A Status Report and What Individual Journalists Can Do to Reach Readers: Part 2: The Role of the Reporters

This hour opened with remarks from Andy Kohut, Director of the Pew Reseach Center for the People and the Press. He explained the public's current view that the "press is too intrusive, too sensational, is exploitative in pursuing stories of wrongdoing in high places, and is really less interested in getting the truth for the sake of citizenry."

Then, in discussing how news organizations decide what is newsworthy, Helen Ferre, Opinion Page Editor of Diario Las Americas, argued that the issue is not as much what information you choose to include, but "where it's placed on the printed page or in a broadcast that makes all the difference in the world." Matty Leschon's new Florida television station, WAMI , looks for a new way to tell the story such as "a big, hige pair of red very sensuous lips reading the AP Headlines for a minute."

Ray Suarez: We'll begin this hour with a brief stop in Washington, the home of media responsibility, with Andrew Kohut, Director of the Pew Center for the People and the Press. I think in your periodic surveys of how the public is feeling, the report cards that I've seen about the behavior of news professionals have not been anything that we should keep under our pillow or feel particularly encouraged about.

Andy Kohut, Director, Pew Center for the People and the Press: The public is increasingly critical of the way the press does its job. The percentage of people who say that the press is an over-zealous watchdog and wonder about the watchdog role that the press plays, whether it's really worth it, has grown very substantially over the past 15 years, over the time period we've been observing it. And when we ask people these days does the press generally get things right or generally get things wrong, more often than not, people say the press generally gets things wrong, and it's quite different than it was in 1985 when we first started these surveys for the Times Mirror Company.

Suarez: Aside from credibility, are there parts of the public behavior of news organizations or of individual journalists that members of your survey pool are able to pick out as things they particularly like or don't like?

Kohut: The public feels that the press is too intrusive, too sensational, is exploitive in pursuing stories of wrongdoing in high places, and really is less interested in getting the truth for the sake of the citizenry or the democracy and more interested in doing this either from the point of view of career advancement, when talking about individual reporters or correspondents, or sales or audience growth when talking about publishers or producers or the owners of these entities.

Now I don't want to overstate this and say that the public doesn't believe the press or that the public has a lower regard for news organizations than for many other institutions. It has more doubts about press performance than ever before, but it's also, in a lot of ways, two-minded about the press. It continues to believe mainstream news organizations. So there is a bit of two-mindedness, but the public is increasingly critical, and when we talk about credibility slipping away even a little bit, we're talking about the lifeblood of news organizations. News organizations depend upon people believing their reports.

Suarez: One of the recent studies that you did this spring, I was very interested to see that if you brought that poll into a morning editorial meeting it might make the front page or that night's newscast look very different. The stories that a lot of news organizations were putting a lot of time into were not really registering on people's radar screens, and ones that maybe they were just giving play along with the other things they were covering were getting a tremendous amount of interest.

For instance, when American troops in their tens of thousands went to Bosnia, nobody really paid that much attention to it, yet other stories of foreign import concerning China, concerning the Indonesia crisis where the American involvement might have been a little less tangible, and it was getting a lot of attention.

Kohut: I would differ with you on the Bosnian one. I think there was a great deal of interest in Bosnia when we sent troops there initially. It then fell off. But I think your point is well taken. The American public doesn't pay a lot of attention to serious news stories, and there's less interest in policy news than there was five years ago or even two years ago. That has a lot to do with the nature of our time. Something to do, I suppose, with the way the press does its job. But I want to emphasize that we don't do these surveys to tell news organizations what they should be covering. Even though the public may not be responding to a lot of important stories, the purpose of these surveys is to show what is getting through, not to set the public's agenda for what's important news. Those decisions are the decisions of news people. And there is also still a very substantial, albeit minority, serious news audience.

Suarez: Let's talk about the different needs and the people who represent your organizations in the community -- what's expected of them and how they operate in the wider community. Helen?

Helen Aguirre Ferr*, Opinion Page Editor of the Spanish Language newspaper Diario Las Americas: We are a Spanish language newspaper circulating in Dade County and we have a very particular situation because even though our readers read in Spanish they live in the United States, so there's information that they have to know that may not be geared specifically to the Hispanic market. But everybody who lives in the United States, everybody who lives in Dade County needs to know. So we need to make sure that we cover basic information that would be pertinent to anybody no matter what language it was being published in.

But there is also a very special interest that our readers have to issues that are specifically Hispanic oriented and that's part of the needs, and that's our niche market and that's what we really need to address And we have to be very careful how we characterize these types of situations. There is a professor, a local professor here in Dade County who went on a nationally broadcast program and he talked about a banana republic...

