former journalists discuss a profession in crisis

Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

, , , , , , , ,

Abramson’s tenure at The Times: Baquet’s Comments Speak Volumes

In Blog on May 23, 2014 at 10:22 am

I have no inside knowledge of the workings of The New York Times. My husband was in the same high school class as ousted executive editor Jill Abramson at- the toney Fieldston School in Riverdale, a wealthy section of New York City. But he didn’t know her well.  And neither of us is chummy with folks at the newspaper who will give us the inside dope on what really happened, and whether Abramson was treated fairly or not. Lord knows, there’s been a lot of media ink spilled speculating about the reasons – including Abramson’s concerns that she was being paid less than her predecessors, and allegations that she was about to bring another editor on board equal in rank to her deputy, Dean Baquet, without making that clear to him.  But no account really has captured the straw that broke the camel’s back and pushed Abramson out the door.

What we do know is that throughout her tenure, Abramson’s people skills have been assessed and critiqued.  While I don’t have the inside skinny on this firing, I do know what it’s like to work in a newsroom, and how crucial management style can be to newsroom productivity and morale.  I thought many of the feelings I had about my former profession were unique to me, but when I wrote Out of the News, I discovered even journalism’s heavy hitters experienced the same lack of confidence about their work that I often felt.

For all their outward boldness, journalists, by and large, are very insecure.  That insecurity stems from a couple of factors.  The act of reporting and writing never gets easy.   In almost every other job, you achieve mastery with repetition.  An open-heart surgeon who does 200 surgeries a year is going to be much better than a surgeon who does ten. But that doesn’t hold true for journalism.  Yes, time and practice gives reporters a certain level of competency.  But every story offers a new challenge.  To write well, to avoid clichés and formulas, to be accurate and fair and understandable is difficult and the difficulty really doesn’t ease up when you get into the big leagues.

And reporters don’t measure success by a “satisfied” public or an achieved result.   How do you know when you write a good story?  In part, you know when you receive an award, but awards happen long after your work has been published.  Certainly, journalists can measure their effectiveness by the number of page views, or tweets their work inspires.

But those numbers are more about popularity than quality, and often have more to do with the subject matter than the reporter’s talent.   Beyonce’s domestic travails are going to beat out the problems in the Ukraine every time.

And while occasionally news stories will have a lot of impact, typically they don’t.  Lawyers can measure their success by the “wins” in court, or the size of the settlements their clients receive.  Health care workers can be judged by the lives they save or health they improve.

The public determines whether your lasagna or shoes or software are worth buying.  Public acclaim keeps the lights on in theaters and stadiums alike, sustaining actors, dancers, and athletes.

But journalism is different.

Reporters generally are not happy when the subjects of their work are extremely pleased, particularly if the subjects are politicians or executives or celebrities.  Praise makes them worry that they’ve been too easy on the people they’ve written about, or failed to present them honestly, or were deceived by their “spin.”

Reporters primarily look to their editors to assess their work.  But this craving for attention and praise from the folks in charge can be quite destabilizing when reporters feel they can’t “read” what the people in charge want, and when they get the sense that they aren’t measuring up.

I have no idea whether Abramson was a destabilizing editor, one who was quick to fault work, and slow to praise, who seemed to want more but wasn’t clear in what, exactly, the “more” was.

However, I was intrigued by a Politico story written more than a year ago. The story reportedly was based on conversations with about a dozen, mostly unnamed, former and current Times news staffers, who raised concerns about the management style of The Times’ first female executive editor. Reporter Dylan Byers made clear that staff acknowledged that Abramson was an extremely competent and talented professional.  But the story also cited complaints about Abramson not being exactly warm and fuzzy in the newsroom, and described one incident when she strongly rebuked a staffer in public.

One other detail stuck out in my memory.  Abramson, according to Byers’ sources, had met with her deputy Baquet and critiqued the paper for not being “buzzy” enough.  The meeting ended with Baquet storming out of the office, and slamming his hand against the wall in frustration.  “Buzzy” doesn’t give you a lot to work with.

