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Try starting at the top of the dungheap. |
Posted on 02/08/2003 3:49:11 PM PST by GeneD
LAWRENCE - Journalists are covering many stories well but must do more to keep their readers' trust, the chairman of the New York Times Co. said Friday.
Some of the media's credibility problems are of their own making, said Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., who also is publisher of The New York Times. But audiences have been complaining about newspapers for 399 of the 400 years that they have been around, he said. And the complicated and technologically sophisticated world today creates special challenges for journalists.
"Since there is now an even more urgent search for authoritative voices that can make some sense of what is driving the daily headlines, one would intuitively think that respect for the Fourth Estate would grow commensurately," Sulzberger told students and faculty at the University of Kansas. "Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case."
The good news, he said, is "there are dedicated men and women throughout my industry who recognize that the media can and must do better. We have taken a hard look at our polls and know that we have to address a serious credibility problem. We know that when journalists are rated slightly less trustworthy than politicians and used-car salesmen, it is time for real change."
Sulzberger was at KU to receive the William Allen White Foundation's 2003 national citation. The award is named in honor of White, an influential Kansas editor and publisher. Sulzberger's father, Arthur O. Sulzberger, received the same award in 1974.
Sulzberger said the media had hurt themselves with their mistakes. One was identifying Richard Jewell as the person who set off a bomb at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Another was saying Vice President Al Gore had won and then lost the state of Florida the night of the 2000 presidential election.
Accuracy always matters, he said.
Fairness also matters. Today, he said, because of the proliferation of news, journalists are expected to provide context on the first day of a breaking story. That dynamic can lead critics to claim that news articles have a conservative or liberal view, he said.
Also complicating the job of journalists, he said, are all the voices audiences hear. Some people go so far as to lump news with reality television shows such as "Joe Millionaire" and "Fear Factor."
Despite the challenges, he said, the media are doing good work.
Particularly exemplary was the coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said. The media made the "the unimaginable understandable," he said.
The media also should get high marks for leading a rigorous debate about the possibility of war with Iraq, he said.
"Journalists always have been portrayed as cynical," Sulzberger said. "In truth we are skeptical.
"We care deeply about the world and its many problems. Most of us, whether from newspaper families or not, went into this line of work because we believed we could actually make a difference. Have we lived up to our youthful aspirations?
"Not always, but enough so that we can still hope that if our news reports are sufficiently insightful and compelling we might actually make a small contribution to the general welfare of humanity."
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To reach Diane Carroll, call (816) 234-7704 or send e-mail to dcarroll@kcstar.com.
"Not always, but enough so that we can still hope that if our news reports are sufficiently insightful and compelling we might actually make a small contribution to the general welfare of humanity."
That speaks for itself. The guy doesn't have a clue. (Hint: Try replacing "insightful and compelling" with "honest and ideologically balanced."
Cynicism is superficial negativity.To the extent that journalism is the art of telling us things before the competition tells us first, journalism is superficial. Indeed, it is inelutably so, compared to even the most topical sort of book--which will be written over a period of months, and will have more thorough fact-checking.
To the (substantial) extent that journalism is most commercially successful when reporting bad news, journalism is negative. The worst (best commercially for journalism) news casts doubt on the reliability of things/people upon whom we need to be able to depend--the people who make the country work. So free, competivitive journalism is inherently anticonservative.
Inherently cynical.
The truth is, of course, that nobody can be cynical about everything--and journalists are true believers when it comes to socialism. About that, their "skepticism" deserts them utterly.
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Try starting at the top of the dungheap. |
Old media remains wedded to old europe and are irrelevant.
It doesn't seem to be the case, only because of your fatuous distinction between "objective journalism" and "right wing talk radio." People who want authoritative voices listen critically. "Objective journalists" play down to an audience which, in the journalists' conceit, consists of uncritical listeners/readers.There is scant difference between a journalist patronizing an audience, and Al Gore s-p-e-a-k-i-n-g s-l-o-w-l-y whenever he uses a three-sylable word.
OTOH a conservative commentator respects his audience, and does not claim preternatural powers of "objectivity."
Does news about the Spanish Civil War still make the center of the front page at the lower edge?
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