PressThink: Getting the Politics of the Press Right: Walter Pincus Rips into Newsroom Neutrality

Getting the Politics of the Press Right: Walter Pincus Rips into Newsroom Neutrality

The important thing is to show integrity-- not to be a neuter, politically. And having good facts that hold up is a bigger advantage than claiming to reflect all sides equally well.

It is rare that a single article advances American press think. In fact, it is rare for American press think to advance at all, which is one of the reasons our press is so vexed these days. Take Clark Hoyt’s latest effort as New York Times public editor. It goes like this:

Many readers have complained to me that the Times is not “shooting down the middle” in its coverage of the 2008 campaign. But I’ve been monitoring and grading the coverage myself, and I have a surprise for some of you. “The Times has not been systematically biased in its news coverage, even if it has occasionally given ammunition to those who claim otherwise.”

Ta-da… An unbiased press! Now I do not doubt his word. Clark wouldn’t cook the books. But this is a conversation that’s savagely stuck, gamed not to go anywhere— for all sides. Professional journalists do not improve the situation when they double down on their neutrality and present objectivity as a truth claim about their own work. It is this kind of claim that compels people to furnish—furiously—more chapter and verse in the very bad and very long book of media bias. Which then causes Hoyt to speak lines like, “Bias is a tricky thing to measure, because we all bring our biases to the task.”

The only exit from this system is for people in the press to start recognizing: there is a politics to what they do. They have to get that part right. They have to be more transparent about it.

But this recognition is circuit-frying for the press we inherited from the Watergate era, and the long arc of professionalization before that. For it means that political argument isn’t really “separate” from news at all, even though the priesthood wants it to be, and still preaches that. There’s a reason Daniel Okrent considered his most important column as public editor this one. (Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? “Of course it is,” on social issues at least. It reflects the city where it is made.)

The informed display of political conviction

Josh Marshall’s TPM Media operation is a new media newsroom that does political reporting in the same space as the big providers. Marshall believes in accountability journalism, sticking with stories, digging into public records for information, getting to the bottom of things, verifying what you think you know, correcting the record when you get it wrong.

TPM marries these traditional virtues to open expressions of outrage, incredulity marking certain political figures as ridiculous or beyond the pale, and the informed display of political conviction. These make it obvious to any reader of Talking Points Memo that Marshall is a liberal Democrat skeptical of the Bush agenda, though not a dogmatic one. His is the transparency route to trust and success in political journalism. A key crossing point came last month when Marshall and company won a George K. Polk Award for excellence in reporting on the legal system.

The way Marshall figures it, the important thing is to show integrity— not to be a neuter, politically. Having good facts that hold up is a bigger advantage than claiming to reflect all sides equally well. TPM’s homegrown mix combines political argument, dogged investigative work, news aggregation, a filtered community forum, some media criticism, and user-assisted reporting.

(Marshall discussed his approach, and I commented on it, on KCRW’s “politics of culture” show, hosted by Kevin Roderick of LA Observed, with Mark Glaser of Media Shift joining us. Listen here. Also, I will be joining in a forum at TPM Cafe’s Book Club next week that is not unrelated to points made here.)

Uncoupling fairness from neutrality

If the press has to get its own politics right to do news well and remain a force for public good, then future success in the production of news may hinge on the quality of political argument and ideological experiment within the pro tribe itself. That’s a conversation that isn’t happening yet, but there is action everywhere.

Marshall’s success is one example. Keith Olberman anchoring political coverage for MSNBC while also engaging in “special commentaries” that denounce Bush for world class denial and criticize Hillary Clinton for fratricide— that’s another. Now comes James Poniewozik of Time making the case for disclosure. Political journalists, tell us who you voted for! “The biggest reason to go open kimono is that the present system does what journalism should never do: it perpetuates a lie,” says Poniewozik.

Modern political journalism is based on the bogus concept of neutrality (that people can be steeped in campaigns yet not care who wins) and the legitimate ideal of fairness (that people can place intellectual integrity and rigor over their rooting interests). Voting and disclosing would expose the sham of neutrality—which few believe anyway—and compel opinion and news writers alike to prove, story by story, that fairness is possible anyway. Partisans, bloggers and media critics are toxically obsessed with ferreting out reporters’ preferences; treating them as shameful secrets only makes matters worse.

I agree. Uncoupling fairness (needed) from neutrality (not) is a critical and positive step. And I’m with Jeff Jarvis, writing for The Guardian: “The more journalists tell us about their sources, influences and perspectives, the better we can judge what they say.” But disclosing whom you voted for (Obama for Poniewozik, Clinton for Jarvis) is only a part of it. In many ways, the easiest part. Political press think needs a deeper overhaul. The really tricky question is not, “whom did you vote for?” but “what are you doing with your power?” And how are you generating power and authority in the first place, behind what claims?

The courage to admit you’re a participant

Walter Pincus has been at the Washington Post for some 35 years as a reporter, most of it specializing in the intelligence world and the national security state. (He was also executive editor of the New Republic during Watergate, and worked for a brief time on a Senate committee.) Pincus, I think, is one of the best reporters in Washington; and he has his own ideas about journalism.

He proved that when he was asked to write an essay for a new magazine called Frank: Academics for the Real World, which is published by the Clinton School of Public Service in Arkansas. It is this piece that moves the ball down the field. “Power of the Pen: A Call for Journalistic Courage” is the title. Thing is, it’s not online, so barely anyone has seen it.

Pincus does something rare for any mainstream journalist: he openly argues for a more political press. He even uses the word “activist,” which is forbidden in the mainstream newsroom code. And he says that courage in political reporting sometimes means the courage to admit you’re a participant—a player, a power in your own right—within the struggle for self-government, the battle for public opinion and the politics of the day.

Jim Lehrer of PBS would turn on his heel and walk away from Walter Pincus on some of these points. Leonard Downie, executive editor of the Post, would probably blanch. Of course those are the most interesting parts.

For instance, Pincus describes the rise of neutrality as a loss of rights and a conversion downward for the political press.

Owners, editors and reporters today rarely push issues they believe government should take up. If a vote were taken among editors of the major daily newspapers, the vice presidents of network news editions, television and radio anchors, and, I hate to say, probably even most younger print and electronic reporters, the result would be that few to none want or believe they have the right to shape government actions. They don’t want to play activist roles in government—either personally or professionally—unless, of course, it could affect the bottom line.

If Lou Dobbs and his “apocalyptic centrism” are a ratings hit for CNN, he can stay. But for the deciders in the news business, the fiction of floating above politics is the better way to prosper. To Pincus that’s positively lame.

I believe this failure is a threat to our democracy and a poor example for the rest of the world. This is my romantic and unfashionable view of journalism, but it is the one that caused many of us to take up the profession in the first place.

Undoing what Deaver did

“The Power of the Pen” builds on a short essay Pincus wrote in 2006 for Nieman Watchdog, which is online. There he described a very concrete way in which the presidency had brought the news media under greater control. Michael Deaver started it during the Reagan Years. By giving early guidance to the networks about where the President would be speaking and what he plans to say to whom, Deaver began to edit the news himself:

He turned that meeting, which began in prior administrations to help network news television producers plan use of their camera crews each day, into an initial shaping of the news story for that evening.

Independent judgment in the press was eroded, which Pincus counts as a power shift. When you commit cameras and extend coverage based on what the White House says it plans to say, you cede power over the news to the President. There’s mission creep:

The Washington Post, which prior to that time did not have a standing White House story scheduled each day (running one only when the President did something new and thus newsworthy), began to have similar daily coverage.

This turns precious news space into a messaging system for political controllers. Pincus marvels at how being able to “stay on message” is considered a crucial skill by Washington reporters, when this is the very method that reduces them to stenographers.

Of course, the “message” is the public relations spin that the White House wants to present and not what the President actually did that day or what was really going on inside the White House.

The press was getting boxed in by its own routines, including its fascination with the inside story.

This system reached its apex [in 2006] when the White House started to give “exclusives” — stories that found their way to Page One, in which readers learn that during the next week President Bush will do a series of four speeches supporting his Iraq policy because his polls are down. Such stories are often attributed to unnamed “senior administration officials.” Lo and behold, the next week those same news outlets, and almost everyone else, carries each of the four speeches in which Bush essentially repeats what he’s been saying for two years.

When what’s going on is public relations — not governing, the press still feels it must extend coverage because to refuse it would seem… too political. Pincus knows this. Still, he says journalists should refuse to publish “in a newspaper or carry on a TV or radio news show any statements made by the President or any other government official that are designed solely as a public relations tool, offering no new or valuable information to the public.”

Quit your part in the propaganda system. Stop enabling message control. No “standing” or automatic coverage should be granted. No spin room, either. We have to undo what Deaver did and re-gain some of that lost territory.