When reporters don’t know how to please editors, they can get into terrible funks, overthinking pieces, unable to do their best work.  I’ve seen that happen in newsrooms. Heck, I’ve seen it happen to me.

Baquet last week was named to replace his boss.  His comments to the assembled Times staff are about the most telling remarks I’ve read that suggest some of the key factors that might have led to Abramson’s firing.

“Let’s take risks, let’s not beat each other up when we fail, let’s work together,” Baquet told his staff.  “Let’s not get paralyzed by guessing what Dean or anybody else wants.  Give it a shot.”

That doesn’t mean that Abramson was not the victim of sexism.  Editors typically don’t lose their jobs for their management style.  A “prominent reporter” who spoke to Ben McGrath of The New Yorker contended that “tough and abrasive” editors at The Times have been pretty common over the years:

“Tough and abrasive?” (a) Abe Rosenthal (1977-86), (b) Howell Raines (2001-03), (c) Max Frankel (1986-94), (d) Jill Abramson (2011-14), (e) all of the above. … Business is basically good, and the journalism is good, but the culture is bad,” the reporter continued. “But that describes a hundred and fifty years of the paper’s history. It’s always been sociopaths and lunatics running the place. Why step to Jill? People are genuinely upset about that.”

Was Abramson was held to a different standard because she’s a woman?  Probably.  Sexism may have made it easier for The Times to cite management style as a major factor in her dismissal, but if it means that all editors in the future – male and female — have to think about how they treat their staffs, that’s not a bad thing.

I don’t know if Abramson deserved to be shown the door.  But if his comments are any indication, Baquet – the paper’s first African-American executive editor — deserved to replace her.

, , ,

Correspondents’ Dinner: Enough Already!

In Blog on May 2, 2014 at 10:34 pm

I will freely admit that I have never been invited to the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association.  I did once participate in a demonstration outside the hotel where the event was held, but our protest was directed at the President at the time, not the journalists in attendance.

And here's one more: Front page of the Washington Post Style section, May 3, 2014

And here’s one more: Front page of the Washington Post Style section, May 3, 2014

Here’s what I’m talking about.  The dinner hasn’t happened yet, and the Post, through its blogs and print editions, has run at least 14 stories and blogs about it.  I’m writing this on Friday, May 2.  Who knows what will be in tomorrow’s paper?

I am not including in that total, two substantive pieces on the work of Washington correspondents pegged to the upcoming dinner.  Paul Farhi profiled a correspondent for the McClatchy newspapers with limited access to the President, a backbencher in a press room where a lot of the attention goes to the high-profile journalists.  Erik Wemple analyzed another media outlet – Politico – and its effort to gauge the attitudes of the roughly 200 Washington correspondents.

So what does more than 7,000 words, and endless space for photos and even illustrations, get you?  Insights on this year’s performer host, Joel McHale, (1, 082 words); tips to the President for giving a well-received speech (1,633 words), and a feature story about the history of the dinner and how it evolved (1,738 words), not including a 783-word sidebar, which includes a timeline of dinner highs and lows.

Every facet of the dinner and parties seems to have been touched –  how party-goers will use the new Uber app and car service to get from place to place; a list of celebrities attending (the list alone took nearly 900 words); briefs on stars planning to attend who show up early in DC to do other things.  Post staffers wrote about Buzzfeed and Facebook offering an alternative party for those who don’t have an invitation to the dinner or wanted something different. They announced that the Post planned to offer diners a “twitter mirror” to immediately broadcast their selfies to the world. They described the menu and fretted about food items they couldn’t decipher.  They offered descriptions of the suites at three local luxury hotels, complete with pictures, where celebrities may be staying this weekend.

