The media losing its way (Vorlon, please read!!)

[Nym90]

By David S. Broder
Sunday, September 26, 2004; Page B07

We don't yet know who will win the 2004 election, but we know who has lost it. The American news media have been clobbered.

In a year when war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism and looming problems with the federal budget and the nation's health care system cry out for serious debate, the news organizations on which people should be able to depend have been diverted into chasing sham events: a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry and a forged document charging President Bush with disobeying an order for an Air National Guard physical.

With these events coming after the editors of two respected national newspapers, the New York Times and USA Today, were forced to resign because their organizations were duped by lying staff reporters, it is hard to overcome the sense that the professional practices and code of responsibility in journalism have suffered a body blow.

After almost a half-century in this business, I certainly feel a sense of shame and embarrassment at our performance. The feeling is not relieved by the awareness that others in journalism not only did fine work on other stories but took the lead in exposing these instances of gross malpractice.

The common feature -- and the disturbing fact -- is that none of these damaging failures would have occurred had senior journalists not been blind to the fact that the standards in their organizations were being fatally compromised.

We need to be asking why this collapse has taken place.

My suspicion is that it stems from a widespread loss of confidence in both the values of journalism and the economic viability of the news business.

The first symptom of wavering confidence that I spotted came when news organizations -- television particularly, but print as well -- began offering their most prestigious and visible jobs not to people deeply imbued with the culture and values of newsrooms, but to stars imported from the political world. Journalists learn to be skeptical -- of sources and of their own biases as well. If they are any good, they are tough on themselves. Politicians learn something very different -- how to please the public. They try to satisfy others, not themselves.

As the path from the White House and political campaigns to the slots as TV anchor or interviewer or op-ed columnist or editor was trod by more and more people, the message to aspiring young journalists was clear.

The way to the top of journalism was no longer to test yourself on police beats and city hall assignments, under the skeptical gaze of editors who demanded precision in writing and careful weighing of evidence. It was to make a reputation as a clever wordsmith, a feisty advocate, a belligerent or beguiling political personality, and then market yourself to the media.

These hires were made by executives who themselves had little commitment to the solid and steady journalistic values that come from working a beat for a sustained period of time. They were looking for quick fixes for their circulation or ratings -- and they thought the star system or the "big story" would save them.

But to their dismay, TV news show ratings continued to decline, newspaper circulations slumped and the fickle public -- whose wishes editors now took as their command -- switched to even more sensational outlets: the cable talk shows and infotainment formats that put argument, gossip and amusement at the top.

When the Internet opened the door to scores of "journalists" who had no allegiance at all to the skeptical and self-disciplined ethic of professional news gathering, the bars were already down in many old-line media organizations. That is how it happened that old pros such as Dan Rather and former New York Times editor Howell Raines got caught up in this fevered atmosphere and let their standards slip.

Time was when any outfit such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that came around peddling an ad with implausible charges would have run into a hard-nosed reporter whose first questions -- before he or she ran with the story -- would have been, "Who the hell are you guys? What's your angle? What's your proof?"

Any Texan with a grudge against George Bush and the National Guard who suddenly produced a purported photocopy of an explosive 30-year-old order signed by a dead man would have been treated with the deep distrust he deserved by the reporters to whom he offered his wares. And no professional journalist would have made a call to the Kerry campaign encouraging a flack to contact this dubious source.

We've wandered a long way from safe ground in the news business. Sometimes I wonder if we can find our way back.

[nomorelies]

fox news has 0 credibility - see Joe BIDEN thread.

CBS has 0 credibility.

I have no credibility as i lied to everyone on the forum to prove to people that Republican voters are  hypocrites that only criticise those against them and have zero objectivity when it comes to voting for someone else.

Republicans have 0 credibility as they go against there values to vote for a guy that allows Rapists to go free as they have met God.

[Mr. Fresh]

fox news has 0 credibility - see Joe BIDEN thread.

CBS has 0 credibility.

I have no credibility as i lied to everyone on the forum to prove to people that Republican voters are  hypocrites that only criticise those against them and have zero objectivity when it comes to voting for someone else.

Republicans have 0 credibility as they go against there values to vote for a guy that allows Rapists to go free as they have met God.

Why don't you leave your sniveling partisanship out of every thread?  I getting tired of you saying the SAME thing over, and over again.  No one cares for what you have to say, when you say it a million times!  You are right though, you have zero credibility and lost any respect you once held by the majority of the forum.

