Well said, Will. Well said.

Bravo, Steve! Brilliant response--thanks for saying it so much more eloquently than I could. I plan to cite your piece (properly attributed, of course) when I end my subscription to the local rag, the Arizona Republic, in a few weeks.

I meant Will, of course. mea culpa.

Will.

Nicely said, but of course it won’t happen without a long drawn-out fight.

As the recent election for DNC chairman showed, Democrats, and by extension their advocates in the MSM, can't tell the truth because if the truth were told, the left would never again win an election.

Like all Ponzi schemes, the Democrat agenda of socialism can't work without a huge taxpayer base to support it. As more and more people hop of the bandwagon of entitlements, there are fewer and fewer people paying the bills. Pretty soon it all collapses as has been proven time and again.

Exposing MSM lies and distortions will be a constant battle for a long time, but I think the blogosphere is up to the job.

Well written and on-point. I think the requirement, or desire, for transparency also requires some form of dialog. The active listening skills used to gather the story should also be used to understand what might be wrong with a story. I don't mean the press need to cower to consumer's differing opinions, no, they should have the backbone for defending their stories. But, if there is material error, by commision or ommision, the story should continue with the incorporation of salient facts. This is a bit of a revision of the somewhat obscure "correction" page and substantially enhances the perception of transparency.

A sincere answer to Jay's question.

I think nearly everyone on the right would be satisfied with an openly biased liberal media. (by that I mean admitting it, not like now where they won't say so but everyone knows it)

CBS wants to dwell on the Bush AWOL "story" during the campaign? Fine, just start every segment with an announcement that the network has endorsed Kerry for Prseident.

CNN wants to run pieces saying how horrible things are in Iraq after the US invasion? Fine, just mention that they had a deal with Saddam to trade favorable stories for access before the war.

The media has a tough choice to make...not unlike the NHL strike. The old status quo is gone guys, get used to it. Either make the tough choices that allow you to continue to operate with some credibility and audience, or sit obstinately as the whole shebang comes crashing down and you're left with a pittance...if anything at all.

effin perfect!

Bravo.

But of course... the original question was "Is the point to have a dialogue with the MSM or cause its destruction?"

I'd suggest that the answer is... that's the wrong question. The question ought to be "Is the point to reform the MSM or cause its destruction?"

The answer to that question is "Either is acceptable... but at least one must occur." I'd rather see the former. But if we can't have that, then I demand the latter. The status quo just won't do.

Here I interject with my 10% theory:

The bottom 10% of the people in any chosen profession are crap.

In the case of reporters, that means at least 10% of reporting is crap. The problem with reporters in this age is that so few of them report....so many repeat the AP wire instead of questioning it and delving deeper into the matter.

OF course, it doesn't need to be said, but I will: CNN is in the bottom 10% of news organizations - down there with CBS.

Here's a thought: the future of Mainstream Media is outsourced journalism.

Remember those dramatic pictures and movies from the day when the tsunami struck Asia? Most of them were taken by non-professionals.

Think about it. If anyone who happens to be nearby with his camcorder and phone-camera can scoop a dramatic event, what do we need professional foreign correspondents for?

(Apparently, we need them to stand around and tell the viewers "As you can see, we're still waiting for something to happen.")

I say outsource. The news will be better for it. Yes, there is the potential for abuse and faked reports... but that's what fact-checking is for. And we know that the MSM are professional experts in that department.

-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com

Wow....

Perfect, just perfect. Will, you've out done yourself. Golfclap.

(polite patter of applause)
Hear, hear!

Mr. Collier,

Whilst I agree with the general thrust of your post, methinks you are too generous in granting Jennings, Schieffer, O'Reilly, and Hume the title of "reporter"; though some in that group may have deserved to be described so in the past, their current activities better fit the unwieldy, yet more accurate, appellative "infotainment personality."

Oh, and Easycure: I would revise your number upward to approximately 90%. Perhaps 95%.

Perhaps 98%.

Very well said.

I couldn't agree more.

