Something Is Not Right With Me

I've had it.

I’m angry.

I am thoroughly pissed off.

Q: What could possibly have me so riled up? A: The subjects of David Carr’s article from Sunday, “Journalists, Provocateurs, Maybe Both” and Brian Stelter’s “When Race is the Issue, Misleading Coverage Sets Off an Uproar.”

I try as best as I can to avoid cable news, partisan media and bloggers who push an agenda. It’s not my cup of tea and, generally, I’m not missing out on any actual news by refusing to engage with these outlets. However, the agendas, inaccuracies, hate and stupidity peddled by these people and organizations have crept so far into my daily news digest that they can no longer be ignored, and that is infuriating.

Jon Stewart did a nice takedown last night on the knee-jerk reactions of politicians and reporters in regards to the Shirley Sherrod story. He summarized Robert Gibbs’ statement as: “This administration is so sorry that you people suck so bad.”

Here is what makes me angry: The job of reporters is to provide facts. It is NOT the job of reporters to publicize whatever videos or opinions come their way. To air an edited video is wrong. To air an edited video from a person who openly pushes an agenda is inexcusable.

In Carr’s piece, he writes in regards to “tradition-bound journalists,” “Why, after all, would someone spend their professional life enmeshed in the civic conversation unless they had a stake in it somewhere? But what is emerging is more of a permanent crusade, where information is not only power, but a means to a specific end.”

Everyone has a stake in the civic conversation. Civic issues include everything from educating children to taxation to caring for the ill to trimming the trees. Civic issues keep this great country going, and a reporter who covers politics or government is chronicling events because it is his job.

As for the people who have the time and attention to edit videos and destroy lives, careers and organizations as a “means to a specific end,” here is a list of 10 things they could do that would actually help their country and community, which they claim to have such concern and regard for:

1. Donate blood
2. Tutor a child
3. Serve the homeless at a soup kitchen
4. Pick up trash on the sidewalk, beach or along the highway
5. Donate school supplies and Christmas gifts to a children’s charity
6. Coach Little League (or lead the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts)
7. Join a civic group
8. Go outside and run 5 miles
9. Plant a garden
10. Read a book

Any one of those things would help a heck of a lot more than getting the Georgia State Director of Rural Development fired. How on earth does that help the American people?

Journalists have a duty to move the conversation away from this crap. I said it – this is all a bunch of crap that keeps us from discussing anything of substance. OK, an example of how we can move away from the swamp of crap that fills cable news and the Internet:

Before she was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor would often say in her speeches:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.”

This makes her a racist, right? She must hate white people. That quickly became the narrative of the story until she clarified her remarks and promised to take the phrase out of her speeches. (I know the greater issue was whether a judge’s personal experiences do or should influence her interpretation of the law.)

An incredible opportunity was missed here by reporters, who could have used the occasion to actually look at the experiences young Latinas have in this country. I had recently ended a 16 month-tutoring relationship with a young Latina when Sotomayor was nominated. My student’s home life was unstable, chaotic and violent. Her family had no expectations for her. Her first day of school was interrupted by a gun scare. Her living room was a revolving door of drug dealers and gang members. Yet, she would beg her mother to drive her to the downtown library (the one without the fistfights and yelling). She spent hours sketching. Her face lit up the first time I brought her brochures on art school and community college.

You cannot tell me that those experiences won’t give her a completely different world view than you or me. Let’s talk about that, as journalists. Let’s tell those stories.

In the future, when reporters find themselves getting all hot and bothered over a crap-filled issue that will unnecessarily rile up viewers, may I suggest they take a cue from survival guides: Sit down. Have a smoke. Take a deep breath.

Filmed in Front of a Live Studio Audience

Usually when I read or hear comments from newspaper executives on the subject of the Internet, it is through the lens of monetizing content. How do we make money on the Web? Paywalls? Analog dollars for digital pennies? Other buzz words here.

The most exciting aspect of moving content to the Web is the prospective of building not an online audience but a community. Wouldn’t it be great if readers felt a connection to news media again? All of our modern technologies and social media point to the audience’s desire to be engaged with content. The challenge for reporters, editors and managers is to create a platform where that community can grow and flourish.

So, how we gonna do that?

A recent interview with Roger Ebert’s wife, Chaz Ebert, shed light on why engaging in a dialogue with readers and viewers can be so beneficial. Speaking in light of Ebert’s health problems, Chaz Ebert said of her husband’s ability to continue to command an audience:

“Over all these years that Roger has been a film critic, he's built up credibility with the public, who expect him to be open and honest. Credibility is a currency that he was able to use in this situation and that people were rooting for him -- as he's so often rooted for the underdog over the years -- that's one of the ways I can best explain it.”

