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November 11, 2004
What Does a Great Newspaper Want From its Critics? Accountability Committee at the TimesNew York Times assistant managing editor and head standards guy Allan M. Siegal lays out plans for a special committee to improve "accuracy and accountability." I give you the memo, and my read on it. You hit the comment button and give yours.Here’s how it made news today at Romenesko, “Your daily fix of media industry news, commentary, and memos.” THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2004 The first Siegal committee (see PressThink on it) investigated the Jayson Blair mess and the Howell Raines reign. It led to the formation of the Public Editor’s position, and to Daniel Okrent, who is himself a revolution in accountability, since he is creating the office of ombudsman where never there was one. The story of that committee’s work is told in Seth Mnookin’s new book on the New York Times during the Blair agony and after. It’s getting attention from press watchers. (For the first Siegal report, click here.) Here’s the Siegal memo about setting up a second committee, verbatim, with my commentary on its bullet items: Memorandum for: THE STAFF
Background briefings allow administration officials to give out news and views “on background,” meaning the reporters there agree to use no one’s name. Instead it’s: “senior officials in the Bush Administration.” The advantages for the Executive are obvious— and insidious. There’s no question you, the New York Times, “can” pull out of this sordid arrangement, the background briefing. You just make it Times policy never to go to one. Problem solved. There’s a reason this item makes the list: reporters competing for news are not sure of the consequences if they exit the arrangement. If you knew it wouldn’t cost you in the competition for news, you would have pulled out a long time ago. But you don’t know. If everyone in the press stayed away, the practice would end. But again, you don’t have confidence that everyone would stay away. That’s why you end up going, hating that you “have to go.” (By the way, New York Times, there are many social scientists and amateur students of game theory who could tell you about your situation, since it has elements of a tragedy of the commons case, and a prisoner’s dilemma case. Why not sick a reporter on some of those sources?) I think the question should be re-phrased. Rather than “can we cut out our attendance at…?” ask: What role does the New York Times wish to play in resisting devices like “background briefing by Bush officials?” This is the actual policy question, I believe. One option: In a public and pro-active approach, Bill Keller, the boss of Times journalism, signs a decree, forbidding his reporters from going to any such briefing. He writes an op-ed about why he took that step, then does a few talk shows—Charlie Rose, Jim Lehrer—where he says: “the Times staff is behind me and we’re not going back.” If you are willing to be pro-active, you just act, then make your case in public so people will know why you acted. Predicting what others in the game will do is no longer a factor. Seizing the argument is. Think about it: who is going to come forward and make the case for background briefings when Keller makes the public case against? When Jim Lehrer’s staff calls up the White House press operation and asks them to send someone over to defend the practice when Keller goes on the air to denounce it, will they send someone over? My guess is no. And a small point will have been made: that was an indefensible practice. These small points may add up. It is certainly the business of the New York Times to start making them. But maybe the Times is not ready for a public and pro-active role. “We don’t want to be out front on this…” is a coherent policy, too. If you want to be passive in your approach, then make it Times policy to “discourage” attendance and leave it at that. Nothing changes and you had the benefit of “looking” at it.
This is either a continuous improvement problem (doing the right things, we just have to do more) or there’s a disconnect between official Times policy—demanding strict reductions in use of anonymous sources—and a plausible Times practice. (See Okrent on it.) Jack Shafer of Slate, who has tracked the nameless sources story (he calls it the “anonymice”) writes: “Despite the fact that nobody in American journalism professes to like anonymous sources, they keep replicating in newspapers like flesh-eating bacteria.” I would be surprised if some crackerjack game theorists couldn’t help the newsroom think through why this keeps happening, and shed new light on options. First hurdle always with a subject like this: journalists think they know the subject already. Often this is half their problem. “We already understand the ‘game’ of anonymous sourcing; after all, we’re in it.” A more intelligent attitude would be: there’s something we’re missing because we keep falling into the same trap. I’m no expert in game theory literature; maybe there are PressThink readers who understand how it applies to the game of news sources, reporters, and the agreements between them.
One meets them all the time. Journalists who always call sources back and check quotes with them. Many are top flight magazine reporters who meet a very high factual standard. The fear is this gives too much power to the source, who will say something in candor and then try to take it back or fuzz it up. The people who practice quote checking have the same fear, yet they find it doesn’t work that way. The committee should ask them: Why not?
If there is, it will probably be found in another industry, not the manufacture of news. Rate of error, being accurate within a range, are big problems in other fields. Maybe those fields have something to say to journalism. Check it out, Siegal Two.
No. Best practices period. “In our business” sets the bar too low.
Can’t hurt to experiment. You might learn something. Journalists, in my experience, like to argue the merits of things based on their savvier-than-thou prediction of what will happen if you try it. In an experimental approach you avoid holy wars based on someone’s anticipation of what will happen. You try something and actually see what happens. Then you modify your aproach, and try again. Simple, right?
Well, if you are still agonizing about this in 2004, it’s probably best to let those who are comfortable with it put their e-mail address in the paper. But stop for a second: will the Times give reporters and writers the help they may need to tame the information tide and get something useful out of a rising IN box? I think the puzzle is how to help reporters use that more public e-mail address to start pulling in more knowledge. It’s setting up a kick-ass feedback system for them, in which e-mail is only a part. The first reporter to ask for that will be demanding a newsroom innovation. (And the first reporter for a decent-sized newspaper who learns how to use a reader feedback system to improve, guide and correct her reporting is going to be a hero to those who follow.) Progress on this question will vary in direct proportion to the numer of people on the Times committee who have read and absorbed Dan Gillmor’s We the Media. (See The Guardian’s review.)
No view.