In answer to your question: Yes, it is asking too much. Especially when someone has gotten away with a privileged position for so many years, to have the situation turn and be forced to justify one's actions...

Yes, it is a lot to ask for.

Where is the evidence that political affiliation influences reporting when you're reporting straight news? Or profiling a candidate? I think this is a myth created by the biased readers themselves. They just won't take no for an answer even when it's the right answer. False premise=invalid.

"Where is the evidence that political affiliation influences reporting when you're reporting straight news?"

There's no such thing as "straight news". All news is packaged and delivered for consumption...hence the term: media.

Bias in the medium is no different than bias in the content. It's just a matter of which stories get reported and carried, which stories get spiked, and the order and emphasis of which those stories are presented.

Surely you don't think that newscasts or papers are put together coincidentially? Editors decide what goes above the front page fold and what goes on page A26.

I could publish the most biased newspaper on the planet and never use the words "liberal" or "conservative", have no opinion section, and print straight off the AP wire. I can push or pull my readers simply by manipulating which stories appear where and how often.

Is the Tsunami the defining event in human history sine 9/11? It leads for a week and we carry stories about the plight of the victims, relief efforts, and geologic science for months. Or we call it inconsequential, stick a write up on page A20 once a week and our readers go back to worrying about pollution or gas prices or whatever is on the front page.

There's no such thing as "straight news". You try and turn it around by saying that if everything is biased, why worry and what can be done about it? The problem is that the vast majority of that inherent bias is tilting one way and the media would prefer that you didn't notice.

Before network television, most cities had at least two daily newspapers, and everyone knew which was demo and which was republician. Sometime after, the dailies started to die off, consolidate and or be bought up by major chains. The idea that newspapers were unbiased is relatively recent. I'm not sure when or why the idea ever arose. However all anyone should ask for is honesty. You know, Fox doesn't say it is unbiased, all they say is they try to present all sides of issues. Fairness is not a bar to pushing a position, it is just an admission of position.

Nice article!
I agree...and I don't think that bloggers are going to replace the MSM, but compliment them...as opinion, as conscience, and as such, I expect the relationship to evolve being somewhat adversarial.

And inevitable.

More on my blog, if anyone's interested.

Mr. Rosen's question is an arresting one and while I agree with Will's well-reasoned rely, I am not certain that it answers the question squarely.

So I'll rephrase the question: given a dishonest press, is the point to have a dialogue with the MSM or cause its destruction?

Can you have a useful dialogue with a dishonest press?

What do we want out of the MSM??

Professionalism.

Objectivity.

Wonderful response, Will.

Will:
Jay Rosen kindly directed me here to read your response to his question.
Your generalities are well-put (hey, who can argue against Motherhood and apple pie?), but a couple of your specifcs are off-base.
I ask you to do a little homework before you again accuse Mike Hoyt, the editor of the print CJR,or me by extension, of "defending Dan Rather."
That's an outright lie.
I got more calls and e-mails after my nuts-and-bolts Dan Rather Gone Wrong wrapup on CJR Daily last year (http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000934.asp) than we've gotten on any other post in the 13 months of our existence -- the vast majority of them saying "Thanks for deconstructing in detail where and how he screwed up again, and again, and again."
Later, CJR-in-print ran a piece that questioned bloggers'methods, logical leaps and unwarranted conclusions in the Rather chase, one which you characterize as "a defense of Rather." Mike Hoyt has grown hoarse pointing out the obvious to the obtuse: A critique of the blog chase is in no way "a defense of Rather."
 Ironically, the COVER  story in that same issue of CJR was a scathing piece on how CBS' 60 Minutes [and the NY Times] got snookered for years, time and time again, by a con man soldier-of-fortune who is now languishing in an Afghanistani jail, a fate he richly deserves.
You have my e-mail address, should you need it.
Many thanks,
Steve Lovelady

"and I don't think that bloggers are going to replace the MSM, but compliment them"

May not replace them, but in a relatively short time MSM will not even closely resemble the animal it is today. Blogs are the village voice (we the people) and it is from here that the MSM will eventually get most if not all of it's news. Instead of the other way around.

