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CBS Sees no Journalism in Blogs
hende_jman writes "CBS News online has an article comparing some politics-oriented blogs to the kind of stuff they used to run in the author's school newspaper. It's an interesting read that has some valid critiques of the format as far as journalistic integrity is concerned (not that CBS hasn't been without its problems)."
I read this story yesterday, and it turned out the editor's speculation was wrong! When they issued a "retraction" they didn't apologize, and that editor added some political spin to it!
Whilst a blog may give one persons view point, I find the alluring aspect of blogging and online amateur sites (like slash even) is not the article or POV of the original poster, but of how its responded to.
It feels more like I'm taking part in events than sitting back watching somebody else's version.
liqbase
No matter how good the blog and the individual credibility of the author, imagine using a blog source as a reference in a major scholarly journal.
You'd be laughing stock in not time at all, and for good reason.
The only reason you didn't see the major news outlets doing the same (well, at least they showed some restraint *cough* foxnews *cough*) was because they all got their hands slapped during the 2000 elections doing just what the bloggers were doing during this one.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
"not that CBS hasn't been without its problems"
I count three negatives in that sentence. So it's logically equivalent to "CBS has been without its problems". I think this is the opposite of what the writer intended to say.
grep -ri 'should work'
When did they admit that the documents were forgeries and not just "unable to authenticate at this time"? When did they apologize for running a story based on documents that their own experts said were forgeries?
I don't want them to, as you put it, "Suck George Bush's pecker". I want them to:
a: Try to verify the facts of their stories before airing them, even if the story is about a politician that they like/dislike.
b: Admit that their own political and moral views may not be 100% correct, and try to reduce the effect of any bias on their reporting. That means fact-checking politicians both when they say theings you agree with, as well as when they says things you disagree with.
Close, but not quite:
In the mainstream, journalism isn't dead, but reporting's been pushing up the daisies since the 70s.
What CBS does is "Journalism". Figure out what sort of story you want to tell, then send a guy out with a camera (or dig up some stock footage) who can come up with the iamges to tell the story.
Terrorist? Freedom fighter? No problem, we'll find someone to argue both points. Dirtball spammer? Ethikul small bidnidman and oppressed ontreprenooer? All the same to us! Safe car? Time bomb? We've spent a lot of money on this story so far, and we're not gonna throw it away, so let's rig the test to make sure it blows up real good! Obvious Microsoft Word forgery? Story's what we want it to be no matter how obvious the forgery is? No problem, we'll pay off a handwriting expert who's not even taken seriously in his own loopy field, and a couple of Democrat partisans to distract you from the real issue and to repatedly drub it into your silly little minds that our story is true, even though all the evidence we've brought before you is actually pure, Grade-D bullshit.
CBS: All journalism, all the time.
What bloggers do is "Reporting". Look at the screen (or listen to the scanner, or check your IMs and emails from your inside source), and state what's happening. Then spin it -- but always making it clear what parts are spin and what parts are fact.
Blogs: All reporting. "Here's the numbers: K57/B43. Because I support [Kerry|Bush], I think that's [great|horrible]. Be warned that these numbers are unconfirmed. Take with huge grain of salt. I'll report more numbers as I find them."
> > CBS Sees no Journalism in Blogs
I'm tired of getting my news spun for me. I just want the goddamn facts, separated from the spin. Blogs serve this purpose. The mainstream media used to -- but hasn't in decades. No journalism in Blogs? GOOD.
Heck, I agree with everything you said, and I stand by my original assertion. I didn't say that weblogs are digging up stories that the mainstream press aren't--though they do on occasion. Rather, I find great value in the fact that I can read the comments and thoughts of a wide range of informed weblogs. Facts alone are of limited use; the ability to read a wide range of opinions and interpretations regarding those facts is wonderfully useful. This is where the greatest value in the weblog sphere lies: interpretataion and discourse. To say that journalism stops at fact-reporting strikes me as overly restrictive.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Most people would agree that our current political climate is heavily polarized. The media most often calls attentions to extremes in the issues, rather than seeking common ground between groups. Even the president jumps on the bandwagon with statements like, "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists." With no room for compromise, fueled by a media system which seeks to divide everything into two clearly contrasting piles of soundbytes, it's no wonder half the public is extremely polarized and the other half extremely apathetic.
How did things get to this point? Many argue the winner communicated more effectively than the loser. I agree. And many argue that the losers didn't have the right message. To that I also agree. But trying to understand what the Kerry camp did wrong is a waste of time when you ignore the extreme tilt of the playing field upon which they performed.
It is my contention that two specific events have contributed to the current situation:
1. The veto of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 by Ronald Reagan:
The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine harkened a new age in media and journalism. News outlets were no longer forced to adopt middle ground positions when covering issues; editorial no longer need be confined to narrow areas, and the airwaves exploded with thousands of heavily polarized pundits broadcasting 24 hours a day their agendas, without any concern for fairness or covering alternative viewpoints.
Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and thousands of other partisian pundits were free to spew their slanted take on the world without ever considering the need to offer anything but a wholly one-sided tale of the issues. Left un-regulated and therefore un-challeneged, their hubris expanded to epic preportions as evidenced in statements like, "Fair and Balanced, "No Spin Zone", etc.
