Part two in a series.
Let’s begin with a brief look at how Americans view the press.
- A 2004 Gallup Poll says “Americans rate the trustworthiness of journalists at about the level of politicians and as only slightly more credible than used-car salesmen.”
- Only about one in five Americans “believe journalists have high ethical standards, ranking them below auto mechanics but tied with members of Congress.”
- Only “one in four people believe what they read in the newspapers.”
- Chicago Tribune Editor Charles M. Madigan says: “If you are a journalist, you should probably just assume that you come across as a liar.”
- A 1999 American Society of Newspaper Editors survey said that “53 percent of the public view the press as out of touch with mainstream America, while 78 percent think journalists pay more attention to the interests of their editors than their readers.”
- About 22 percent of respondents to a 2003 Pew survey said they thought “the unethical practices of [Jayson] Blair, which included fabricating sources and events, occur frequently among journalists, while 36 percent said they thought wrongdoing happened occasionally. Another 58 percent believed journalists didn’t care about inaccuracies.”
It’s possible to argue that the American public, which grows less interested and intellectually capable by the day, might not have the wherwithall to form a highly credible opinion on the quality of news coverage (which is a complex business). But in this case expert and popular opinion aren’t far apart (and here I’ll simply point you to just about anything my colleague Dr. Denny has written on the subject either here at S&R or over at Lost Lake Library Society).
So if we can all accept that, at the very least, journalism (of the institutional “objective” variety) is in serious trouble, we can move directly to a consideration of the reasons. Certainly there’s no one cause, but let’s start with the hellish toll that’s been taken by the massive consolidation of the news/media industry.
It’s true that the news has always been a business (even the evolution of “objectivity” in the late 19th Century was driven more by business than it was ethical concerns), but the accelerating trend toward consolidated corporate ownership has eroded the public interest ideologies that shaped institutional journalism over the past century. As Ben Bagdikian notes in The New Media Monopoly, a vast majority of all media are today owned by five corporations, and their bottom-line concern is, well, the bottom line. An earlier edition of the book sums it up this way:
…the chairman of the board of the largest newspaper chain, Gannet Company, told an interviewer, “Wall Street didn’t give a damn if we put out a good paper in Niagara Falls. They just wanted to know if our profits would be in the 15-20 percent range.”
Despite the financial incentives that have always existed in the industry, though, there was a commitment to serving the public. Perhaps this was a function of principled professionals, and perhaps it was a function of the times – my guess is that if you put out a paper like we have today back in the ’50s you’d have been run out of town.
It’s not that good reporting can’t happen in this system, it’s just that if it does, it’s not by design. Covering important stories is potentially a means, but it is never the end. If great journalism produces 20% margins, then by all means have at it. Of course, great reporting is expensive – talented people working for a week or a month (or longer) on one story cost money, and if you can scrape the same ad dollars out of the operation by firing the folks with the highest salaries and instead filling the news hole with an even greater volume of syndicated content, then why pay more? (By all means, have a look at this to get a better idea of how the death-spiral works in a dying newsroom.)
The glorious irony in all this (and something that seems intuitively obvious to anybody who’s taken Econ 101, I suspect) is that investing in the newsroom is the best way to assure profitability. According to a recent University of Missouri study:
The team of researchers focused on three areas of operation – news quality; distribution and circulation; and advertising – by analyzing financial data of small- to medium-sized newspapers with circulations of 85,000 or less. Research revealed that news quality most directly affects the bottom line.
“The most important finding is that newspapers are under-spending in the newsroom and over-spending in circulation and advertising,” Thorson said. “If you invest more in the newsroom, do you make more money? The answer is yes. If you lower the amount of money spent in the newsroom, then pretty soon the news product becomes so bad that you begin to lose money.”
Regardless of publisher perception or economic reality, though, it’s painfully clear that coverage has deteriorated and that cost-cutting and revenue-rage has been at the core of the problem. A concern for the public interest may continue to exist in the newsroom as an inherent artifact of the essential character common of those drawn to the profession (hard reporting is like teaching – nobody is in it for the money), but it will never again be a primary motivator for the dominant organizations of the industry (if, in fact, it ever was).
The result is a news landscape driven by the logic of profit, not by the logic of public and community interest. Established networks, newspapers and magazines are therefore failing in their mission to provide reliable coverage of the events that shape the lives of their constituents.
