inquiring minds want to know... if a tab can win a Pulitzer

Gotta love it. WaPo's Howard Kurtz reports that the National Enquirer is going to enter its scoops on the John Edwards scandal for a Pulitzer. To which Kurtz poses the question: Should a tab be eligible for journalism's top prize?

From his column:

When the Enquirer first reported in 2007 that Edwards had had an affair with Hunter, the former North Carolina senator dismissed the account as tabloid trash. The rest of the media, having no independent proof, even as Edwards, aided by his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, was mounting an aggressive campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. In August 2008, after being knocked out of the campaign, Edwards admitted to ABC's "Nightline" that he had been lying about the affair. But he didn't come entirely clean. Asked about the Enquirer cover that showed him with the baby during a late-night visit to a Beverly Hills hotel, Edwards denied paternity, saying: "Published in a supermarket tabloid. That is absolutely not true. . . . I know that it's not possible that this child could be mine because of the timing of events." He claimed he wasn't sure if the man in the blurry photo was him.

Clearly, the tab was there first. But the big question is -- where were the other guys, and why didn't they check it out? Sure, it's all scandal, but just think what might have happened had he won the nomination before it all came out. bk

the future of journalism, circa 2009

We can all mock the folks with bad hair and what they saw as the future of news back in 1982. Now, however, the discussion has ramped up to a somber debate more along the lines of the survival of news. It's all encompassing, and to be honest, exhausting, if not exhaustive.

Here's what is turning out to be a short syllabus of a few of the most recent ruminations, some of it new, some not so much. Which is maybe the root of the problem.

Start with Eric Alterman in the current issue of the Nation, who writes cogently about saving the news, not the newspaper, via philanthropy:

"But as New York Times executive editor Bill Keller pointed out in an Internet Q&A, we are losing the kind of journalism that, 'however imperfect, labors hard to be trustworthy, to supply you with the information you need to be an engaged citizen.' Alas, nobody wants to sell soap alongside a story of an IED killing a dozen US soldiers in Kabul or Karbala. Along these lines, Joel Kramer, former publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, suggests the creation of a philanthropic endowment that will match donations to nonprofit enterprises doing public-affairs journalism. Indeed, plenty of people would love to provide this kind of reporting; journalism schools are filled with young people educating themselves for a profession that they are taught is about to become economically obsolete. They aren't there to get rich; they're there in the hopes of offering their fellow citizens what Walter Lippmann, writing in 1920, called 'Liberty and the News.' If history is any guide, you can't have one without the other."

Others, assuming that print is dead -- or soon will be -- advocate making the pay-per-click method work to subsidize the news we get for free. Here's what Jack Shafer had to say this week on Slate.com, where he suggested that news orgs look "outside the browser":

"Every successful paid site competes with free sites, and as often as not, competes with itself by offering its own free content. The free stuff is used to upsell the customer to the paid varieties. The extreme application of this model is giving away 99 percent of the product and selling 1 percent—it's called "freemium," and Wired editor Chris Anderson talks about it in this interview and on his blog."

In "MSM, RIP", the editors of The New Republic, in a short and sweet editorial, remind us what we lose if we lose the press:

"Many venerable newspapers and magazines will close in the coming weeks and months; the ones that remain will be attenuated. But the old ideals embodied in these institutions must not be permitted to join the carnage."

Meanwhile, there was an interview on the Charlie Rose Show, between the eponymous host and Walter Isaacson of "Time," Robert Thomson of "Wall Street Journal" and Mort Zuckerman of "The New York Daily News", about revamping the current business model; a couple of weeks ago the NYTimes posted an online discussion among several media heavyweights who, among other things, advocate abandoning the "culture of free;" and last week, the WaPo's Howard Kurtz weighed in on different ways to finance what we know as the news.

But the best of the bunch, clearly, is a long essay by Gary Kamiya (one of the founding editors of salon-- one of the first online journals in the country -- and former editor at the San Francisco Examiner) on salon.com, where he reflects on what we can expect if the death of the newspaper means the death of reporting:

"What is really threatened by the decline of newspapers and the related rise of online media is reporting -- on-the-ground reporting by trained journalists who know the subject, have developed sources on all sides, strive for objectivity and are working with editors who check their facts, steer them in the right direction and are a further check against unwarranted assumptions, sloppy thinking and reporting, and conscious or unconscious bias.

"If newspapers die, so does reporting. That's because the majority of reporting originates at newspapers. Online journalism is essentially parasitic. Like most TV news, it derives or follows up on stories that first appeared in print. Former Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll has estimated that 80 percent of all online news originates in print. As a longtime editor of an online journal who has taken part in hundreds of editorial meetings in which story ideas are generated from pieces that appeared in print, that figure strikes me as low.