Here, I think the direction is all wrong. Except for the part about the editor having a column. The editor of the New York Times should have a blog, and use it to explain himself and his thinking. (One example.) In regard to critics…who attack our believability for political or commercial reasons of their own… That happens. Ax grinders will grind their ax. When criticism is totally politicized (which happens) it loses its value. But some critics attack the Times believability because they think they’ve been asked to believe things that aren’t true. To reason from their “motives” does not seem fair, or especially illuminating. All critics have reasons of their own. And partisan critics often make excellent points. As Matt Welch argues, this is because they have the motivation to watch closely. But seriously: what use does the Times have of these “outside” voices? That’s what I want to know: What does a great newspaper want from its critics in the public-at-large? Does it want for them to go away? Does it want for them to be heard? Does it want them less partisan, more capable of taking an “objective” view? Does it want them to be better informed about Times journalism? Do outside critics offer anything of value, in the eyes of Times writers and editors? Find out what your people think, New York Times. Is the newsroom in a state of “criticism overload” most of time, or does it actually lack for intelligent feedback? And isn’t the handling criticism question related to the being more accurate question? Before you can start “responding systematically,” it helps to know the answers to questions like these. Siegal: The membership of the committee is listed below. Our introductory meeting will take place on November 11. We expect to meet for a few weeks, but not in marathon sessions like those of the 2003 Siegal Committee. We’re trying to blend many kinds of expertise. We’ll be grateful to everyone in the newsroom who has an idea to add to the list above, or who is willing to share thinking with the committee members. Hey, I know this memo wasn’t addressed to me. Yet I’m willing to share thinking with you, New York Times. Add a few ideas to your list. And I like that phrase, “blend many kinds of expertise.” Does it include expert readers? After Matter: Notes, reactions & links. Okay, I gave you the memo, and my read on it. Now hit the comment button and give me yours. More from Matt Welch: New essay in Reason is a must. Biased about Bias: The hunt for ideology becomes an ideology. Developing hypersensitivity to hidden ideology can easily become a distorting ideology of its own, especially when inconvenient facts, such as journalism’s culture of rejecting overt political agendas, are brushed aside. “It is the tragic story of a ‘mental short circuit,’” Vaclav Havel wrote in a marvelous 1985 essay on a different topic. “Why bother with the never ending, genuinely hopeless search for truth when a truth can be had so readily, all at once, in the form of an ideology or doctrine? Suddenly it is all so simple. Think of all the difficult questions which are answered in advance!” Chris Geidner reacts to this post at his weblog, Law Dork: “It’s not enough to set up an insiders-only committee and say that you want to improve your accuracy and accountability. The number one way to improve your accountability is to go outside the paper and to the readers, however that might be construed.” The Washington Post’s Policies on Sources, Quotations, Attribution, and Datelines. Related: The Chicago Reader’s editorial: Tribune, Explain Yourself. Long and intricately-constructed essay criticizing PressThink for becoming tedious and “academic,” in the negative sense. From Udolpho.com. To give you the flavor: Rosen writes in a professorial tone – fair enough, he’s a professor – but if you recall your college lecture courses you might remember the specific variation that professors enjoy using, the “I’ll ask the questions” tone. “I’ll ask the questions” means that we will all acknowledge the essential questioning, challenging, and terribly important nature of the dialogue going on here, but the dialogue’s premise is going to be determined by me and certain obvious questions will simply not be entertained. There’s more, and this is someone who has PressThink on his blogroll. Members of Siegal Two: The Accountability Committee David Barstow, Metro The first Siegal Report is here, a pdf file. It would be great to have it in HTML. Update: Done.
Posted by Jay Rosen at November 11, 2004 11:40 PM
Comments
Al Siegal, for the Siegal Committee, asks: Should we be responding systematically to outside critics . . . ? Jay Rosen's response, in part: But seriously: what use does the Times have of these "outside" voices? . . . What does a great newspaper want from its critics in the public-at-large? . . . Does it include expert readers? My response, for what it's worth: As it so happens, a bunch of us long-time journalist "readers" have been discussing this of late, not just about the Times, but the entire newspaper business. With circulation falling or flat, the blogs on the rise and the tenor of the political times, taking criticism and dealing with it publicly is a far more important issue to me than the same old bias arguments or the use of anonymous sources, the "anonymice." If the Times wants to take a stand and not attend background briefings that would at least show some courage, which has been lacking in the press of late, with the exception of the AP's lawsuit to obtain Bush's military records. Any reporter who has ever covered a serious story related to politics, the military or the intelligence community knows, however, that anonymous sources are sometimes critical. And not just to get a silly background story and beat the competition. We must be able to talk to whistle blowers and others who shed critical light on issues important to the successful functioning of our democracy. The more important issue is this: Newspapers have long taken the position that they should run critical letters to the editor, for example, with no response. Getting a response to an e-mail is close to impossible even from the public editor's assistant, and even when the issue being raised is in the attempt to help, not knock the paper or the staff. Then, papers like the Times have allowed critics such as Rush Limbaugh and others for years to call them "that liberal newspaper," similarly with no response. I've long disagreed with both of these practices, and even back in the late 1980s tried to make the case against the letters policy when I was being attacked by the right and the military for aggressive environmental reporting on the Gulf Coast. Environmental Reporting Can Be Hazardous to Your Career We've always turned the other cheek, when perhaps we should be investigating some of these critics. Jerry Falwell anyone? Pat Robertson? As for the constructive criticism of readers, maybe they will listen to you, Jay. Posted by: Glynn Wilson at November 12, 2004 1:46 AM | Permalink Jay asks, "What use does the Times have of these "outside" voices?" Is he not just stating the obvious because it is too obvious: That the Times has really no "use" at all for these voices? What the Times has for them instead is fear. That is obvious from the tone of the memo here. The Bloggers are hurting the Times' credibility, demystifying the media mighty and helping people to read critically. The Times wants to know how to minimize the damage. One way is to be more credible and that's what the memo is about... But it would prefer, I think, to have the watchers go away too. That won't happen so how can it attack their credibility... That's what why that particular bullet point is phrased as it is. Posted by: Lee Kane at November 12, 2004 1:55 AM | Permalink That's why I asked it directly, Lee: "Does it want for them to go away?" Posted by: Jay Rosen at November 