Looking to the past for better press think

Pincus, I think, is well aware that he is no longer hugging the shore of mainstream press think, but drifting out to sea. And so he turns to the past to get his bearings. To William Allen White of Kansas, who helped explain and promote Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive ideas, speaking to the nation from the Emporia Gazette. And to Lincoln Steffens, the great muckraker (and progressive) of the early 1900s, who wrote “Shame of Cities,” a series about municipal corruption.

Steffens started the flame that awards like the George K. Polk keep alive. About his articles explaining the corrupt machines in St. Louis, Minneapolis, Chicago, he says, “They were written with a purpose, they were published serially with a purpose, and they are reprinted now together to further that same purpose.” The politicians “will supply any demand we may create. All we have to do is to establish a steady demand for good government.” (Yes, the progressives overestimated what could be done with publicity and exposure alone.)

Creating demand in the country for more transparent and accountable government is the political part of the reporting project Steffens undertook with his “shame” series. “All very unscientific,” he wrote.

But then, I am not a scientist. I am a journalist. I did not gather with indifference all the facts and arrange them patiently for permanent preservation and laboratory analysis. I did not want to preserve, I wanted to destroy the facts.

I wanted to destroy the facts. That’s Steffens, disclosing his agenda. He wanted to see if the findings in his report, “spread out in all their shame,’” would “set fire to American pride,” and change what was acceptable to voters and influential citizens.

That was the journalism of it. I wanted to move and to convince. That is why I was not interested in all the facts, sought none that was new, and rejected half those that were old.

Steffens, I think, would know how to deal with an accusation of bias.

The fourth branch of government

By re-claiming White and Steffens as heroes, Pincus is dissenting from the view you can hear in this account from columnist Matt Miller, who five years ago went searching for the limits of press neutrality.

“I don’t think that if you sat in on page-one meetings over the course of six months,” says Steve Coll, managing editor of The Washington Post, “you would hear any discussion about ‘We ought to do this because we want to put it on the map.’ You have to see the media as chronicling the public square. When nobody shows up in the public square to talk about what you would wish them to talk about, is the person standing in the back with an open notebook the structural cause of that?”

It’s a vivid image of a blameless press: the open notebook on a windswept public square. Miller interprets what Coll is saying:

The national press, despite its power and occasional hobbyhorses, sees its role as “witnessing,” as serving up a “daily diary of debate,” as offering “a platform for independent inquiry and investigation” — but not as setting the terms of public discussion.

Even though it does have that power, at times. Miller again:

I asked Downie, “Should the news side of an organization like yours have a perspective on what are the most important challenges facing the country?”
“No,” Downie said instantly.

Walter Pincus disagrees. And he has a theory, which starts with Edmund Burke on the rise of a “fourth estate” and winds up with Downey’s instantaneous “No.” I summarize:

Whoever can speak to the public as a whole has political power. This power can be used for good or ill. Some who have used it for good have sought to influence government. The framers of the Constitution were familiar with this type of editor, and so freedom of the press protects the power of the pen. But it also protects the kind of press that would shrink from using its power, or re-claiming it. This is where courage is necessary. But recent history isn’t very encouraging.

“Transmitters of other people’s ideas…”

In the 1950s Douglas Cater called the press the fourth branch of government. “The reporter is the recorder of government but also a participant,” said Cater. Since then, official policy has been toward a less political press, less inclined to see itself as a participant, even as complaints about bias have risen. This cycle has weakened journalism. The fairness doctrine, an official policy of even handedness, spread “backward” from television to newspapers. Media concentration, publicly-traded stock, and the rise of monopoly news gatherers helped enthrone the notion that providers of news should be onlookers.

Today’s mainstream print and electronic media want to be neutral, unbiased and objective, presenting both or all sides as if they were on the sidelines in a game in which only the players—the government and its opponents—can participate. They have increasingly become common carriers, transmitters of other people’s ideas and thoughts, irrespective of import, relevance and at times even accuracy.

Reporters with depth of knowledge are capable of challenging government and getting beyond he said, she said, a tepid style of truthtelling. But the media corporation shifts its people around a lot. They switch towns, beats, assignments so often that it’s impossible for most reporters to build up any independent base of authority. They can’t challenge spin because they don’t know enough. So they become transmitters. Neutrality valorizes a loss of footing and self-respect.

This is bad news for the press if you care about having a strong one, capable of challenging the line of the day. But fine for the media, which finds it far cheaper to farm out “context” and “analysis” to ex-government officials. They came by their knowledge at another sector’s expense.

To wrap this up, a question via Sir Pincus for public editor Clark Hoyt: What if the very thing the New York Times is doing for reasons of trust—remain officially neutral, like Switzerland—is causing more people to trust the Times less and less? You can say those people are misguided. You can prove them wrong with better stats. Or you can read “the Power of the Pen” when it comes online, and start your re-think right there.

* * *
After Matter: Notes, reactions & links…

Weldon Berger got permission to publish the Walter Pincus essay, so it is now online: The Power of the Pen: A Call for Journalistic Courage.

Tom Edsall, now of the Huffington Post, formerly of the Washington Post, interviewed Walter Pincus about his views on this subject, March 22, 2008. Excerpt:

EDSALL: You said the Nieman article “Fighting Back Against the PR Presidency” got you in trouble.
PINCUS: Well, originally, yeah. I mean, not trouble. This is just this whole long thing that I’ve always had running. You’re not supposed to be an advocate….But otherwise why have a paper? That’s why you have the 1st Amendment. That’s why the press is free to print anything it wants.

EDSALL: So in effect you got in trouble for saying that the paper does advocate and should advocate?

PINCUS: Should advocate, yeah.

EDSALL: I mean — when I got into journalism a long time ago, I think the idea was for reporters to attempt, in breaking stories, to affect the [political and policy] agenda.

PINCUS: Yeah. I think this is generational. I mean, you may know better than I, but — and that’s why we all went into it.

In the comments, Lex Alexander of the News & Record in Greensboro lists some areas where daily newspapers might start to see itself as having a political identity:

Public records. If you think of yourself as a public trustee and/or a watchdog, this is essential. It’s also a fairly easy sell to the public.

Being pro-consumer. The market is more and more a rigged game these days, from dirty air to downed cattle.

That watchdog thing. It’s hard and takes people and money, but when you identify a worthy target (be it an individual, a government agency, a corporation or a nonprofit) and hit it hard, people react.

“None of these involves picking a side in the red/blue culture wars,” Lex writes.

It’s always been of interest to me that most people think the available choices are toxic objectivity on the one hand or picking a side and joining the culture wars on the other. Absurdly de-politicized or instantly over-politicized: where do you stand?

Matthew Sheffield of Newsbusters.org (“Exposing and combatting liberal media bias”) in the comments:

I still think there is value in the desire to be unaligned (no one likes being thought a shill) and a danger in thoroughly throwing one’s lot in with a side (spiking stories “for the team”).

Steve Borris at the Future of News reacts to this post:

If neutrality isn’t necessarily desirable, is it possible “fairness” isn’t either? In my view, a partisan news outlet can demonstrate “fairness” in two ways — by admitting their biases to readers and by providing an honest presentation of opposing views. But in debates, which we consider to be fair contests, would we expect either side to admit their biases or give an honest presentation of the other’s views? Of course, it would not be good for either side to tell lies, but that involves a concept called “honesty,” not fairness. So bring it on, and let’s hear from a multitude of partisan news sources competing in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas. As the saying goes, “politics ain’t bean bag.” Nor is citizenship. Nor should be news.

Karl at Protein wisdom: “Urging journalists to admit that they are participants in the public square is a healthy notion.”

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway:

Even under the current Illusion of Objectivity model, the reporting is fair most of the time. I have my clock radio wake me to NPR every morning even though they’ve clearly got a progressive social agenda on a handful of issues. Even the dreaded NYT produces superb reportage on a day in, day out basis with only the occasional lulu thrown in.
But, ultimately, Rosen’s ideal type is better than the current one. The thing that makes the best bloggers better than the best reporters is that the former operate in a low trust environment while the latter operate under the mantle of automatic respectability. That forces the blogs to lay out the facts, link to sources, and anticipate the responses of those who will disagree. Terrific reporters for major outlets, by contrast, often trip up because they begin from the premise “Trust me, I work for ___________.”

Posted by Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 10:36 AM Print

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Raze Spin Alley, That Strange Creation of the Press: "Spin Alley, an invention of the American press and politicos, shows that the system we have is in certain ways a partnership between the press and insiders in politics. They come together to mount the ritual. An intelligent nation is entitled to ask if the partners are engaged in public service when they bring to life their invention... Alternative thesis: they are in a pact of mutual convenience that serves no intelligible public good." More...

Horse Race Now! Horse Race Tomorrow! Horse Race Forever!: "How is it you know you're the press? Because you have a pass that says PRESS, and people open the gate. The locker room doors admit you. The story must be inside that gate; that's why they give us credentials. We get closer. We tell the fans what's going on. And if this was your logic, Bill James tried to bust it. Fellahs, said he to the baseball press, you have to realize that you are the gate." More...