This explains what’s happening with the news industry, but what does it have to do with “objectivity”? A couple things, actually. First, historically “journalist” has been a profession with canonized ethics and codes of conduct. It has been the physical embodiment of what reporting was, and objectivity was, in some measure, equivalent to the canons in other professions – like the Hippocratic Oath for doctors or the Lawyer’s Oath for attorneys. If the reporter came through a journalism school these principles were ingrained in his or her education from the first day of class; reporters who arrived in the newsroom via other paths got a quick and heavy dose of on-the-job training.
There’s nowhere else I’m aware of where these principles are being taught, so as the traditional institutions fade, so also do the professional codes that defined the activities of those who worked there.
Second, those codes seems to matter less and less even in the legacy organizations. Review the SPJ ethics code, then see how well you think the people at FOX, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and even places like USA Today are adhering to them. Those reporters may not be the models of professional behavior we wish they were, but they’re smart enough to know that while they’re not going to get fired for trampling an ethics code, they’re out the door the instant ratings and readership slip.
At this point, it’s hard to see how our official news industry is going to recover the principles and practices that produced so much landmark reporting in the past. That is, if we’re going to see a new golden age of reporting, it’s unlikely to be constructed on the foundations of past successes. If this is in fact the case, it’s time we started looking toward the dynamics that are most likely to inform productive journalism in the future, and the sooner the better.
Up next: the rise of “subjective” journalism
Previously
Filed under: blogging, citizen journalism, education, journalism, reporting | Tagged: crowdsourcing, curriculum, Literary Journalism, New Journalism, Objectivity, Pro-Am Journalism, universities
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The end of “objectivity”: S&R special report on journalism education
In part two of a series, the author looks at how corporate consolidation in the news industry has eroded the professional ethics and standards of objectivity that produced our greatest journalism in the past and argues that those days are gone for good.
First, disclosure: I worked as a reporter, editor and editorial-page editor for 20 years and now teach journalism. That said:
The argument seems based on these precepts:
1. For generations, all newsmen and women rigorously believed in something called objectivity.
2. That all top editors and publishers hew solely to bottom-line decision making.
3. That polls place journalism practitioners in cellar of public opinion.
4. That ethics have eroded in the newsroom, and a return to previous ethical standards is no longer possible.
5. The public is increasingly incapable of critical thought, and there’s a correlation with the quality of journalism in mainstream media (newspapers and broadcast and cable nets).
On 1: Not true. Scratch a journalist, and you’ll find an opinion. Anyone who’s spent a few years in a newsroom understands fully that a news story is the product of numerous subjective decisions. In my experience, the notion of “objectivity” was invariably spin trotted out when the chamber of commerce complained. Does this mean that journalists labored to place their opinions in their stories?
No. But the whole notion of “having a nose for news” has everything to do with a journalist’s own lived experience and sensitivities to the world about him or her. What is actually a sense of “fairness” and “balance” has been mislabeled as “objectivity.” (And those words have their own issues attached, but let’s save that for another time.)
No. 2: The nation has approximately 1,400 daily newspapers with a mean circulation of about 37,000 and a median circulation of about 12,000 and about 6,600 weeklies with a mean circulation of 7,300. About 20 percent of the dailies are attached to chains (ownership groups of two or more papers). Yes, the 12 top chains control 40 percent of all newspaper circulation. And yes, Gannett, the bottomest of bottom-line chains, owns 90 dailies and more than 500 non-daily publications.
It’s too simplistic, and, frankly, too arrogant, for critics like me to paint the economic part of the news business with too broad a brush. Yes, the larger the organization, the more the focus on profit, and the less on the audience served. Generally, the smaller the paper (or more distant from the corporate office), the more likely news values may still hold sufficient sway to trump costs in decisions about news coverage. Even in large organizations, top publishers and editors have risked their jobs by refusing to make further job cuts in their newsrooms. Remember the experience of the publisher and editor of the LA Times?