Well, the gentleman who said that is Cuban American, and little did he realize, I think at that moment, was that he was stepping on the toes of everybody who comes from Central America and resides here, because the term banana republic is the exact term that anybody who is an enemy of Central America, particularly in the last century and the beginning of this century, used to belittle Central American countries.

So we have to be very careful as to how we characterize these issues

Suarez: But one of the tendencies of the ethnically or language specific or racially specific market has often been in the history of media in this country to sort of be a cheerleader, to be an antidote to the often very negative coverage that was doled out by the mainstream press, so there was this feeling well, those guys over there don't like us, don't understand us, they don't like us and when you become a news source in addition to just a sort of community listening post, I would think that your obligation rises a little bit and you've got to show the warts and the bad side and also talk about your villains as well as your heroes.

Angelo Figueroa, editor-in-chief of People En Espanol: You've definitely got to show your dirty laundry as well as anything else. The primary responsibility of a journalist is to inform and to do so truthfully.

At the same time I think there are some real specific challenges that Hispanic and other minority journalists have when they come into news organizations.

When I was growing up in Detroit, Michigan, there weren't any Hispanics in the newspaper. There certainly was no Ray Suarez on National Public Radio.

I think, and many Latino journalists got into the media because we felt that our issues and our concerns were being basically ignored by the mainstream press. So I think a lot of the news organizations, seeing the change in demographics in their city had said you know what? We need to hire Black journalists, we need to Asian journalists, we need to hire Hispanic journalists. They bring these people in, and part of our responsibility, I think, as minority journalists is to be able to present and pitch those stories which the main culture in the newsroom may miss as a result of not being Hispanic or Asian or whatever.

That's a double-edged sword because on the one hand the community sees you as a voice, and whenever you write anything negative about Hispanics you'll get a call saying hey, why are you doing that?

Figueroa: I got a call the other day, Jennifer Lopez did an interview in Movieline magazine in which she criticized Jack Nicholson and Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, a whole host of the Hollywood power structure. So we did a little box item about this story. Her publicist called me and said how could you do this to Jennifer Lopez? You're Latino. You're her own people. I'm like, I am not Jennifer's publicist. I'm here to report the news.

I said do you remember Jesse Jackson? She goes yes, I'm Jewish and I hate him. I said you know, when Jesse Jackson made the remark about Hymietown, it was a Black reporter who reported that, who was widely criticized by a lot of other African American reporters for doing so. But that's our job. Out job is to do both.

At the same time, I do think we have a little bit more responsibility to showcase some of the role models which aren't highlighted in the mainstream media.

Suarez: There's that balancing act again.

Figueroa: It's like walking a tightrope.

Barry Cooper, a reporter Orlando Sun-Sentinel who launched the Web site Black Voices: It's really difficult because you want to support your community, and certainly in Black Voices we try to do that. Black Voices has become the leading Afrocentric site on the World Wide Web. Our mission's a little different than producing a radio show or a newspaper.

What we do in Black Voices is create a forum where people can come on-line at night and talk about the issues facing the Black community. So on any given night we'll have several hundred people on-line chatting about everything from affirmative action to teenage pregnancy to the move towards conservatism in this country

Cooper: But Black Voices exists, I think, because of some mistrust in the Black community about the mainstream media. There's no question about it. There seems to be... We hear it all the time from the people who use our Web site. They think that when Ted Koppel interviews Louis Farrakhan that there's some ulterior motive, that there's some agenda, that they're not giving the man a fair shake. That when gangster rap is ridiculed and vilified, there's no sense that the mainstream media is taking time to try to understand what it is that's driving these kids to create this kind of music, and that they're just being beat across the head and there's no opportunity there to be sensitive to a new and growing culture.

So our audience turns to us, and many, many times they're saying what's really the story?

We can accept bad news, our members tell us. We just want to know that what you report is fair. If it's fair and someone in the Black community was wrong, then our membership has no problem with it. What they do have a problem with is the Rush Limbaughs of the world and the others who clearly have an agenda and an ax to grind and they're not giving it a fair shake.

Matty Leschon, General Manager of WAMI, Channel 69, in Miami: Well, I deal a little bit in a different world. In television we do have this obligation to entertain, and I know that's a four letter word when you're talking about journalism, but I think it's about the tension between credibility and sensibility and trying to find that line.

We, in a sense, have been very fortunate. We started a new television station here in the market, WAMI, and it's channel 69 which is on at 7:00 and 9:00. It's a really interesting balance of credibility and sensibility. We recognize that people do have a lot of the information certainly by 7:00 o'clock at night. We like to tell stories that really interest people, and I think that's really important in making an editorial selection. People want to watch things that they're really interested in

So we're trying to do something a little bit different in approaching stories. Not just saying... What is a local story, you know. This market is a very cosmopolitan market. They care about a lot of things. Maybe they're interested in a South Florida take on a Monica Lewinsky story which goes to the issue of well, who the heck do your reporters think they are to be able to give us a point of view in the first place? It's about the sensibility. How are we going to do it? Do we find a voice that's different that people can tune into and say hey, I'm interested in the way they're telling that story.