Credibility and honesty – two things all reporters can take away from her interview. Credibility resides in the individual reporter and within the company she works for. For example, most viewers would say reporter Christiane Amanpour is highly credible based on her knowledge, access to sources and overall body of work. However, the credibility of CNN – Amanpour’s employer for 18 years – has declined. Personally I've stopped watching CNN because 1) Rick Sanchez provokes a truly violent reaction from me and 2) it is intellectually offensive to me to have half a dozen former political consultants sit around and pick apart election results.

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal touched on the issue of community and news this weekend with “MSNBC boss stands ready in ideological battle with Fox News.” (Fox News is not objective, nor is MSNBC. That is not debatable.) Fox News has been incredibly successful because of its partisan story-packaging (I cannot call it reporting). I have reached a point where I actually accept what Fox does because, despite the occasional protests from some anchors that the network is balanced, it is obvious what viewers are getting with Fox. Rosenthal writes: “With so much news coming from so many places, so often in much the same way, a leader distinguishes itself by anticipating what its audience wants and needs beyond the immediate headlines. In doing so, the most successful — and in cable, that's Ailes' FNC — will establish its own identity.”

Fox News has created a community out of its audience. It provided a framework, fanned the flames and then sat back and let people create relationships with one another. Of course in journalism we need to take this another step. Journalism is about objectivity, honesty and ethics. The network does not do these things and therefore is a failure in newsgathering and dissemination. But Phi Griffin, head of MSNBC, is onto something when he identifies that Fox created a formula other media outlets can replicate. “To be successful in this new age, you've got to create a community. You've got to have a place where people come. They're like-minded. They share ideas. They want news, but they also get their headlines all day long on the Web, on their BlackBerrys, on their iPhones, on their iPads. It's a different universe, and nobody uses one outlet as their only source.”

A trustworthy, objective news source that packages content in a way that engages the audience and builds a community: Can it be done?

Columnist Forgets Stewart Isn't a Journalist

Howard Kurtz’s weekly media column is usually a pretty good read as I find him to be fair, critical and interesting. However, his column on Feb.1 set off alarm bells in my mind for two reasons: Kurtz’s apparent confusion over Jon Stewart’s humor and political leanings and the failings of broadcast news. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/31/AR2010013102338.html)

First, I feel exasperated by the mainstream media’s apparent surprise that Stewart and the cast of “The Daily Show” are able to make fun of President Obama. There is always humor in power and politics. Have these reporters forgotten that Obama is just another politician? Writers for the Weekly Standard and FOX Nation questioned (perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek) whether the jokes were a sign that Stewart is not as liberal as we presumed. The director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs is quoted in Kurtz’s piece as saying, “He’s clearly become an important cultural arbiter. He’s pulled off the trick of being taken seriously when he wants to be and taken frivolously when he wants to be.” Yes, that’s because he’s a comedian.

Let me say that again – Jon Stewart is a comedian. NBC anchor Brian Williams is quoted as saying, “A lot of the work that Jon and his staff do is serious. They hold people to account, for errors and sloppiness.”

This brings me to the second issue that came up in Kurtz’s piece and that is what is happening at cable news networks. (I would distinguish between reporters and commentators but the fact that both FOX and MSNBC are readily identified by viewers and members of the media as conservative and liberal stations overshadows whatever objective reporting may actually be taking place at either network.)

To Williams’ point that Stewart and his crew of producers and interns are able to hold people accountable, why don’t the mainstream media do this more? Why does it take a half hour program on Comedy Central to show clips of politicians doing one thing and then doing (or voting) another? “The Daily Show” does not have access to any resources that aren’t already available to MSM outlets.

As to the quality of broadcast news, here are some of the clips recently shown on “The Daily Show”:

· Fox News hosts celebrating Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts;

· MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann referring to Brown as “an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women;”

· CNN’s “best political team” displaying Twitter comments to evaluate the president’s State of the Union address (I would also add the fact that there were at least 10 “commentators” and “analysts” to break down the speech for viewers who were either too lazy or unengaged to draw their own conclusions); and

· MSNBC’s Chris Matthews saying that while he watched the SOTU, he forgot President Obama is black.

We would all be better off without cable news. News outlets that follow a script in the way of expectations and then report the news through the lens of those expectations offer nothing of value to viewers.

(This was originally a discussion post for a class at Medill; February 2010).