Monthly archives: September 2009

Washington Post journalists: False alarm

David Herrera,

I browsed through the Washington Post’s new social media guidelines for journalists this evening. These have been roundly criticized in multiple corners already, comments I do not want to rehash. Instead, I decided to have a little fun with the new rules.

1. “When using these [social media] networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment.”

Drop the first clause, leaving: “Nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment.”

Well, I don’t think that a reporter who lets on to his or her political leanings or beliefs on social networks (or anywhere else, for that matter) thereby becomes impartial. Perfect. So now nothing a Post journalist does must denigrate their impartiality. I just demonstrated a scenario in which it wouldn’t.

2. “We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.”

I don’t see anything about enforcing a particular rule here. I only see guidelines. I don’t think too many people would argue that guidelines should be followed in every case. So, if a reporter has a good argument for why guidelines shouldn’t be followed (say, in the interest of transparency or “where we’re coming from”), they can both “not abandon” and not follow the guidelines.

Finally: “Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.”

I actually can’t find a hole in this one. I will, however, reiterate something I believe others have mentioned but that I can’t pull up at the moment.

The Post must know that everything it writes could be perceived as having some bias that could be used to tarnish journalistic credibility among some group (which is all that’s required here, because the rules don’t specify whose judgement of credibility they’re interested in). So haven’t they just barred themselves from writing about anything? What on earth will the columnists say?

As Howard Kurtz noted, the weather may remain fair game. Though Kurtz himself appeared to disregard the rules with his Sunday tweet about William Safire’s death. Calling Safire “gracious” smacks of favoritism, does it not?

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Are we too busy watching TV to fix the news?

David Herrera,

Much of the attention on the Pew report released this week focused on the public’s opinion of the news media, which continued a decline that Pew had measured for a few years now. The researchers themselves highlighted the decline in their overview of the report.

I was intrigued by another portion of the survey, one which asked from which medium the respondents were most likely to get their local and national/international news. On national and international news, the race wasn’t close: Just from eyeballing the numbers, around 75% of respondents said they got their news from television, compared to around 40% from the Internet, and lower from newspapers, radio, etc. On local news, the distribution was less drastic, but TV still led at 64%, followed by newspapers at 41%.

Why would the numbers skew toward television?

One reasonable response is that people can’t get non-local news from newspapers, even if they wanted to, because the space for such copy has decreased in recent years. [1] But if people wanted to get local and national news from a newspaper, how does one explain the survey’s finding that most Americans aren’t familiar enough with The New York Times to express an opinion about it? If people wanted high-quality news but didn’t have access to the Times, they would at least have a high rating of it.

A less-generous response, however, is that most news consumers aren’t interested in national or international news, and for that matter, probably not much in local news either. Why would people prefer news from television when its quality is so horrid unless TV’s deficiencies didn’t bother them?

I think it’s easily demonstrable that TV news is a terrible way to inform yourself about the world. From a theoretical standpoint, I love Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. But skip the book if you want and just ask yourself: When was the last time your local TV news busted out a great explainer (like This American Life’s oft-praised “The Giant Pool of Money”) on anything? How about a nuanced, humble presentation of an argument?

Or, go even more basic. Think about those people, like David Simon, who ask, “who will cover the zoning board?” I have never, ever, seen a television report about a zoning board meeting. Please, prove me wrong. Offer me a counter-example, just one. I’m young and have only seen so much.

Be it your local news, CNN, NBC Nightly News, no recent examples come to mind. Not that explainers are easy to create, certainly. Few news sources anywhere come up with good ones. But TV news appears to be particularly devoid of them, and yet that’s where most minds are headed.

Further complicating the picture is the lack of definition of “news” as the respondents see it. The ambiguity means “news” could be Noordin Top as easily as Kanye West.

Lighten up!

OK, OK. I admit, I’m not breaking new ground by claiming that interest in news is not too widespread. But I do wonder whether, when we construct the “reader” or “consumer” or “participant” or however we define a person today in relation to information, we take into account what the Pew report reminds us of. I also wonder how people who ask about the future of “the Baghdad bureau” (or the zoning board bureau) feel about the fact that no few from the general public is rushing with lifeboats to save newspapers because, well, no one was really reading them.

Are there other implications of the Pew statistic? Am I being too harsh on humanity? I’d love to hear your thoughts or critiques in the comments.

Notes

1. This is especially true for American broadcasters. See “Foreign News: What’s Next?”, by Michael Parks in the Columbia Journalism Review, and “The Shrinking of Foreign News,” by Garrick Utley, from Foreign Affairs. For a discussion on space for international stories in print, see “The shrinking foreign newshole of the New York Times,” by Daniel Riffe et al, from the Newspaper Research Journal. (Return to post)

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Is journalism an ideology?

David Herrera,

Update | September 12: Added better examples of dichotomies re. Lefort.

