Presswatch: No More Big Shots
Corry, John
P RESSWATCH by John Corry N m B• sh ots president of the editors' society, Sandra Ten suggestions on how to save journalism from itself. Mims Rowe of the (Portland) Oregonian, "that the issue...
...This would show they were not PC...
...When the press thinks it is the press, it should just go ahead and say so...
...will be paid for by the Pew Charitable excellence project, will be happy to oblige Needless to say none of the journalists who Trusts, and should not be confused with them...
...so is George magazine...
...The journalistic establishment, however, closed ranks, and said it did not...
...Larry King is media...
...3. Any journalist who vacations on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, or the better parts of the Hamptons must be instantly dismissed by his news organization...
...For one thing, it will cost JOHN CORRY is The American Spectator's ently they came to the suspicion only late- only $i million or so, and it will be dealing senior correspondent...
...The editors suspect it has ing deeply concerned and very serious...
...6. The word "anchor" must be dropped, and news reader used in its place...
...If nothing else, smoking is traditional...
...All contrary indications are dismissed...
...Conservatives said that surely this proved something...
...Journalists can stop having an identity crisis...
...By bias they mean liberal bias, although it has always pained them to say so...
...Similarly, a survey of 1,o37 journalists by the newspaper editors themselves found that in 1996 "only 15 percent of the newsroom labeled itself conservative/Republican or leaning in that direction, down from 22 percent in 1988," the last time the editors took a comparable survey...
...The only exception would be if a reporter is promoting a book, or if he is asked to go on C-Span...
...4. No print reporter should be allowed to use a tape recorder...
...Here are ten things that could be done, but almost certainly will not be done, to help clean up the mess: 1. The word "media" should be banned, or at least its use severely restricted...
...Invariably this leads to the conferences and panel discussions...
...This is why quotes in newspaper stories are boring...
...Meanwhile, Everette Dennis, a senior vice president of the Freedom Forum, wrote an article ?The Myth of the Liberal Slant" ?for the editors' magazine, the American Editor...
...Typically they say liberal bias does not exist, but even if it does it is irrelevant because it has nothing to do with how the news is covered...
...4* The American Spectator ?October 1 9 9 7 51...
...Fire Island or Jersey Shore vacations, however, would still be considered appropriate...
...You know things are a mess when editors worry about credibility, and big-shot journalists sign dopey statements...
...Obviously this is self-explanatory...
...Many absolutely rotten ideas then arise, and sooner or later someone will try to put them into practice...
...bly harmless...
...As it happened, the Freedom Forum survey was released at the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors...
...Gas-baggery about high principles seldom intruded, and things worked out quite well...
...Then they paper readers who said it was real...
...The only exception would be for high-up editors...
...News organizations, especially newspapers, must stop taking surveys and asking people what they think...
...If the newspapers editors are really concerned about credibility, they should consider this...
...When the apologists carry on about an absence of bias they are talking only about factual accuracy?not about what stories are covered, or how they are being played...
...But characteristically the New York Times did not mention it in its coverage of the meeting, and reported instead on diversity in the newsroom...
...But everything is in flux now, and no one knows any longer what journalism is, or where it is supposed to be going...
...Big-shot journalists want to be national reflection" because they are "con- The journalists will hold the forums and seen as serious—looking serious is part of cemed about the direction" of their pro- forge the principles under the auspices of their job description—and Pew, which fession...
...dozen of the big-shot kind have signed will issue a report...
...but in the spirit of collegiality they ombudsman, wrote, will attempt to "find will produce anything new or useful, but it will all pitch in to stop it...
...and they have never known what to do about it, other than to hope no one will mention it again...
...I have finally been persuaded," said the with something real: the future ofAmerican 50 October 1997 • The American Spectator newspapers...
...5. All foundations that give money to "media" projects must immediately stop doing it...
...But almost to a man they speak nonsense, and the idea that journalism is freeof political prejudice is absurd...
...The big-shot thing about David Halberstam, Carl Bern- Newspaper Editors...
...Therefore you wish the editors well, even while knowing that already they are in trouble...
...2. No print reporter should ever appear on television...
...Presswatch, however, will try to help...
...Howard Kurtz out why people don't love and trust news- will offer some fine opportunities for look-reported in the Washington Post that they papers anymore...
...Community outreach programs, for example, all began with reader surveys...
...Things have been this way for a long while now, and there are no signs that they will change...
...What's a big charitable foundation for signed the statement were responsible for the Journalism Credibility Project, which if not to inspire a set of principles and a any of that—who could even think such a will be run by the American Society of period of national reflection...
...Moreover, only 2 percent of the reporters and bureau chiefs identified themselves as conservatives, while 91 percent said they were liberals or moderates...
...Taking part in those things is part of their job...
...But for something on the right-to-life movement, say, or the most recent White House scandal, or why the Air Force might need a new fighter, you know you must look somewhere else...
...8. No reporter should be allowed to register by party...
...Reporters turn them on, and then forget they are supposed to be in charge of the interview...
...No good ever comes from this...
...N onetheless the arguments about bias will continue, and most likely they will grow...
...They fear it is becoming filled with the Project for Excellence in Journalism...
...But more important, it would show that journalists do not believe their own stuff about second-hand smoke...
...Some two at forums around the country...
...Thus a Freedom Forum survey last year found that 89 percent of Washington reporters and bureau chiefs voted for Bill Clinton for president in 1992, and only 7 percent backed George Bush...
...The credibility project, journalists and the people at Pew are very stein, or the New York Times's Bob Her- as Mark Jurkowitz, the Boston Globe well met...
...The projects never have anything to do with journalism, and are always about social issues...
...it's suffering, in large part, because of the continuing charge of bias that has gone unanswered for too long...
...plan to forge a set of journalistic principles something to do with credibility— hence The credibility project appears to be a the title of their project—although appar- more modest affair...
...Actually Ev Dennis is a nice man, and the editors, most of them, anyway, are nice, and even the big-shot journalists are not all awful...
...The press takes itself very seriously, and the more it is criticized the more serious about itself it becomes...
...Mims Rowe of the (Portland) Oregonian, "that the issue of bias is probably real...
...What persuaded her, it seems, were all the news! am journalist, hear me roar...
...The public will sort out who's press, and who's only media...
...Everyone always says the same thing—that they distrust the press, and want it to be more relevant, and so on...
...It has also forgotten that not long ago journalism was considered a more or less raffish profession...
...It reportedly is spending $4.8 million on the "opinion, infotainment and sensation...
...It has forgotten that it is supposed only to inform and entertain, and not to determine the national agenda...
...7. Newsrooms must allow cigarette smoking...
...The front page of the Times will have many stories about gay rights, lesbian rights, and threats to the environment...
...The reporters would still be allowed to vote...
...It said: There is no convincing evidence that journalists infect their stories—intentionally or otherwise—with their own political preiudices....The credibility of the media is not suffering because of a liberal bias...
...9. A journalist who takes part in a seminar, panel discussion, or conference of any kind should be subject to instant dismissal...
...This would be symbolic, of course, a way of suggesting, even if not true, that the reporter is not connected to any particular group of politicians...
...To be sure, this is only a partial list of things that could be done, and certainly there are many others ?abolishing the White House Correspondents' Dinner, for example, or restricting the number of journalistic awards, or doing anything at all, in fact, to minimize self-aggrandizement...
...It is unlikely their collaboration bert...
...Presumably the period Say now that both projects are probaa statement calling for "a period of of national reflection will follow...
...And none of this, of course, would require a period of national reflection...
Vol. 30 • October 1997 • No. 10