Psst.... The Press is a Player: "The answer, I think, involves an open secret in political journalism that has been recognized for at least 20 years. But it is never dealt with, probably because the costs of facing it head on seem larger than the light tax on honesty any open secret demands. The secret is this: pssst... the press is a player in the campaign. And even though it knows this, as everyone knows it, the professional code of the journalist contains no instructions in what the press could or should be playing for?" More...

Die, Strategy News: "I think it's a bankrupt form. It serves no clear purpose, has no sensible rationale. The journalists who offer us strategy news do not know what public service they are providing, why they are providing it, for whom it is intended, or how we are supposed to use this strange variety of news."More...

He Said, She Said, We Said: "When journalists avoid drawing open conclusions, they are more vulnerable to charges of covert bias, of having a concealed agenda, of not being up front about their perspective, of unfairly building a case (for, against) while pretending only to report 'what happened.'" More...

If Religion Writers Rode the Campaign Bus: "Maybe irony, backstage peaking and "de-mystify the process" only get you so far, and past that point they explain nothing. Puzzling through the convention story, because I'm heading right into it myself, made me to realize that journalism's contempt for ritual was deeply involved here. Ritual is newsless; therefore it must be meaningless. But is that really true?."More...

Convention Coverage is a Failed Regime and Bloggers Have Their Credentials: "No one knows what a political convention actually is, anymore, or why it takes 15,000 people to report on it. Two successive regimes for making sense of the event have collapsed; a third has not emerged. That's a good starting point for the webloggers credentialed in Boston. No investment in the old regime and its ironizing." More...

Philip Gourevitch: Campaign Reporting as Foreign Beat: "'A presidential election is a like a gigantic moving television show,' he said. It is the extreme opposite of an overlooked event. The show takes place inside a bubble, which is a security perimeter overseen by the Secret Service. If you go outside the bubble for any reason, you become a security risk until you are screened again by hand."More...

What Time is it in Political Journalism? "Adam Gopnik argued ten years ago that the press did not know who it was within politics, or what it stood for. There was a vacuum in journalism where political argument and imagination should be. Now there are signs that this absence of thought is ending." More...

Off the Grid Journalism: “The assignment was straightforward enough,” writes Marjie Lundstrom of the Sacramento Bee, “talk to people.” When a writer dissents from it or departs from it, the master narrative is a very real thing. Here are two examples: one from politics, one from music. More...

Questions and Answers About PressThink "The Web is good for many opposite things. For quick hitting information. For clicking across a field. For talk and interaction. It's also a depth finder, a memory device, a library, an editor. Not to use a weblog for extended analysis (because most users won't pick that option) is Web dumb but media smart. What's strange is that I try to write short, snappy things, but they turn into long ones." More...

Good point, to a point. If you acknowledge you have a position, complaints that you are pushing a position lose their effect.

The problem will arise when the position-pushing involves errors of some kind or another.

It would be harder to excuse a misstatement as an accident if it supports a position you have previously said you are pushing. Even if it was an accident.

This will make accurate reporting more important than it is today, if you wish to beat the current numbers of about half the news consumers saying they don't trust the press.

Presuming the story of the domesticating of the WH press folks is true, it's only true because they went along with it. Nobody said they had to stop doing conventional reporting. But they did.

Nobody has said they can't start again.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at March 14, 2008 11:31 AM | Permalink

Some areas where newspapers might start:

-- Public records. If you think of yourself as a public trustee and/or a watchdog, this is essential. It's also a fairly easy sell to the public.

-- Being pro-consumer. The market is more and more a rigged game these days, from dirty air to downed cattle.

-- That watchdog thing. It's hard and takes people and money, but when you identify a worthy target (be it an individual, a government agency, a corporation or a nonprofit) and hit it hard, people react.

None of these involves picking a side in the red/blue culture wars.

To plagiarize myself: Fox has done well for itself by lying about its motives ("fair and balanced"? puh-leeze). How well could we do by telling the truth about ours?

Posted by: Lex at March 14, 2008 2:08 PM | Permalink

Jay Rosen,

You might correct the impression I took a buyout. I have had a contract with The Washington Post newspaper since 1975, signed with Ben Bradlee after I came back to the paper following my time as executive editor of The New Republic.

Posted by: walter pincus at March 14, 2008 2:10 PM | Permalink

I've written thousands of posts about immigration matters, and the idea that almost every MSM source isn't a strong advocate for certain things is absurd. While their articles rarely feature just people from one side of the issue, the bottom line with almost every article is the same. I've even got a whole category about one subgenre of articles in which the MSM pushes one specific bill; consider this table comparing a Chicago Tribune article with one from the NYDN. They're basically the same article, just the names and details have been changed.

Posted by: NoMoreBlatherDotCom at March 14, 2008 2:37 PM | Permalink

It's the stenographers of the press, not Pincus, who are at sea. Pretty easy to get your bearings, if you want them. Plenty of bloggers report, analyze, and comment upon politics without suffering any fits of anxiety, as far as I can judge. We didn't need seminars on blogging ethics and practices to find our bearings. We just identified what we thought might benefit our audiences, and then set about saying it.

The pretense of neutrality, the quest to cleanse one's writing of any signs of bias - whether among reporters or historians (my own field) - is simply preposterous. It shows a profound lack of insight into how humans develop and express ideas, especially ideas concerning interconnected issues with causal links. The very act of choosing to study the issues demonstrates a bias. Everything flows from that.

If reporters don't have opinions about what matters and why, then they're not sufficiently awake to be doing their jobs. It's an abdication of professional responsibility to refuse to say that this thing here is the crux of the matter, whereas that thing over there is a mere distraction; that this action violates the plain letter of the law, and that statement contradicts what the speaker said yesterday.

Posted by: smintheus at March 14, 2008 2:39 PM | Permalink

Finally, now you are onto it thanks to Mr. Pincus. Can't wait to read his piece. I've been practicing this for years and said as much in comments on this blog three years ago.

Working on an essay now to explain this to readers in Alabama, where our fair and balanced chain press has gone along with the Bush administration's spying and turning the Justice Department into a political arm of the White House and jailing a governor in a corrupt trial.

Posted by: Glynn Wilson at March 14, 2008 3:19 PM | Permalink

Hi, everyone. I composed a little verse for the occasion...

You see bias
We tell you it's not there
We pretend to listen
You pretend to care

Rinse once and repeat
This class
"Eye of the Beholder"
"Objective my ass..."

Here's my study, proving no pattern
And yet this pattern, disproving your study
Well it's nothing systemic
(By the way, this is all polemic.)
Bias this, buddy...
Wasn't there some study?

I'm afraid you'll have to repeat
This class
Eye of the Beholder!
Objective my ass!

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 3:24 PM | Permalink

When we work online and our sources are checkable, even if we're not neutral, we can establish our credibility.

Or so I've tried to do with my Atlantic Yards Report:

On objectivity, neutrality, and integrity in covering Atlantic Yards.

(Major development in downtown Brooklyn including new sports arena.-- JR)

Posted by: Norman Oder at March 14, 2008 3:50 PM | Permalink

I think our readers WANT to hear our opinion. The whole concept of news without bias is just not there, it's never completely objective and it's easy to sway one way or the other.

The power of the pen is a strong one.

Posted by: Ines at March 14, 2008 3:56 PM | Permalink

Thanks, Norman. Atlantic Yards Report is a great example of establishing local authority over a news zone. I recommend it to people all the time.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 3:58 PM | Permalink

I’m not sure how this will help. Charges of bias assume an agenda, admit an agenda I guess that will take some of the zing out of the bias charge but how will it improve things?

You mention Olberman the context of “uncoupling fairness from neutrality”. Unfortunately he also uncouples fairness and accuracy from his reporting and commentary. This is progress?

You quote Steffens,

Facts do not matter, what one believes, what one feels does. Anti-empiricalism at its finest. To argue an agenda requires omission of some of the facts. Like maintaining a narrative requires the omission of some of the facts. Trading the neutral tag of narrative for an admitted agenda does not improve the overall content or remove basic underlying structural problems. As neutrality is an appeal to innocence, admitting an agenda is an appeal to honesty for legitimacy. They only work if you are, in fact, innocent or honest.

Posted by: abad man at March 14, 2008 5:16 PM | Permalink

To be clearer, I think all of this is just nibbling around the edges of the problem. Jeff Jarvis gets the million dollar question right.

The really tricky question is not, “whom did you vote for?” but “what are you doing with your power?

I would add; and are you abusing it?