12, 2004 2:10 AM | Permalink Facts are what has already happened. "Truth" is the attempt to use facts to create a means of predicting what WILL happen -- and not even the most certain of these (sunrise tomorrow) is a real fact until it does happen. The Info-tainment industry is one of Divination, the most imprecise of magical fields (Harry Potter) or of modern news. But every interesting Narrative requires some framework; facts alone, history, are so boring. For over a year the polls (each one a fact!) were really "about" who would be elected. How folk felt about the Iraq war, or about the economy; predictions about the future. And of course, the power of the newspaper is to influence political (or occassionaly commercial) action. Does the NYT want more to "inform" or to "influence"? Remember the NYT article listing unemployment rates of Nov. 1 for the last 20 years? (20 facts!) I didn't see it -- because it would have made Bush look good. I would not be surprised if, among all the NYT reporters, there were no registered Republicans who attend church weekly (or more) (as asked in some exit polls). This group of folks is the most seriously unrepresented in the NYT, and the MSM. The Pew and CNN exit polls list various ethnic and religious categories -- the NYT should publish their own internal totals of those categories, and also break out writers & editors. They prolly won't be transparent about this, because it would be obvious how little diversity they have. Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at November 12, 2004 9:21 AM | Permalink Talk about institutional paralysis, today the Times ran a story about social security with a headline saying AARP opposes the Bush plan for private accounts in Social Security, but notes without comment that polling on the word "privatization" has led Republicans to run from it. They additionally note without comment that the AARP has chosen to embrace the Republican framing language. This seems to be very common in Times articles--editors picking a headline that fundamentally contradicts central elements of the story they run. Any thoughts? I'm impressed that they at least register the marketing-driven debate over vocabulary, but disappointed that they refuse to explicitly address it as an issue of framing and what it might mean for the AARP to have officially adopted the Republican narrative. Lastly, note the language of the headline: The Times itself avoids the language Republicans are running from in favor of the language the AARP has just chosen at the behest of the Republican party. The Times itself explicitly adopts the Bush-AARP language for its own headline (a "Bush plan" for "private accounts") even while noting Democratic efforts to keep the story one of "privatization." The Times adopts the Republican language in their coverage. Could there be a more perfect example of Alterman's fallacy of the "liberal media"? Will the Times ever be able to connect framing issues to their own practice? How hard is that? Are they self-consciously choosing Republican language? It's hard to think otherwise after this article. "The fight over Social Security, pitting Mr. Bush's vision of an "ownership society" against the Democrats' determination to preserve a cornerstone of the New Deal, is reflected in a battle over the proper terminology. The White House dislikes the word "privatization,'' which it sees as a misleading and imprecise way to describe Mr. Bush's ideas for Social Security. Democrats insist that the term is accurate. E-mail messages circulated within AARP in recent weeks indicated that the group would avoid the word whenever possible. One message, by an editor of an AARP magazine, says, "There is a new forbidden word at AARP: Social Security privatization.'' Another e-mail message, by a manager of its Web site, says, "The term 'privatization' is stricken from our vocabulary forever.''... The Cato Institute, a libertarian research center, established a Project on Social Security Privatization in 1995, but in 2002 it was renamed the Project on Social Security Choice. "Republicans in Congress do not like the word 'privatization' because it does not poll well,'' said Michael Tanner, director of the project. "The word polls more poorly than the actual concept, in part because people do not understand what it means.''" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/politics/12benefit.html?oref=login&oref=login Posted by: Ben Franklin at November 12, 2004 10:41 AM | Permalink Glynn Wilson's suggestion "perhaps we should be investigating some of these critics [Falwell, Robertson]" sounds like a recipe for ever-greater defensiveness on behalf of the current trajectory of the media. Now that will make me want to read more! As a reader, I recently e-mailed a reporter at a major newspaper about a vague story regarding multicultural and perhaps theological controversy at a religious seminary. When I asked the obvious questions, he referred me (and I thank him for answering) to the equally superficial public releases by the seminary management. My concern, as an educated (JD, MA) reader, is this, the superficiality and illogic of typical daily newspaper reporting. In the above example, there were glaring questions about what had happened, why, when, to whom, what was expected to happen next, what were the positions of those accused... The editor or the reporter had apparently allocated no effort to burrowing beneath the vague institutional public pronouncements to learn anything. This kind of superficiality and failure of intelligent factual inquiry has driven me almost entirely to the internet for information. I read three papers -- NYT, WSJ, local daily -- mostly for local and lifestyle information, and to track the time-lag or spin on breaking stories easier to keep up with via a variety of portals, weblogs, and international journals. In fact, I Googled the main features of the seminary story and in 5 minutes cobbled together the outlines of the controversy's background. With the kind of access a large newspaper can arrange, the looming questions could have been illuminated in two or three 15-minute interviews, so that the reader would have some ideas about a controversy touching "racism," "pressure to retire," "first [minority] president" "loss of faculty support," "cultural intolerance," "too conservative." It's the difference between journalism and typing. And between a media establishment that implicitly deplores "racism," and one that succinctly educates the readership, emotionally and intellectually, about human beings grappling with institutional, social, and personal complications. Well, I've overrun my own column length here, but unless the needs and questions of interested readers are engaged and answered, in close to real time, these crinkling sheets full of vague reports may become, sadly, a diminishing pile at the curb. Posted by: AH at November 12, 2004 11:00 AM | Permalink Seems to me taking on the critics would be an offense, not a defense. Maybe better to do it with a high profile public spokesman. It would beat the heck out of a continuation of moving to the right in response to conservative critics, which is where the entire industry is now. If the Times takes the step of starting a Religion section like a lot of daily newspapers to try to appease the right, as it has by turning the Science section into a Health section because of what the market research shows, there goes the neighborhood. Fox News then wins the debate by defining objectivity once and for all as "fair and balanced." Delve into the research on the early history of the objective mass circulation daily newspaper and you will find it had as much to do with science and searching for truth as it did with appeasing both sides and making money. The smart folks at the Times once understood this. Do they now? Posted by: Glynn Wilson at November 12, 2004 12:00 PM | Permalink I tried to e-mail al siegal but it came back as undeliverable because his address --if any -- is not among those on my {old} NYT list. Here's a copy: Al, re corrections, I've often felt that lots of them could be avoided by a thorough analysis of the categories they fall in. Some types of errors I see corrected are made over and over because some writers have never taken a basic journalism course. Regards, bob cole Posted by: bob cole at November 12, 2004 1:12 PM | Permalink Related Issues From Other Papers, Blogs: Are Mainstream Media Ignored And Irrelevant? Red and Blue Americans Trust Different Sources of Media Posted by: Glynn Wilson at November 12, 2004 2:56 PM | Permalink Jay: I've posted a quick HTMl version of the first Siegel report at http://www.thescoop.org/files/committeereport.html Derek Posted by: Derek Willis at November 12, 2004 5:42 PM | Permalink
