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IN THE SPOTLIGHT ...
by Tracy Thompson Jul 06, 2010 - Most reporters think that the average reader is totally in the dark about the rules of the journalism game. After the Washington Post fired one of its bloggers last week, readers would be justified in concluding that they know more about the rules than the journalists do.
Talking Journalism
It's easy to think the worst of the world's despots. It's often a well-informed guess, maybe even a correct one. Certainly, it's cathartic. But is it what journalists should do? Mark Twain had it right when it comes to lightning and lightning bugs. Distinctions matter when we decide which word to use. Take the socialist label, for example, and whether Barack Obama is one. If you use "socialist" correctly, Obama is not one - and nobody else is, either. Go home, shut the bathroom door, look straight at the mirror and repeat after me: It's possible I don't have the answer. Maybe I don't know. My story could be ... wrong. There - doesn't that feel better? Acceptance of infallibility puts you on the road to real answers. Is it too much to ask journalists to know a little something about the subject they're reporting on? Maybe ask a question or two? Challenge their assumptions? Sometimes, apparently, it is. The next time your iPod or cell phone seals you in a world of unceasing sound and babble, remember the thousands who would give anything for a few minutes of peace and quiet. Fed up with bland "he said/she said" news? Tired of shrinking newspapers doing less and charging more? I was, so I decided it was time to stop complaining and start doing the reporting myself. Let me tell you how it's going.
Articles
Queen of Queens was the big news in New York on the last day of March.
It had to be the big news because it was the headline, in big, black, four-and-a-half-inch-high letters, of the lead story in New York's Daily News. Like many periodicals, The New York Review of Books covered last month’s Tea Party Convention in Nashville. Considering that what the computer nerds would call NYRB’s default political position is decidedly left of center, some readers might have been surprised at the result. Journalists love polls. And how could they not? Polls contain information. Objective, mathematical, precise information, presented with scientific certainty. No opinion. No fuzziness. Just the facts, ma'am.
Timing may not be as vital in journalism as it is in comedy, but prominent pundits David Broder and Joe Klein might have been at least a tad embarrassed by the concurrence of their recent columns on Sarah Palin and the latest poll about her.
Speeches
Journalists often discuss the issue of audience as a dichotomy – do we give people what they want or what they need? In the Committee’s work with journalists, we have been told that the question does not have to be either/or. Instead, why not find important news and then present it in ways that make it interesting? Minnesota State University's Scott Olson delivered this uniquely narrative speech to drive home the point that it's the stories - not the medium through which they're told - that matter most for journalists and all communicators. Huntly Collins outlines the potential the Web holds for journalism, and implores her audience to think creatively about how to overcome the Web's journalistic shortcomings. President and CEO of the AP Tom Curley says journalism needs to take bold, decisive steps to secure audiences and funding or risk fading into obscurity. CCJ Founding Chairman Bill Kovach's 2007 Baccalaureate Address to Boston University students invites graduates to view the world around them skeptically - to see it as it REALLY exists and not merely how those in powerful positions would have them see it.
Research
Providing citizens the news they need to make good decisions is about providing verified information gathered by journalists and others who understand, embrace, and can apply these principles. It is about finding a way to pay people to do this work and to create economic models so they can do this work under the umbrella of sustainable, independent institution. The Better Government Association and National Freedom of Information Coalition give 38 out of 50 states an 'F' grade in overall responsiveness to FOI requests. PEJ and the Shorenstein Center teamed up on a study aimed at learning early lessons about how the media is treating the 2008 presidential campaign. The Poynter Institute released the findings of its 2007 EyeTrack study at the ASNE conference earlier this year. The study aims to provide new insights into how readers consume the news. CJR's Curtis Brainard highlights a recent Pew Research Center report studying 20 years of American news consumption preferences.
Column of the Week
Most reporters think that the average reader is totally in the dark about the rules of the journalism game. After the Washington Post fired one of its bloggers last week, readers would be justified in concluding that they know more about the rules than the journalists do.
Everybody likes a good story, the kind with a beginning, a middle, and a satisfying end.
To be satisfying, the end need not be happy. But it has to mean something. Not that every story needs a moral, as such. But it should have a coherent theme, so that it isn’t just a hodge-podge of unrelated incidents.
Once I was a news producer. Now I am a news consumer. It’s been a tough transition. Being a reporter is a cross between of being in the Mafia and being a human racehorse: once a member of the Media Tribe, it’s hard to disaffiliate—and once the speed and thrill of news gathering is in your DNA, the advent of any major news event jangles your neurons like the clang of a racetrack starting bell.
In the frenzy to reinvent journalism, a couple of fundamental realities about the production and consumption of news seem to be getting lost amid all the commotion of our blogging, tweeting, linking-in, facebooking, and more recently, going mobile.
The first is that mainstream media, particularly the institution formerly known as print, supplies virtually all the reportorial journalism of civic decision-making. The other is that local TV – and its visual story telling – remains the most popular way to consume news and information.
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