"There's no reason to believe this is going to change. Currently there is no business model that makes online reporting financially viable. From a business perspective, reporting is a loser. There are good financial reasons why the biggest content-driven Web business success story of the last few years, the Huffington Post, does very little original reporting. Reported pieces take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, require specialized skills and don't usually generate as much traffic as an Op-Ed screed, preferably by a celebrity. It takes a facile writer an hour to write an 800-word rant. Very seldom can the best daily reporters and editors produce copy that fast."

Despite the above, he writes that the issue is still complicated: there are digital news sites that do in fact produce in-depth reporting, and that thanks to the internet, we now have more information, literally, at our fingertips than ever before. Still, he cautions:

"Finally, the death of reporting will dangerously erode the ideal of objectivity. Newspapers embrace the institutional mission of objectivity: Their goal is to find out and report the truth about a given subject, no matter what that truth is. They are not supposed to go in looking for an answer, or holding preconceived beliefs. Of course, the distinction between fact and interpretation is only absolute in the simplest cases -- it breaks down as soon as the event being covered acquires the least complexity or controversy. Reporters, like all human beings who are trying to make sense of complex experiences, must constantly make judgments that go beyond the mere facts. And the he-said, she-said approach mandated by objectivity can be ridiculously stupid. If Joe says the sky is blue and Jack, who is widely known to be a delusional psychotic who has just taken two tabs of acid, says it's purple with pink polka-dots, is it really necessary to report what Jack says?

"But if perfect objectivity is impossible, that doesn't mean that it should not be the goal. The reporter's predisposition toward fact and fairness serves as a kind of ballast, a corrective to her natural instinct to make up her mind prematurely. And those who have not been trained and inculcated in an institution dedicated to objectivity are less likely to be able to do this. Institutions matter. And traditional journalistic institutions, newspapers in particular, are weighted toward fairness and objectivity. The Internet is not. Of course, bloggers or untrained writers are capable of being fair; indeed, the better bloggers are precisely those who fully and fairly engage with those who disagree with them. But the blogging ethos as a whole runs in the opposite direction. Being a reporter does not come naturally to bloggers.

"No one can predict what the new information age will look like, and my version may be excessively dystopian. But one thing is indisputable: Reporting must be kept alive. With all its limitations and faults, it is a light that illuminates the world outside ourselves. And in an increasingly virtual and solipsistic age, that light is needed more than ever."

- more -

Back to thirty:

The LA Times reports that the Christian Science Monitor will become the nation's first newspaper to drop its daily print edition in favor of its online "treeless" edition. A sign of the times, or a prudent economic move? You have to hope that the 5 million online page-views will be able to support a robust reporting staff and that the journalism will remain the same quality that earned the paper seven Pullitzers. But still. It's a sign of the times.

In response, former capstoner Timi Gould, who once had "latimes.com" in her email address, wonders: "IS online the answer? Are online ad sales more profitable? Are online articles the same quality as those that would run in the paper? Is newspaper page layout and design a thing of the past?"

To which my answer is, well, I don't have one. But I do have some questions of my own.

For example, in Monday's column about the increasing polarization of the news media, Howard Kurtz wonders whether Fox's Sean Hannity and MSNBC's Keith Olberman are "watching the same presidential race, or even living in the same country?"

He continues: "Prime-time viewers of Fox News and MSNBC get vastly different perspectives on the campaign that sometimes approach mirror images. This goes well beyond the hosts' political views to the booking of guests and the way stories are framed, pumped up and sometimes ignored. In that sense, the programs reflect the increasing polarization of the media world, where columnists, strategists, bloggers and radio talkers have built thriving careers catering to those who already agree with them."

Here's what worries me: as daily newspapers (and the straight-ahead journalism that they support) shrink, the growth industry appears to be opinion, either via cable or the blogosphere. Not sure that makes for an informed citizenry. Full disclosure: I am an Olberman junkie. Still, I recognize that folks like him and Hannity are preaching to the choir. But. Does everyone?

Finally, this is so preposterous, I can't even comment. According to a piece in USA Today last week, Media News Group CEO Dean Singleton, whose media company has presided over the near-dismantling of our beloved Mercury News, spoke to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, suggesting that newspapers consider outsourcing many of their daily operations.

Really?!

"One thing we're exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews ... maybe even offshore," said Singleton, whose company owns 54 newspapers, several in the Bay Area, and who may well be the poster child for Molly Ivins' apochryphal comment about newspapers committing suicide.

Of course, that's just my opinion (Yep, I'm doing just what I worry about. See above.) bk

three on numbers

We did a lot of riffing about numbers back in September: here, here, here and here.
More below:

Here's a cautionary tale on a little numbers-tweaking by a New York Times freelancer who stretched a few stats to mean more than they actually did. Moral of the story: Don't twist. Don't stretch. Don't assume. Read about it on Gawker.com

For all you numbers geeks, the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday took a look at all the new polling aggregators, including fivethirtyeight.com, which have sprung to the fore this campaign season. The piece also looks at reasons why some political polls can sometimes go wrong.