And thus began the modern propaganda wars. Unfortunately it's more of a massacre than a real war.
Yes, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine also gave liberal entities the same freedom. The problem is the platforms for these pundits were mostly commercial radio stations, and the conservatives took the role of spokespeople for the agenda of corporate America, unarguably the true political power in the nation. Liberals, representing the moderate voice of the mainstream didn't have the resources that mouthpieces for big-pharma, insurance, finance, oil and defense contractors, and as a result, found themselves literally drowning in a sea of pro-big-business propaganda, with no way to get equal airtime and thus, no comparable method
Speaking as a print journalist (and editor), I'm saddend by attacks on the media's credibility. But I, too, think there's a problem.
The problem that dinosaur media has is: how do we put out a daily paper that's relevant to readers who are getting real-time news updates online? Answer: shorten the news cycle, rush to scoop the story, let others do the thinking.
Think of newspapers are the layman's scientific journals--they report the latest discoveries and happenings of interest to the target audience. Now think of how credible a scientific journal would be if it had to have 24-hr. reporting cycles. There's no way the editors could fact check everything, look deep for signs of bias and spin, etc. I don't think it's humanly possible to deliver hard, unbiased, fair, and comprehensive news with today's news cycle.
What should happen is a return to the days when nobody claimed to be 100% unbiased. If you look at 19th century newspapers, there was quite a bit of editorializing even on the front page. But just because we can't be perfect doesn't mean we have an excuse to be bad. In contrast to journalists, bloggers don't try hard enough to be objective and as accurate as possible.
The right balance between speed and fairness, IMHO, is professional journalists doing the blogging. Even if journalism is a craft and not a profession, crafts need to be taught by experienced craftsmen.
My ideal solution, though, would be slowing down the pace of life, but that's not going to happen.
If anyone other than CBS had said this I might have given it some credibility, but CBS has none left. After their handling of the 2000 elections, the fabricated documents of the Bush National Guard story, and the dubious story about missing weapons in Iraq, I don't know how anyone can say 'CBS' and 'News' in the same sentence. Coincidentally I wrote about the demise of CBS recently in my journal.
Also, check out a population weighted map, as opposed to just land area. Land area doesn't vote, people do.
There was a guy living in Baghdad, reporting on events as the bombs fell. There are plenty of blogs like that...people on the scene who happen to have weblogs, reporting on what they see. Any tech conference has a boatload of em.
Another example: a couple months ago there was some proposed gun legislation in Congress. A couple bloggers tag-teamed C-SPAN and reported a blow-by-blow on speeches in Congress, as it happened. Meanwhile, coverage by "journalists" was minimal.
The fact that reporting blogs are in the minority is irrelevant, because there are an awful lot of blogs, and you can select the interesting ones.
Something I wish more bloggers would do is go out and do their own reporting and journalism.
At the same time I disagree with Junks Jerzey on one count: The good blogs that rehash existing news stories often come up with insightful new connections. They do have merit.
As for doing real journalism: Hey bloggers! Find a topic, figure out who it affects among the people where you are, and start asking people questions. Interview people, do research, and write about those things. Come up with original material rather than react to pre-existing news stories. It's a lot more fun and fulfilling.
There are some bloggers who do this. I aspire to do it when opportunities arise (I'm still a student so sometimes coursework takes precedence). Since I've been hired to do that kind of blogging in a newspaper's website, I figure I at least owe them some original content and not just--as the parent so aptly put it--letters to the editor.
As a bonus I'll throw in this bit of wisdom from legendary reporter and journalist Bill Moyers: Real News is the news we need to keep our freedom. That's what should guide CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and whothefuckever else dares to call themselves a news source.
I listened to an Al Franken Podcast the other day, and they asserted a huge problem on the left side of politics. The right-wing nutjobs usually won't back down, even if they have been proven wrong with evidence. I think it was Hannity that had made an innane statement about Kerrys career, a blatant lie that was proven wrong again and again. Yet, after a week, he presented it as a fact in his show as if nothing had happened. This puts lefties in an akward dilemma, as they tend to follow the backed-up-by-evidence high road. While it is the slander-and-lies low road that get the attention and "moral" votes.
(Note, I'm a conservative, but not in the USAian sense.)
I'm not sure what NPR you listen to but I listen to them a lot.
(1) I never heard them mention Badnarik once and I was listening for it because that's who I voted for.
Okay, try this. Search google
site:npr.org
Bush: 7700 hits
Kerry: 4080 hits
Badnarik: 9 hits
Okay, he definitely got less coverage, but he got some.
site:foxnews.com
Bush: 18400 hits
Kerry: 9980 hits
Badnarik: 7 hits
So even though fox news had a lot more election coverage, they had less on Badnarik. By comparison npr was doing quite well really.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
" It's an interesting read that has some valid critiques of the format as far as journalistic integrity is concerned (not that CBS hasn't been without its problems)."
Taco, CBS isn't just "not without problems", CBS/FOX/ABC/NBC and all the other broadcasters of corporate/lobby interest crap are part of the problem, but the REAL PROBLEM is that YOU pay lip service to the illusion that American Media is about journalism.