"Bush and Blair Put Mideast and U.S.-Europe Ties Atop Agenda" - The article is a series of comments from both leaders indicating that they're "committed to democracy in the mideast." No comment about what they actually plan to do. No comment about the decaying relationship between Bush and Blair. No comment about Clinton's past failures or about what is likely to work this time. Just random quotes. The entire thing is completely vacuous. "Peterson Convicted of Murdering His Pregnant Wife" - Why is this even on the front page? "Iraqi Insurgents Shoot Down U.S. Army Helicopter" - This article contains some straightforward reporting of some of the casualty statistics from the Falluja attacks. It's fine, for what it is. "Amid Grief and Chaos, Arafat Is Buried in West Bank" - This article discusses the outpouring of Palestinian grief over Arafat's death. Of the four articles on the front page, this one is the one that comes closest to having some substance, in that it provides strong evidence that some Palestinians feel unhappy about Arafat's death. What would have really made the article useful is if the impressionistic stuff had been followed by some hard poll data: such-and-such percent of the Palestinians are glad that Arafat is gone. Without the hard data, we are left guessing: is it just a few extremists who miss Arafat, or is it the whole population? The article is so close, yet so far. I feel that if I were to read this newspaper, I wouldn't learn anything except random factoids. Without any larger context, without any larger analysis to tie it all together, it's just sound and fury. The loss of credibility they're experiencing is much more subtle than they think. The problem isn't that they're making a lot of reporting errors. The problem is that the sheer vacuousness of the paper makes it easy for people to see whatever they love to hate in every article. That's why both liberals and conservatives decry the bias of the paper. It's not bias, it's the fact that the paper is an empty vessel into which you can pour out your frustration. Posted by: Josh Yelon at November 12, 2004 8:19 PM | Permalink How do you expect them to report details that the administration won't give? What do you want to see on the page and how would you get it? Posted by: john smith at November 12, 2004 8:21 PM | Permalink
Article 1, about the commitment of our leaders to the I/P peace process: I'd recap the past actions or inactions of both leaders that belie or affirm their commitment. Article 3, about the helicopter: I'd also ask some retired generals whether they the Falluja offensive is going well and whether or not it bodes well for the war as a whole. Article 4, about the Palestinian mindset: I'd send a pollster into Palestine, and have them ask questions like "what would you be willing to give up in exchange for Palestinian statehood," etc. The reason they didn't do these things is because it requires real legwork. Posted by: Josh Yelon at November 12, 2004 8:40 PM | Permalink The first question is: Does the Times want to be more credible, or simply appear that way? Another question: The Times has long been an active force in politics, using its power as the paper of record to both set the direction of the daily news, and to manipulate reality rather than just reporting it. Does the Times want to become more credible while still wielding that power? The Times is unusual. It is a paper of record, an agenda setter, for national issues, but it is also a local paper for a liberal area. I would guess that most of its revenues are from local advertising. Should it cater to the biases of its local community, who presumably loved the anti-Bush crusade it ran all year, or try to be a national paper. Where does revenue considerations alter editorial direction? For example, we know that at Fox News, coverage critical of China is almost completely suppressed - obviously because of Murdoch's interests in China. How about the Times? The owners could presumably order up an anti-Bush (or whatever) crusade and get one. Are they willing to risk the financial value of their asset in order to use its political clout? In general, what does it say to have a local newspaper also being a national agenda setter, and why does the rest of the MSM pay so much attention to what the Times is reporting? Matt Welch tries to deflate the bias narrative, even calling it (improperly) an ideology. But if the MSM remains as biased as it was this year, those on the wrong side of that bias are going to continue to raise hell. And sometimes they will intentionally or unintentionally overreact.In any case, credibility will decline. If the Times is happy with half the country considering them to be politically motivated liars, that's their chosen fate. Their local constituency, who are largely liberal, will continue to buy ads. One problem with hidden causes of visible results is it leads to theorizing that may be wrong. I saw nothing in the Times list about correcting bias. The closest was the reference to those (outsiders) acting out of political motives, implying that bias was a problem of others, not the mighty Times. On some specifics... I cannot imagine dropping the use of anonymous sources, of which the backgrounder is a variant. The sources will find someone else to talk to, and the "responsible" media will be scooped. I cannot imagine the practice ended. This also brings up a question: should the reporter intentionally avoid learning information? That is what is being suggested. I would think that someone who has a background to fit the new information into would be in a better chance to determine if it was of value. And if the information is presented to the public with the right tag, they could make their own decisions. Posted by: John Moore at November 12, 2004 9:06 PM | Permalink I'm not an expert in game theory, but I am somewhat knowledgeable. I teach a graduate course titled Competitive Strategy, which uses game theory as its foundation. The NY Times dilemma about whether or not to go to background briefings doesn't fit into game theory because game theory is about how to win a game. The Prisoner's Dilemma game is a two-person game played by two rational people. Von Neumann's original postualtion of game theory was based on two-person, zero-sum games played by rational people. Nash's equilibrium theory expanded on game theory by showing (mathematically) there was a winning strategy in multi-player games, too. The NY Times's problem is that there is no rational definition of a win or a loss. Years ago, when newspapers were the primary source of news, a win might have been defined as being the first to publish a story. But with the advent of television and now the Internet, newspapers can almost never be the first to publish a story. So, in effect, because the definition of a win has changed, the game has changed. The game now, it seems to me, is to provide the best, most insightful analysis and interpretation of the news. But how to you