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Posted on 09/07/2002 12:54:07 PM PDT by adam stevens
Why Do Many Readers Hate Us Again?
Jones: Press Must Respond To End Of 9/11 Romance
By Alex S. Jones
The newest polls about the press are discouraging enough to make even H.L. Mencken weep. The public, which had admired us in the months after Sept. 11, has turned against us again. Nearly half those responding in the most recent Pew Research Center poll seem to think that we "don't stand up for America," and a majority believe we "don't care about the people we report on." Generally, polling numbers have gone back to pre-9/11 levels.
This seems undeserved, given the torrent of money that has been spent by news organizations after 9/11 (despite the advertising drought). And it is in spite of the risks run by scores of reporters to cover a war in Afghanistan that was often more dangerous for journalists than for GIs.
So why have we lost the public's high regard? Does the public have our number or does the public misjudge us? And what should we do now?
The public loved us most in November, when flags rippled on the corners of TV screens and from on-camera lapels. Journalists were asking few tough questions regarding civilian bombing casualties and civil liberties, and the American military was rolling to a stunning victory in Afghanistan. Despite the tragedy of Sept. 11, we had a lot of good news to cover, and even pieces on the tragic aspects of the story seemed to forge a common sense of outrage and purpose. The more thorny elements tended to be put aside until a later day.
This spring and summer, that day came. The triumphant story ran its course, and the what-really-happened story began to be covered, with disquieting results. We started to get reports that there were significant civilian casualties, and serious questions began to be raised about the wisdom of an invasion of Iraq. Darkening the news atmosphere further were the stories of Enron Corp., Global Crossing, and the betrayal of shareholders. The market fell. The news from the Middle East had seldom been worse. These past six months have not been a happy time on the news pages.
So, has the public simply returned to its pre-9/11 attitude when the press returned to its normal adversarial role as the news itself turned bad? When the lapdog turned back into a watchdog?
No doubt that is a big part of the drop in our approval rating. But we would be letting ourselves off the hook too easily to believe that the problem lies entirely with the public's distaste for us whenever we simply do our job. There are some questions that we tend to ignore that we should, instead, take time to ponder.
Is wanting public approval pandering or is public approval something worth trying to win? What did the public see in us after 9/11 that is worth struggling to preserve? Were we simply more human and accessible, less confrontational and negative? Can we do our job well and still be human and accessible -- and not so confrontational and negative? Is being overtly American in our reporting wrong? What does it mean to be an American journalist, as opposed to being a journalist without a national perspective, such as at the BBC? Where is the line between flag waving and simply reacting as an American?
There are genuine assaults on the press now under way that make these questions especially urgent. The Bush administration is taking unprecedented steps to limit access to public records, and the Freedom of Information Act is in real jeopardy. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made many Pentagon officials afraid to be seen speaking to journalists, and lately the FBI has been conducting a scorched-earth search for the source of leaks on Capitol Hill.
Two recent best-selling books, Bias and Slander, have accused the media of everything except abducting children. Various interest groups have tried to intimidate news organizations into tailoring their reporting to satisfy a particular political perspective. Coverage of the Middle East, for instance, has made news organizations a target of both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups.
The point is that we need the public's support, now more than ever. We need for the public to understand that it is not unpatriotic to want government officials to leak information. That's how we -- and our readers -- find out about what Washington is really up to. We need the public to care about access to documents. We need them to believe we are acting on their behalf when we fight for such things. And we need the public to understand that while journalism is not often perfect, that doesn't mean that it's calculatedly slanted and biased.
With the problems that we face, we dare not simply shrug and say, "The public's attitude be damned." We need, instead, to spend some time figuring out what we can honorably do to nudge those polling results back up. The stakes for us, and for the public, have never been higher.
Source: Editor & Publisher Online
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Some of us would be overjoyed if they just stopped tailoring their "reporting" to satisfy a particular (Left-wing, anti-American) agenda.
There were so many other self-serving assumptions and distortions in this article I gave up trying to respond to them and just went with the one.
Why? You don't support the public. You think you must lead the way, not support.
We need for the public to understand that it is not unpatriotic to want government officials to leak information.
Yes it it is. That kind of "information" kills Americans and you know it. It is just that the military are not as stupid as they were in "Nam".
That's how we -- and our readers -- find out about what Washington is really up to. We need the public to care about access to documents.
So you can pass the information on to the enemy? Riight.
We need them to believe we are acting on their behalf when we fight for such things.
Of course you want us to believe that you are fighting for us. In your eyes, the fact that you are not, is pretty much irrevelant.
And we need the public to understand that while journalism is not often perfect, that doesn't mean that it's calculatedly slanted and biased.