Great article. Mike

For years, the lament was that the US did not have the kind of press that existed in Europe---vibrant, opinionated.

Is it coincidence that the European press is not "unbiased," but rather proudly displays it? No one reads Liberation without knowing that it is the paper of the French Left/Communists. And Red Ken gets away w/ accusing a Jew of being a Concentration Camp guard because he works for The Daily Mail a very right-wing paper.

Nor is bias and professionalism necessarily at odds. For all that the Guardian is a left-wing paper, it has its share of excellent coverage; ditto the Daily Telegraph.

One suspects, then, that perhaps the "unbiased" aspect has served its day---as many here have noted, an open acknowledgement of bias may well serve the MSM better than attempts to paper it over.

The key, however, is to emphasize professionalism, and to openly admit one's biases. (Including dropping the silliness that FoxNews is somehow unique in being biased.)

As a journalist, Mr. Collier, all I gotta say is, "I think I'm in love." :) Such a pleasure to read and such an excellent addition to the recent writings on the media. I've passed it along to my old journalism professor. I hope it sparks some discussion.

This is the first analysis I've seen of the media's shortcomings that would elicit applause from critics on both the left and the right.

The issue is indeed transparency. But disclosure doesn't go far enough. We need an open-source format for the creation, development and presentation of news stories, one that moves beyond static web pages and uneditable broadcasts toward a format that is dynamic, multidirectional, above all synthetic in a way that moves us toward truth as a good dialectical discussion would.

Very nice. I think a lot of the MSM apoplexy is generational and technophobic. Change can be very hard, especially when it involves one's world view, established back in Cronkite's day.

"Where is the evidence that political affiliation influences reporting when you're reporting straight news?"

It definitely influences the decisions on what gets covered and what doesn't. You're much, much more likely to hear about a corrupt businessman than a corrupt union official, for example. Then there's the amusing habit, when reporting on the misdeeds of politicians, of omitting the party affiliation of Democrats while getting "Republican" in as much as possible when applicable.

Lovelady, the outright lie was your claim that Pein's article was not a defense of Rather. It could not be anything but.

Pein made a lot of completely false claims to pretend that there was some doubt about the forgeries - claims that looked risible to anyone with any professional knowledge of how word processors and font software work ( which describes a lot of the bloggers attacking the Rather story including myself ).

Pein could not write such a silly piece without the intention to defend Rather from us peasants. No one who had spent more than 10 minutes following the issue could have greenlighted the piece without the same intention.

You are continuing to make a laughingstock of yourself and CJR.

Bush-haters need to grow up. Getting Fired helps.

I want the heads of news agencies who are Bush-haters, and whose choices in news coverage and non-coverage show it, to be fired. Like L. Moonves of CBS. And Jordan. And Rather.

see my post: http://tomgrey.motime.com/1108604994#418411

Steve Lovelady concludes his (nice) list of CBS mistakes with "There's nothing complicated about any of this. The real story here isn't political bias on the part of CBS or Rather."

Seems to me like a clear defense of Rather against the charge of bias; thus
Steve is lying when he says he's not defending Rather.

It appears that we may be birds of a feather. I sent this e-mail to the Columbia Journalism Review yesterday. Doubt it got anywhere.

Steve Lovelady is quoted in an e-mail as saying, in reference to the resignation of Eason Jordan of CNN, “[t]he salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail. (Where is Jimmy Stewart when we need him?) This convinces me more than ever that Eason Jordan is guilty of one thing, and one thing only -- caring for the reporters he sent into battle, and haunted by the fact that not all of them came back. Like Gulliver, he was consumed by Lilliputians."

As an attorney, I can only say that truth is an absolute defense. Truth would have cut the cords of the Lilliputians and set Jordan free. But where is the truth? It is on a videotape that neither CNN nor the Davos people chose to release. If I were Jordan I would have asked the Davos people for a copy of the tape to vindicate myself. But he didn’t. And, just as Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds et al. will not sue Jose Canseco for libel, the fact that Jordan resigned and the tape wasn’t released speaks volumes. Forgive those of us who draw the implication.

