An entry at MetaFilter provides the following quote, but does not give its source:
“The reason many people worry that the written form is dying, and the reason most writers consider online publication second-rate, is that no journal has yet succeeded in marrying the editorial rigors of print to the freedoms of the internet.”
It then links to a new online literary magazine, the Wag’s Revue. It looks interesting, and I hope it satisfies the gist of the quote leading us there.
Those words capture some small part of truth. Another field, journalism, has long endeavored to install professional rigor on the business of collecting news. They are serious people. However, they have largely failed. And more so than any other profession that I’m aware of, journalism seems on the far edges of fogginess about itself, almost completely lacking self-awareness. They give out more awards to one another than Carter’s famous pills.
At the same time, they fail to do the one thing we hired them for: To report to us what powerful people are doing. The reason is obvious: They must answer to those powerful people, and not us. As a result, most news, even in the vaunted print media, is a distraction.
Many people have noted how shallow TV news coverage is, how they operate like pack animals and pounce on trivialities instead of important stories. There’s a reason for that – it’s like squeezing a balloon – the air goes to the place where there is least resistance. Bush/Cheney et al … desk murders, torture, illegal invasions, wiretapping all of us and all of the news media … don’t go there. OJ? All over it! The New York Times used a woman who appeared to be no more than a CIA plant – Judith Miller – as their lead reporting on the attack on Iraq. They sat on the wiretapping story in 2004 – a story that probably would have changed the outcome of the election that year. Not only are they not reporting to us, they seem in league with the powerful.
News reporters chose not to challenge Bush on Iraq. (Better said: They knew better.) They brought in the generals, fired Phil Donohue, and before that Bill Maher (who are not journalists but who are willing to say things that might be true). They didn’t question the motives of the leaders. Instead, they repeated lies. They failed us, utterly and miserably.
On some level, they know this. That’s why they have awards for door stops. They do what most of us do in response to anxiety-causing problems in their lives … compensatory behavior. Award banquets.
That’s broad-brushing, I know. There are many people of integrity in the business. Probably most of them. The paradox is this: How do they put that integrity into print or on air? The answer is that mostly, they can’t. So they dance around the the edges of power, mostly looking outward, and intuitively understanding their own failures. They affirm! their integrity to one another. Pass the salt, please, and the Pulitzer too. I’ll have a Peabody while you’re at it.
I work in a less glamorous profession that is riddled with similar conflicts of interest. Accountants are called upon to audit public corporations, yet those corporations are allowed to hire and fire auditors at will. As a consequence, the early part of this century was littered with accounting scandals like Enron, Global Crossing, and WorldCom. It’s a principle known by all to be true, yet systematically ignored: “conflict of interest”: we cannot serve two masters.
In the case of journalism, they cannot both report on powerful individuals and corporations and yet be owned by them. And when powerful corporations have a stranglehold on government, we have a double-conflict: Not only do we get no reporting on the corporations, but none either when governments are serving the corporate will, as with the Wall Street bailout – perhaps the Iraq invasion itself. Instead, government reporting is reduced to the slavish, drooling White House press corps.
So when I read about the web failing to live up to journalistic standards, of failing to marry the “editorial rigors of print to the freedoms of the internet”, I can only agree. All I can say in response is please, show us the way. You start, you lead. We’ll follow.
Today would be a good day.
Piece of Mindful 
Well, Wag’s Review isn’t a media magazine, but a literary one. I think the concern for the “written word” isn’t concern for journalism, but for literary poetry and fiction.
And, IMHO, it’s not the delivery system that’s hurting the literary arts. I think the literary arts has become a closed circle, it stopped communicating with the outside world. That, and movies and video games are much more fun…
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Thanks – I sort of saw that, but didn’t comprehend. I changed the wording above a bit so I could still have my rant.
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A few thoughts:
First, I don’t think journalism is all about reporting “what powerful people are doing.” Journalism addresses a broad spectrum of interests. Most of it is very light because most people are very light. If you think in terms of newspapers, content is limited by form, and newspaper form is space filled mostly with advertising. “Stories” are needed to fill in between the ads. As for television news, I think Richard Nixon got it right with his observation: “Television is to news what bumper stickers are to philosophy.”
This is a big subject, but boiled down, I would agree that corporate ownership of publishing and broadcasting is a problem, but that it is largely the reader and viewer who limit what is written or broadcast. Reading is too hard, and viewing is too easy, so most people head to the same place that air goes when you squeeze a balloon.
As for online or print journals, I think for the most part they follow the same path: least resistance. A quick perusal of “Wag’s Review” and I see a lot of lightweight words strung together and focused by the pronoun “I.” It gets boring very fast.
Cutting to the chase, words in my estimation are “powers.” Words evolved around much more than “I” as a motivating force. Words can paint pictures. Words can make music. Words used in journalism and literary journals are generally too lightweight to express much of anything at all. For most people, words are simply text. That’s not what words ultimately are. The bottom line is that it’s the singer, not the song.