Posted by: abad man at March 14, 2008 5:37 PM | Permalink

I disagree wholeheartedly. The editorial page is the place for opinion. What should be in a news story is the who, what , where, when and how of the story. The concept is that the people will read and analyze what is there and the make intelligent decisions based on facts. If you start off biased to one side, and with the politics of the news media 85-90% acknowledging that they are liberals, then without the other part of the story which would be buried in your examples how are the people to make intelligent decisions. If I tell you that A and B are good while C is no good and give you no further information then your decision is made already. That should not be the role of the press. However if you say that I think A and B are good because and C is not good because and I also tell you about what A and B and C are about, then you can say that I agree that A is good but I think B is bad and C is good because that fits the way you believe things should be. That is a much better use of the pres than just flat out telling the public this is what you have to believe. We had that with the Tet Offensive and it took years and an interview with the North Vietnamese generals before we found out how we were lied to about that story. Why should we then allow the press to go right back lying to us again - and they will and have.

Posted by: rhomp2002 at March 14, 2008 5:49 PM | Permalink

To be clearer, I think all of this is just nibbling around the edges of the problem. Jeff Jarvis gets the million dollar question right: The really tricky question is not, “whom did you vote for?” but “what are you doing with your power?

Actually, those are my lines and my questions, not Jeff's.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 6:06 PM | Permalink

Thanks for the great post, Jay. As usual, you evoke a number of thoughts:

I am in complete agreement that the present objective posture is a sham, not just because it does cripple journalism but because it is an obvious lie. Every educated person has an opinion about at least a few political issues. That many journalists state that they have no opinions ("I had mine surgically removed" as Lesley Stahl put it) casts great doubt on their grasp of their issues or makes one wonder about journalists’ ability to delude themselves.

Few in the media seem to see the absurdity of this situation. Take for instance the issue of gay rights (something I support wholeheartedly). Now on the one hand, journalists tell us that they have no opinions but then on the other hand, you never see news stories attempting to cast doubt on those who argue that homosexuality is genetic. Most large newspapers have journalists assigned to cover the gay community in their area. Most large media companies have gay and lesbian domestic partner programs. Yet, when it comes to the question of bias, these same editors and managers will then turn around and insist they are not biased despite much objective evidence that they have such a bias.

The same pattern exists on numerous other issues. We hear the same ludicrous defenses on them as well from journalists who don't realize that each time they do so, they’re further discrediting themselves to the public.

Pincus’s argument actually isn’t that old at all. Many journalists before his piece have made the argument. What I find more interesting about it is that every reporter I’ve seen make it is a lefty—including Pincus. Part of the reason for this is that as countless surveys have shown, people who lean rightward are a small minority in American elite journalism. Could part of it also be that conservatives and libertarians long ago resolved that objectivity is impossible? I think so. It seems that on the question of journalistic objectivity, the post-modernist left is making a decidedly modernist position while the moral absolutist right is embracing relative truth.

Despite the foregoing, I still think there is value in the desire to be unaligned (no one likes being thought a shill) and a danger in thoroughly throwing one’s lot in with a side (spiking stories “for the team”). The present situation exists mainly because the approach that most news organizations use to pursue objectivity is fundamentally flawed in a number of ways.

I think most who read Jay’s blog would agree that racially undiverse newsrooms are much more likely to miss and misreport the news. I certainly would. I wonder how many would see the similar problem that is created by politically uniform newsrooms. I did an interview with Bill Sammon the conservative DC Examiner reporter a few years ago and he told me that he’d had many instances traveling around the world with the president where his left-leaning colleagues would fail to see the newsiness of something, thereby giving him the exclusive.

If I ran a news organization seeking to be objective, I would see to it that my staff was politically and racially diverse and then cut them loose to find whatever facts they’d like to seek. There’d be rules about calling out fellow staffers and making articles that completely contradict each other but that would be about it. That, or I’d fund a left- and a right-leaning publication to cover the same issue.

Posted by: Matthew Sheffield at March 14, 2008 6:18 PM | Permalink

In my 20+ years as a reporter and editor, it has been my experience that the objectivity meme is little more than a cover for being a Homer for government activism. It is quite possible to be in an adversarial position visavis a particular official or party while remaining a Homer for continued government expansion. Too many journalists come to our profession with the presumption that government action is the always solution of first resort for every problem. So it never occurs to them, for example, to question the governor or county executive or state legislator whose only solution for a budget deficit is a tax increase when in fact the deficit might actually have been caused by continued spending on government programs that aren't working. What I would give for a newsroom full of editors and reporters who remembered and practiced the maxim that when your mayor or president says he loves you, check it out.

Posted by: Mark Tapscott at March 14, 2008 6:22 PM | Permalink

Trading the neutral tag of narrative for an admitted agenda does not improve the overall content or remove basic underlying structural problems. As neutrality is an appeal to innocence, admitting an agenda is an appeal to honesty for legitimacy. They only work if you are, in fact, innocent or honest.

Admitting an agenda has one advantage: it means other people can discuss the structural problems of your agenda with you. When an MSM journalist claims to stand above politics, as a neutral and impartial judge, I cannot show that he is biased without admitting an agenda of my own, which itself is enough reason, in the journalist's mind, to dismiss everything I say. The fiction of "neutral journalism" protects itself from refutation by impugning the motives of any possible refuter. Agendas, openly stated, can be openly tested -- the claim to have no agenda cannot be.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 14, 2008 6:35 PM | Permalink

For the record: Was the inclusion of Keith Olberman intended to tip off readers that this whole post is intended as satire? (As satire, it is pretty good.)

(Incidentally, it is likely that the correct way to say it is to say that Marshall was "reprimanded" by the Polk committee. Most journalism prizes go to journalists who have misbehaved in some way, so they are usually best understood as reprimands, rather than prizes.)

Posted by: Jim Miller at March 14, 2008 6:37 PM | Permalink

Editing the news from the White House with pseudo-events predates Deaver by decades:

Pseudo-events are happenings that happen because someone arranges for them to happen, so that they will receive public attention.

It does not surprise me that Pincus thinks it started with Reagan. It's like Lesley Stahl's Fable.

Posted by: Tim at March 14, 2008 6:44 PM | Permalink

I agree with that, Matt. But I didn't say journalists should align themselves with politicians or join the team down at party headquarters. I don't think they should spike stories because it would hurt the cause. My feeling on it is in this sentence:

"The way Marshall figures it, the important thing is to show integrity— not to be a neuter, politically."

Tim: Pincus didn't say newsy pseudo-events started with Reagan or Deaver.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 6:46 PM | Permalink

What I find more interesting about it is that every reporter I’ve seen make it is a lefty—including Pincus. Part of the reason for this is that as countless surveys have shown, people who lean rightward are a small minority in American elite journalism. Could part of it also be that conservatives and libertarians long ago resolved that objectivity is impossible? I think so. It seems that on the question of journalistic objectivity, the post-modernist left is making a decidedly modernist position while the moral absolutist right is embracing relative truth.

It only seems that way if you suppose that objectivity is the one sure road to truth -- that you get closer to reality by discarding the theories you began from, that you can judge the meaning of facts best of all if you make no assumptions about it. Conservatives never supposed this, and events of the past three centuries give good reasons for rejecting the idea. But there are two different ways of denying it: the first, saying that objectivity does not lead to truth because there is no truth, is the postmodern left's choice; the second, that the road to truth is to test one's assumptions, not to suppress them, is the conservative option. (The second is also the real analogue to the scientific method, which is the one clear advance of the Enlightenment ...)

Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 14, 2008 7:07 PM | Permalink

Agendas, openly stated, can be openly tested

This is true when all information is available to the tester. Testing the agenda becomes problematic when the person with the agenda also controls the flow of information. ie. the Iraq War

Posted by: abad man at March 14, 2008 7:16 PM | Permalink

I think he does, specifically in this account:

However, I would be interested in more detail about how Deaver's actions differed from the the actions of previous press secretaries in providing early copies of the President's itinerary, speeches and staging. I would also refer to Boorstin's 1962 The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America

Posted by: Tim at March 14, 2008 7:18 PM | Permalink

A small but important point regarding Atlantic Yards--sorry I didn't clarify this myself. The project, the most controversial in New York, wouldn't be in Downtown Brooklyn. That was the crux of a New York Times mega-correction.

Posted by: Norman Oder at March 14, 2008 7:57 PM | Permalink

David Gergen, Master of THE GAME

While other politicians had dipped into the waters of the new age -- Eisenhower had starred in both the first televised Presidential news conference and the first prime-time visit to the White House -- Kennedy was of the age. He had a generational grasp of what screen presence was about, and he ran for President essentially on qualifications of image: beauty, grace, youth, courage, wit, charm....

... Price postulated that a new political reality need not correspond at all to objective reality, that a new image could override both the known facts and the previous image of a candidate to become the only reality that mattered.

By Election Day 1968, Nixon had been so thoroughly repackaged that he became, in a sense, the first President to win the office by suicide. The man sworn in on Jan. 20, 1969, was someone the press called the New Nixon....

