I Disagree With Al Cross, And Instead I Believe That Many "Reporters Covering Political Campaigns Try To Help The Candidate They Want To Win".
Defending journalism, despite its mistakes
Written byAl Cross
Two hundred and thirty-five years ago tomorrow, the founders of this country declared its independence. “Let facts be submitted to a candid world,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, introducing the litany of offenses by King George III.
The facts were already well known in the colonies, because newspapers had published them. The Declaration of Independence didn't mention the right of expression, but the Continental Congress had made clear in earlier communications that the freedom to speak and publish was central to Americans' theory of government: that it must have the consent of the governed, who must have the freedom to organize and petition for redress of grievances.
Those freedoms, and the freedom of religion, were formalized in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The founders realized that a free press, not just free elections, was needed to communicate the wishes of the people and hold government accountable.
Today, too many Americans believe that the news media are in cahoots with those in government, or those who want to be in it.
The latest example of that was a national Rasmussen Reports poll about two weeks ago, which found that two-thirds of likely voters said reporters covering political campaigns try to help the candidate they want to win.
Since this writer believes that to be wildly untrue, and Kentucky will have elections for governor and other statewide offices this fall, I rise to the defense of the reporter's craft, which I practiced for 30 years, and journalism in general.
Reporting is often misunderstood, because it is an unnatural act. If you walked out your front door and asked the first adult you saw if he or she could go to the next school board meeting and write 1,000 words that did not reflect any opinions of the writer, the person would probably say you were asking the impossible. But that is what reporters are supposed to do, and are trained to do.
Because reporters are human beings, they are imperfect, so they have editors. That makes journalism a collective enterprise, a fact obscured by the prominence of television reporters, whose stand-ups make them seem like independent collectors and transmitters of information.
At newspapers and broadcast stations, editors exercise news judgment: Which story do we cover, out of the many available? What facts in the story are most important? What do we really know? What don't we know? How can we find out? Should we wait, or publish now and follow up later?
In most newspapers' political coverage, the editors who make such calls are not the editors who write editorials and endorse candidates, a process that is usually separated from what goes on in the newsroom.
Many folks don't believe that, or are skeptical of it. They view major newspapers as institutions with interests to protect and advance, and all the employees as serving the same paymaster.
But in newsrooms, there is a sense of service to something larger: the public and its interests. That is why so many of us entered journalism, and why so many stay in it despite the inevitable conflicts, personal and professional, inside and outside the newsroom.
Just as journalists are imperfect, so are their employers. Those imperfections provide grist for those on the left, who say mainstream news outlets are too cozy with corporate interests, and on the right, where accusations of liberal bias have been heard for decades.
The collective enterprise of the newsroom is supposed to wring bias out of reporting, and it largely succeeds. But it occasionally fails, and it's easy for critics to seize on those examples, such as the 1993 Washington Post story that said evangelical Christians were “largely poor, undereducated and easily led.”
The Eastern liberal media establishment has learned from mistakes like that, and has become more conscious of the need for diverse backgrounds in its reporting and editing corps. A broader range of experiences and views in the newsroom tends to produce a better report.
But for most Republicans and conservatives, the notion of liberal bias was already an article of faith, propounded by an array of conservative broadcasters, many of whom are mainly entertainers masquerading as providers of information. Three conservative groups are paying some of the most popular radio talkers for “on-air plugs,” Politico reported last week.
Conservative talk radio and Fox News became successful not mainly because there were examples of liberal bias to exploit, but because it is simple human nature to seek out information that supports your belief system. That's why we now see the same phenomenon on the left, with MSNBC. Meanwhile, ratings are down at CNN, which usually does a good job at staying in the middle of the road.
Bias is good business, but it's bad for democracy. As Americans gravitate to information sources that validate what they already think, in an age where technology has made it possible for almost anyone to be a publisher, we have fewer common sources of information. That means disagreements over opinions are sometimes trumped by arguments about facts, such as climate change.
In Thomas Jefferson's day, and for about a century afterward, news media were largely partisan, with multiple newspapers in most cities. Economic and technological change led to consolidation of newspapers, which accepted the idea of balance in the news columns partly because they wanted to appeal to broad audiences.
Now a new era of technology has led to the proliferation of media outlets that appeal to niche audiences — and widespread cutbacks at newspapers, which have long been the leading medium for uncovering facts and submitting them to the world. So, in the midst of an information explosion, we have fewer facts and less knowledge.
What can we do about that? We should respect and support the finders of fact, forgive them when they fall short, and give fair consideration to facts that challenge our beliefs. Opinions are useful, but facts are essential.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His opinions are his own, not those of the university.