But wait, there’s more!  Readers learned about a journalist making a documentary about the dinner, who’s calling it “the biggest weekend in one of the world’s most important cities.”  Blogger Alexandra Petri discusses the “Nerd Prom “where all the faceless bylines flock moth-like around the visiting luminaries they have binge-watched on Netflix.”  We also received tips on surviving the parties.

The Post even takes the time, and space, to wonder whether there may be a “dinner backlash” this year, in the context of some of the excesses of previous years.  Bob Garfield, the co-host of NPR’s “On the Media” opines, “It’s embarrassing to continually be embarrassed.”

I am not going to take a cheap shot, and compare the extent of coverage of this event with the Post’s serious coverage of other issues.  A paper can be both frivolous and substantive.  But I do wonder, who does the Post believe is its audience for these stories?

And doesn’t this over-the-top attention really reinforce the notion that the news is what your editor cares about?

, , , , , , , ,

If you build a better story, they will read

In Blog on April 20, 2014 at 5:48 pm

The Washington Post recently published two intriguing stories on reading.  The first, citing neuroscientists, experts and a few members of the public, discussed the influence of technology on reading habits.  The thrust of the story was that people find it more difficult to read novels, or even shorter documents, from beginning to end.  The problem was attributed solely to the popularity of online reading, which has us approaching materials in a more scattered, mechanical way and discourages slower-paced reading.

The story went viral, according to the Post, resulting in “insane numbers” of page views and “a gazillion” tweets, even a prominent mention on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.   But when the Post examined whether people actually read the piece, the results seemed disheartening. Less than a third of people who clicked on the story, read it in its entirety. However, to those who measure reader interest, the ability of the Post to hold the attention of 31 percent of readers was pretty impressive. Experts who track online reading behavior say that a third of readers who click never stop to read any of the text. And the original story, to its credit, was both thoughtful and informative.

I certainly don’t intend to challenge the science about reading habits.  But I know the major reason I fail to read a newspaper or magazine story, whether print or online, and it has little to do with technology.  I don’t have the time to wade through bad or even mediocre writing.

Too many news and feature stories are too long.  Too many stories lack clarity.  They make me work too hard to discover the kernel of news.  Too much of what we read has flabby prose, both cliché ridden and unimaginative.  The stories lack the careful pruning, shaping and insistence on precision that good copyeditors used to give

The best way to fight the growing urge to speed through stories is to make them better.

The New Yorker knows that.  The weekly magazine has a circulation of more than one million readers by offering stories that are written with great care and exactitude.  The stories are long, but they are rich with detail.  I find myself reading New Yorker articles about subjects in which I haven’t the remotest interest, purely for the love of the prose.  Who wouldn’t read a story by Ian Frazier about the fate of the horseshoe crab that began with this exchange?  Diane, did you have your conga-drum lesson? No, I missed it today. Horseshoe crabs are the only thing that can take me from my congas.

And good writing doesn’t have to be restricted to weekly magazines.   The Wall Street Journal’s Carol Lee could have written a ho-hum lame little feature about the sightings of a red fox at the White House. But her story demonstrated what can happen when a good writer and reporter is fully engaged.   It not only had an extremely clever and tightly written first paragraph, the reporter went out of her way to add some historic context, including anecdotes about other wildlife that had disrupted previous administrations.  And the facts were all there.  The hair color of a fox is “burnt orange,” and “they are typically about 3 feet long, 2 feet tall and weigh up to 15 pounds.”

I’m not denying that it is more difficult to attract, and then retain, readers’ attention.  But I still think there is hope for the written word.  If you build a better story, they will read it.

, ,

In Canada, a Media Baron Throws His Hat in the Ring, and Raises Concerns

In Blog on March 16, 2014 at 10:47 pm

When media barons use their power and influence to run for political office, the results usually are not pretty.  Silvio Berlusconi  rose to power in Italy, his image burnished by his media outlets. He remained in power long after sex and corruption scandals caused many Italians great embarrassment and likely worsened the nation’s economic woes.

