Journalism, the World and the Future
Discussion of the future of journalism from GMU
A while back (April 7, to be exact) I wrote about a piece in Foreign Policy about WikiLeaks and the future of journalism. At that time I expressed the same concern as the FP author: Is WikiLeaks the future of journalism?
I, and other journalists, are concerned that the use of WikiLeaks material is feeding into a political agenda. And let us be clear, WikiLeaks has a political agenda.
Sadly, one of the best interviews exploring this was done by Stephen Colbert. (I am having problems embedding the video, so just click here to see the interview.)
In addition to the Colbert interview that bastion of liberalism, Mother Jones, has also called into question the journalistic credentials of WikiLeaks.
I worry because so many news organizations are depending on groups such as WikiLeaks rather than going out and being competitive in the field of investigative journalism.
It bothers me because journalism is supposed to be about remaining true to the readers/viewers/listeners rather than a political agenda. WikiLeaks makes no bones about having such an agenda. Assange openly admits he and his team used “hot” words to title the video and that they edited the video before making it public.
As and editor I would like to know what happened before and after the video. I would like to know what was edited out of the video. In other words, I would like to know the context of the shots.
We don’t get that from WikiLeaks. Nor did we get it from many of the news organizations when they ran the video. (Yes, later we got some more information. But shouldn’t we have had that info the first time the video was run?)
It is fair to report what WikiLeaks has but it is beginning to look as if some news groups are willing to let WikiLeaks lead the way in getting material.
I repeat what I said before, I am concerned because the news organization has no way to judge the material. Without an active role in the gathering and editing process, how can news editors really trust the material.
We are seeing more outsourcing of reporting by major news organizations. And I am not talking about using freelancers (like me) to get stories. Groups such as WikiLeaks and Current News have journalists working for them and developing stories. But these are groups with political agendas and no news organization should be beholden to them.
NPR Morning Edition did a decent story about Yoani Sanchez, author of Generation Y blog in Cuba. (Spreading Digital Revolution In A Cuban Living Room)
Sanchez has won numerous awards for her blogs that point out the anti-democratic nature of the Cuban government.
I have a link to the Sanchez blog on my personal site. She is a very good voice of reason in the Cuba debate.
She is not shrill (think stereo-typical Miami Cubans) in anti-Castro views. She just tells it as it is.
I strongly recommend her writings to anyone who wants to get past the old Cold War mindset in dealing with Cuban issues. (And that goes for the left as well as the right.)
Here is an example of her straight forward and informative style:
A couple of years ago I went to the DHL office in Miramar to send some family videos to friends in Spain. The clerk looked at me as if I were trying to send a molecule of oxygen to another galaxy. Without even touching the Mini DV cassette, she told me that the Havana branch only accepted VHS. I thought it was a question of size, but the explanation she gave was even more surprising, “It’s just that our machines to view the content only read the large cassettes.” When I tried to insist, the woman suspected that instead of the smiling face of my son, I wanted to send “enemy propaganda” abroad.
By now we’ve all seen the dramatic pictures of the Apache gunship attack of the journalists in Iraq.
The film got into the wild thanks to Wikileaks. The non-profit organization has its server in Sweden and its registration in the United States. It depends on whistle blowers and other anonymous sources to get information out.
Foreign Policy ran a piece today (Apr. 7) discussing Wikileaks and 21st century journalism.
Is This the Future of Journalism?
Given the cut backs in editorial staff in news organizations, maybe Wikileaks is the future of journalism. But what does that say about the state of journalism — especially in the United States — if news organizations have to contract out the work their own reporters should be doing.
In his Foreign Policy entry, Jonathan Stray takes a quick look at the issues involved.
At its best, the rise of Wikileaks represents the type of accountability journalism made famous in the 1970s by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, and practiced today by Jane Mayer of the New Yorker and Eric Lichtblau and James Risen of the New York Times — and Seymour Hersh in both eras.
But, as Stray later points out, Wikileaks is not a news organization as we know it. It does not owe allegiance to the public but rather to a political agenda.
Wikileaks, however, makes no bones about its desire to advance a political message, promising sources that their material will be used for “maximal political impact.”
on their own web page, Wikileaks makes it clear it is not an impartial gatherer of facts.