Just because the bias is not calculated, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and you know it. It is called Point of View (POV) and everyone who goes to J. School comes out with one. Also that a reporter should just report the facts is passe' and went out sometime durng the Viet Nam war.
In the eyes of the Left, those of us on the Right have no credibility to lose. Fools like the one who wrote this silly article will never give the slightest credence to our complaints. And it's people like that who are in charge.
Beautiful post, but with this one little flaw. Actually, the public tends to be divided in thirds: Those who lean left, those who lean right, and those who don't know which way they lean and may not care very much either.
Politicians, journalists and others who think polls matter, start to worry when that uncommitted third starts to make up their minds.
And in that third, while committment may be uncommon, a survival instinct is not. Consequently, they don't like the way the media has taken an adversarial stance against the necessary terror war (and against the president who initiated it).
Losing the "swing voters" who normally don't complain has got the media worried, but not worried enough to actually change anything.
On the larger scale of this issue I competely agree with you. I can say, however, that there are some better people sprinkled throughout middle America who do a pretty decent job. Those are the people I am talking about and they are not blind to the bias in their own profession. We need to criticize mercilessly the big offenders, but we need to criticize gently, and balance it with support when they get it right, the journalists who really do try to get it right.
Example: The Kansas City Star is very far left. They have a couple of moderates who are just as cut-throat for their candidates as the lefties are (there may be one exception, I haven't decided yet because he is so drowned out by the rest of them). They pretend to put forth balanced effort. Clearly they are lying and I'm not just talking about editorials, although, they do this interesting thing with that. They put stories on the front page of the local section--not on the opinion page--that look for the world like "news" stories, yet they carry the word "commentary" underneath the title. They do that a lot. They are beyond hope with their current staff and they just don't care.
The Wichita Eagle is another matter altogether. They are excellent about responding to complaints; they are quick to correct an imbalance if they think you made a good point; and they genuinely try to be respectful to all sides. Do I think they're perfect? No. Do I agree with them most of the time? Not really, though sometimes I do. Do I think they try harder to be fair than they do to push their own ideology? Yes, I really do. And my side is usually well represented on their opinion pages even if their editorial board disagrees. It would be foolish to bash these well-meaning people. We can work with people like that.
I think it is important to distinguish between the two. Ruin the reputations of the blantantly guilty, but work with the decent people who are trying to get it right. It isn't always an easy call to make.
Well, I rambled on and I am not sure I made my point but hopefully you get what I mean. I have noticed a big difference between some journalists individually and some newspapers as a whole. We need to be sure we understand the correct expectations between news and opinion, and we need to recognize the difference between genuine effort and phony pandering. It isn't that hard when you try. Often, if you read up on a subject enough, you can even trace a journalist's sources. This is especially true of opinion writers. That way you can tell if they are actually considering both sides of the issue or if they're just getting their talking points from the DNC and calling it a day.
Yes, you can pick out specific issues where you feel the press is biased in favor of the position taken by "Liberal" or Leftwing spokesmen, and openly hostile to the vocal Conservative, who is lucky to ever get even a neutral call on any story. But the reason for this bias is what needs to be understood by us, even though there may not be a lot we can do about it, in the immediate short-run.
The fact is that the bulk of the media have accepted the premises of the Leftwing in Academia. There are very, very few, really bright media personalities left--no H.L. Menckens; very few James Jackson Kilpatricks. The vast majority have simply imbibed the environmentalist/egalitarian interpretation of all human problems as being the result of the rich exploiting the poor. They basically believe in the arguments used to justify Communist and Socialist revolutions. They have all been taught that man is more plastic--more able to be molded by his social environment--than he in fact is. They virtually all believe that collective action can solve most, if not all, social problems.
Thus they really do hate us. They believe that we are condemning many innocent victims to misery.
The problem with the media is a total lack of objectivity, caused in part by stupidity, in part by cowardice and in part by their being too mentally lazy to ever really examine the above premises, which dominate their otherwise very poor analytic skills.
The only answer to this that I know, is to embarrass those who are most forward in displaying their hatred for the truth and its defenders. That is what some Conservatives have been busy doing. That is what this writer in the lead article is reacting to.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Example: There was a near grid crash in California a few days ago, which could have blacked out half the state. The press chose not to report it, for whatever reason.
WECC Daily Report of System Status (Unreported 900 MW S. Cal Blackout)
Bernard Goldberg is still a left-leaning journalist. He just happens to be honest enough to notice and report on media bias. He's the kind of guy I'm talking about. We need to recognize and protect the BG's out there. They're the good guys.
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