define a win in this situation? You can't, so it isn't a game. I beleive, as you point out, Jay, that the Times has a journalistic decision to make, not a strategic decision. That's the problem today, all decision politicians make are strategic ones (based on winning) and not decisions based on real moral choices. Thus, the Times has to make a solid journalistic decision based on what's best for its readers. And it also should make a decision based on its leadership position and on maintaining that harad-won position. Thus, in my view the only correct decision to make is not to cover background briefings. Lead and have the courage to dig for the facts and not pay attention to unattributable spin instead of being afraid not to have the spin and miss something. Have a positive instead of a negative goal--at least they might have learned that much from the Republicans. Posted by: Charles Warner at November 12, 2004 10:02 PM | Permalink Even thought the Times memo is written in terms of "readers' trust" and "readers' demands", JR gets it right when he frames the discussion in terms of the "critics". Its very nice for the Times to make this semi-public commitment to its readers, and certainly there is ground that needs to be retaken before the Times can regain its former stature. These problems are readily solvable by looking to the Times of the past, and by realligning with core journalistic principles. But that process is not the real threat. It is not a good sign when the Times Leadership and staff can't acknowledge, even among themselves, that the Paper of Record is under siege from the Critics on the Right. Every reader has an interest in seeing more accurate reporting, so that the quality of information imparted can enhance the integrity and influence of the Times and begin to resurrect the paper. But the timidity of the language of this halting, searching memo speaks to a Times still reeling under a siege mentality, still caving towards its attackers. Of course they should reaffirm their independence by noisily withdrawing from unsourced administration background briefings. Leave that 15 minute scoop headstart to Fox. Of course track and correct errors, set up and adhere to best business practices, print e-mail contacts, monitor for plagiarism. But as for the rest, it would be better if the Times regrew its spine. Take accurate notes and quote accurately. Don't give every source a final edit, a second chance to fuzz up the record. If a reporter can discern a nuance, print it, rather than trying to get a source to endorse "nuance". Madness. The "questionnaire" might have its place at the Krusty Krab, but it will only be a source of embarrassment and exploitation if sent to story subjects. Much of the memo reflects a weak-kneed need for validation from story subjects. If the Times fluffs and puffs enough, it might be able to say, "You like me! You really like me!" but it would be pablum. It suggests a hollowness at the journalistic core, to look for outside sources for stamps of approval. Print the true story and stick to it, come hell or high water. If the Times did its job, by definition, that validation would almost never come from story subjects. I don't recall Nixon handing out "I-gotta-give-it-to-you's" to the Washington Post. Forget fairness, recall accuracy and you will also rediscover integrity and authority. An accurate story will borne out by reality, not by waging a running debate with the critics. The idea of responding to systemic attacks is damn silly. The Times will look defensive, think defensively, and in time, report defensively. The answer to the attacks is not point-counter-point debate; it is accurate and thorough reporting. The attacks are a drumbeat, not a rational argument. And the beat is pitched to an audience that is incapable of hearing any other music. The idea that the paper would beleive it was "readers" driving the assault is almost pathetic. It isn't even accurate to call the attackers "critics". They were and are political operatives. They have developed sophisticated methods for undercutting the Times. I'd guess that most of these outraged "readers" of the Times, read only those excerpts prepared and dressed up for them by the opposition political machinery. Times debunking is already way beyond a cottage industry. It is churned out by the metric ton, and its bunk. Posted by: Mark J. McPherson at November 12, 2004 11:33 PM | Permalink One of the services blogs offer is reporting the vested interests of various people who either make or promote policies, or are interviewed as experts. For example, "Joe Blow, from the Department of Agriculture, had this to say about DDT..." What blogs tell us is that prior to becomming an undersecretary, Joe Blow was president of Agri-Pest, the world's leading manufacturer of DDT and was head of the Re-Elect committee in Colorado. Agri-Pest has been trying to re-establish the use of DDT in America for several years. This kind of information is just as important as the report Joe Blow is giving us. Posted by: vachon at November 12, 2004 11:44 PM | Permalink On the left, we have boorish insults, an almost willful misunderstanding of the arguments of the other side and absolutely no rational arguments of one's own. On the anti-MSM side, we have a (somewhat) cogent argument, though one based on assumptions that the uncharitable might call slightly paranoid but that are, in truth, probably only just a bit too one-dimensional to be completely true. Posted by: Lee Kane at November 13, 2004 1:07 AM | Permalink I find it amusing that here, just like other outlets for liberal thoughts, those on the other side are painted as dupes being fed by political operatives. It's the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy once again. The last paragraph of Mark PcPherson does exactly that. In the real world, there are stories which a reader will recognize to be biased, or a pattern of stories which is not consistent with accurate and reasonable journalistic practices. The Times had a huge number of stories on Abu Ghraib - something just under 100 above the fold and a total around 160. Except for the terminally naive, there can be no explanation for this overcoverage except an ag enda- another attempt to attack Bush. The information could have been delivered in three or four stories. In any objective sense, the story was not that important. It should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Apparently the press was trying to turn it into a symbol of excess under Bush, or something silly like that. Note that I know of no inaccuracies in the stories. But the vast number of stories made the event significant, setting off a typical scandal game, where leftist politicians hold hearings on an issue important only due to a huge amount of overreporting. Even the beheading of an American, which took place in the middle of all of it, got only a tiny fraction compared to Abu Ghraib story. I could list many more, but Jay would strangle me. Those who deny the existence of not only a bias but agendas by the MSM, including the Times, are either naive or disingenuous. With the Times never even admitting this, its credibility goes to zero among Certainly conservatives castigated the media this year, and had the capability to do so through blogs. But that doesn't make bias complainers into fools or dupes. The tendency of the leftist elite to imply those on the right are idiots except for the evil VRWC leaders is one reason the election was won by the right, and is one reason that the MSM suffered this year. People know when they are being talked down to, and they don't like it. One thing not covered in the list is how stories are selected for publication, and how their importance is selected. From the above, it's pretty obvious that those processes can lead to a loss of credibility just as much as an incorrect fact in a story.