I don't have the burden of journalism with a capital J on me.

Suarez: Oh, I don't know. (Laughter) You have a television station, you've got the burden.

Leschon: The burden is to be credible. The burden is to be credible and to have people believe your reporters, to have people believe what you're saying, and to make sure that you do things in an honorable way and in a way that is truthful. But you also have the right to try to entertain an audience and to give them a flavor above and beyond just dry facts. Although I just want to say for the record, we also have something which is kind of experimental and interesting called Lips at 11:00, and it's literally a big, huge pair of red very sensuous lips reading the AP Headlines for a minute. With absolutely no intonation whatsoever. She's quite compelling to watch, so I invite you all to tune in.

Question: We've talked about the motivation of entertainment and of money and of the journalists' own desire to improve and put forth their own career. But what about politics? Who pays these journalists? Who owns these television stations and these newspapers? What do their editors think about what their journalists are writing? Isn't that a big part of the motivation behind what gets said and what doesn't?

Ferr*: I work for an independent, family-owned newspaper and I'm sure initially, 45 years ago when the newspaper was founded, you could see where there was a greater link to who the owners were and what was maybe coming out in some sections of the newspaper. But I can tell you certainly that the A Section, the international and inter-American section of the newspaper, was never affected by what those familiar relations were.

Throughout the years you can see that that has definitely decreased, and it's also part of a credibility issue if you don't do that. Because if you do come up and appear as if you are playing up to a certain group, then you are no longer journalistically credible and you're really shooting yourself in the foot. So that's just not viable.

But I think in the end what we're really talking about, what we've been hearing for the last hour or so is what is newsworthy? Who determines what is newsworthy? As an Hispanic journalist I can tell you that we have to -- and all journalists. This is something that we deal with consistently, all the time. I find that sometimes there's just such a big break between what we as journalists think is newsworthy and what the public ends up finding or saying is newsworthy.

Be that as it may, the public also plays a great part in what journalists today, I think, are producing. Who are the people who are paying for the advertising in news magazines, in television programs that blur news and entertainment and so on and so forth? The public really does have a way of affecting, other than just occasionally criticizing, what comes on and how things can be changed in the news business

Suarez: There's an obvious point where we see the difference between the function and the mission of the news staff and what the people who own the press, in effect, own the television station, own the radio station, do with that power. Anybody want to address that?


Figueroa: There's been instances in newspapers where I've worked at for example, where the editorial board will endorse a particular candidate that half the newsroom hated. They are very two different operations.

I served for six weeks on the editorial board on a trial basis at the San Francisco Examiner, hated it. But let me explain the process.

They take an issue. They will bring in experts who address the editorial board. This editorial board will listen to these folks and then they'll talk amongst each other and they'll argue and the debate can get very fierce and very intense. Then they'll make a collective decision and assign one of the people on that board to write that editorial. The person writing it might not necessarily agree with what they're writing, but it's a collective decision of that newspaper and of that board

Figueroa: The problem, particularly with daily newspapers [is] there is such a rush to produce these things, oftentimes editorial pages are giving you three different editorials. [There's often not enough time] to really get into an issue.

Suarez: Helen, do you think the public makes that distinction between what the editorial board is saying and what your own reporters are saying in the news pages?

Ferre: I find that that's sometimes not well understood. But the better your reporter's writing is, the easier it is to see that there is such a distinction.

We do, at Diario have the policy where we do have discussions before editorial boards and decisions are made, and sometimes very much indeed they are heated, and ultimately one decision is made. And in fact that may not be the decision that even the majority of the personnel of the newspaper may agree with, but that's the decision that's ultimately delivered.

Suarez: Yeah, but you're not supposed to know whether the reporters agree or not.

Ferre: You don't know. But it's not important that people know what the reporter thinks, because the reporter really should be giving you just the very basic information and should be just as objective as is humanly possible. I do want to emphasize "humanaly possible."

Figueroa: It should be pointed out that a lot of editorial writers also go back to the reporter, and because of this time crunch often have to rely on information provided by reporters in the news stories. There's some pros and cons with the whole way it works.

Question: A couple of days ago in Miami on the 11:00 o'clock news, the first four stories were the Spice Girls, Jack Nicholson in Cuba... Whitney Houston's husband being rearrested. And the fourth story was on hot trends in hair wear, barrettes. I finally turned off the news thinking I'm sure something happened in Miami today. I don't think I'm really going to find out what it was... (Laughter)

I wonder if you'd comment on what are the forces that are creating this kind of celebrity journalism that's kind of taking over more of mainstream news?

