The difference between blogging journalists and other journalists

We usually know who bloggers vote for.  Lots of times they don’t get press credentials.  They’re often only journalists for a moment. But sometimes, they’re able to pick up on a story other journalists can’t.  Check out Mayhill Fowler’s April 14 story ,appearing in The Huffington Post’s campain blog,  about comments Obama made concerning small-town voters who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

This not only sparked the recent ‘bittergate’ storm in the blogosphere and other media outlets, but also raised questions about blogging ethics.  The fundraising event was closed to the media.  Clearly, Fowler was acting as a journalist.  Should she have been there? 

She was invited as an Obama supporter, but we can’t expect Fowler to remain in that capicity.    In a world where anyone can be a journalist, closing an event off to the press is a futile measure applying only to establishment journalism.  Fowler didn’t do anything wrong.  She attended an event, heard something interesting and reported it.

Politicians need to get used to the fact that anytime they speak to a group of people absent the obvious reporter, their comments are likely to end up somewhere in the blogosphere.

Gotta love the original

1964 Esquire Cover

2008 Esquire Cover

What were they thinking?

Case Study: Newsroom Diversity Report

My hometown paper is the South Florida Sun-Sentinel of Ft. Lauderdale. Overall, I think the paper’s done a good job trying to reach parity with the circulation area. Its diversity index is 79 (parity=100). That’s a lot better than most newspapers of its size. As the area becomes more diverse, so does the newsroom, with the percentage of nonwhites growing each year.

Story Idea: Restaurant Urban Legends

My story idea for this week would be an investigation of urban legends at local fast food restaurants. My boyfriend’s friend swears Arby’s used liquid beef when he worked there. The employees would just squirt the liquid onto a flat top, and the heat would solidify the substance into a roast beef slice. I can’t help but be highly skeptical of this liquid beef theory, but I know this isn’t the first time I’ve heard it. I’d like to get behind the legend and see how the beef is made. Maybe it is liquid. Maybe it’s not. Either way, I think readers would be interested.

 

I’m sure there are other fast food restaurants with similar stories. I’ve heard that Taco Bell meat is labeled as “Grade F but edible.” I’ve also heard that Wendy’s uses edible plastic fillers in their meat to save money.

 

The story would be difficult to report. There are a lot of reasons managers don’t want reporters behind the scenes at restaurants, regardless of whether beef is liquid or not. I think a visit is required, however, if the story is to be published. The only way something can be verified, in this case, is with a reporter’s own two eyes. The reporter should also be careful and steer clear of libelous claims. Rumors must be described as rumor and fact described as fact.

 

Online, there could be pictures of restaurants accompanied by a detailed description of their myths, debunked or not.

Anonymous Sources

Watergate made the use of anonymous sources a romantic part of investigative journalism. I am convinced that there are certain stories that can’t be told without the use of “deep background.” To forgo the benefits of getting an important story out there simply because of the risks involved in anonymity would be a disservice to the public. The readings this week discuss some of the problems with Watergate’s journalistic legacy.

 

In “Readers: Anonymous Sources Affect Media Credibility,” Ryan Pitts details a media survey in which one-quarter of editors said they banned the use of anonymous sources entirely. One in five readers agree that sources should not be used unless they are named. While the majority of readers still see the critical role that anonymous sources play, 44 percent said anonymity makes a story less believable.

 

I agree with Pitts in that the reason for this distrust of anonymous sources has a lot to do with the fact that the sources themselves have become the news. Reporters got hungry, stopped corroborating, and sources started to lie.

 

But banning anonymous sources altogether isn’t the solution, as evident in Ben Bradlee’s failed experiment detailed in “When the Post Banned Anonymous Sources.” Bradlee’s ban lasted two days. Other papers printed important stories and the Post could not compete. What would have happened if the ban continued? The Watergate story would have been a far less important story in the eyes of the American public.

 

Whistleblowers and those in high government positions who leak information to the press could risk losing their jobs without anonymity. The difference between then and now is the race for the scoop. Reporters don’t think they have the time to verify. I think the lessons of recent anonymous source debacles are clear. If one unnamed source said a Guantanamo guard threw a Quran in the toilet, make sure someone else said it too.

 

Washington Post national security reporter Walter Pincus writes of the importance in protecting an anonymous source one they’ve been granted anonymity. Protecting confidential sources is what enables him to write a large portion of his intelligence and national security stories.

 

He gives some excellent guidelines on when to publish information provided by an anonymous source. In addition to verifying and closely examining information given by an anonymous source, the material itself should be highly newsworthy. Just because something is a secret doesn’t mean it needs to be published.

Case Study: ACES discussion list — the “f-word”

I read the thread titled, “Would you allow the f-word in this case?”

The discussion centered around when, if ever, the use of expletives should be allowed in a story. The example starting the discussion was published with a bracketed word replacing the “f-word”:

“The doctor told me I’d never run,” she said. “So I said, ‘(Forget) you, I’ll run a marathon.’”

The woman quoted has obviously overcome great obstacles through a sense of determination that she chose to express using the word “fuck.” I do believe the quote loses something when it is replaced with “forget.”

Several of the comments suggested that rather than change a direct quote with a bracketed word, the whole quote should be paraphrased. This could be one solution, but paraphrasing would diminish the impact of the quote just as much as changing “fuck” to “forget.”

She never said “forget,” but she also said something a little more inspiring than, “She was determined to run a marathon.” When printing “fuck” is out of the question, I would stick to the brackets.

Other comments focused around several newspapers’ willingness to print Vice President Cheney’s famous cussing incident.

The Washington Post printed: ‘”Fuck yourself,” said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.’