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I disagree that consumers of news determine the content of news, though obviously people are drawn to visual and away from print. But saying that consumers are in charge of content is like saying that rabbits are in charge of the type of feed they eat.
By the way, aside from reporting on the powerful, isn’t everything else trivia?
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Look online at “news” and what do you see? Britney Spears’ panties are showing. Michelle Obama is wearing the same dress and belt again (shame on her!) etc. That’s what “readers” want, as determined by surveys, number of “hits” and comments from “readers.” The rabbits are indeed in charge.
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P.S…More rabbits?
Katie Connolly, Newsweek
The Nielsen ratings for Obama’s 100th day presser are out, and they’re not as hot as they were for his previous prime time appearances. A whopping 49 million people watched the President’s first presser in February. That number slid to 42 million for his second outing in March. Swine flu and 100 days hype notwithstanding, the number dropped to 29 million across 10 stations on Wednesday. Part of the drop can likely be attributed to Fox’s decision not to air the press conference, broadcasting an episode of its new drama “Lie To Me” instead. Fox did well in the time slot, attracting nearly 8 million viewers. Its rivals ABC, CBS and NBC each garnered over 6 million viewers for the presser, with NBC leading the pack with 6.68 million. The President is still more popular than “American Idol” though, which had an audience of just under 22 million for it’s results show later that evening.
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We’re in agreement about the depth and attention span of the American public. We are in disagreement about the quality of journalism that those of us who pay attention get.
And when journalists dismiss thee blogs and news websites as beneath them, they are not being introspective enough.
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As far as the quality of journalism that those of us who pay attention get, you and I are NOT in disagreement. Nor do I dismiss news websites. I pick and choose. I recently dropped ABC from my list of daily online sites to visit because they changed their format to make it more “visual” and “attractive” for people who do not like to read. I like to read, so I now leave ABC for the rabbits to chew on.
I don’t miss a morning stop at Al Jazeera for news and analysis I don’t get elsewhere. For others, I jump around: Boston Globe, Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, Guardian, Globe and Mail, BBC, Reuters, Seattle Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, quick stops at CBS, CNN, Fox, and Bloomberg occasionally.
Blogs are an entirely different subject. I don’t find anything that I consider beneath me. It’s just a matter of how I allocate my time. I am offline much, much more than I am on. Books, writing and music are my main diet.
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Of the Boston Globe, Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, Globe and Mail, Reuters, Seattle Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, CBS, CNN, Fox, Bloomberg … I’ll add NPR and PBS – which of these news organizations challenges government or corporate power?
Test: Have any of them reported that the pig farm in Mexico where swine flu originated is an American-owned indsutrail farm? Have they named the owner? (I don’t know the answer, but will be surprised if any one of them have done so.)
NPR once helped expose Archer Daniels Midland, resulting in a $300 million fine. ADM’s response? They started heaping support on NPR. NPR’s response? No more exposés.
You’re talking about different flavors of vanilla as you visit all those sites. Try Raw Story, Democracy Now if you want variety.
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Those news sites I listed are different flavors of vanilla only as far as the “Big Story” is concerned. But as I said, for me there is more to journalism than the “Big Story.” The Billings Gazette, Great Falls Tribune, Helena IR, Denver Post, Boston Globe, etc., may all carry the same AP rewrites, but they also originate stories of their own that are fascinating to read.
I enjoy it all. There is a craft involved in journalism that is pleasing to me. The story might be about someone growing strawberries or a house painter whose wife just died of cancer. It is in the telling of the story that craft comes into play. Some journalists are better at it than others, but there are great ones all over the place, writing about strawberries and house painters but maybe never once about “what power people are doing.”
You seem to insist the only kind of journalism that counts is the “investigative” kind that leads to the “Big Story” exposing the worm in the apple. I like those stories too, but I also like reading about all the apples in the orchard. You want variety? Journalism is like a beautiful woodland that is lost to the eye when a reader focuses on one tree.
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Once again, we agree – all of the stuff about strawbeerries and house painters is part of journalism.
But the “big story” is not being done. Everything else you talk about is. That’s the balloon metaphor again. Power is not threatened by the news media. It should be – politicians should cringe when a reporters enters a room. As if is, they shrug.
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We have come full circle, it seems. I agree about the “Big Story” not being told…which brings us back to the top of the page and the problem that news and newsmakers near that top rung of the ladder are dependent on the same funding sources. But, if I may be so bold, quoting early Bob Dylan: “It’s life and life only!”
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No – no way! No Dylan. I prefer Peter Wolf:
Everybody have fun tonight
Everybody have fun tonight
Everybody Wang Chung tonight
Everybody have fun tonight
Everybody Wang Chung tonight
Everybody have fun
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Yahoo! TGIF!
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