Written byAl Cross
Two hundred and thirty-five years ago tomorrow, the founders of this country declared its independence. “Let facts be submitted to a candid world,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, introducing the litany of offenses by King George III.
The facts were already well known in the colonies, because newspapers had published them. The Declaration of Independence didn't mention the right of expression, but the Continental Congress had made clear in earlier communications that the freedom to speak and publish was central to Americans' theory of government: that it must have the consent of the governed, who must have the freedom to organize and petition for redress of grievances.
Those freedoms, and the freedom of religion, were formalized in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The founders realized that a free press, not just free elections, was needed to communicate the wishes of the people and hold government accountable.
Today, too many Americans believe that the news media are in cahoots with those in government, or those who want to be in it.
The latest example of that was a national Rasmussen Reports poll about two weeks ago, which found that two-thirds of likely voters said reporters covering political campaigns try to help the candidate they want to win.
Since this writer believes that to be wildly untrue, and Kentucky will have elections for governor and other statewide offices this fall, I rise to the defense of the reporter's craft, which I practiced for 30 years, and journalism in general.
Reporting is often misunderstood, because it is an unnatural act. If you walked out your front door and asked the first adult you saw if he or she could go to the next school board meeting and write 1,000 words that did not reflect any opinions of the writer, the person would probably say you were asking the impossible. But that is what reporters are supposed to do, and are trained to do.
Because reporters are human beings, they are imperfect, so they have editors. That makes journalism a collective enterprise, a fact obscured by the prominence of television reporters, whose stand-ups make them seem like independent collectors and transmitters of information.
At newspapers and broadcast stations, editors exercise news judgment: Which story do we cover, out of the many available? What facts in the story are most important? What do we really know? What don't we know? How can we find out? Should we wait, or publish now and follow up later?
In most newspapers' political coverage, the editors who make such calls are not the editors who write editorials and endorse candidates, a process that is usually separated from what goes on in the newsroom.
Many folks don't believe that, or are skeptical of it. They view major newspapers as institutions with interests to protect and advance, and all the employees as serving the same paymaster.
But in newsrooms, there is a sense of service to something larger: the public and its interests. That is why so many of us entered journalism, and why so many stay in it despite the inevitable conflicts, personal and professional, inside and outside the newsroom.
Just as journalists are imperfect, so are their employers. Those imperfections provide grist for those on the left, who say mainstream news outlets are too cozy with corporate interests, and on the right, where accusations of liberal bias have been heard for decades.
The collective enterprise of the newsroom is supposed to wring bias out of reporting, and it largely succeeds. But it occasionally fails, and it's easy for critics to seize on those examples, such as the 1993 Washington Post story that said evangelical Christians were “largely poor, undereducated and easily led.”
The Eastern liberal media establishment has learned from mistakes like that, and has become more conscious of the need for diverse backgrounds in its reporting and editing corps. A broader range of experiences and views in the newsroom tends to produce a better report.
But for most Republicans and conservatives, the notion of liberal bias was already an article of faith, propounded by an array of conservative broadcasters, many of whom are mainly entertainers masquerading as providers of information. Three conservative groups are paying some of the most popular radio talkers for “on-air plugs,” Politico reported last week.
Conservative talk radio and Fox News became successful not mainly because there were examples of liberal bias to exploit, but because it is simple human nature to seek out information that supports your belief system. That's why we now see the same phenomenon on the left, with MSNBC. Meanwhile, ratings are down at CNN, which usually does a good job at staying in the middle of the road.
Bias is good business, but it's bad for democracy. As Americans gravitate to information sources that validate what they already think, in an age where technology has made it possible for almost anyone to be a publisher, we have fewer common sources of information. That means disagreements over opinions are sometimes trumped by arguments about facts, such as climate change.
In Thomas Jefferson's day, and for about a century afterward, news media were largely partisan, with multiple newspapers in most cities. Economic and technological change led to consolidation of newspapers, which accepted the idea of balance in the news columns partly because they wanted to appeal to broad audiences.
Now a new era of technology has led to the proliferation of media outlets that appeal to niche audiences — and widespread cutbacks at newspapers, which have long been the leading medium for uncovering facts and submitting them to the world. So, in the midst of an information explosion, we have fewer facts and less knowledge.
What can we do about that? We should respect and support the finders of fact, forgive them when they fall short, and give fair consideration to facts that challenge our beliefs. Opinions are useful, but facts are essential.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His opinions are his own, not those of the university.
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