Posted by: John Moore at November 13, 2004 2:24 AM | Permalink An observation, and a provisional answer, to the "Does [the NY Times] want [its critics] to go away/be heard?" question, based on an article that squatted on the front page of the Times website all day today. Imagining that among the "critics" in question, bloggers are toward the top of that category, I think the answer is fairly clearly "No, we don't want them to be heard. Yes, we want them to go away, or at the very least we want to reinforce our own expertise, and that of our expert sources, at their expense." This from reading the article titled Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried by Tom Zeller, Jr. Maybe I'm biased as a reader, but there seems to be a profound, and profoundly self-serving (for the Times) disconnect between this headline and the article that follows. The article's about the black-box voting machine conspiracy theories that have become so popular on a variety of liberal blogs. It contains many citations from electoral and voting-machine experts who say that such theories are essentially crap, it also touches upon the virulence and resilience of these rumors and theories, even in the face of "official" debunkings. The article even goes so far as to quote election officials complaining about how annoying and distressing they find these theories, and the widespread credence that is given to them over the internet. This combined with the consistent implication that e-voting was generally more or less perfect, and isolated anomalies don't mean anything, and bloggers are shoddy journalists for not calling officials up and asking them. There are several things that are wrong with this, I think: 1) "Quickly buried" is deceptive, dismissive, and not borne out even by what the article says. And if one visits liberal blogs, it's pretty clear that those theories are still kicking. Beyond the blogs, Ralph Nader seems to think enough of the vote fraud theory to have filed suit with the Federal Election Commission to have a manual recount done in New Hampshire, and to pay for it out of his remaining campaign funds. The story, therefore, seems to be more that, despite the experts, vote fraud theories persist, and rather resolutely refuse to be buried. So what gives? 2) If one actually goes out and talks to tech people who know about this stuff, it seems to be a fairly widespread conviction that the Diebold machines are in fact hideously insecure and vulnerable to hacking, which suggests a baseline plausibility that the Times doesn't wish to acknowledge at all. Depends on which experts you ask, doesn't it? This is particularly shameful, I think, because I recall reading an article, I think in September 2003, entitled Report Raises Electronic Vote Security Issues that appeared in the very same paper. So it's not like the vulnerabilities are news to the Times. Well, not if they have any institutional memory. Which is, perhaps, another issue. Given these two considerations, it makes it hard to look at the "Quickly Buried" article as much more than an anti-blogger hit piece. Granted, Tom Zeller Jr. doesn't seem to be on the Accountability Committee, so maybe he didn't get the memo. But the competitive pressure the Times feels to the blogosphere, and its ongoing antipathy to blogging as an alternate source of news, seems manifest in this article.
My problem with the overall approach here seems to be that it, even if effective, it seems only directed at sins of commission and NOT sins of ommission. Put another way, what does the NY Times plan to do about those stories where it clearly refuses to report certain news or facts? For example, my understanding is that the NY Times has had a virtual blackout on the whole question of voter fraud and irregularities in this last election. In other word, they are REFUSING TO REPORT what I think is a legitimate story. Moreover, whether one has ultimately believes that the allegations regarding shenanigans are meritorious, the fact that there are so many people raising questions IN THE FIRST PLACE seems to be a story in and of itself, quite apart from what the ultimate answers to thes questions may be. Inevitably, such an issue implicates editorial decisions and that whole issue of bias by omission. Nonetheless, when I start having to go to the blogs and to other online sources to get information that the New York Times REFUSES to report, and this information is never undermined or disproven (e.g., Scott Ritter's clear assertions from when before the Iraq War started that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction), but is in fact later vindicated, then the New York Times loses any credibility as "the paper of record." In fact, it just comes out appearing to be no more than a propaganda rag. Posted by: Jeremiah Elias at November 13, 2004 9:45 AM | Permalink After reading political blogs (lefty, not righty) for about 1/2 a year, it's remarkable to me how my relationship to NYTimes news coverage has changed. I am much more disappointed, frustrated, now than I used to be in what a commenter above has pointed out as the vacuousness of the coverage, the sound-bite, recycle-the-administration-version-of-events content of many articles. It's true that bloggers do bring out information that for some reason journalists don't include in their stories-- but that seems incredibly germane to discussion of the underlying issues. For example, the fact that Kenneth Blackwell was the Bush re-election campaign effort chair in Ohio is rarely mentioned in pieces on the Ohio voting irregularities. But there is lots of great information on blogs about specific actions Blackwell took leading up to the election, and statements he has made, which highlight the conflict of interest the secretary of state had in being both the administrator of elections for all Ohioans, and the chief point man for only one of the candidates in that same election. And it's that discrepancy between appearance and reality, that conflict of interest, that is one of the most compelling issues with regard to the real problems many Ohioans experienced on election day-- the legendary 6 to 8 hour poll waits, the hugely underserved polling places in democratic precincts, etc. This sort of thing just doesn't make it into Times coverage. The Times is all about covering Bush's mandate, and making it seem as though the election were by now all neatly settled. When for many people, it was an experience in thwarted democracy. I am grateful to bloggers for focusing on that aspect of it, for just saying Bush is neatly elected president doesn't make it so. Posted by: Ohio Teacher at November 13, 2004 10:08 AM | Permalink Here's a suggestion: get over the media taboo that says anyone who seriously questions the Pentagon is a pariah and a traitor. Pentagon: "We have discovered terrorist slaughter houses." Pentagon: "We have discovered terrorist slaughter houses." Posted by: revscat at November 13, 2004 10:36 AM | Permalink "What