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Topic: Can Any Journalist . . . Checks and Balances?
| Author | Message |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 2/1/2006 10:08:11 AM | show profile | email poster I read this article: http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-rather28jan28,0,1827262.story?coll=cl-calendar where Dan Rather, discussing ''Good Night and Good Luck,'' says that journalists need to have ''more backbone in questioning powerful leaders, more facts (and less speculation), more money and time from publishers, and more international coverage.'' My question is, can any journalist have an effect by doing this? Or must you have a certain amount of clout to do so, by being an anchor, or a columnist, or a high-profile reporter? Do you have to have access to the powerful leaders, or can any journalist aid in this ''backbone transplant''? How do you do it if you're not a major player? ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 2/1/2006 2:33:27 PM | show profile | email poster Those of you who were throwing things at the TV last night during the State of the Union Address...this is an especially good topic for you. how can the ''little guy'' journalist stand up for the little guy? ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 2/2/2006 11:25:35 AM | show profile | email poster I'm going to give this one more shot and then I''ll let it die. bump. ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| willwriteforfood | Posted – 2/2/2006 12:05:41 PM | show profile I was really interested when I saw this thread. It's a shame there aren't comments about it. I think one of the challenges for a ''little guy'' is not getting a name as a ''difficult'' interviewer. Once you have a name, you can ask the more in depth questions and get away with it. Most of us are trying to make a living so if we can't get the interviews, it doesn't matter what we would want to ask. I hope that made sense. But I do agree, there are questions that need to be asked and we have a responsibility to ask them if we have the opportunity. ------ "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." --Douglas Adams |
| gluedwings | Posted – 2/2/2006 1:17:29 PM | show profile I think it's possible for the ''little guy'' journalist to make a difference. Look at Woodward and Bernstein...they were two young and unknown reporters who found something in what was thought to be a nothing story. A reporter at the Springfield, Mo. daily isn't going to bring down the White House, but it is possible for reporters to check and balance local governments, informing citizens of what's going on in their constituency. Not everyone is Judith Miller, with access to the powerful folks in Washington. Keeping tabs on what the village mayor does is something in itself. No government official has the privelege to abuse his or her powers, be it in the Capitol or Small Town, USA. Reporters all over have the ability to monitor this. |
| clare04 | Posted – 2/2/2006 3:58:03 PM | show profile blogs and miller Clair, I think the role of the local reporter/media is integral to community change on all levels. It's really exciting to work on some small court story that blows up a little town, I think. Of course, it changes things. But think how small places thrive on that sort of thing anyway... The best scandals probably happen there ! Capote, the movie about the writing of a book in Kansas, is a great example. But it's very self limiting in the end, and limited timewise, because eventually all the sources are people you know and they start wanting favors. Judith Miller is a great case in point for what can happen at the other end of the spectrum - White House - in order to get a story. Two things I think play into this discussion, one, the increasing difficulty of getting information - Plame case. And the impact of blogs, who effectively are filling the gap where say the low level reporter (and I don't consider them as such, at all) or community level or suburban etc. can't access the stories or the people. Blogs are the knee jerk response to being shut out of the discourse. Or whatever you want to call it. |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 2/2/2006 5:01:20 PM | show profile | email poster Clare, that's a good point about blogs. I wonder if that's partially why newspapers seem so anti-blog: they can do the scooping and questioning much more quickly. (Although The Smoking Gun I don't think counts as being a 'small blog' since they're owned by CourtTV) Woodward and Bernstein are a good example. ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| ideefixe | Posted – 2/2/2006 5:06:55 PM | show profile Woodward and Bernstein were working for the Washington Post, under Ben Bradlee. They might have been young, but they certainly had an outlet. Anyone, no matter what their stature or experience, can ''make a difference'' but not accepting pat answers, by doing the legwork, and by asking the follow-up questions. Covering the local school board meeting should demand the same skills as covering the Joint Chiefs. But, parroting the conventional wisdom, gleaned from DemocraticUnderground or the National Review, isn't going to hold anyone accountable. |
| clare04 | Posted – 2/2/2006 5:16:40 PM | show profile cont. Claire, Seems like there's blogs and there's blogs. Just like the media. The Smoking Gun doesn't compare to ''ApplesandOranges on Wednesdays.'' Or whatever. Kill me for making that up. Anyway, newspapers' revenues are being cut into by blogs. Blogs have damaged journalism and blogs also function to keep journalism in check. By exposing shit that reporters miss. Pardon my language. Just like your post title - checks and balances... |