Now, in Canada, that experiment is being repeated, and no one can predict what the results will be.  Karl Pierre Peladeau announced on March 13 that he would run as a Parti Quebecois candidate in Quebec’s provincial election.

It is hard to overstate Peladeau’s status as a media baron. He is the major owner of a media corporation that is the largest broadcaster in Quebec and owns the most  newspapers  in the province. His Sun newspaper tabloid chain is the largest publisher of newspapers throughout Canada.  His Quebecor empire also is the largest magazine publisher in Quebec, and the largest publisher of French-language books in Canada.

Peladeau is charismatic, runs a multi-billion-dollar business, and is well known for his distaste for labor unions, including those representing reporters.  If that weren’t enough, Peladeau is strongly supportive of Quebec sovereignty.  There is talk that Peladeau’s ultimate goal is to be the premier or president of an independent Quebec.

Peladeau’s wife, (they separated last December)  who supports his candidacy, also has a high profile in her own right, producing a raft of reality TV shows.  Beset by her own fertility problems, she convinced the Quebec government to fund fertility treatments for low-income families.  She argued the province needed more taxpayers. 

Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , , ,

Media buried the lede on Papal interview

In Blog on March 10, 2014 at 9:52 pm

On March 5, the mainstream media gave Pope Francis yet another welcoming hug on the first anniversary of his papacy.  Francis gave an Italian paper a wide-ranging interview to mark the anniversary.  If you read the mainstream the media you would have thought the Pope was his genial, vague self, suggesting just enough openness to conform to  the portrait of the man the media would  like him to be – charming, winning, and willing to change the church.

Headlines emphasized the Pope’s plea that others not consider him a superman, but just a “normal” guy. The Pope wants you to “get over him” as The Washington Post proclaimed.

They also leapt at his suggestion that maybe the church wouldn’t oppose civil unions for the purpose of ensuring insurance coverage for same-sex couples.

The print media was nothing compared to the broadcast outlets.  Panelists – all Catholic — on ABC’s This Week gushed so much, it was embarrassing.

But most reporters buried the lede. In the interview, the Pope, when asked about the pedophilia scandal, viewed the church as a victim.  He claimed that most abuse occurs in family situations, and implied that such abuse remains hidden and unaccountable.  The church, on the other hand, had been the only public institution to handle the matter with “accountability and transparency,” he said.  “And yet the church is the only one attacked.”

That is really an outrageous comment.  The institutional church was guilty of a massive cover-up, permitting abusers to repeat their crimes as they were quietly transferred from parish to parish.  Journalists and victims willing to come forward held the church accountable.  It didn’t happen voluntarily.

If Pope Benedict XVI had made the same comment, you can bet that reporters would have been all over it.  The master narrative for Benedict is that he was a cranky old man, a narrow-minded censorious nitpicker.  Not so for his replacement.

The Boston Globe, which had relentlessly covered the sex abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese, was the exception among mainstream media. The paper made the sex abuse comment the centerpiece of its coverage of the interview.

But that wasn’t all the Pope said.

He also had kind words for Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical that banned artificial birth control, a document the late Rev. Andrew Greeley claimed had led to American Catholics’ massive disillusion with their church.

Pope Francis praised his predecessor’s “genius” and “courage” in siding against the majority, and putting “a brake on the culture,” although he acknowledged that individual cases must be considered with much care by priests.

The Pope has done good things.  His simple lifestyle, his condemnation of the excesses of free-market capitalism, and his compassion for the poor have inspired the world.  But he’s also the leader of more than one billion Catholics, and an institution that deserves to be scrutinized with journalistic care.  Instead, reporters have failed to cover the Pope with dispassion.  They downplay the comments that don’t fit into the master narrative of Pope as pop hero, and emphasize his warmth, casual banter, and charm.

So who is the Pope?  If journalists were not so beguiled by the style, they might look more at the substance.  The Pope is a hard-liner with a smile.  He’s not giving an inch on doctrinal matters, although he sweetens the approach with compassion.