Posted by: Tim at March 14, 2008 8:24 PM | Permalink

You're misreading him and disproving something Pincus did not assert. His observation is not even a criticism of Deaver or Reagan; it's a complaint about how easily journalists will feed on what's offered. No one is maintaining that pseudo events designed to gain news coverage started with Reagan and Deaver.

Atlantic Yards is not downtown Brooklyn-- check.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 8:55 PM | Permalink

I read Pincus' Fighting back against the PR presidency at Nieman Watchdog that you linked to in your essay.

Despite his "50 years" as a reporter, he starts with Reagan, Deaver and recounts Stahl's fable. You tell us, picking up where Pincus started, that we must undo what Deaver did and "Michael Deaver started it during the Reagan Years."

My apologies for misreading.

Posted by: Tim at March 14, 2008 9:38 PM | Permalink

Yes, he phrased it as what Deaver did, but the only reason Deaver succeeded is that the deciders of news decided to forfeit their independent judgment. That is the point he's making. Deaver was doing his job-- brilliantly, Pincus would say. News executives weren't doing theirs very well.

Steve Borris at the Future of News comments on this post:

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 10:20 PM | Permalink

And (Pincus) says that courage in political reporting sometimes means the courage to admit you’re a participant—a player, a power in your own right—within the struggle for self-government, the battle for public opinion and the politics of the day.

Courage?? If you’re providing the public the information it requires to make rational decisions as voters of a democracy, it is an obligation to come clean that you’re a participant in the ‘struggle’ for public opinions, and just where you stand in the battle. Not to disclose these things (which seems more or less standard procedure in the industry) is clearly a form of dishonesty.

When “what’s going on is public relations — not governing,” the press still feels it must extend coverage because to refuse coverage would seem… too political.

Golly, the press still feels some vestiges of responsibility for reporting what our elected representatives actually said? For shame. It’s been years since major Presidential speeches were quoted in their entirety, but we are assured that the selective paraphrasing and counterfactuals in the papers are all we need to know.

[Pincus] says journalists should refuse to publish “in a newspaper or carry on a TV or radio news show any statements made by the President or any other government official that are designed solely as a public relations tool, offering no new or valuable information to the public.”

So journalists are to act as The Opposition and actually PREVENT the public from getting direct communications from elected officials, unless they judge them of ‘sufficient value’. Nice work if you can get it.

But the media corporation shifts its people around a lot…. This is bad news for the press if you care about having a strong one, capable of challenging the line of the day.

That might be bad news if the unelected journalist has set up as The Opposition, with the single purpose of interfering in communications between the elected and the electorate. That purpose presupposes that there’s an alternate ‘line of the day’ which should be substituted at this point, to strike a blow in that ‘struggle for self-government, the battle for public opinion’. In other words, the good news is that now the media is to generate and control the ‘line of the day’, and no challenges whatever shall stand against it since no one else owns such a splendid megaphone. In that case the ‘struggle for self-government’ is the New Yorker’s cartoon of blindfolded Justice engaging in a fencing match with an unhampered advocate for… the media line of the day. Fancy that ever happening.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive at March 14, 2008 10:34 PM | Permalink

re: deciders of news decided to forfeit their independent judgment.

I agree, but they decided that decades earlier. When journalists gained inside access, and became insiders, they chose neutrality in providing the views of the insiders - to protect access. (I know, it's circular logic.)

To give up neutrality, do journalist give up access and insider status?

Posted by: Tim at March 14, 2008 10:44 PM | Permalink

Maybe. I can see how that might happen.

On the other hand, there is no truer believer in neutrality than Len Downie, and Downie is very much an outsider to Washington culture (Ohio State grad) From what I know one of the last people you would find at a Georgetown cocktail party.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 11:21 PM | Permalink

Lincoln Steffens as a hero! Just wow.

Which aspect of Steffens do you find more heroic: his swoon for Soviet Communism, or his adoration of Mussolini?

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at March 15, 2008 12:20 AM | Permalink

And, by the way, Deaver and Reagan were pikers compared to George Creel and Woodrow Wilson's Committee on Public Information. If the early 20th Century Progressives are Jay's (or Pincus')model for a new and improved PressThink, then I'll take my chances with David Gregory.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at March 15, 2008 12:57 AM | Permalink

Jay: Loss of access is quite common for journalists right now who don't shy away from their ideology. I've seen more than a few times where self-declared liberal writers from the Nation, etc. were not invited to conservative functions.

Fox News Channel's experience at the hand of the Democratic Party this election season shows access deprivation can even happen to outlets who DON'T admit to biases.

Neuro-conservative: I agree with your Steffens remark. I was just reading some of his fawning over Mussolini (since both were committed socialists) and was quite appalled to see him referenced as a "good guy" here.

Posted by: Matthew Sheffield at March 15, 2008 7:43 AM | Permalink

I've seen more than a few times where self-declared liberal writers from the Nation, etc. were not invited to conservative functions.

Yep, that happens and would happen more often with a more transparent code. Equally vexing would be that the liberal writer from the Nation would be welcomed with greater access to progressive functions and participants will expect deference, team play and party line behavior.

These troubles make it apparent why the "objective" and neutralist code has stood for so long. Disclosure and transparency are harder than they look.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 15, 2008 10:21 AM | Permalink

Fancy that. Ever consider that the Democratic Party has had such confidence for so long of near-complete partisan support from the non-Fox media that their fearless politicians quake in fear at having their images rudely transmitted to the public without the usual rose-colored glasses?

Items: the CNN coverage of the Republican primary 'debates', larded with partisan Democratic 'questioners' flying under false colors.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive at March 15, 2008 11:46 AM | Permalink

Excellent point, Ms. Sensitive! Partisan Democratic 'questioners' flying under false colors... I never thought of that before. Keep 'em coming.

Poniewozik: "Partisans, bloggers and media critics are toxically obsessed with ferreting out reporters’ preferences..."

Protein wisdom: "Urging journalists to admit that they are participants in the public square is a healthy notion."

And... After Matter returns!

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 15, 2008 12:21 PM | Permalink

Great post, Jay, and spot-on, I'd say. I've been railing against the false hegemony of objectivity for a long time, and the only thing I'd add here is the admonition to go back and examine the roots of "professional journalism," the Creel Committee under Woodrow Wilson. This is where the manufacture of consent (propaganda) was birthed and the professionalization of the press as a willing accomplice of the status-quo elite. The sterile environment created in which to sell advertising was an ancillary benefit; the real beneficiary was Walter Lippmann's social engineering ideas (the ignorant masses must be put in their place).

The fourth estate no longer functions in that role, because we've lost our way in terms of political argument. Tell me your influences and state your case. It's not the editorial page, nor is it debate. It's a style of journalism we've lost as patsies of the ruling class, a place within which we'd really like to own, cultural consequences be damned.

Posted by: Terry Heaton at March 15, 2008 2:51 PM | Permalink

The Olberman experiment seems an encouraging direction, from my point of view. Still, although hopeful, I agree that an abandonment of their objectivity pretense will not come readily to most of our dominant media, for a couple of reasons:

1. An oldie but goodie :

"Now, our dominant liberal media friends find the pretense of (self-certified) objectivity useful in promulgating liberal ideas in news coverage. This is because a presumed impartial referee has more credibility to most than an ideologue, and such credibility is often a prerequisite for ideological influence. Abandoning (or exposing) the false pretense of objectivity reduces the dominant media’s credibility and, consequently, their influence. For this reason, of course, I don’t expect our press friends to abandon the pretense."

2. Ego. Many reporters and editors of influence have sacrificed years accruing their power. Some are finally valued enough to earn salaries above the poverty level or invitations to the salons of Georgetown and Manhattan. Our press friends will likely ask themselves, "After all my years of blue pencils and hard-earned bylines, if my work won't be distinct from that of a common blogger then what added value do I provide over a guy in his pajamas writing from his living room for free?"

Posted by: Trained Auditor at March 15, 2008 3:22 PM | Permalink

"Neutral", "objective" media ????

Is there a moon, or sun, in your world?

The press has, since the 60's at least, been the voice of the dem cong and ANY anti-American and/or socialist cause they could find.

Most of the MSM sounds like they wish they'd been born in France.

In the MSM view, America is inhabited by gun-nut, Christian, bigoted right-wingers. Can you seriously argue that is not the prevalent view in any newsroom?

Latest example:

The Obama campaign.

The media is simply free advertising for this affirmative-action, America-hating empty suit.

No news - just handouts.

Posted by: graywolf at March 15, 2008 3:22 PM | Permalink

Those 'questioners' were portrayed on CNN as Republican voters in the audiences of the Republican primaries, attempting to inform themselves about the Republican candidates.

Subsequent investigations by bloggers easily showed that several of those 'questioners' were Democratic Party operatives. False colors is the exact description of such a setup.