---

Anyway, to Nym, I agree completely with the article, all News outlets have been, and for some time, been just trying to get the News before everyone else no matter what it is.  Or no matter, at what stakes they can get it.  The problem I'm seeing is that the News networks are in such a war right now over the American populous that we are paying the price.  There's also a problem of the average reporter trying to make it big on whatever story they can.

It's like when I watch the news and see reporters in Florida outside during a hurricane.  It's stupid and irresponsible of the News Networks to allow that.  If any other company put employees in harms danger like that, the Government would be all over them for civil liberties law suits.  Also, same goes for all wars in the latter half of this century.  They've all been put on TV for the average Joe and Jane to watch on the 5 o'clock news.  The way the News outlets and agencies are working now is going exclusively towards entertainment, and will accomplish that goal at any means necessary.  There is not one New Network that is innocent of that.  That's why all the embellished news articles, all the bias and partisan news is coming out.

Then you have to look at the problem and what that's doing to the American people and the world for that matter.  If this is all true, the American people are getting biased results and partisan news, and that is what's creating a division, a growing gap mind you, in America.  There was a recent Fox News poll out, during this election 87% of Republicans have decided no matter what they're voting Bush, 80% of Democrats say the same for Kerry.  The scary part is, we haven't seen ONE debate yet, and already those numbers are showing for partisanship.  I know here, you ask any Republican what they think of Kerry, and boom they'll name exactly what the News has been saying, they don't research themselves.  The exact same goes for Democrats, you ask them what they think of Bush, and they'll spout of exactly what the News is saying.

Individual research in this country is reaching such a low, that we're all essentially being brainwashed.  Take a family that has been Republican or Democrat, the children will in most cases mirror their parents beliefs, and then will only stay in tune with the media that follows that.  Not even glancing at the other side, it is dangerous and stupid.  When I was recently shopping with my mother, something that I'm glad I can start doing again, we were in a book store.  I grabbed two books that I haven't read.  One being Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken.  My mother was shocked that I would even consider reading material by Al Franken.  I simply told her that I wanted to see all the views first, and then make an opinion.  To say the least, it was a shock to her that I would do that.

That is the basic problem I am starting to see with our media, is that the children of the baby boomers, and even the baby boomers themselves, took a side far too early, and didn't look at the other side first.  And since that decision was made so early on, they have just stayed with that side of the media.  Anyway, that's my take on it.  

[The Vorlon]

Nice post

If we still had "karma" I'd give you some

Yes, the media has lost it's way.

I am, perhaps foolishly, hopeful it will get better.

I think the internet can play a positive role too.

I'd be willing to bet a "reasonably fresh bag of donuts" that fact checking at CBS is better today than it was a month ago

David Broder, despite his own political leanings, at least can still call a spade a spade.

Nice to see.

[CARLHAYDEN]

It seems to me that too many members of the liberal media aspire to the 'Ellsworth Tooey" role.

Hint ro the ignorant, read The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand).

[Niles Caulder]

Great column!

Fascinating subject...one I'm too tired to address at great length for the moment, lol.

I concur largely with Vorlorn's observations.

I think entirely new 'epistemological structures' of 'news' are going to evolve with the expansion of technology.  The volume and diversity of 'coverage' collapses in critically on itself--until before you know something closer to the scientific method begins emerging out of the contradictory chaos.  At least, that's what I forsee.

The media has done a terrible job of keeping its standards of credibility sufficiently high--unable to resist any titilating dollar waved in its face.  Things get worse before they get better...and this [Dan Rather] event is just about as bad as it gets.

But it's good for we news consumers...it makes us more sceptical and more demanding of credibility.  It makes us read the article more thoroughly instead of the "Wrestling Ring" headlines.

Because it's OUR standards that what matter.  If we demand comic books, that's what they'll manufacture for us.  If we subscribe only to scientific journals, they'll do that too.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I give the US media an F

Bad at the facts
Bad at reporting most of the anti-Bush stories
Usually either pro-Bush or just incompetant.

[teri]

Nice post

If we still had "karma" I'd give you some

Yes, the media has lost it's way.

I am, perhaps foolishly, hopeful it will get better.

I think the internet can play a positive role too.

Not foolish, I think it will get better too (can it get worse?).
Maybe the CBS episode will cause the general public to start accepting alternatives to network news.