April 29, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:Volokh posts an interesting missive from a reader on the Hartford Courant story. She writes in their defense pretty much what I thought when I heard the story:
Speaking from inside what Glenn calls "Big Journalism" I'd like to come to the defense of the Hartford Courant and its decision not to let reporters have blogs. What are they vulnerable to? Loss of credibility.You know that a substantial part of the public believes that their daily newspapers deliberately slant news stories to conform to the ideological predispositions of their reporters/editors/publishers/corporate owners. I don't believe that is true on any large scale in the news departments of mainstream dailies, at least as to the "deliberately" part. Reporters and editors are trained to strive for fairness and balance in coverage, and when they fall short, as does happen, it's because they spend way too much time in the company of like-minded people.
Nonetheless, readers' discovering by way of a blog what their reporter's opinions actually are will confirm their worst fears, and it is not unreasonable of the paper to worry about that. Two blogs, of differing viewpoints, would be even worse than one blog, because every reader would find something to object to.
Note that I am speaking specifically of news reporters at papers that aim for balance. I doubt the editors of the Nation or the Weekly Standard would mind if their staffers had blogs; there, it would be an asset. Readers don't mind if sportswriters are fans of the teams they write about. I'm an opinion writer, and I could probably get permission to run a blog, if I wanted to work that hard, because I wouldn't say anything I wouldn't say in my column.
But news reporters? What do people think when they find out that Linda Greenhouse, who covers the Supreme Court for the NYTimes, attends rallies in support of Roe v. Wade? (She did, once.)
Now in one respect the public's concern is misplaced. The problem, to the extent there is one, is that reporters let their biases seep into what they write, and that problem is not made any worse if readers know what the biases are.
Lots of law-school professors blog. Do judges? Should they? When they give speeches, every word gets picked apart by law-school professors.
But while it's understandable, is it laudable? Shouldn't we know when a reporter's an ardent Roe supporter, so that we can get a little suspicious when the arguments from the anti-side get short shrift? Posted by Jane Galt at April 29, 2003 05:04 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
I'm all in favor of knowing all I can about a reporter's bias. And just because they might not blog doesn't mean a reporter's bias is unknown. For example, when Eleanor Clift appears on the McLaughlin Group, I know not only what she'll say before she says it, but how many times she'll interrupt someone else to say it.
As far as I'm concerned, more information is always good. The outlets that have figured this out (whether it's news media, sports, etc) will win the consumer's loyalty. As they say in NASCAR, "Stuff is King." It's what keeps people interested in a bunch of cars turning left for four hours. Same principle applies to capturing mindshare from news readers.
Posted by: Matt Johnson on April 29, 2003 05:41 PMThe worst reporting is not the news outlets that are frankly slanted, e.g. Rush Limbaugh - anyone who thinks they get news rather than opinion from such sources are after nothing more than a confirmation of their own opinions - but the ones that work so hard at pretending to be unbiased that they fool themselves, even if no one else is fooled. (They must be greatly aided in this self-deception by never actually listening to anyone to the right of George McGovern.) Everyone has biases, so the best reporting you will see in the real world is from those that are aware of and open about their personal bias but work to show the other side too.
Posted by: markm on April 29, 2003 09:43 PMWhat's wrong with American journalism, summed up in a few words:
>>Reporters and editors are trained
The greatest nation on Earth is never going to get the press it deserves for as long as it believes that the best way to train a journalist is in a university. This is the best way to get journalists who have learned for three years to give the *appearance* of neutrality in order to pass college assignments. Ditto the *appearance* of ethics (the American journalistic "ethics" which allowed them to stitch up Garry Webb while never questioning an official source is a living scandal. Give me the gut instinct and human decency of the Sun or Mirror any day).
The other problem with American journalism is the proliferation of newspapers like the "Hartford Courant", which by rights ought to be a local freesheet carrying details of fantastic reductions at the local supermarket. Why is it that the most popular newspaper in America (USA Today) would be a poor fourth place in the UK? This is incredibly deleterious to journalism, as it means that no individual newspaper is big enough or profitable enough to offend anybody with impunity. The Telegraph published the Galloway papers not because they thought they couldn't be sued, but because they were profitable enough not to need to worry about losing the odd £250K unit. You people need a good dose of media concentration.
Posted by: dsquared on April 30, 2003 02:45 AMThat would work if America was the same geographic size as a postage stamp, but we actually have local issues people care about here.
Posted by: Jane Galt on April 30, 2003 07:49 AMCan't be right. On the basis of geographic size and population, New York state (population c20m) ought to be able to come up with at least one or two newspapers with circulation over 2 million. And it can't.
Looking at a map, the UK would fit roughly onto an area of the Eastern seaboard covering New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. That's about 55 million souls, more or less the population of the UK, give or take. In which are precisely no newspapers with a circulation above 2m.
By the way, how do you attend "rallies" but only once? Did she only attend one rally, or did she attend a lot of them, once upon a time? That's the sort of thing that a good sub-editor would pick up on a newspaper.
Posted by: dsquared on April 30, 2003 02:10 PMI doubt journalism would be improved by publishing a reporter's voting record in the byline.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on April 30, 2003 04:52 PMMy concern is that reports with blogs are, effectively, misrepresenting themselves anytime they get access with their workplace credentials. Sources need care and feeding. When they're confused about where and how information will be used, they get even more skittish.
Posted by: j.c. on April 30, 2003 10:23 PMComments are Closed.