bothers me most about the memo is that it doesn't even mention the number one problem: vacuousness and lack of substance." Does it occur to you they actually might not be aware that there is vacuousness and lack of substance in their reporting? They do think the world of themselves. You and I have to remind them constantly of what we think of the job they are doing. Posted by: Verduron at November 13, 2004 10:46 AM | Permalink The NYT let me down for the first 4 years of the Bush Presidency and for the most part of the Presidential Campaign. It did seem to shape up towards the end. What I find interesting is that the Conservatives have been clamoring against Social Engineering, but that is the tool they themselves used to create a society in which they control so many levers that they can rule it. But the master stroke is to have convinced the other side to self-censure it self. Mute your voice mate! Mut, NOT through coercion but self-censure. Brilliant, if you ask me. Posted by: Verduron at November 13, 2004 10:56 AM | Permalink "There's no question you, the New York Times, "can" pull out of this sordid arrangement, the background briefing. You just make it Times policy never to go to one. Problem solved. There's a reason this item makes the list: reporters competing for news are not sure of the consequences if they exit the arrangement. If you knew it wouldn't cost you in the competition for news, you would have pulled out a long time ago. But you don't know. If everyone in the press stayed away, the practice would end. But again, you don't have confidence that everyone would stay away. That's why you end up going, hating that you "have to go." --- Has any box office story ever come out of the on-background indoctrination? Not to my knowledge. The Financial Times, Guardian Group and Independent have all been gaining market share in the US and none of them seem to attend these sessions. Surely that is an indication that nothing valuable comes out of them. To be invited to these sessions confers a degree of status, the acknowledgment by the administration that your paper has national importance. But that has no value for the reader. All of the recent disasters in the press have come from the lies of the anonymice. The best thing the NYT could do is put an end to this noxious practice. Posted by: Alice Marshall at November 13, 2004 11:01 AM | Permalink Jay, Perhaps this should be turned into a moderated discussion of some kind. I tried to convince the Times Web team to make its Web forum that in the beginning but, instead, it's just a wide open platform for angry people to constantly attack the Times. Since it is not a regulated discussion worth following, I rarely go there anymore. I'm assuming that decision was made on the same basis that writers are never allowed to respond to letters to the editor. Turn the other cheek. Let people have their say. Or, it may be all about the money. The traffic counts in Web advertising rates. There is an interesting pattern here related to my earlier point. The Times seems quite willing to attack the bloggers on the left, presumably to counter its reputation as "that liberal newspaper." In other words, let's go out of our way for the sake of the appearance of objectivity. Note Mr. Okrent's aside a couple of columns back that the most "vile" comments he gets come from "the left." (The link is now down or I would provide it.) We'll be watching to see if this continues. As I wrote near the end of another recent column critical of the local and national press, Mr. Okrent seems to focus on the use of anonymous sources and the liberal bias as if those were the main issues of concern to average readers, presumably because those issues constitute the bulk of his e-mail complaints. Note to Mr. Okrent: The right-wing attack machine trains its faithful to focus on this. These people do not actually read your newspaper – and never will. A final related point. There are those who are recommending that the Times take all kinds of measures to show people they are not a "liberal newspaper." This is sort of like those who say the Democratic Party should find ways to express faith as openly as President Bush in the attempt to appeal to "values voters." If this is where the Times goes, it will lose, as The Nation recently wrote on the subject: If Democrats Fight for Alabama, They Will Lose Nuff said. Posted by: Glynn Wilson at November 13, 2004 12:47 PM | Permalink Wow, so many great comments and ideas and I am glad that this story was posted over at Dailykos. I have tons of thoughts, but I am only going to post one for now because it seem so important especially here. 1.) For weblogs, big ones pulling large traffic, such as this obviously is, COMMENTS MUST BE THREADED! I can not over emphasise this enough, and I find myself evangelizing this simple technological feature over and over again across the web. I have mentioned this to smaller weblogs and I have mentioned this to the WashingtonPost and the NYTimes. We are in the middle of one of the greatest publishing revolutions. But the benefits of being able to publish ideas are only as great as our ability to sort through, digest, and respond to those ideas. For that matter comment ranking seems equally vital and illuminating. Otherwise we simply get bogged down in chaos and thus discussion and enlightenment becomes impossible. Thank you - Will Came across Dano's comments regarding the weblog story that ran yesterday on THE FRONT PAGE! of the Times. Dano you nail it on the head. I agree, it was a very irresponsible, slanted and juvenile piece of writing and I think that it was a subconscious slam piece by the Times against its greatest competition. If the internet can out "Truth" and out "Speed" the times, then the Times might not have a purpose. I doubt that the editors sat down and said, lets attack the internet as a souce of credible information, but I think this story did make it to the front page because there is probably some subconscous realization that they are being challanged by this environment we are writing in. I will conclude with the observation that I think it is interesting that the Times has been stubbornly reluctant to embrace the freeing technology of the web. They rarely link out of their paper, their forum section has a difficult subscription methodology - so they are generally unreceptive to public participation in news discourse, and they lock up their archives - so stories not have a long life there, and they thus make little contribution to living stories on the internet in general. I think among the other issues raised above the New York Times needs to rethink how news is published and gathered. I think Slashdot.org sort of shows an exceptional alternative... and progress toward the new news publishing model. -Will My question is how can a newspaper that is almost surely staffed almost entirely by members of the Democratic party (and perhaps Green, etc. parties), managed by members of the Democratic