Only the most excruciatingly unaware spectator, or the most blatantly biased media shill, would have failed to notice such a cute trick. Presuming that you aren't a blatantly biased media shill, it's no wonder you never thought of that.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive at March 15, 2008 6:11 PM | Permalink

I'll take both, if you don't mind: excruciatingly unaware spectator asleep during press controversies, and blantly biased shill for the blantanty biased media. That's me in a nutshell. Sorry, two nutshells.

Terry: If you ever got a copy of my dissertation (The Impossible Press, 1986, NYU) you would find quit a bit on Lippmann and the engineering of consent, and some on the Creel Committee. Ever heard of Wilson's Four Minute Men? Check into them sometime. They were broadcasting before the technology of broadcasting. Brilliant!

TA, I think there's something to this part...

A presumed impartial referee has more credibility to most than an ideologue, and such credibility is often a prerequisite for ideological influence. Abandoning (or exposing) the false pretense of objectivity reduces the dominant media’s credibility and, consequently, their influence. For this reason, of course, I don’t expect our press friends to abandon the pretense.

I don't expect it, either. However there is a dynamic you aren't recognizing.

The objectivity fiction, which is related to the neutrality fiction, which is related to the omniscient fiction, which is related to the "all the news" fiction... these things are getting expensive, in terms of what it costs to defend sweeping claims like that. They're a stretch, and the constant stretching takes its toll.

Pew Data:

News organizations are careful to avoid bias: 36 percent said so in 1985, 31 percent in 2007.

News organizations are politically biased: 45 percent said so in 1985, 55 percent in 2007.

News organizations hurt democracy: 23 percent said that in 1985, 36 percent in 2007.

In 1985, less than half of Republicans (49%), independents (44%) and Democrats (43%) said the press is politically biased. By 1999, however, the partisan gap in perceptions of news media bias had grown to 18 points with 69% of Republicans saying the press is biased. And the divide in opinion has grown even wider since. Currently, 70% of Republicans and 61% of independents say news organizations are politically biased, compared with just 39% of Democrats. The percentage of Democrats who see political bias in the news media has fallen 14 points since 2005.

What's more likely: that the big news organizations will spend what it takes to increase quality, diversify staff and introduce the proper controls in an effort to reverse these numbers and bring the reality closer to the (impossible!) claims, or... they will figure that by backing off from the claims they can increase their credibility without requiring any such overhaul?

I refer you to this post for evidence that some in the "dominant media" get it.

Of course the most likely course of action is neither of my alternatives. It is to do nothing and let the slow drip continue. As Terry Heaton can tell you (he's a former TV news director) that is the biggest bias by far in news organizations.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 15, 2008 8:36 PM | Permalink

Newspapers will figure it out, just as radio has figured it out with Rush Limbaugh and his clones, and cable TV has figured it out with O'Reilly, Olbermann and Dobbs.

Jefferson had it about right 200 years ago:

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and information from such sources, as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth. The 2d would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true. This, however, should rather contain too little than too much. The 3d & 4th should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.

Posted by: Tim at March 15, 2008 9:34 PM | Permalink

The CBC Ombudsman had it right too...

... the CBC, in its decision making process, is entitled to make its own editorial determination about what opinions are in the mainstream, and need to be reflected, and what opinions are on the margins, and can be given the editorial hook they so often deserve.

Context was bias complaints from "global warming is a myth" fans.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 15, 2008 9:48 PM | Permalink

Agree, but here's an interesting twist in the CBC's editorial determination entitlement:

The CBC must be held to a higher standard than other media or politicians due to the network’s status as a taxpayer-funded institution. [Really? Why doesn't government funded media have a lower standard, like politicians?] ... As Cynthia Kinch [Executive Producer of The National] implied, the fact that an idea is “in the mainstream” and is therefore considered politically correct and so “safe” in no way indicates that it is correct. I side with Ms. Kinch on this one (even though I don’t believe she is actually directing The National to employ this philosophy when reporting on the climate change issue) when she says, “Skepticism and challenges to accepted beliefs are an inherent part of journalism”. If the CBC is merely going to determine “what opinions are in the mainstream, and need to be reflected”, then what are Canadians paying $750 million a year for? We can get the news from the mainstream for free.”

Heh, he said free.

Posted by: Tim at March 16, 2008 7:55 AM | Permalink

PressThink fans might want to know that I will be joining in a week long forum starting Monday at TPM Cafe's Book Club. It's about Greg Mitchell's book, So Wrong for So Long, about the press and the Iraq War. The forum is going to focus more on post-2004 events, I am told, as against the charge of "wrong" on WMD claims and during the run up.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 16, 2008 9:11 PM | Permalink

Greg Mitchell's blog, Pressing Issues, where you can read his press politics in action.

Greg Mitchell's 2004 interview with Kent Bye where he provides his opinion on the proper politics of the press:

There was an assumption -- Perhaps it’s a patriotic duty that most of the press and media fall into that they should not question too skeptically or cynically the claims coming from Washington. I think it’s natural on the one hand. But I think the tone of all our coverage on Iraq -- in fact, all our coverage on all subjects -- is not to be partisan or not to be left or right or anything like that. But we believe in the -- what should be the main principle of journalism, besides being accurate and fair, is to be skeptical -- To raise questions, to not take what officials say as the gospel truth -- unless it’s really proven -- if there’s documents. And that -- And in this case, it happens to be Washington -- it happens to be the White House or Congress. But it can be in a small town -- You’re covering the mayor’s office. You’re covering an agency in a small town. You’re covering any kind of official claims in a small town -- The journalistic principle is the same: To be skeptical unless there’s hard evidence and proof. And you report what someone says -- "It’s their claim." "It’s what they say." "It’s what they allege." "It’s what they’re trying to prove." -- But you don’t present these things as fact if you’re not sure they’re fact. And what happened with the Iraq coverage was that too often newspapers -- and especially television -- went with stories that were based on official claims -- and in retrospect, were really propaganda. Because in some cases, the officials were well-meaning -- [Interruption] -- maybe they thought that they had the evidence. But in other cases, they knew their evidence was incredibly shaky -- or should have known -- and yet went with the evidence claiming it was fact. And the press just, in most cases, accepted it.

Posted by: Tim at March 17, 2008 9:51 AM | Permalink

Jay, Frank editor Patrick Kennedy gave me permission to reprint the Pincus essay in full, so if PressThink readers want to read the whole thing it's now available on line here.

Posted by: weldon berger at March 17, 2008 2:25 PM | Permalink

Cool-o. Thanks for doing that, Weldon.

Greg Mitchell's welcome post is up at TPM Cafe. Now I have to write a reply. This will be a week long deal, so check it out.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 17, 2008 3:36 PM | Permalink

The problem with dropping the claim of neutrality is that simply admitting to partisanship, and promising to be a more effective partisan in future, doesn't actually earn any credibility; and journalists generally know that. The press can become credible only by working out what makes neutrality impossible, and what real truth-seeking is like. And I doubt that pressthink has the tools needed for that; nor do I think the press will listen to those who do have the tools.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 17, 2008 6:30 PM | Permalink

Promising to be a more effective partisan in future...

Where did you get that? Who recommended such?

From After Matter: It’s always been of interest to me that most people think the available choices are toxic objectivity on the one hand or picking a side and joining the culture wars on the other. Absurdly de-politicized or instantly over-politicized: where do you stand?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 17, 2008 6:52 PM | Permalink

Oh, I agree that "de-politicized or over-politicized" is a false choice. But I don't think journalists see any alternatives, other than those.

Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 17, 2008 8:28 PM | Permalink

Weldon Berger,

That's awesome, getting permission to reprint Pincus' essay. Thanks!

I agree with Pincus on the first two sections. It's "Strictly Neutral" where he goes horribly wrong.

Neutrality in the media has its roots in the death of 19th Century party papers, the death of muckracking pre-1920, the Lippmann-Dewey debates starting in 1992, the 1927 Radio Act and Section 315 of the 1934 Communications Act pushed by FDR and directed at radio broadcasters.

Leading up to, and for a few years after the 1934 Act, the AP and newspapers were also engaged in the "Press-Radio Wars," which was basically a contest over the value of news as a commercial commodity (it should be noted that many newspapers also owned radio stations). This conflict of ideas about fairness in the public (broadcast) media and commercial interest brought the "Mayflower Doctrine" of 1941 and later the "Fairness Doctrine" of 1949 under Truman. [It is also worth remembering that a willing media cooperated with both Woodrow Wilson and FDR in censoring the news and distributing government war propaganda before the second half of the 20th century.]

In 1967, under LBJ, the FCC further defined the rules for fairness including personal attacks and political editorializing.

It was within this public expectation of fairness that Newspapers had been pulling back their own partisan views, valuing fairness, objectivity and neutrality.

Pincus, knowingly tells us, "Starting sometime in the Nixon administration, probably with Vice President Spiro Agnew’s attacks on the liberal press, newspapers began pulling back."