Finally, a quick read of Howard Kurtz's column in yesterday's WaPo makes you wonder if journalists who rely too heavily on polls in their reporting can actually affect the outcome of an election. You also wonder if over-reliance on data/handicapping the races can sometimes blind reporters to the other cues out there, so that ultimately the story goes south. bk

debatable

Does the fact that Gwen Ifill is writing a book on race and politics that includes material on Barack Obama disqualify her from moderating tomorrow night's vice-presidential debate? Conservative blogs have been buzzing all day, suggesting that her book "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," is evidence that she is in the pocket of the Obama campaign. Read Ifill's response in the Huffington Post.

Word of her book has been on the street for a few months, writes Howard Kurtz in the WaPo. You have to wonder why it's become an issue the day before the debate.

Ifill says that she has not yet written the chapter on Obama and is curious as to why people assume it will even be favorable. She tells the Huffington Post: "Do you think they made the same assumptions about Lou Cannon (who is white) when he wrote his book about Reagan?" said Ifill, who is black. Asked if there were racial motives at play, she said, "I don't know what it is. I find it curious."


Photo credit: Associated Press

quick riffs

Mayka sent a link to an old article from The Guardian in which Nicholas Carr defines blogs as, well, parasites that rest on the work that other journalists have already done. He says that's a good thing: The blogosphere, he writes, "acts as a kind of global echo chamber. An idea gets swatted around like a ping-pong ball for a few hours until a fresh one takes its place." And while it's bouncing around we all make more sense of it. Or at least pay attention.

In that spirit, a few quick hits:

It will be interesting to watch the reaction to the very conservative Kathleen Parker's column in the uber-right National Review Online, suggesting that Sarah Palin step down for the good of the Republican party. A trial balloon? An echo of intra-party talking points? A way to pre-spin the VP debate by shooting expectations down to negative numbers?

Speaking of spin, the Washington Post's media critic Howard Kurtz takes us for a spin inside the spin-doc tents after Friday night's debate. Pretty ridiculous premise, actually. Let's review: reporters who watched the debate need -- or will listen to -- partisans to tell them what they saw? Really? Hope there was food.

Still on the campaign: The Nation's Eric Alterman questions the pseudo-objectivity of news orgs that will report what politicians say --- but are reluctant to call them on it when they lie. Referencing McCain's accusation that Obama pushed for sex ed for kindergartners, he writes, "... many in the media cling to the belief that it is the calling of a reporter to report a politician's lies without apparent prejudice. In the Washington Post, not only did Jonathan Weisman and Peter Slevin take no position on the truth or falsehood of McCain's dishonest allegations; they waited a full eleven paragraphs before noting that the Obama campaign believed 'all of the accusations against him are a reach, if not fabrications.' "

I riffed about this earlier this month, and again last week. Our job: not stenography.

On another topic entirely, Editor and Publisher columnist Steve Outing outlines his vision for news 2.0 (or possibly news 3.0) as newspapers migrate completely online. Taking the "we are our own editors" concept one step further -- he calls it "The Daily Me 2.0" -- we would all configure our own pages on our daily paper's website, combining content from staff reports, wire services, news from unaffiliated websites, blogs, user-driven forums and even social networking sites. All at our own choosing. Interesting.

And finally: tabloid journalism. Tracing the history of the National Enquirer, Newsweek reports that the tab, which once had a circulation higher than the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal combined, is now, like its respectable cousins, falling victim to the internet, where celebrity gossip is quicker and cheaper. Love it or hate it, its headlines (my daughter once had her bedroom door plastered with them) are always good for a laugh. Like this one, from Newsweek's piece: "FAMILY EATS BARBECUED MEAT—FINDS IT WAS THEIR DOG."

Cheers. bk

Running against the press, redux

Ever since the RNC closed up shop on Thursday, one of the prime players in the inchoate campaign continues to be the "elite media". Check these links, and let me know what you think. bk

Jack Shafer writes about the way Sarah Palin will run against the press.

Howard Kurtz writes that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews are out as news anchors for live political events at MSNBC because of their lack of neutrality.

Marketwatch's Jon Friedman interviews CNN's Campbell Brown on the aftermath of her questioning of Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain's campaign, about Palin's qualifications shorty after McCain chose her to be his running mate.

Finally, in a public editor column in the New York Times, Clark Hoyt defends and explains much of the media vetting of Sarah Palin. He writes:

"The drip-drip-drip of these stories seems like partisanship to Palin’s partisans. But they fill out the picture of who she is, and they represent a free press doing its job, investigating a candidate who might one day be the leader of the Free World."