I wrote the other day about how bloggers help increase divisions among people by reinforcing whatever views they already have. And I’ve certainly picked on bloggers-as-journalists many times, because so many of them who think they are, aren’t.
But now it’s time to look at the other angle: Why bloggers are smacking around newspapers (and network news), and a big reason newspapers are on the decline. (I was a reporter for years, so much of this is first hand.)
Here it is in a nutshell:
A reporter’s job should be to learn about something that has happened, process the information and the points of view, and tell readers the truth — tell them what happened.
But that’s not how it works. Instead, reporters too often simply tell readers what each side said, without actually telling them what’s true. They don’t report; they repeat.
In basic events that’s no problem. “Police closed down a section of I-81 today because of an overturned tractor-trailer.” It’s true, it’s obvious, and it’s probably useful.
But when it comes to more complex stories, newspapers panic. Afraid of making any kind of definitive statement, they resort to quoting people on the various sides of the issue. Smith says ‘X,’ Jones says ‘Y,’ and it’s not our job to tell you which is correct.
But, you see, it is their job. A good newspaper has good reporters — ones that the community trusts to get it right. Smith says ‘X,’ Jones says ‘Y,’ and when we looked at the records it was clear that Jones was correct.
But that would be, you know, making one of those definitive statements. Can’t do that. Might offend people. So everything has to be attributed to someone. That might sound good, but it isn’t. What it is good for is protecting the newspaper from someone claiming that something is wrong. “Don’t blame us. That’s what Jones said.”
Writing in his Washington Post column in 2004, David Ignatius even defended this lack-of-reporting attitude as, believe it or not, professionalism. He was writing about the media’s coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War, when reporters writers simply took Administration statements at face value.
Because there was little criticism of the war from prominent Democrats and foreign policy analysts, journalistic rules meant we shouldn’t create a debate on our own.
How could you blame the newspapers? They were just reporting repeating what was said!
That’s not journalism. That’s functionally equivalent to publishing a press release, or at best competing press releases.
A good newspaper is one where editors trust reporters to get the facts. The reporter shouldn’t have to justify to readers every sentence in a story; untrustworthy reporters should be fired so readers can rely on what they read.
That’s like doing journalism as if you’re preparing to defend yourself in court. Blame- and risk-free journalism.
Boring journalism.
And that’s why people turn to blogs. Actually, not just blogs.
True or false?
I was reading The Economist the other day when I realized something: It’s not an American magazine. It was actually telling me something. It’s articles didn’t just say “Obama claimed such-and-such” or “Banks think that so-and-so will happen.” It told me what
Does it blur the line between columns and news articles? To a modern American, perhaps.
But if you trust The Economist, you get better reporting because of that — because the writers are willing to tell you what’s correct. And, assuming you have half a brain, you also know that they could be wrong. But that’s what trust is about. The Economist has built it so that readers are willing to give the paper the benefit of the doubt — to think “This is probably right.”
Here’s a sample from a story on its site right now:
[America’s] flexible labour market has shed 4.4m jobs since the downturn began in December 2007, including more than 600,000 in each of the past three months. The unemployment rate jumped to 8.1% in February, the highest in a quarter-century. An American who loses his job today has less of a chance of finding another one than at any time since records began half a century ago. That is especially worrying when the finances of many households have come to depend on two full incomes.
Note the lack of sources quoted. Shed 4.4 million jobs according to whom? Who says an Americans have that bad a chance of finding another job?
The Economist does. If you don’t trust it, don’t read it. But its readers do trust it, and thus you don’t end up with a (fictional) American-newspaper version:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4.4 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the December 2007, including more than 600,000 in each of the past three months. Treasury Department statistics show that unemployment jumped to 8.1 percent in February, the highest in a quarter-century.
According to Joe Smith, an economics professor at Jones University, “An American who loses his job today has less of a chance of finding another one than at any time since records began half a century ago.”
But Jane Johnson of the Central Valley Chamber of Commerce disagrees. “Finding a job just isn’t that hard,” she said. “Today’s job market is only slightly worse than in the early 1980s.”
The Economist tells you which (it believes) is true. You trust it, so you trust that fact. The American newspaper, though, gives you two sides of the story, and you’re supposed to decide for yourself — never having met either of the two people quoted — which you want to believe.
Bloggers are more like The Economist. You can call it “taking sides,” but that misses an important point: Facts don’t have sides. Either it’s harder to find a new job than it has been in the last 50 years or it isn’t.
“Smith claimed the Earth is shaped much like a sphere, but Jones disagreed, saying it was in fact flat.”
One’s wrong. One’s right. Tell me which.
But reporting competing perspectives instead of facts is only one thing wrong with modern newspapers, and only one reason people are getting tired of them. In their desperate need to be perceived as “fair” (instead of as “accurate”) they end up being scooped by school-age kids who are willing to go out on a limb.
“But do we have confirmation?”