That’s not a small thing.  Kindness and trying to relate church doctrine to real-life situations is certainly a welcome improvement.  But it doesn’t signal that the Church under Pope Francis will make waves when it comes to reversing long-held church views on contraception, and abortion.  Homosexuals may be more tolerated, but homosexuality won’t be.  And a growing role of women in the church?  Well, don’t hold your breath.

, , , , , ,

Speechgate roils Canadian journalism

In Blog on March 2, 2014 at 6:31 pm

It was my good fortune to graduate from the University of Toronto.  The U of T is Canada’s Harvard, only affordable and without the annoying presence of many young men and women of means who believe themselves to be infallible.

One of the joys of living in a sophisticated city with practically no crime and terrific cultural and intellectual venues was its journalism.  At the top of the journalism pyramid was Canada’s public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Long before NPR, there was CBC News.  For many Americans, it was the source that told the truth about Vietnam long before U.S. news outlets caught on.  It’s been thoughtful, comprehensive and respected for decades – though like almost every news organization around the world, it’s suffered from budget cuts.

The jewel in the crown of CBC news programs is its nightly one-hour prime-time news program, The National.  Peter Mansbridge has been the face of The National for the past 25 years. Interestingly, Mansbridge elected not to join Canadian broadcasters like Morley Safer and the late Peter Jennings at U.S. network news, although he was asked in the 1980s.  He reportedly turned down a million-dollar deal because money was less important to him than staying in Canada and doing outstanding journalism in his own country. At the time, the decision made him a hero to Canadians.

Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , ,

Short shrift on Waxman retirement

In Blog on February 13, 2014 at 10:59 am

On January 30, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., announced his retirement from the House after 40 years of service in that legislative chamber.  His record is studded with major achievements. He was both the supreme strategist and major force behind legislative efforts that resulted in cleaner air and water, Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco, more humane treatment of AIDS patients, and expanded access to heath care for low-income families.

Along with then Representative Ed Markey, D-Mass., now a Senator, Waxman led congressional efforts to address climate change in a comprehensive way, one of the few reform goals he hasn’t attained in his four-decade career.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Waxman’s philosophy and record, it certainly is newsworthy in and of itself.  So why the focus on the man’s height? Read the rest of this entry »

, , , ,

Grantland’s Insensitivity is a Cautionary Tale for Reporters

In Blog on January 25, 2014 at 1:21 pm

All journalists hope that their work will have an impact.  But we don’t want that impact to be suicide.  I realize that journalist Caleb Hannan did not want his subject — the inventor of a new golf putter who had hidden her identity and misstated her qualifications – to take her own life. It is not fair to say that Hannan’s reporting caused a suicide, but it’s pretty clear that his digging alarmed and upset a very vulnerable individual.

In pursuing his story, which contributes nothing to the welfare of mankind – it’s about the invention of a new putter for goodness sake – Hannan certainly displayed a lack of awareness of the potential consequences of his reporting.

Hannan’s story was published on the ESPN-owned website Grantland.com on January 15.  He recounts his reportorial odyssey in trying to discover the truth about the elusive Dr. Anne Essay Vanderbilt, known as Dr. V, the inventor of what she touted as a revolutionary new putter. I am not linking to the story because I don’t want to add to its page views.

I know nothing about golf, but I think most of us will agree that it is a game, and whether or not a putter is revolutionary is relatively unimportant in the larger scheme of things.

But Grantland being about sports, this long-form story seemed appropriate to its editors.  However, the writer of the piece and those who permitted it to be posted forgot that not all stories have to be published.

Hannan discovered that Dr. V had lied about her credentials – she was not an MIT-trained physicist, or many of the other things she claimed to be.  He ultimately discovered that Dr. V was a transgender woman. What he did not uncover was any proof that the putter she invented did not work, or that she had attempted to bilk any investors out of their money. (In the course of his reporting, Hannan told one of Dr. V’s investors that Dr. V once had been a man, an inexcusable invasion of Dr. V’s privacy. The investor wasn’t nearly as shocked by this revelation as Hannan apparently was.)