No. 3: Of course readers rate journalists low. That will surprise no one who’s worked in the news biz over the past 30 years. That’s not necessarily an indictment charging incompetence. Sometimes, it’s the public not wanting to believe what the journalists find out. Admittedly, the profession could use some lessons in Emily Post etiquette. The early days of “60 Minutes” and its ambush interviews did not portray the profession in a positive light. And these days, the public’s memory of the press’s performance during Vietnam and Watergate has been diluted by its poor performance in recent coverage of both national and international events. (When does covering the umpteenth presidential debate become redundant and boring and an example of non-critical coverage of those who would be president?)
If these polls asked respondents what they think of journalists as a whole — and also of the reporters at their local paper — it’s likely they’ll mirror those polls about Congress: They love their own member of Congress, but think members en masse are a loutist pack of sex-starved, money-grubbing, influence-peddling liars.
No. 4: I’d rather argue that economics has, at many, if not most, newspapers, trumped longtime standards of performance. For example, I’d say that the number of sources used by a reporter in stories is lower than it was 10 years ago. It’s easy to understand: Fewer reporters working on more stories in the newsroom. Consequence: Fewer sources, fewer double-checks on facts. Consequence: More errors. Is the outcome an issue of ethics? I suppose it’s arguable.
It’s just too simplistic to paint the entire profession as witnessing a significant lapse of ethical standards. Does it seem that way? Yes, because the Jason Blairs and Stephen Glasses are getting caught, and online media have far more opportunities to vet and check on journalists. (That’s a good thing.)
No. 5: Correlation, of course, is not causation. But I believe there’s a link between the public’s critical thinking and the press’s performance as teachers. Remember, please, that the Founders gave the press low postal rates in the early days of the Republic because it was expected to act as the nation’s earliest teachers. Lately, the teacher’s been getting failing grades.
It’s pretty easy today to examine a random sample of newspapers stories and find overly simplistic explanations or analyses of issues and events. Whether the press wants to dumb it down or whether the public wants it dumbed down is not the issue for me. That both are contributing to a nation of citizens less prone to critically analyze their political and consumer choices should be of concern to us all. That issue far outweights whether journalists ought to be “objective” or “subjective.”
I appreciate the thought in the post. I just cannot engage in such thinking because my professional experience demonstrated to me that virtually all I did as a journalist was based in subjectivity. (I did try to be fair. Honest.)
Perhaps it isn’t a change in approach to journalism that’s needed. More likely, the press just ought to admit the truth — it is governed by far more subjectivity than it lets on.
Thanks, Dr. Smith.
[...] a preface, this article on journalism education today is a [...]
Denny:
Let me begin by noting that your comments paint my argument as a lot more extreme and essentialized than it really is. In an analysis of this general length on a subject of this general magnitude, a certain measure of generalization is necessary. So I’m not describing absolute universalities – rather I’m looking at big picture trends. Perhaps my language in spots makes it look like I’m reaching, but that’s not the case.
And while your comments do a great job of noting where the exceptions are, it seems like my description of the rules is in good shape. How could it not be, when I quote such solid sources as yourself?
Some specific comments:
1. For generations, all newsmen and women rigorously believed in something called objectivity.
No, for generations the profession was guided by generally understood and agreed-upon canons, and the term “objectivity” came to describe, in a shorthand fashion, the sum of these principles.
2. That all top editors and publishers hew solely to bottom-line decision making.
All?
On 1: Not true. Scratch a journalist, and you’ll find an opinion. Anyone who’s spent a few years in a newsroom understands fully that a news story is the product of numerous subjective decisions. In my experience, the notion of “objectivity” was invariably spin trotted out when the chamber of commerce complained. Does this mean that journalists labored to place their opinions in their stories?
No, it means that the aforementioned canons defined the role their opinions were to play and not play in the practice of their profession.
It’s too simplistic, and, frankly, too arrogant, for critics like me to paint the economic part of the news business with too broad a brush.
True, but over the past few years you’ve been as clear-headed and relentless in describing and analyzing this very part of the business as anybody I have encountered.
Even in large organizations, top publishers and editors have risked their jobs by refusing to make further job cuts in their newsrooms. Remember the experience of the publisher and editor of the LA Times?
True, but the fact that we point to this case in the way that we do makes clear that we’re describing the exception, not the rule.