Imagine you’re an editor at a newspaper. You hear over police scanners or the TV that there’s been a shooting at a local school. One dead. A few minutes later, could be three or four. Then it’s at least a dozen.
Clearly a major story. You call your reporters and do the obvious things — send someone to the scene, have one contact police, etc.
Meanwhile the story continues to unfold, and bloggers from or near the school and elsewhere are picking it up. Lots of information is pouring in, much unconfirmed.
One of your reporters comes to you. “Let’s set up a blog about this,” he says. “Let’s report what we’re hearing if we think it sounds reliable, but be clear that it’s unconfirmed. That way we can keep people in the loop and maybe draw them away from the blogs so we get the traffic.”
If you were a good editor you’d do it, I think.
But you’re not. You’re a typical editor. You can’t publish information that hasn’t been verified by the most solid source possible. So you remain virtually silent on your site, posting only updates that have been confirmed by police.
And you wonder, later, why people don’t turn to you for the latest info. Why the best sources of news during the shooting were kids’ blogs, even if they sometimes reported incorrect information.
It’s because your job is to fill a need: the people’s need to know what’s going on. And you blew it, not in a philosophical sense but in an economic one. You didn’t fill that need for timely news; you were too scared to publish what you knew.
“But I didn’t know it,” you might say. “These were rumors.”
Wrong thinking. You did know something — you knew there were rumors. You should have reported that.
Compare the following.
Teenage blogger: (10:41) My friend Jim just came from the school. He said that police have the gunman trapped in one of the bio labs.
Your newspaper’s site: [silence]
Teenage blogger: (10:43) Holy shit! I just heard gunshots! Must’ve been a dozen!
Your newspaper’s site: [silence]
Now imagine if you had done your job.
Teenage blogger: (10:41) My friend Jim just came from the school. He said that police have the gunman trapped in one of the bio labs.
Your newspaper’s site: (10:41) It’s possible police have trapped the gunman in a room at the school, but we haven’t verified it.
Teenage blogger: (10:43) Holy shit! I just heard gunshots! Must’ve been a dozen!
Your newspaper’s site: (10:41) Unconfirmed reports of gun fire at the school.
Which do you think will have readers coming back to your site? And not just during that crisis. If your readers know you’re willing to do that second example, they’ll know to turn to you when news breaks. But you don’t. You do the first. And people learn quickly that you might be great for an overview of events the next day, but you suck at providing timely coverage.
They know to turn to blogs instead.
And you know what? You wouldn’t have been wrong to do the second. That’s not bad journalism; it’s taking advantage of the immediacy of the Net, and if handled professionally (making it clear what’s verified and what’s not) it’s great journalism.
But newspapers won’t do it.
The end result of newspaper’s fear of offending, or of being perceived as taking sides, or of possibly making a mistake — well, it’s second-rate journalism. It’s a day late and it’s unfulfilling.
Blogs are certainly inaccurate. They blow it, time and time again. But at least they’re willing to put it on the line — to make a statement, to be willing to take a risk of being wrong. Until (and unless) newspapers figure out that they can practice great journalism while still taking those risks, more and more people are going to seek alternatives.
Worse, because some of those alternatives are willing to play fast and loose with the truth, newspapers will be letting all of us down by not offering the same, but with the professionalism and quality they are so proud of.
The Fray
Randy says:
You know – I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it this way, but that’s really an accurate analysis of what’s happening. When I want to find out about something going on *RIGHT NA0!!* I hit the blogs and news sites I already know. After those, I’ll turn to major news sites (CNN, NY Times, AP, yes – even Fox).
As you said – after the fact, the major news sites tend to have the information I want. But when things are going on, I can’t find out quickly enough from CNN et al.
This is probably the best things you’ve posted on your site. Well worth reading for anyone interested in blogging *OR* getting into working for a major news organization. A+++++ Would read again. :)
The right way to cover a shooting | Andrew Kantor's Place says:
[...] few weeks ago I wrote about the failures of modern American newspapers to “do” journalism, and instead rely on repeating others’ statements. They repeat, I said; [...]
gnomic says:
Exactly on point! Newspapers have timidly, cheaply, and stupidily sealed their own well-deserved fate. They did not adapt to new channels and did not understand what thier competative strenths and weaknesses are. People don’t need more information – what they need is the right information and to know that they can trust it. For the incredibly stupid and gullible, Fox News fills this (half-mental) void. For the smart, magizines like The Economist and New Scientist and others fill thier niches. Few newspapers understand this – WaPo, NYT, the dying WSJ and perhaps the LAT are the last few that will stand. Why? they take a position and defend it. Some do it well – with well-explained facts- and others do it badly – with lies and slander. But they take a position. They have created a brand. And in the vast sea of pablum, a brand is all that makes a company stand out.
Me? I cheer every time a newspaper dies. It means that reporters are free to think and report and create what comes next.