But, in light of the fact that the tape hasn’t been released, what are we to make of Mr. Lovelady’s observations? What facts are Mr. Lovelady relying on that would allow him to characterize those critical of Mr. Jordan as “salivating morons” and a “lynch mob”? From where I stand, apparently none. And, since Mr. Lovelady doesn’t appear to have any facts not available to the rest of us, he substitutes his ad hominem attack against Jordan’s detractors. “You can fool some of the people some of the time…”

What I truly marvel at, however, is the arrogance of Mr. Lovelady. You see, what Jordan is alleged to have said is outrageous. (It is not the first time he said it either, as a search of the web will reveal) I’m not a blogger, but I am one of those Lilliputians, and I have just as much of a right to seek out the truth of the allegations as any journalist. It is not Mr. Lovelady’s place in this world to tell me what importance I should place on a story. Mr. Lovelady’s comments appear to me to be those of one upset that Lilliputians would invade his turf and seek information and accountability where Mr. Lovelady chooses not to. A difference of opinion as to the significance of Jordan’s statements hardly seems to me reason to label those seeking the information as “salivating morons” and a “lynch mob.” It is exactly the difference of opinion between Mr. Lovelady and the Lilliputians that shows up the cultural divide between the so-called mainstream media and many of the rest of us. The mainstream media is serving up a product that many of us don’t want to buy. The information revolution has opened up alternative sources of information where we can learn about things the gate-keepers of the mainstream media used to keep from us. Democratization is a wonderful thing.

What Jordan is alleged to have said is reprehensible and outrageous. Since nether CNN or any other media outlet has published a story about U.S. troops targeting journalists, I think it is fair to assume that Jordan made up his allegation. Since he has resigned, I think the preponderance of the evidence points to that conclusion even more. Instead of attacking the Lilliputians, Mr. Lovelady should be demanding the videotape. Without the tape, and therefore without the facts, Mr. Lovelady betrays more then his ignorance.

Lovelady wrote:
"...A critique of the blog chase is in no way "a defense of Rather."

Birkel responds:
The "blog chase" is a very interesting way to characterize a pursuit of the truth. Most if not all of those who watched Rathergate unfold knew within five minutes that the documents were fakes. After that, we bloggers worked to get CBS to admit its error and correct the public record. If that constitutes a "blog chase" then perhaps all investigative reporting should now be called a "reporter chase," no?

And if investigative reporting is not a "reporter chase" then it must be something else. And whatever that something is is analogous to what bloggers did pursuing the truth. Call it, for example simply "reporting" instead of a "reporting chase" and we must call bloggers' efforts "reporting" where new facts were uncovered or facts were collated to accurately reveal the overall narrative. Or we could call it editorializing where new facts were not reported and assertions or implications were discussed. That is what you call it right? Editorializing?

Either way, the choice of wording you've made betrays your underlying bias, I'm afraid. Perhaps you'd like to choose value-neutral terms to hide your beliefs more effectively? Or perhaps your contempt is so complete you think us unable to detect your derision?

We are not fooled, good sir.

No one likes additional competition in their field. Competition exposes your weakness and forces you to improve. If you're accustomed to a virtual monopoly, so much more the discomfort you feel when it is disrupted.
All the efforts to discredit bloggers will fail as all a respectable blogger has are facts, logic, history and an ability to persuasively articulate their opinion (as Mr. Collier has done so well here).
As Peggy Noonan points out today in the WSJ, those bloggers who are consistent, honest and intelligent will prosper, those who don't will be disregarded very quickly. Can't get any fairer than that can it?
But then, most of the MSM isn't about "fairness" or "diversity" is it? Its about retaining its powerful, monolithic, influence. Unfortunately, the MSM can't stem the tide of technology. They can either adapt and reveal their bias or seek real balance in their reporting. If they don't do one or the other they'll find the same fate as any blogger who tries to game his audience.
The new world order is demanding transparency and accountability.
Get over it or die.

Posted by jag at February 17, 2005 09