I’ve engaged myself recently with some books on ideology. It’s fascinating stuff, if complex for a neophyte such as myself. My readings have ranged so far from introduction to a brief history of the subject. Lately I’ve tested the deeper philosophical waters. (I’ve listed the books I’ve read and will reference here.)

Like any rich idea (“journalism,” say), the definition of “ideology” is contested. Most of my reading, in fact, has been the product of people arguing why ideology should be considered x and not y.

As interesting as the reading is, I wanted to connect it to my field of study. So I thought of a question: Could journalism be an ideology?

To examine that question we need to take a look at some possible definitions of ideology. After offering these definitions, I’ll try to see how well they align to the practice of journalism. I’ll be simplifying the ideas involved, of course, but I hope they’re fruitful in some small way.

Journalism as ideology: version 1

Seliger argues for an “inclusive” conception of ideology (as opposed to “exclusive”). One of the central tenets of such a position is that “ideology” is a neutral term, not one specifically designed to describe only some sets of beliefs (see next section). It can connote any system of relatively coherent beliefs, including ideas about how the world should be or could be and suggestions for how that state could be achieved.

An ideology, under Seliger, includes sets of attitudes and behavior, of which journalism and journalists hold pretty similar versions. For example, most journalists agree about the need for and benefit of government transparency. They agree that a marketplace of ideas has value in a democracy and that more public debate is preferable to less. For that matter, they agree that democracy has more value than other forms of government.

Journalists also share a general set of behavior in acting on these attitudes — talking with public officials, soliciting opinion from members of the public, “gotcha” questioning, etc. Journalism could be ideological in this sense, even while acknowledging differences of opinion in defining the specifics of concepts like “transparency” or in the ethics of various reporting techniques.

However, Seliger’s definition is broader than just attitudes and behavior. “Ideology is linked to politics no less than all politics are linked to ideology,” he writes. Politics involves more than just ideas — it involves implementing those ideas. People who subscribe to an ideology need a plan for collecting taxes or maintaining a military force.

I’m guessing few journalists would know the first thing about this technical side to ideology. While much of what journalists do may be considered “political” under some academic definitions, I doubt that Seliger’s use of “political” means the same thing.

Journalism as ideology: version 2

In Studies in the Theory of Ideology, John B. Thompson criticizes Seliger’s form of ideology. According to Thompson’s conception, ideology is concerned not only with sets of beliefs but in the specific ideas about the world that develop from and accept asymmetrical power relationships and material conditions among different classes or groups. These relationships range from workers and owners to even parents and children, to savage and civilized, or mad and normal.

Examining the way(s) reporters and journalists contribute to the domination of certain groups and/or dominance of others is really interesting. One of my favorite posts from the last year examined just this sort of process. [1] But I want to try a different approach here.

Thompson summarizes the work of theorist Claude Lefort on “invisible ideology.” One element of “invisible ideology” is an endless, unfulfilling cycle of consumption by people captivated by novel products that, in time, become less novel. Once the product has lost its luster, consumers move along to the next shiny object.

Lefort argues the process is “invisible” because, unlike past systems of totalitarianism, there is no singular voices ordering us to “buy.” We simply figure out the process on our own. Lefort argues this cycle preserves relationships between dominators (who are selling) and dominated (who are buying).

OK, what’s the relationship to journalism?

In a word, advertising. Lefort has a special place in ideological hell reserved for media that deliver the messages of product peddlers who consume themselves into subservience.

News media have, of course, has depended on ads for quite some time. Journalists hence face a contradiction — and not just the conflict of interest between “truth-telling” and not offending the advertisers who fund the paychecks. That conflict can at least be navigated. Instead, the contradiction is between journalism’s stated goals of aiding self-determination and deliberation and the inability to ever pursue them.

For, in Lefort’s mind, self-determination is impossible under the cycle involved in “invisible ideology.” The journalist who displays ads is crippling the efficacy of his or her work before it even begins.

Journalism has an ideological function under this second definition, then, though the result is not as pretty as under Seliger.

Closing

Admittedly, this post was as much to help me solidify these concepts as it was to spark discussion. But I hope the ideas were stimulating. I’d love to hear your thoughts about them in the comments.

The books

The introduction: Political Ideologies: An Introduction, by Andrew Heywood

The history: Ideology, by David McLellan

The deep end: Ideology and Politics, by Martin Seliger, and Studies in the Theory of Ideology, by John B. Thompson.

Return to post

Notes

1. Jay Rosen’s Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press described a theory of how reporters can, over time, come to identify more with the interests of those they cover than they can with readers or the public interest at large. (Return to post)

A category error

David Herrera,

I have a lot of appreciation for what Matt Thompson is doing at Newsless, his blog on improving journalism on the Web. So, it’s with respect that I offer a few thoughts on his post, “The 3 key parts of news stories you usually don’t get.”

