Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite
My first reaction was to take it personally. I was going to tell half of you that you’re off your rockers. Two deep breaths, and I confess: Maybe you’re not so nuts after all, even though it pains me to admit it.
I’m talking about journalism in America, my craft for 30 years now.
The Pew Research Center has released another poll about the news media and the public. The news isn’t good. About half of you believe we get in the way of society solving its problems, think we cover up our mistakes, doubt whether we are “moral” and perceive journalists as uncaring about people.
I wish I could say that you’re wrong, because these are not healthy numbers for a self-governing nation.
But there have been moments when I would side with the critics when asked all these questions. As I said, it’s an uncomfortable acknowledgment. The topics in this poll go to the heart of the reason why I got into this business and why most people I know in newsrooms did.
So do we fail half of you? Do we fail ourselves?
It must be so. Look at the numbers. Yes, we can discount for the fact that Americans simply delight in their inherent suspicion of all institutions, including the news media. And yes, it is fashionable, if not mandatory, in partisan circles to bash the press. Besides, those who complain the most are those who pay the least attention, and thus their opinions carry less weight. We can even console ourselves with the knowledge that no matter how discouraging things appear, a Pew analyst says the media enjoy greater esteem now than at any time in 15 years.
But still. Would you want your daughter to marry a journalist?
During the last few days, I’ve been chatting with colleagues in newsrooms. Naturally, there is a sharpened sense of purpose right now. But more, if I can generalize, there is fond hope that public tastes, political imperatives and press focus will stay on higher ground for longer than the headline stories of the moment. Not just half of readers and viewers, but many inside the craft have been disheartened by the drift in what passes for news in recent years.
The Clinton-Lewinsky and Condit-Levy capers, prime examples, had little to do with solving society’s problems. They were lascivious stories. Don’t get me wrong. Lascivious is all right in measured portions. But it is not public policy. And serious journalists look like fakers suggesting otherwise.
The same with the celebrity culture. Good journalism doesn’t deny our human nosiness, but neither does it mean binge feeding on these stories, one after another, at the expense of too much else.
Sept. 11 brought everyone up short. There is serious news on journalists’ minds now, yours too. The larger globe, from which too much of our media had retreated, confronts us. Journalists are dying on the battlefield. At home, fundamentals of liberty are being debated. Journalists have been attacked by anthrax in their offices. It is worth noting that executives in many, although not all, of our print and broadcast outlets have sustained significant financial losses to meet expanded obligations. Somber times in the nation have restored an urgency and weight to journalism.
My friend Tom Rosenstiel at the Pew-funded Project for Excellence in Journalism cautions that press cycles turn slowly. The screaming tabloid era of 1920s journalism died out when the country retreated from frivolity with the Depression and World War II.
Level-headed journalism became the standard for a generation that followed. More recently, the press had taken another evolutionary turn toward O.J.-Jon-Benet-style sensationalism.
“Have the news media been scared straight by Sept. 11?” Rosenstiel asks. “The answer depends on whether America has really changed. Right now, we don’t know whether the press is merely obsessing on another big story, albeit a serious one this time. Or whether this is the dawn of a new era. But it’s a chance for the serious media to distinguish themselves.”
We can hope. Batting .500 is not good enough when it comes to earning the faith of readers.
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Speaking of mistakes: Had I written Sunday’s column about the pleasures of social drinking without undertaking the fieldwork of drinking two schooners of beer, I might have correctly spelled the name of Long Beach’s 77-year-old landmark pub as Joe Jost’s, not Joist’s. And I might have remembered that the great Huntington Library resides in San Marino, not adjacent Pasadena. A cup of black coffee, if you please.