral. Clearly the ability to read the same story from five different reliable newspapers with the click of a mouse and with no additional cost (aside from computer and access), is serving democracy better.
Yes, the Internet serves people well. Except for, of course, the 45.3 percent of Americans who don’t have Internet access at home. To be honest, I couldn’t find statistics on how many of the unconnected individuals get Internet access at work or at local libraries. But the simple fact remains, that an informed public is key to democracy, and online journalism simply fails to inform the masses.
A middle ground must be found between rushing feet first into the best and most expensive media and providing free newspapers on every street corner or every doorstep in low-income neighborhoods.
High speed Internet, in theory, should rest my troubled mind. Today, Americans can compare multiple news sources. The New York Times’ version of the truth can be checked against a U.S. government website, which can be compared to reports from television stations abroad. Information flows unrestrained and freely across different media, corporations, cities, and countries. This technological development is nothing short of a democratic necessity today.
Before I sing praise and glory to online journalism, I must point out a serious flaw: it is a medium for the middle class and elite.
According to 2003 U.S. Census data, only 54.7 percent of American households had Internet access at home. Unsurprisingly, the relationship between Internet access and household income was inversely correlated. A staggering 92 percent of households making $100,000 or more had Internet access, while only 41 percent of households making less than $25,000 a year had access.
If newspapers are attempting to follow the money in America, they would be wise to focus resources on their websites and online reports. Corporations could even be advised to hurry along the seemingly inevitable deaths of slower, costlier and less interactive print media. However, if there are CEO’s out there who believe in informing the masses and journalism for democracy, perhaps they find this new emphasis on technology in the newsroom slightly bothersome.
The emergence of the penny press in the 1830’s was another type of information revolution. Average American’s could now afford to read about the political and economic happenings in their cities. Moreover, these papers were written in a way that the average man could understand. While the content strayed towards entertainment and sensationalism, the ideal of news for the masses was there. Technology has seemingly outgrown the desire to inform the masses that was present with Gutenberg’s invention and golden days of newspapers.
Where the fine line between elite interests or financial success and serving the greater good falls is hazy at best. The amount and depth of information on the Internet is staggering and inspiring for those who seek to inform. It takes very little to get swept away in enthusiasm for the endless possibilities of technology. The simple invent of search engines and archives have changed journalism for the better, adding background and context to stories, which were once ephemeral. Clearly the ability to read the same story from five different reliable newspapers with the click of a mouse and with no additional cost (aside from computer and access), is serving democracy better.
Yes, the Internet serves people well. Except for, of course, the 45.3 percent of Americans who don’t have Internet access at home. To be honest, I couldn’t find statistics on how many of the unconnected individuals get Internet access at work or at local libraries. But the simple fact remains, that an informed public is key to democracy, and online journalism simply fails to inform the masses.
A middle ground must be found between rushing feet first into the best and most expensive media and providing free newspapers on every street corner or every doorstep in low-income neighborhoods.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)