I don’t know if the kind of wide-angle focus Thompson seeks can be easily implemented into daily news organizations. Moreover, I’m not sure I’d be interested in their attempts to do so. Instead, I wonder whether anyone who wants the “3 key parts of news stories” should stay away from news in favor of long-form journalism, books, or other sources. More importantly, I wonder whether they should regardless of news organizations’ efforts to follow Thompson’s prescriptions.

My argument extends in a few directions. Firstly, I think Thompson conflates two terms that he himself says he finds differences between. Secondly, I’m not sure daily news organizations have the ability to provide “the longstanding facts,” including for reasons Thompson has argued for previously. Thirdly, the kind of writing Thompson wants to see has no necessary connection to “news” or even “journalism.” Instead, it has the characteristics of something broader: a good argument, which is something available to any author and that we should encourage wide consumption of.

“News” and “journalism”

The sidebar on Newsless.org includes Thompson’s belief that “journalism,” as opposed to “news,” “encompasses something much more important — context.” But throughout his piece he seems to switch “news” and “journalism” freely.

The post is designed to improve the presentation of “news stories.” He defines “news stories” as “an ongoing news topic, such as ‘health reform,’ not a particular article.” To me, this definition ascribes to the idea of “news” exactly what Thompson says news is not: contextual.

Context is not something you’re going to find in an organization dedicated to daily updates (like Politico, which Thompsons mentions in his follow-up post to “The 3 key parts.”). It’s unclear to me why we should try to improve news organizations’ presentation of context rather than ditching the news organizations when we want a serious treatment of a topic at hand — like health care.

But why the mistrust of news organizations?

“The longstanding facts”

“There is a universe of facts that stay essentially fixed from day to day,” Thompson writes. Facts are a tricky business, as any reporter knows. Not just whether this fact true or false, but determining from where do these facts emanate, who is interpreting them, and what are his or her assumptions.

Beyond interpretation, however, we can ask the ecolocy question: “And therefore…?” “Tomorrow, we can be virtually certain that the three basic problems health reform seeks to solve will remain the same as they were last year: effectiveness, cost, and access to care.” And then what? Even with similar value preferences, like social responsibility over individual responsibility, we could look at the same “facts” and still come to very different conclusions about health care.

Are newswriters (people primarily involved in producing news, rather than journalism) best equipped for the process of introducing context and nuance into the health care, or any complex, discussion? Are they surrounded by a culture that encourages such inquisitiveness? The editorial freedom to pursue the questions they find?

I am skeptical.

I don’t need to remind anybody that newspapers themselves feel they are short on resources to investigate the context of ongoing issues like health care. [1] But even then if the resources were there, I don’t know how many reporters are trained to, or would be given the license to, operate from a critical thinking perspective that would know how to handle interpretations, value preferences, etc., nor do I know how well anybody could implement them on a tight deadline if they wanted to.

Critical thinking

As evidence that critical thinking is lacking in newsrooms, let me go back to Thompson’s post. He says two of the “things you don’t get” in stories are sections on “how we know what we know” and “what we don’t yet know.” One commenter on his post likened the proposal to the structure of an academic paper. I agree, but I think what Thompson wants are of argumentation on a broader scope.

Any study of critical thinking and argumentation will quickly reveal that “how we know what we know” (otherwise known as evidence and reason) and “here’s what we don’t know” are essential parts of any well-formed argument. [2] As I argued above, I think we will be better steered by well-formed argument in these complex issues than by standard forms of “objective” writing usually found in the news. [3]

I wonder, then, whether we need writers and authors familiar with argument to try to interpret “the longstanding facts,” laying out their assumptions for the reader, rather than trying to shove the argumentative form into the “what just happened” and “objective” hole of news.

For if we don’t often find such writing in the news — as Thompson argues — then why should we look there for high quality writing on important, lasting topics like health care?

Ways to improve

Could news organizations learn the techniques I describe? Of course they could. I hope they do. But on what basis should we expect them to? I admire Thompson’s effort to outline “simple, low-tech or no-tech ways journalists can begin satisfying our need for context” in his follow-up post. But I am less hopeful.

Journalism schools, or at least the one I graduated from in 2008, are not quick to offer the critiques Thompson is willing to make. When they do, it’s meant as an aside, not as something to take seriously in pursuit of a job.

On a broader scale, the writing techniques and “win the morning” attitudes have been in existence for decades. So have critiques of them and handy suggestions. [4] It doesn’t seem like Thompson (or I) have any reason to think this nature of news is going to change.

Notes

1. My favorites are the writers, like Connie Shultz or Tim Rutten, who are so concerned that they turn to the law to protect their business interests. Shultz’s column here, Rutten’s column here. (Return to post)
2. My view of critical thinking comes from my college professors, including the books they used: Browne and Keeley’s Asking the Right Questions and Damer’s Attacking Faulty Reasoning. I was lucky enough to have been taught by Neil Browne. (Return to post)
3. Thompson argued a similar point in an earlier post of his, Eulogy for news voice. (Return to post)
4. One of my favorite books I read in the last year, Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism, demonstrates this quite well. (Return to post)