party and owned by Democratic party voters in one of the epicenters of the Democratic party, with a readership that is probably about 4-1 (ratio of Kerry, Bush votes in NYC) Democratic...how can this paper reconceive itself as something other than a "liberal" newspaper? No matter how intently it endeavors to be "objective"? I think journalism might benefit by trying to define "objective," which I think to date has largey meant "lack of bias," but the two do not actually equate. Only facts and descriptions of the observable relationship between facts can be "objective," while placing meaning or significance on those facts is inherently subjective, and it is in precisely this area that newspapers like the Times are seeking to shine. The selection of a top story, for example, is inherently a subjective act. I almost want to say that the Times should hire vegetarians to write "objective" reviews of steak houses in New York. It seems an effort more likely to meet with success. Posted by: Lee Kane at November 13, 2004 1:34 PM | Permalink The comment about lack of legwork by the press hit the nail on the head. For example, there is a lot of noise on the blogs about Florida counties where more Repub votes were recorded than Repub's registered - way more. I did about 5 min research on the web for one county and found that in 2000 this county also voted heavily for Bush - and no one objected then. I've not seen that fact in any of the online or press stories. I'm not saying I've solved that particular rumor about Florida. I'm saying that I observe over and over again that a person who sits down, asks a couple of questions and does a tiny bit of research can come up with all sorts of important data that is never reported in the main stream media. Too often NYT and other papers just do a story that is quotes from two talking heads on opposite sides of the story and never really go beyond that. Lee says: "My question is how can a newspaper that is almost surely staffed almost entirely by members of the Democratic party (and perhaps Green, etc. parties), managed by members of the Democratic party and owned by Democratic party voters in one of the epicenters of the Democratic party, with a readership that is probably about 4-1 (ratio of Kerry, Bush votes in NYC) Democratic...how can this paper reconceive itself as something other than a "liberal" newspaper? No matter how intently it endeavors to be "objective"? " If they are such a "liberal" paper then why did they give the Swift Boat veterans such a free ride? Why didn't they interview others who came forward to debunk the story? Why didn't they push harded on Bush's National Guard no-show record? Yes, I know they endorsed Kerry - after providing coverage that was over and over shown to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. Go look at www.dailyhowler.com for endless examples. JohnN -- First let me say that I read the NYT every day and am thankful for its existence; if it didn't exist it would be necessary to invent it. Next, let me say that the NYT coverage of the SVT affair almost exactly mirrored the Kerry campaign's handling of the matter--ignore, ignore, and, then, when that failed, attempt to debunk. Following on the Kerry campaign's belated acknowledgement of the SVT, the Times, which only wrote about it after Kerry decided to address it, spent a lot of effort trying to discredit the organization with, for example, a sinister looking "conspiracy" chart showing purported connections between SVT and Bush supporters. Of course, it never created a similar chart showing the puported connections between, say, Moveon.org and the Kerry campaign. Or Michael Moore and the Kerry campaign. If you read about the SVT elsewhere you would see that while some of their claims appeared untrue or could not be substantiated, other claims proved to be accurate and even caused the Kerry campaign to rejigger Kerry's biography (esp. regarding his claim he was in Cambodia). How the SVT episode is an example of the NYT acting against Kerry's interests is, frankly, beyond me. Posted by: Lee Kane at November 13, 2004 1:58 PM | Permalink
Wrong question: Why is the mainstream media so liberal? Right question: Why is the liberal media so mainstream? I think the answer is obvious. There's plenty of conservative media: Limbaugh, the Washington Times, etc. The problem for conservatives is that their media outlets have not managed to achieve an aura of respectability. I think there might be an obvious reason for that, but I'm not going to go there.
Posted by: Josh Yelon at November 13, 2004 2:19 PM | Permalink Right question: Why is the liberal media so mainstream? I think the answer is obvious. There's plenty of conservative media: Limbaugh, the Washington Times, etc. The problem for conservatives is that their media outlets have not managed to achieve an aura of respectability. I think there might be an obvious reason for that, but I'm not going to go there. I almost choked when I read this. The left has all the major dailies, the three broadcast networks, CNN and NPR, and Hollywood which puts political messages into its product. The Right has the Washington Times and Fox. And you think the Times is reacting to the right? Absurd. Just for fun, try explaining why left wing talk radio is such a failure (except for a few cases in deep blue states). Re: The Times and Swifties. As a Vietnam Vet who was active in a sister organization to the SBVT and provided SBVT with some media analysis, it was clear to me that the media did its best to ignore the organization entirely. The Swifties didn't just pop up in August, they held a press conference in May that should have been a major storie (all of Kerry's commanders and their commanders up the chain of command to and including the legendary Admiral Zumwalt claimed he was unfit to serve). They timed it with the hope of knocking Kerry out of the primaries, since a number of them were Democrats and wanted a different Democrat nominee (because of their knowledge of Kerry). That press conference was essentially ignored. I have previously hashed out behere various details about the pathetic coverage the bias against the SBVT before. I won't do it again here. The Times' chart was misleading at least, in that the ties that existed were not exercised - they were historical (if they had been, they would have been felonious). There were a whole lot of stories that had an anti-Bush bias: Bush's National Gguard service, the lack of investigation of Kerry's history (hint: he got a less than honorable discharge from the Navy, and he had to revise dates in his biography on his website when he published part of is Navy records, the press never pressed him to release the rest of his records), overemphasis on Abu Ghraib (Times ran something like 160 stories). Anyone who wants to debate this can go here to avoid cluttering Jay's blog. Posted by: John Moore at November 13, 2004 4:28 PM | Permalink |
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