Sheesh!

Then he skips the permanent political campaigns targeting media and using polls to arrive at ... Reagan and Deaver!

Sigh ...

Perhaps before reclaiming "the agenda," Pincus should promote a discipline of verification and greater transparency to build trust?

Posted by: Tim at March 17, 2008 9:11 PM | Permalink

Well, I just wrote an essay about one who does. Pincus sees other alternatives. So does Marshall.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 17, 2008 9:43 PM | Permalink

Can we at least agree, Dr. Rosen, that pressthink casts "neutral and objective" and "partisan culture warrior" as the only two alternatives?

Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 18, 2008 1:28 AM | Permalink

I stand against such cartoonish overdramatization, against forcing choices of such extremes. Why? I want some news with my paper, and I don't want great gaping holes in it where some goodthinking journalist has excised the parts that don't support his 'line of the day'. Observe, and report. It aint that hard.

And the crusade against rigged games should properly start by examining one's participation in the 'struggle for self-government, the battle for public opinion'. Too many of us media consumers feel that the information game is indeed rigged against us.

It would be a joy to observe a diverse press in action, in which the various organs held diverse opinions, and would smartly hold one another to account, and each would identify the flawed news of the other as the most worthy target to hit hard. That would be of real service to the public. But no, when the search for such targets is restricted to a government agency, a corporation or a nonprofit, much scope is lost. Come on, think big! Let's see the NYT nail CBS for selective omissions. How exuberantly people would react, indeed.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive at March 18, 2008 2:19 AM | Permalink

No, we cannot. Maybe you have the switch so deeply installed in your own mind that you cannot decode what you see here.

Josh Marshall, I have said, is no neutral. Nor is he engaged in culture war. If you feel he is because he helped bring down Gonzalez, then I feel sorry for you. As I wrote:

Josh Marshall’s TPM Media operation is a new media newsroom that does political reporting in the same space as the big providers. Marshall believes in accountability journalism, sticking with stories, digging into public records for information, getting to the bottom of things, verifying what you think you know, correcting the record when you get it wrong.
TPM marries these traditional virtues to open expressions of outrage, incredulity marking certain political figures as ridiculous or beyond the pale, and the informed display of political conviction. These make it obvious to any reader of Talking Points Memo that Marshall is a liberal Democrat skeptical of the Bush agenda, though not a dogmatic one. His is the transparency route to trust and success in political journalism.

On the other side of the ledger, Tom Maguire of Just One Minute would be an example of someone who is neither neutral nor a culture warrior, as would James Joyner of Outside the Beltway.

To take Lex Alexander's point, a newspaper that openly declared itself pro consumer and consistently behaved that way would not be presenting itself as neutral, nor would it be taking sides in the red/blue culture wars, though it would be taking sides: the consumer's side. Of course it would have to dump its automotive section, which is mostly bunk.

I'm sorry if this concept is too elusive for you, Michael. Others seem able to follow it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 18, 2008 8:48 AM | Permalink

My first post is up in the forum at TPM Cafe on Greg Mitchell's book, So Wrong for So Long.

Mine is called Where’s the Tough New Benchmark Journalism From the Elite Providers? A bit of it:

I think one of the big news organizations with a presence in Iraq and the processing power back home should have tried actually to measure the success of the surge. In its news pages, Gen. Petraeus should have gotten a running report card-- yes, a grade from A to F, with interim and final marks. It would be a political act, grading the general and the surge. But exactly the kind of action the press should be taking.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 18, 2008 9:41 AM | Permalink

We just identified what we thought might benefit our audiences, and then set about saying it.

If the press is going to seek to "make government better" it's inevitably going to be a political actor, as the very definition of "better" is dependent on one's political beliefs. Being honest that that's what you're doing and honest in how you do it is obviously better than trying to pretend that you're not.

But an even better ethic than "activism" or "making the world better" would be an ethic of "service".

See your job as "Finding information that your customers will thank you for." Then any "bias" you show will flow from the customer base to the newsroom rather than vice-versa. At the very least you'll get fewer pissed-off customers and a much broader range of perspective in story selection than you get now.

It's been pointed out that if you get all your news from the NYT you'd know that Obama's started ending his speeches with "God bless America" without knowing why that's significant. The fact of the existence of his minister's "God damn America" quote has not appeared in any of their news pages yet, just in one Kristol op-ed column.

But any NYT customer who's just seen a YouTube "Wright's Greatest Hits" video has got to be asking WHY THE HECK DIDN'T YOU TELL US ABOUT THIS?!?!?! You found space for the McCain-lobbyist non-affair non-story, but not for this?

There may be some explanation of this other than trying to bury stuff that's bad for a guy they like:

Maybe they try to prove their objectivity by writing an equal number of "bad" sotries on all the candidates, ignoring the possibility that some may actually have more bad things to write about than others.

Maybe they're so far out of touch with normal Americans that they actually did watch the videos, and thought they were no big deal.

There may be some way they can pretend they were being "objective" or "fair" in their coverage.

But if the NYT followed an "ethic of service", they would have figured that New York's voters would want to know the worst about the two major candidates before they cast their votes, and would have covered J. Wright in honest detail before the New York primaries.

Posted by: Ralph Phelan at March 18, 2008 11:05 AM | Permalink

The NYT is an embarrassment to what Rosen would have us believe the media is and/or should be.

Perhaps we should continue using it as a handy one-stop shop for examples, but not use it as a condemnation of journalism in general.

It's possible other outlets are better.

Isn't it?

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at March 18, 2008 11:41 AM | Permalink

Jay,

The problem with journalism is journalists. Journalists who have been taught how to be good story-tellers but not good critical thinkers. Journalists who want to make a point, and make a difference, without their point being confused or obscured with caveats and refutations.

That's what is so wrong with the Steffens quote in Jay's essay. It's the difference between Pincus' integrity and good facts, and Steffens wanting to destroy the facts. Steffens' is the rhino in the china shop model who smashes things while avoiding the costs of acquiring a genuinely detailed understanding. It's the opposite of being a custodian of fact practicing a discipline of verification.

It's bad journalism. Muckracking journalism in the early 20th century was bad journalism lacking integrity or good facts, and it died.

Pincus and Overholser have referred to Fox News as either overtly conservative or deceptively partisan while implying CNN and the rest of the media is neutral or at worst imperfectly objective. Neither will tell you what metrics they used to make such a determination or their facts. From their POV, it is a fact ... no critical thinking required.

Jay Rosen screws up the same way in his third point at TPM Cafe. He quotes Burns, "the absence of a plan, at least any the Pentagon intended to implement, for the period after Baghdad fell." For him to do so requires the suspension of critical thought. He knows the primary planners were COL Kevin Benson (CFLCC) and COL John Agoglia (CENTCOM). He knows there was a plan, not an absence of one. He just can't get his head around it. He doesn't want to acquire a genuinely detailed understanding. In fact, he doesn't even want to acquire a basic understanding that would enable him to answer four basic questions:

- Was the Phase IV planning poor at the strategic (multinational/interagency), operational (CENTCOM/CFLCC) and/or tactical level? Does that hierarchy still make sense in hindsight given Iraq?

- Was it poor because the planning process developed post-Vietnam (from Active Defense thru Airland Battle to Joint, Interagency and Coalition) no longer works? Does it work for some operations (Afghanistan?) but not for others (Iraq?)?

- Ike Wilson argues that the current hierarchical, phased planning process needs to be overhauled for 21st Century warfare. Do you agree?

- Do we need a new Goldwater-Nichols Act for Interagency training, doctrine and operations? Should we establish a "National Security Service Corps" to avoid future poorly planned/executed Phase IVs?

I do recommend reading Burns article along with Gordon's: Fateful Choice on Iraq Army Bypassed Debate.

Posted by: Tim at March 18, 2008 11:51 AM | Permalink

The relevant phrase is "the absence of any plan that the Pentagon actually intended to implement." That is what Burns meant and that absence is real, despite the efforts of Col. Benson and others.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 18, 2008 11:58 AM | Permalink

Jay Garner started implementing the plan beginning the middle of April 2003 in a series of meetings in Iraq. To quote Garner:

Well, our initial plan when we were in Washington, and initially in Kuwait, was that this war went in much like the first Gulf War, where you have thousands of POWs, maybe hundreds of thousands. ... The army was about 400,000, so from that, we would bring between 150,000 and 250,000 back. We wanted to keep them in their unit structures, because they had already had a command-and-control system. They had vehicles, what was left. They knew how to take orders, and they had the basic skill sets to do the things you need to do in early reconstruction of a country. So they were a labor force, and they provide a certain amount of security, like guard static locations -- guard buildings, guard ammo dumps or displaced ammunition, that type of thing. ...

By the 15th of May, we had a large number of Iraqi army located that were ready to come back, and the Treasury guys were ready to pay them. When the order came out to disband, [it] shocked me, because I didn't know we were going to do that. All along I thought we were bringing back the Iraqi army. ... Why we didn't do that, I don't know.