No. 4: I’d rather argue that economics has, at many, if not most, newspapers, trumped longtime standards of performance. For example, I’d say that the number of sources used by a reporter in stories is lower than it was 10 years ago. It’s easy to understand: Fewer reporters working on more stories in the newsroom. Consequence: Fewer sources, fewer double-checks on facts. Consequence: More errors. Is the outcome an issue of ethics? I suppose it’s arguable.
Here we’re in an uneasy area, because when we talk about erosion of ethics that sounds inevitably like an attack on character. It’s more accurate, I think, to note that economic pressures have compromised the ability of journalism professionals to act in accordance with the established canons of the industry. I’m certainly not indicting the moral character of your average reporter, who I believe is under an insane amount of pressure to do the impossible.
It’s pretty easy today to examine a random sample of newspapers stories and find overly simplistic explanations or analyses of issues and events. Whether the press wants to dumb it down or whether the public wants it dumbed down is not the issue for me. That both are contributing to a nation of citizens less prone to critically analyze their political and consumer choices should be of concern to us all. That issue far outweights whether journalists ought to be “objective” or “subjective.”
Hey, you know me – it all comes back to education, and whatever criticisms I might have for the news industry, I freely acknowledge that if as a society we were smarter, more curious, and more rigorous in our examination of the world around us, the problems I’m talking about would not exist, period.
Just a few points on this. I’m uncomfortable calling the canons “objectivity.” Objectivity has a very specific meaning, is a limited part of the larger canon, and by calling the whole thing objectivity you both ignore other key elements and the degree to which objectivity is the thing that a number of journalists cling to–in stilted fashion–as the one thing they’ve got left.
I think Denny’s point about the way that cost issues spread journalists too thin, with a resulting affect on quality. I’m more comfortable with that explanation than one too closely tied to consolidation (After all, McClatchy has been buying up other companies, too, but has managed to refocus on quality–as the U MO study suggests, that’s actually the best way to maintain longterm profitability.
In any case, I’m in the middle of a big paper on these issues, so I do find this provocative–thanks.
I try to use the term “objectivity” in context, but I don’t think I reduce the discussion around a misunderstanding of the term or “ignore other key elements.” I rather specifically link, in both parts one and two, to the SPJ Code of Ethics, which is as comprehensive a statement as there is of these professional canons, and I do so to avoid, as best I can, being open to this very charge.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. Perhaps my problem is that there is a completely separate discussion about whether journalism should retain the false objectivity of he-said she-said journalism, which a number of otherwise really lousy journalists engage in. Seeking truth with professionalism is very different from ensuring there is no perceivable bias in an article.
“At this point, it’s hard to see how our official news industry is going to recover the principles and practices that produced so much landmark reporting in the past. That is, if we’re going to see a new golden age of reporting, it’s unlikely to be constructed on the foundations of past successes.”
I think this gets to be a job of sifting through the crap and picking out the gems, like Sy Hersh, McClatchy, and the other lesser sung heroes out there (they’re the ones who let the story speak for itself and they don’t have to be in front of the camera or microphone).
Once media’s been compromised, throw it away because it can’t be trusted for any more as an advertising are of corps or a propaganda are of the government (btw, Judy’s got a new job at a thoughtless tank). Corporations aren’t about ethics anyway today, so that’s why the state of the media is the way it is.
When I see the likes of Brian Williams, dopey fuckwits with a sixth-grade understanding comes to mind. They were never about journalism in the first place, only cue cards. It’s hard to get people like them interested when their livelihood depends on it. The old movie Network was right.
Is it any wonder why knowledgeable people get their news from a lot of different sources, like the UK and in some cases Al Jezeera.
Oh and btw, critical thinking is a lost art in the US. That’s why people like Bush can get elected.
The new Vanity Fair features a glaring example of journalistic malfeasance: “Going After Gore.”
The descriptive blurb: “Al Gore couldn’t believe his eyes: as the 2000 election heated up, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other top news outlets kept going after him, with misquotes (“I invented the Internet”), distortions (that he lied about being the inspiration for Love Story), and strangely off-the-mark needling, while pundits such as Maureen Dowd appeared to be charmed by his rival, George W. Bush.”
Sam:
Alas, you do not make available your email here, so I have had to put up a link to my semi-rejoinder to your series:
http://kikoshouse.blogspot.com/2007/09/journalisms-future-onward-through-fog.html
Best, Shaun
[...] The end of “objectivity” [...]
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