Problems of the Press

...Whereas Bagdikian argues that the press sponsors a "pinched and sterile dialogue which has inhibited the country's ability to see itself clearly," Cirino accuses it of offering a "distorted and limited view of what's happening in the world...

...another told his editor it would not be necessary to cover meetings of the local school board because his brother, president of both the board and the town's largest industry, "would let us know if anything needs to be reported...

...The trouble, Bagdikian notes, is that many publishers do not run their newspapers very intelligently, and few of us working for them are sufficiently perceptive about the shortcomings of our personal experience and knowledge of the events we cover...

...In The Effete Conspiracy, Bagdikian, a veteran newspaperman and press critic, examines the reasons for this "gap between the responsibilities of the press and its performance" with grace, wit and understanding...

...Every journalist has his own collection of stories to substantiate Bag-dikian's complaint...

...Those inside the business know that publishers can insist on diligent and responsible news-gathering, and make a profit too...

...In reality, the rolling hills of Wyoming County present as fair and prosperous a rural prospect as can be found, but of course they are bleak in April before the field work gets underway...

...He submits a catalogue of biases, myths and unreported issues, all in shrill language of the sort he finds offensive when used by newspapermen...

...Not only is the news twisted daily and deliberately, he contends, but this is all a grand design to keep the money machine running...

...If the New York Times fails to comprehend this, the townspeople ask, what did it not understand of the confrontation between prisoners and guards...

...As Bagdikian points out, however, the matter is much more complicated than that...

...It is humbling and perhaps useful to be reminded of past sins, yet what we need today is not to know the stories we missed yesterday, but the perception to see the stories we should write tomorrow...

...And even in that part of the press that has higher professional standards, it is difficult enough to perform Bach or, for that matter, "Happy Birthday" in good pitch and rhythm...

...Miller asks, how can you trust the rest of what they say...

...Addressing the same problem, Robert Cirino, a secondary school teacher in California, proves to be the indignant pedagogue preaching ill-informed dogma in Don't Blame the People...

...If reporters can't get those simple details right, the fiery Mrs...

...The writer misread the signs completely, just as most Attica residents would misinterpret the sights and sounds of Bronx streets and reach wrong conclusions about the quality of life there...

...One drives through rolling country dotted with abandoned barns and fields strewn with dried corn husks...

...Unfortunately, our published work seldom shows this wider perspective...

...The abandoned barns bespeak change, not poverty...

...Yet when I visited Attica on the first anniversary of the prison riot, the community was still citing articles in those two publications to explain its continuing resentment of the press...

...The instrument is too crude for the work, for the audience and for the performer...

...Among other things, this makes us vulnerable to those with special interests who would use us...

...During my early newspaper days in Ohio, for example, I worked for one publisher who revealed his concept of news by sending reporters to interview managers of stores that were advertising sales in his paper...

...Bagdikian offers an instructive description of this clan, ranging from prune-juice processors to Presidents, and of the methods they employ...

...Besides urging us to greater skepticism about ourselves and our sources, Bagdikian suggests other measures to open our pages more fully to dissent and new ideas: greater disclosure of owners' financial interests, public representation in policy-making, and the ombudsman concept of resident critics that he and the Post tried but failed to develop...

...its farms are fallow...

...It is not just the lower class of the medium that does a discredit to the journalistic profession...

...Reviewed by Read Kingsbury Special Correspondent, Gannett News Service "Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's Saint Matthew Passion on a ukelele," charges Ben Bagdikian, former ombudsman for the Washington Post...

...she protests that she is 40, her hair is also not yet blond or black or pink, and her house????far from being a bungalow????stands two-and-a-half stories high...

...Although I agree with Bagdikian that overall the quality of reporting and editing has improved in the last generation, I doubt that my former employers are capable of responding to the pressures he cites: "the new urgency in local and national events, the faster reaction time of all social movement and the dramatic change in the nature of the American audience...

...Journalists ought to have a broader vision than the average person simply because we are exposed to more and consequently are often made aware of how little we know...

...Cirino has nothing very constructive to offer...

...Nor has the town forgotten a Times dispatch written in April 1971, when the prison experienced its first escape: It said Attica is "visibly poor . . . passed by the mid-20th century...

...Among the newspapers Bagdikian ranks in the top 10 per cent are the Chicago Tribune (the best "19th century" paper in the country) and the New York Times...

...Ruth Miller, the Mayor's wife, had been described by the Tribune as "middle-aged, slightly plump, not yet grey," and her house was referred to as an "inexpensive frame bungalow...

...behind the towering sugar maple trees on the streets of Attica rise television antennas, signaling the impact of modern technology...