Posted by: Tim at March 18, 2008 12:17 PM | Permalink

Charges of bias assume an agenda, admit an agenda I guess that will take some of the zing out of the bias charge but how will it improve things?

If you're human and alive you have an agenda. If you claim otherwise you're lying. If you really believe you have no agenda you're lying to yourself. Eliminating this transparent and unnecessary lie can't help but improve things.

To argue an agenda requires omission of some of the facts.
Basic epistemology/computational theory: to make decisions in an amount of time less than the age of the universe requires the omission of some facts. There are too many facts out there to know them all, so you have to pick the ones you think are important and significant. This is known as turning data into information. It's what I want from the press, otherwise I'd be reading all the primary sources myself.

Posted by: Ralph Phelan at March 18, 2008 12:52 PM | Permalink

As neutrality is an appeal to innocence, admitting an agenda is an appeal to honesty for legitimacy. They only work if you are, in fact, innocent or honest.

Unlike innocence, honesty is not an impossible condition for human beings to achieve.

Posted by: Ralph Phelan at March 18, 2008 12:54 PM | Permalink

the post-modernist left is making a decidedly modernist position while the moral absolutist right is embracing relative truth.

The right is not embracing "relative truth." They're embracing human fallibility: the truth is out there, but no human has a perfect picture of it, so you need competition and institutional checks and balances to create a system of hunting the truth that gets you ever-closer to it.

Posted by: Ralph Phelan at March 18, 2008 1:01 PM | Permalink

The fourth estate no longer functions in that role ["manufacturing consent"], because we've lost our way in terms of political argument.

No, it's because technology broke your monopoly on the megaphone. "The internet interprets censorship as damage and routs around it."

The customers now have their choice of political argument.

Posted by: Ralph Phelan at March 18, 2008 1:12 PM | Permalink

Jay Rosen: "The objectivity fiction, which is related to the neutrality fiction, which is related to the omniscient fiction, which is related to the "all the news" fiction..."

Added to these are the simplify fiction, the predictability fiction and the compelling fiction. In this way, journalists can transform (distort) a complex, unpredictable, and mostly boring world to fill the news hole with "information" that captures ears and eye balls.

Posted by: Tim at March 18, 2008 1:18 PM | Permalink

Not only entitled, but logically required to make such determinations due to the brute practicality of only having a finite amount of air-time to fill. Making such determinations is the core of an editor's job.

All I ask is that the editor tell me up front where his Overton WIndow is, so I can decide if his publication fits my needs.

Posted by: Ralph Phelan at March 18, 2008 1:23 PM | Permalink

I've been thinking about that CBC quote some more.

When a publication that works under the "admittedly biased but trying to be fair" model decides that my opinion is so marginal as to deserve the "editorial hook," they are in essence saying to me "You're not part of our customer base. Go read something else."

When a publication that works under the "omniscient and objective" model decides that my opinion is so marginal as to deserve the "editorial hook," they are in essence saying to me "You're not part of civilized discourse. Go crawl back under your rock."

When you don't admit that you have a point of view, you implicitly claim that your Overton Window reflects objective reality. That's pretty arrogant.

Posted by: Ralph Phelan at March 18, 2008 1:29 PM | Permalink

My second post is up over at TPM Cafe. The People in the Know and the People in the Dark.

Extreme spin and stonewalling are de-humanizing for the reporter on the note-taking end. They say, "I'm not going to recognize you as a thinking person." Patraeus humanizes reporters. Why wouldn't they reward him with good coverage? I don't know from experience (Spencer does) but I'm willing to bet that more than one reporter along the way felt his or her sanity improved by interviewing Patraeus.

There will also be interest among some regular PressThink readers in, War? What War? (At least that’s how it looks from the J-Schools) by ex-military Robert Bateman, who is also part of the TPM Cafe forum.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 20, 2008 12:24 PM | Permalink

Read it. What makes you think Bateman's ex-military? I thought it was interesting that Bateman has "learned, the hard way, that people who do *not* know of my background, and then later discover it, become extremely suspicious. (One person once postulated that I did not even actually exist, but was a consortium of PR people in the bowels of the Pentagon. Others have had similar thoughts.)"

Re: Bateman's last comment ...

It's always interesting, on one hand, to hear journalists (or academics who teach journalism) liken journalism to brain surgery and then, on the other, hear claims that journalists can accurately report on what others do because ... well, what others do is not brain surgery.

Andy Cline has a good post on the subject: How to Study Journalism

Posted by: Tim at March 20, 2008 2:17 PM | Permalink

Boneheaded me. Bateman is an officer in the military; should have checked my facts.

A Failure of Intelligence by Joe Galloway, the veteran military correspondent.

In the post-Gulf War period Gen.Gordon Sullivan became Army chief of staff. He honestly wanted to do something about educating a new class of military correspondents and called a couple of us in to discuss it. He offered to sponsor an ongoing program to educate and familiarize reporters/camera folk nominated by their editors. It would take about a week a month or a week every six weeks as the correspondents were flown to spend time visiting everything from basic training to the War College and being briefed and taught. And mixing with and talking to soldiers from private to 4 stars. We took the offer back to our editors and spread the word. There wasn't a single taker, and newspapers were a good deal healthier at that time. The general attitude by those in authority was they did not have the manpower or time to invest in such a venture when the payoff might be years coming.
It is inevitable then that at the beginning of each of our wars the editors will pick out a good shoe leather reporter from whatever beat and get him a week of get-rich-quick familiarization, a kevlar helmet and armored vest and throw him into the fray.

It's a little window into why the news industry is in such trouble.

Hey Tim. Here's a masters program in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP). The graduates by now form a network of science reporters who identify with excellence in their specialty.

Now as we say in New York when we're batting around first thoughts, "we're just talking here." But...

Can you imagine a similar program, joint venture with NYU and West Point? Let's call it for now Reporting on the Military and its People Program (RMP).

Maybe students spend two semesters at NYU, one at West Point, summer in the field at military installations... and something like that.

Worth considering? It fits with a strategic direction my department has. Maybe it can't be done, the hurdles of combination are too high, etc. But maybe not.

It's not that a three-semester program equips them with the knowledge they need to be specialists in military reporting, but it would give them a foundation.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 20, 2008 4:39 PM | Permalink

I can easily imagine it. I thought a program btwn USMA Sosh and NYU or Columbia on media studies made sense. I doubt it's an original idea, so there may be (probably) history I don't know.

Another "thinkink out loud" idea would be to have j-students cover the summer field training at Buckner. That would be more in line with what you're thinking.

The best I can do is ask around and make an introduction if I get a hit. It's not my department, but that's what I did to get you an invite. I'm on the road today, but is that something you want me to look into?

Posted by: Tim at March 20, 2008 6:00 PM | Permalink

See if there's history to the idea and interest, yeah. The idea being training advanced (masters) journalism students who want to make reporting on the military a career. What Galloway was talking about is mid-career.

Cannot guarantee my colleagues would go for it, either, but it's worth asking about in a very preliminary, fishing around way.

I think it would be a fascinating program, myself.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at March 20, 2008 6:36 PM | Permalink

Jeepers! Just how stupid do you think we are?

This notion that framing and media control began with Michael Deaver is not only wrong, it's an insult to common intelligence.

Kennedy never arranged to be photographed with his wife and children? Not in three years of Camelot!

Roosevelt's people never worked (conspired) with the press to conceal his illness, or at least withhold it from the imagery?

Others have already mentioned Wilson.

Trying to portray the practice as originating with Deaver and Reagan is simply a lie. It's a delusion commonly embraced by libs because they cannot grasp the simple fact that Ronald Reagan simply creamed them in the marketplace of ideas.

Of course, with standard bearers in the 1970s like Jimmah Carter, Walter Mondale, and George McGovern, that wasn't exactly a huge hurdle to climb. (The Democratic party is STILL reeling from the influence of those losers).

So because people like Rosen and Pincus and other members of the Blue State Journo Tribe (BSJT) cannot accept that Reagan beat the crap out of them on the basis of his ideas and principles, they try to blame their defeat on presentation.

It continues to this day.

Pathetic.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at March 20, 2008 6:58 PM | Permalink

On the notion of a program at NYU to train military correspondents: does NYU have a ROTC program, and if so, is it in good order, and well-treated by the NYU administration? I'm not suggesting ROTC is sufficient training for war reporting, but it does seem like it'd be necessary training. And if ROTC is threatened, or in desuetude, at NYU, the program you envision couldn't be created ...

Posted by: Michael Brazier at March 20, 2008 10:36 PM | Permalink

Reading the Bateman column, I found the attempts by the TPM commenters to make excuses for their ignorance - even elevate it as a virtue - to be particularly illuminating.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at March 21, 2008 10:26 AM | Permalink