Has the circus come to town?

Posted by richardsonb on Jan 22, 2017 in Sounding Off | 1 comment

The Jourmudgeon has been reading a lot lately about how the news media should cover the Trump administration. The assumption in a lot of this musing is that a new model is needed because the old ones don’t work anymore. The implication is that traditional reporting methods and strategies are too frail an instrument for covering a president who routinely lied, exaggerated, insulted and bullied his way through a campaign, a transition, and into the first days of his administration. Had we embraced some shiny new model of reporting, the assumption seems to be, Trump would never have been elected.

To those observers, The Jourmudgeon offers a two-word reminder: Richard Nixon. In 1972, Nixon was re-elected by one of the biggest electoral landslides in history. Two years later, he was forced to resign in disgrace. It wasn’t divine intervention that did that; it was dogged, tireless, traditional reporting. The Jourmudgeon offers another observation, one that some commentators, in fairness, have embraced: If the news media got its Trump coverage wrong, it was because we strayed from those traditional news practices, not because we persisted in embracing them into their senility. Nicholas Kristoff cites a study by Andrew Tyndall, a researcher who monitors network news programs. Tyndall found that in a year of coverage of the 2008 campaign, the three broadcast networks in their nightly news programs devoted three hours and 40 minutes, combined, to reporting on issues. In 2016, that figure was 36 minutes. Tyndall found no coverage – not a single minute — devoted to poverty, climate change or drug addiction. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opinion/sunday/lessons-from-the-medias-failures-in-its-year-with-trump.html?emc=edit_th_20170101&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=27174500&_r=0

More than a decade ago, in a former life, The Jourmudgeon wrote a textbook for beginning reporting students (It’s at processofwritingnews.wordpress.com if you’re interested and a masochist.). Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to that text:

“Truthful, relevant, reliable information reported in context is the lifeblood of democracy. Whether people get their daily news from newspapers, radio, television, the Web, or all four in combination, news empowers them and makes the idea of self-determination meaningful.”

Throughout the text, The Jourmudgeon advocates a set of traditional marching orders that are enshrined in numerous news organizations’ codes of ethics and practices:

Get to know the people who depend on you for their news, and serve them. Base your news judgment on how what you know will affect them, not on what’s shiny and fun. And remember that they are more diverse than you think. Craft your story to show them their stake in it.
Embrace the ethical dimension of every decision you make as a journalist.
Tell the truth. Get the facts right, but recognize that that’s the beginning, not the end, of your job. Truth is facts in context.
Be fair. Give all significant players a voice in your stories.
But when someone is lying or mistaken, say so, and prove it. Don’t settle for “he said, but she said” reporting. (For an example of truth as facts in context, see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/politics/trump-white-house-briefing-inauguration-crowd-size.html?emc=edit_th_20170122&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=27174500. It’s a fact that he said it. The truth is that he’s lying.)
Be independent. Audiences have to trust the information they receive if they are to use it to make important decisions. They need to know that the journalists who provide it are free of any influences that could compromise their primary obligation to serve their audience.
Respect your audience, and the people on whom you report. Journalists know that they can wield great power, and that with that power comes the potential to do great harm. To give audiences information they need, it’s often necessary to do some harm. Avoid doing harm if you can; strive to minimize harm when you cannot.
Let your audience find a place for itself in your stories. Most people aren’t at one end or the other on an issue; they recognize their ambivalence and avoid extremes. Don’t confine your reporting to sources who are polarized. Conflict is one way to frame a story, but it’s not the only way, and often not the best way.
Work your ass off. Serving an audience well is hard. It takes long hours, persistence, smarts and a thick skin. As The Jourmudgeon used to tell his students, if it was easy, anybody could do it.

To those who do clamor for a specific response to recent events, The Jourmudgeon offers these addenda:

Donald Trump is President of the United States. Take him seriously. The tone of Trump’s criticism of the lying, unfair news media implies that he wants us to consider him a serious political player. But being taken seriously by the news media is the last thing Trump wants. Megyn Kelly of Fox News was one of the earliest to do so, and he tried to destroy her. Those who covered — or commented on – his candidacy as a side show early on gave him exactly the free pass he wanted. (See Jim Rutenberg’s column in The New York Times, written before the general election campaign began. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/media/the-republican-horse-race-is-over-and-journalism-lost.html?nlid=27174500&src=recpb&_r=0) As a bonus, the news media gave Trump fodder to turn around and criticize them for making fun of him and, by extension, his supporters, until they didn’t believe anything the “lying media” said. Trump might or might not be a smart man, but he’s certainly cunning, and he knows which buttons to push. Our coverage of him should acknowledge that, rather than being trapped by it. Former Washington Post Executive Editor Len Downie Jr. says Trump is intentionally tarring all journalists and journalism with the same brush. He warns journalists against supplying Trump with the tar and feathers. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/opinion/donald-trumps-dangerous-attacks-on-the-press.html?emc=edit_th_20170114&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=27174500&_r=0
Cover your community like everybody’s life depended on it, because it does. In answer to The Jourmudgeon’s headline, the new administration is not a circus, but here’s a circus metaphor: Whether your beat is the Trump administration, your state legislature, or your city, county or town, cover the sawdust and the shit, not the bigtop. Anybody can see what’s going on in the center ring. As comedian Jackie Gleason once said about critics, their job is to describe a wreck to witnesses. Show your audiences what’s going on behind the tent – the sawdust and the shit. They’d never see that otherwise.
Resist those who say that new media and new leaders change your fundamental journalistic obligations. They don’t, no matter how Washington or our news delivery systems change in the next four years, or eight years, or beyond.