| harryfred | Posted – 2/3/2006 8:36:50 AM | show profile The question was framed in somewhat of a naive way, and so I bet that's why few are answering it. There are a lot of pressures on the newspaper industry that are making Fourth Estate, real investigative reporting difficult today.... Media consolidation of the industry, for starters. I think independent journalists doing work online (often for free) are carrying this torch. The prestigious weeklies and monthlies seem to afford their reporters time and resources to tackle investigative work. |
| clairezulkey | Posted – 2/3/2006 9:14:48 AM | show profile | email poster Sorry Harry: that's my bad--I have no more insight into this topic really than a person outside the media, so I wasn't sure how to put it appropriately. ------ Editor of MBToolBox |
| clare04 | Posted – 2/3/2006 12:52:40 PM | show profile a few questions I reckon that this was a very sprawling question - like there were three questions in one. ''Powerful leaders'' is all relative. Like if you are a reporter on a county beat, your power brokers are just as critical as when you are a ''Washington Post'' reporter covering the environment. If you lack this access or you lose it, then how you work with that is critical. I wanted to mention Ted Koeppel as an example of a celebrity-like reporter who does ask the tough questions and Charlie Rose. The thing here is these reporters are very visible to us in the way they work because they are on TV and we can see them volleying questions and dealing with road blocks etc. as they do it. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 2/4/2006 12:10:01 PM | show profile ''If you lack this access or you lose it, then how you work with that is critical. '' Surviving the food chain of jobs -- all of them? -- that don't value access is the other half of this battle. You need internal street cred and rabbis as much as you need access to great stories. If your editors blow off your stories or downplay them, your access and credibility are also damaged because sources have no reason to tell you stuff that doesn't get used -- then, quite reasonably, they go to your competitor(s). If they use it and play it up, you now also look stupid/lazy when you've actually hit internal roadblocks. Regular folks with important stories are desperate to find reporters who are smart and willing to do the dirty work of holding the powerful to account. But they don't necessarily realize, (and why would they?) the internal battle can be worse. What we can do in response to their calls and emails and letters determines an accretive or dilutive effect in how the public decides if we are worth the tiny bit of trust and respect we may still enjoy from them. It can prove absurdly difficult to get something into print/air while also knowing what it can mean to the people whose lives it affects. Which is worse -- not having access or not having the results of your hard-won access used? The disconnect between what they need/want/hope for from us as an additional voice speaking truth to power, and what your employer chooses to use, can be instructive. No one, and Wall Street is holding newspapers' feet to the 20-30% profit margin fire, is eager to do anything to alienate advertisers. If Koppel and his ilk enjoy and revel in their putative power, they are also secure in knowing they have become financially-valuable franchises and they keep their jobs precisely by Being Tough. How to accumulate that power, or acquire it at much lower levels of pay/visibility, remains the challenge. It's an easy out to assume no one but they has this ability. To some degree, it's what got them, a la Anderson Cooper, up the ladder in the first place. ------ Author of "Blown Away: American Women and Guns" (Pocket Books, 2004.) |
| activeverb | Posted – 2/4/2006 12:23:59 PM | show profile In essence, Rather was addressing a small group of reporters for big newspapers and TV who regularly cover Washington. You're not getting much of a response here because for the vast majority of people on Mediabistro, this is a philosophical issue about what others should do, but it's not really an element of our day-to-day lives. For instance, I freelance for tons of national magazines, but I only occasionally talk to a government official, and then on a very narrow issue. I have no personal insight on whether the Washington bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News should be more aggressive in challenging congressmen in interviews -- that's the type of thing Rather was talking about. <<where Dan Rather, discussing ''Good Night and Good Luck,'' says that journalists need to have ''more backbone in questioning powerful leaders, more facts (and less speculation), more money and time from publishers, and more international coverage.'' My question is, can any journalist have an effect by doing this? Or must you have a certain amount of clout to do so, by being an anchor, or a columnist, or a high-profile reporter? Do you have to have access to the powerful leaders, or can any journalist aid in this ''backbone transplant''? How do you do it if you're not a major player?<< |
| activeverb | Posted – 2/4/2006 12:29:30 PM | show profile I don't think blogs are cutting into newspaper revenues in any significant way. Things like Craigslist, which offer free classified advertising, are much more damaging to the bottom line. <<Anyway, newspapers' revenues are being cut into by blogs. Blogs have damaged journalism and blogs also function to keep journalism in check. By exposing shit that reporters miss. Pardon my language. Just like your post title - checks and balances...>> |