Oh yes, he’d also that learned Dr. V had attempted suicide in 2008, after a fight with her girlfriend.

Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , , , , , , , ,

When Did Contraception Become Controversial?

In Blog on January 5, 2014 at 1:01 pm

Tell me, when did the media decide that contraception was controversial?  When I did a search on Google News, I found that the words contraception and controversy occurred together more than 4,000 times, often in broadcast and print news accounts.

Contraception is not some bizarre practice that most Americans avoid.  Yet, ideologues and the Catholic hierarchy have managed to brainwash reporters, most of whom I’ll wager practiced birth control at some point in their lives, and persuaded them to treat the term gingerly.  Contraception used to be called family planning. That term better reflects the well-established concept that people have the right to determine how many children they can love, raise and financially support.

Most sexually experienced  Catholic women of child-bearing age – an estimated 98 percent — have practiced contraception at some point in their lives.  As a reporter colleague of mine once put it, “We’re Catholics, but we’re not idiots.”  The statistics are pretty clear that most Catholics don’t see anything wrong with contraception.  Only 15 percent find it morally wrong.  Even among Catholics who attend weekly mass, two-thirds don’t find contraception objectionable.  Count me among that group.  Heck, I even sing in the choir at my church.

And as a few media outlets have tried to point out, federal regulations long on the books already had made the availability of birth control pills a requirement for most employers that provide health insurance.  Many state laws had imposed similar requirements on Catholic institutions. Catholic institutions that fought these rules were often blocked by the courts.

But by and large  journalists have done a terrible job of making the point that contraceptive use is the norm in this country, and that federal regulations and state laws have been quietly requiring that it be a part of employer-provided health insurance for years.

Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , , ,

An NSA Buffet That Leaves Us Hungry

In Blog on December 26, 2013 at 10:00 pm

This month, the American public saw what happens when reporters do in-depth profiles of an institution or individual with whom they have a shared history.  The results often don’t serve journalism very well.

As it happens, both pieces concerned the embattled National Security Agency.  In both cases, the reporters in question got unprecedented access because their subjects trusted them and knew they would be treated well.

CBS’s 60 Minutes profiled NSA, amping up the agency’s positive profile a few megawatts. Viewers got an inside look into the secretive agency, virtually strolled through its hallways,  even heard from telegenic young staffers who work there.  The cameras also took us inside the office of the NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander. But all this access came at a price —  critical journalism that asks the difficult questions and won’t settle for the less-than-forthright answers.

To his credit reporter John Miller told his audience that he used to work at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  He also stated that Alexander agreed to the interview because he believed “NSA has not told its story very well.”

It is entirely appropriate to give a subject of a major story the opportunity to make his case, and to make it fully.  But what was missing was the opportunity for NSA critics to challenge those assertions.  Also missing were tough questions from Miller himself asking why NSA felt obliged to lie to Congress, and whether its contracting procedures needed a little retooling.  How in the world did an IT contractor get the access that Snowden had? Did Alexander understand why Americans were so concerned about the capture of so much data?  After all, phone numbers alone can be the keys to much more information.  Had this virtually unsupervised effort  truly saved lives?

I agree with journalist critics, and there are many, that CBS failed to fully inform and instead served as a public relations vehicle for a government agency.  If  NSA wants to make its case, let it buy full-page ads, place op-eds in The New York Times, make its officials available for interviews on the Sunday talk shows.  NSA officials can do cross-country tours and field questions from local reporters.  But CBS should never have agreed to such uncritical coverage.

It will be interesting to see if journalists are as quick to critique Barton Gellman’s extremely sympathetic profile of NSA leaker Edward Snowden for The Washington Post. After all, journalists tend to take the side of people who leak information to them.

Read the rest of this entry »