The Sunshine Press (WikiLeaks) is an non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public.
When the Washington Post ran the Watergate stories, it was not the policy of the paper to bring down the Nixon Administration but rather to shed light on government actions.
Major news organizations and journalism groups — including the Society of Professional Journalists — offer moral, legal and financial support to Wikileaks.
I am not upset that Wikileaks exist. I am upset that news organizations have failed readers/viewers/listeners so much that they have to depend on out sourcing news gathering. Without some sort of active participation in the process, how can editors or news directors trust the reliability of the information?
But, I guess we will just have to keep going. We are where we are.
I was cleaning up my computer files today and ran across this piece from 2007 from the Roanoke Times.
We all know the importance of getting the quote right. But does that mean running a quote such as:
“Well, like, we were heading down the street and like we were having like a good time, ya know? And like we saw this guy running like fast. Like really fast.”
I think we all agree that needs to be paraphrased!
And then there are accurate quotes with bad grammar that add color and spice to a story — especially a feature story.
Washing quotes clean
Joe Staniunas
Staniunas, of Roanoke, is special purpose faculty in the Department of Media Studies at Radford University.
“Fight Fiercely, Harvard!” … and Tech … and UVa.
If Vic Brancati (“When players break the rules — of grammar,” March 13) had been covering the Black Sox gambling scandal of 1919, he probably would have rendered the immortal line: “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” as: “Say it isn’t so, Mr. Jackson!”
And instead of reporting Willie Keeler’s memorable reflection on his career as: “I hit ’em where they ain’t” he might have quoted him as saying: “I hit them where they are not.”
Better grammar, to be sure. But off base, and dull.
It’s true that all reporters trade away some accuracy in quotes; seldom are they exact transcriptions of every syllable from an interview. In many cases, of course, they can’t be. As Leigh Montville tells it in his recent biography of Ted Williams, one of the Red Sox slugger’s terms for the “knights of the keyboard” in the press box began with “gutless … syphilitic” and ended with words for certain unprintable and unusual sexual escapades.
Those frustrated scribes, upset by the Splendid Splinter’s many instances of boorish behavior, yearned to show readers just how profane he was. They would toss their fedoras high if they could have enjoyed the freedom of today’s writers to let athletes hit away with a few mild curses and conversational syntax.
But banishing “f-this” and “f-that” along with “um,” “ah” and that all-star ejaculation “man!” is as much buffing as a quote needs; washing it through “The Elements of Style” makes it too misleading.
Broadcasters have to put what comes out of the mouths of players on the air and on the Internet, although the day is coming when even they might be tempted, through digital wizardry, to remove a few double negatives and turn post-game news conferences into prime minister’s question time. But those wouldn’t be the candid comments caught by a camera or tape recorder or cellphone.
And people would know it because so much material is out there these days.
Fans who can see ungrammatical interviews on TV and then read laundered remarks in the paper can tell something’s wrong with the print version of what an athlete reportedly said. They have to wonder how anyone can use such precise grammar talking to a reporter with a notebook, but seldom manage to do it speaking to one with a microphone.
So, today’s sportswriters and editors just have to cringe and bear it or risk damaging their credibility.
I do think athletes should know the rules of agreement as well as they know the strictures of the 3-4 defense or a zone press. But it’s up to their coaches and professors to improve their public speaking skills; reporters should just cover them, not cover for them.
Maybe along with trainers and bands and cheerleaders, colleges could dispatch platoons of English teachers to their stadiums to help student-athletes speak in phrases as well-rounded as the balls they hit, kick and toss.
Until then, it would better meet the goal of honest storytelling if sticklers for more precise grammar in quotes — as the Rolling Stones might say — fail to obtain satisfaction.
There has been a lot of buzz about finding the right model for the future of news organizations. It seems the London Financial Times has found a method that works.
It actually made a profit last year.
As expected, it was not one silver bullet that did it. The combination of paywalls, increased subscription rates and advertising seems to have paid off. (But only after many years in the red.)
And of course, they turn out a product people WANT to pay for. In other words, good journalism is still worth paying for.