| belinda | Posted – 2/4/2006 3:49:27 PM | show profile I agree that backbone starts at the most local levels of journalism, but I have to snort at the notion that blogs undercut big media. I think most thinking people recognize blogs for what they are: opinion, and repeating not reporting. Of course, every journalist from the smallest weekly on up can question the powerful leaders within his or her realm. One of the great joys of my first workplace, an 80,000-circ daily, was nailing county officials to the wall (the lead reporter went on to another paper, eventually winning a Pulitzer for nailing the DOD to the wall). This was a few years post Woodward and Bernstein, when reporters still reported. Will doing so cut off your sources? That's the risk, and when it happens, it happens for a while. Because the powerful need the media, or they lose their power -- they have no way to display their wonderfulness to the public. I'm sure there are such things as local blogs, but if there's one in my city, nobody talks about it. (I managed to annoy only a township supervisor, a school board and the upper management of General Motors during my tenure at that paper. I did it by asking questions behind, above, around and through public officials -- not by taking their stonewalling and saying, ''Oh, well. No story there.'') Backbone comes inherent in a good journalist. More resources and time are nice, but you can't buy your reporter a backbone implant. |
| clare04 | Posted – 2/5/2006 2:51:28 PM | show profile pwr play Caitlin, re disconnect betw. your editors and your sources, this is something most experience. I was once caught in a power play between two editors on equal footing. One wanted one thing and the other one wanted the opposite. I mean one wanted the local people and the other wanted the impossible to access magnate type. I had a situation where I was actually dealing with both type of story. >>>>Re: If Koppel and his ilk enjoy and revel in their putative power, they are also secure in knowing they have become financially-valuable franchises and they keep their jobs precisely by Being Tough. How to accumulate that power, or acquire it at much lower levels of pay/visibility, remains the challenge. I just wonder if actually there will be Koeppels and Roses in tomorrow's landscape. They are very senior male journ who came up during very very different times. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 2/5/2006 7:44:26 PM | show profile ''Backbone comes inherent in a good journalist. More resources and time are nice, but you can't buy your reporter a backbone implant.'' I agree, to a degree. Nor can you do this for your editor(s) and publisher, who ultimately decide what will see the light of day. Media content remains a shared responsibility and focusing forever on the front-line role of reporters, which is worth doing but not to the exclusion of others, obscures the larger truth. You can't, it's true, implant tenacity and the willingness to piss some powerful people off to get to a good, or great story. But you can also declaw the most motivated and skilled reporters by refusing to run the goods when they bring them in -- having used their backbone and all their other anatomy -- second-guessing them from the total coccoon of the newsroom and what they hear/read from Big Name Media, or their innate sense of superiority. Watch that backbone, and confidence shrink, when your bosses don't listen to or trust the reporter on the ground. I have seen intellectual osteoporosis, (i.e the loss of one's professional backbone, inch by inch), happen around me in some very experienced people whose instincts are sound and skills excellent, but who get little to no chance to exercise them -- and who, jaded and fed up, give up and do the bare minimum while no one even seems to notice the difference. Great editors give reporters the room, time and resources to get great stuff, then they actually run the stories. It may not need a lot of time or a lot of money. Maybe it means fighting for the story in the budget meeting and spending a little political capital, or bumping an ad. Great editors are also decisive and trust their gut as well as yours. I think they are rare. I admire and applaud any reporter determined to keep their spine stiffened. Only once in my 30-year career have I seen an editor -- paradoxically to those who snub ''women's mags'' -- fight like a lion to keep, uncut, a story of mine, (investigating animal testing of cosmetics and other products that filled her pages) one she knew would piss off major advertisers in her controlled-circ. national women's magazine. We kept most of it, but I can't imagine many editors even taking that stand. It happened very early in my career, a powerful lesson that money talks and generally has the loudest voice in the room. ------ Author of "Blown Away: American Women and Guns" (Pocket Books, 2004.) |
| clare04 | Posted – 2/7/2006 2:59:46 PM | show profile re. killed stories So, I wonder what the reporter can do confronted with this situation. Like say you did an investigation for a few weeks and it was suddenly rejected by this editor (who has other agenda). How did you deal with that or what - Just let it drop ? Accept the word of one editor ? (If it's all a question of how the reporter handles this and other like scenarios in building up the kind of kudos Koeppel has etc. as was suggested in Caitlin's succinct and compelling posts.) |