I think it would be hard to argue that the vice president’s exact words weren’t newsworthy. This was on the senate floor, directed at a senator. Cheney is an integral part of an administration often centered around faith and piety.

I think avoiding the f-word in the Cheney story would have been foolish. The word was too important. “Fuck” was the story. I highly doubt that the headline to the marathon runner story would have read: “Woman directs obscenity at doctor.”

It’s a judgment call that should center around relevance and newsworthiness. I don’t think a blanket policy works when you’re dealing with people’s words.

Case Study: All the President’s Men

I don’t think there could have been any other way to cover the Watergate story. Bernstein and Woodward did what was called for at the time. Many of you are trying to compare the ethics involved back then to the journalism standards of today. This is hard to do, since things are so different today.

First, the White House learned its lesson. Presidents and their men will always be doing some shady, secretive things. However, I’m pretty sure that with time, and with the lessons of Watergate, they just got better at it. I think to really uncover anything nowadays, a reporter would have to go far beyond the tactics of Woodstein.

Second, Bernstein and Woodward were reporting in a time well before Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass. There was no reason to automatically distrust an anonymous source, especially when someone’s career and life are at stake.

Third, I think reporters today are caught between the demand for the truth and the demand for journalism standards that ultimately end up safeguarding the truth in the name of credibility. We’re getting less and less information.

I firmly believe that a little lie to a source is fine if that lie ensures that a reporter is getting accurate information otherwise unobtainable. Well it was fine in the ’70s at least.

Story Idea: Where have all the helmets gone?

A friend of mine was recently involved in a car accident with a girl riding a scooter. The accident was minor, and not newsworthy. However the scooter rider did suffer a head injury that resulted in a concussion. This got me thinking, why doesn’t the city of Gainesville require scooter riders to wear helmets?

 

I know that insurance companies have been pushing for stricter helmet laws to reduce medical costs that auto-insurance companies would have to cover in the event of an accident. I also know that there are two sides to the helmet law debate. For instance, while a helmet may reduce the risk of injury in the event of an accident, reduced visibility as a result of wearing the helmet may actually cause an accident. I’d like to explore this.

 

Considering the prevalence of scooters among college students in Gainesville, this story would be relevant to many people, including car and truck drivers. State helmet laws regarding scooters and moped riders under the age of 21 have changed quite a bit over the past couple of years, with individual city ordinances often overriding them. As a result, I have a feeling that police within the city haven’t been very uniform in their enforcement. For instance, the legal definition of a scooter is vague but requires a top speed of 30 mph. Several scooters can reach 40 mph, and thus would no longer fall under any exemption to a motorcycle helmet law.

 

I’d like to talk to Allstate Insurance Co. agent John Morrison to hear what he has to say about the confusion. I would also like to hear from the University Police Department as well as the Gainesville Police Department to get an idea of how many scooter accidents result in head injury and whether law enforcement views this as a growing problem. I’d also like to talk to code enforcement for the city.

I would also like to hear from students who choose to wear helmets because they want to, as well as those who do not. I’d also like to talk to car and truck drivers, both concerned and unconcerned.

 

I see this story being approximately 20 inches. Online, a timeline of scooter, moped and motorcycle helmet laws would be helpful. Links to relevant statutes and Gainesville ordinances would be located on this timeline. It would also be nice to have a chart showing the differences between scooters, mopeds, motorized bicycles and motorcycles complete with pictures.

Getting at the Truth

The three readings I chose for this week deal with getting at the truth, even if that means abandoning journalistic notions of objectivity. This is something Jon Stewart does very well. His show does not pretend to be objective, or even credible, yet as Rachel Smolkin writes, many students rely on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” as a reliable news source. In “What the Mainstream Media Can Learn from Jon Stuart,” Smolkin details the ways in which the show abandons several standards often required of journalism.

A parody show does not have to report both sides of a story and give the wrong side the same weight as the right side. More importantly, a show like Stuart’s can identify who is right and who is wrong in a way that journalist’s concerned with accuracy and objectivity cannot. Sometimes politicians say and do things that are simply wrong. I think poking fun at such politicians is in a way holding them accountable.

The fact that Smolkin is writing for the American Journalism Review seems to answer the question of whether “The Daily Show” is journalism. Jon Stewart is revered by the media he blasts. More news programs are trying to emulate his style with a looser, more sarcastic tone. Jon Stuart is a good person for the media to look up to, but he is no Edward R. Murrow. The mainstream media will never be able to completely abandon objectivity in search of the truth. However, reporters can learn to cut through spin, to take a stand and to not simply regurgitate officialdom while still holding true to basic journalistic values.

The second reading, “How the press can prevent another Iraq,” advises journalists to be more skeptical the next time there is a “march to war.” Dan Froomkin writes that the press should be skeptical of authority. Just because an official says something, doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because something is secret, doesn’t mean the public isn’t better off knowing about it.

I think the months leading to the Iraq War provide a prime example of why the press should always try to cut through officialdom. Not many reporters asked the right questions, and if so, the answers weren’t printed. This is a time when media objectivity was needed. Only one side of the call-to-war debate was extensively covered—that of the Bush administration.

Brent Cunningham, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review in “Re-thinking Objectivity,” blames a devotion to the wrong kind of objectivity as the main reason for holes in coverage. According to Cunningham, objectivity should make journalists aggressive analyzers of the news. Instead, the principle has lately had the opposite effect. Journalists are “passive recipients” of the news.

No one questioned the Iraq-al Qaeda connection or the Iraq-9/11 connection because journalists “received” this information from the White House. Journalists have been dealing with White House spin for decades. It’s nothing new. Perhaps journalists really have gotten lazy and are using objectivity as an excuse. So far, it’s the best explanation for the media’s failure to deal with wartime propaganda effectively.