Leschon: I watched my competitor's channel and saw those same things, and I was [shocked] ... (Laughter)

Suarez: The lips girl led with something else totally.

Leschon: She only does hard news. That's the beauty of it, as you might imagine. (Laughter)

Interestingly, three of those stories did appear way, way deep in our own news newscast, but they did not lead in any way. And by the way, the story about the barrettes was actually in a secondary show that's not actually considered a news show. Not to defend my rivals.

Leschon: You have to look at where you are. The Jack Nicholson in Cuba story does have relevance because of the environment that we're in and the fact that Jack Nicholson goes to Cuba and makes a political statement by doing so -- whether he thinks so or not. It's interesting to the people who live in this environment. The Spice Girls, there's not a whole lot I can say about that.

The fact of the matter is, there is a dearth of what editors consider to be newsworthy and that's part of the problem. The question that you're constantly asking yourself is what are people really interested in? The fact of the matter is that people are interested in the Spice Girls. You've got to do it at some point. Again, I think it's a tension between what is entertaining and interesting to people, and giving them information that's important without cramming it down their throats. I don't feel that I have an obligation to cram information down people's throats because I think it's good for them to know that there is a war in Guinea Deso, which there is right now, but very few people know about it.

Cooper: But the problem is more acute in the Black community because of a lot of things. Black Entertainment Television is a network or a cable outfit that you all may be aware of. It's sort of an African American equivalent to Univision and Telemundo. It is a voice for the African American community, supposedly.

A year ago it slashed its news department and it cut its news back to just one hour a day, and most of that is entertainment news. It found out it could make more money by playing music videos than having a news staff. And this is alarming because when you look at radio, at Black radio, where a lot of information used to be disseminated to the Black community, those stations now have gone out of style or they've shifted their demographics and their pitch. They're no longer the voice of the Black community. They don't even call themselves Black radio stations anymore because that makes it tougher to sell advertising.

Now they say that they're urban contemporary, or your home for R&B and hip-hop. They have no news directors anymore.

Suarez: But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's an illustration of an evolution in American society that we can now allow ourselves to make the assumption that from the so-called mainstream press, the news that's pitched to the widest popular audience, Black people can find a sufficient information stream that they don't need a separate neighborhood where they can go for their news.

Cooper: It's interesting that you would point that out, but in the Hispanic community we see folks clinging to that very concept. That's why Telemundo and Univision exist. That's why my comrades here have successful radio or TV or print operations.

Suarez: But that might happen just in a different way in the next two decades once English language acquisition advances to the point where children are more comfortable in English than they are in Spanish.

Leschon: It is happening right now on our station. We have just launched a show called Generation Enye [ph] which is based on a magazine of the same name. It is an English language show that deals with Hispanic popular figures. We had on the show last week Liz Balmosera who you would all know because she's a Pulitzer Prize winning Cuban American writer, as well as D.J. Lags, who's a very well known DJ in the environment here. These are people that you never have seen these people interviewed in English in a magazine environment. You always see them in Spanish language publications and television shows. And for the first time now you're going to get the opportunity for a real cross-over.

The people who watch this show are Hispanic, but they watch Seinfeld. They're part of our culture.

Ferre: I think when we were talking before about those mundane news items that were coming out about the hair clips and the Spice Girls and so on and so forth, it's not that it's bad information if you want to stretch the word information, but it's just where it's placed on a printed page or in a broadcast that makes all the difference in the world.

If you're going to put that information in a people section or in a lively arts section, that's absolutely appropriate. But if this is what's going to be your 1A story, well that's where you have a problem. I think that in media we really have to make an effort to not to try to appeal to the lowest common denominator in society. (Applause)

Question: I'm Cecilia Villarde, Vice President of Broadcast for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

I'd like to go back to this question of ethnicity in journalism. I would like to know what the panel thinks about the need for associations such as ours. For instance today we released a report. We call it The Network (inaudible) Report. It shows that the three major networks and their newscasts -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- only devote one percent of the time to Hispanics and Hispanic issues. Out of that one percent most of the stories are very limited. They only talk about immigration crimes, affirmative action, and most of them are negative.

So we feel that as an association our concern deals with improving journalism, with fostering good journalism in the coverage of Hispanics. And it isn't good journalism to devote one percent of your broadcast time to the fast growing majority in the United States, and it isn't good journalism for most of those stories to be negative.

So we feel that what we're saying to the networks is practice good journalism. What do you think?

Ferre: Certainly when you take into account that in South America alone this year you're having a number of countries who are having elections. We just had an election in Colombia a few days ago. This barely gets played anywhere in the United States, although when you do come to the issue of narco-trafficking, Colombia does certainly come to mind and to play and that's where you get that issue of negative broadcasting or a negative bias towards what would be considered "Hispanic" news.

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