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...only peripherally political.
I was musing on this after watching the news. To me, "fair and balanced reporting" is to look at what is said and done, ascertain the facts, and put those facts out there with as little spin as possible (some spin, yes, is inevitable, just by the choice of words). Fair and balanced reporting is saying, without hedging, that "You, sir or madam, said X, but that's contradicted by This and That fact, which indicate that Y is actually the case. How do you answer that?" The relationship between the press and the government is supposed to be adversarial: the press is supposed to be the watchdog that keeps people from abusing power and calls them on their spin, their lies, and their inconsistencies.
That's not what I see on any of the main news channels. Instead, now what passes for "fair and balanced reporting" is noting that This Person Said (or Did) That, then having two talking heads, once from either side, contradict each other and give a full-spin account based on their agendas. There's no fact-checking, there's no dialog, there's no calling of someone for giving flat-out misinformation.
And it's all I ever see on CNN or MSNBC or ABC, NBC, and CBS.
You're not 'reporting' if you're just allowing the two sides to give their account of the situation without commentary or input. You're reporting if you dig for the facts, give those facts to the people, and let them draw their own conclusions. You're reporting if when someone says "I did X" you stop them in the middle of their pre-fabricated sound bite and say, "No, that's not true. Actually, you did Y, and here's where I found that information."
So where is that kind of reporting? Did it ever exist? It's certainly not on the cable/broadcast 'news.' There are scraps of it on the internet (factcheck.org comes to mind for at least trying to determine the truth of political claims), but mostly, it seems to be missing.
I want my adversarial media back. Where are the Brits when you need them?
I was musing on this after watching the news. To me, "fair and balanced reporting" is to look at what is said and done, ascertain the facts, and put those facts out there with as little spin as possible (some spin, yes, is inevitable, just by the choice of words). Fair and balanced reporting is saying, without hedging, that "You, sir or madam, said X, but that's contradicted by This and That fact, which indicate that Y is actually the case. How do you answer that?" The relationship between the press and the government is supposed to be adversarial: the press is supposed to be the watchdog that keeps people from abusing power and calls them on their spin, their lies, and their inconsistencies.
That's not what I see on any of the main news channels. Instead, now what passes for "fair and balanced reporting" is noting that This Person Said (or Did) That, then having two talking heads, once from either side, contradict each other and give a full-spin account based on their agendas. There's no fact-checking, there's no dialog, there's no calling of someone for giving flat-out misinformation.
And it's all I ever see on CNN or MSNBC or ABC, NBC, and CBS.
You're not 'reporting' if you're just allowing the two sides to give their account of the situation without commentary or input. You're reporting if you dig for the facts, give those facts to the people, and let them draw their own conclusions. You're reporting if when someone says "I did X" you stop them in the middle of their pre-fabricated sound bite and say, "No, that's not true. Actually, you did Y, and here's where I found that information."
So where is that kind of reporting? Did it ever exist? It's certainly not on the cable/broadcast 'news.' There are scraps of it on the internet (factcheck.org comes to mind for at least trying to determine the truth of political claims), but mostly, it seems to be missing.
I want my adversarial media back. Where are the Brits when you need them?
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*waves Britishly*
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In the meantime, I had a lot of fun talking to foreign reporters (http://barondave.livejournal.com/182502.html), with another one coming up.
You're right, though. "Journalism" has become a sad affair. I blame Watergate... but that's a long story.
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Then the story broke, a president suddenly resigned. A big deal. All the hard work forgotten for the payoff which made Woodward and Bernstein famous. Now, all reporters want Robert Redford to play them in the movie.
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A British viewpoint
An adversarial stance in general news pieces is another matter. The BBC regularly gets accused of being biased in both directions, which I think is a good sign. It's often viewed as fairly left wing, but several of its reporters have gone on to be Tory MPs, so that's not true in all cases.
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I remember reading quotations from members to the effect that it's not their job to tell us what's true. It's only their job to tell us what both sides said, and it's up to their audience (us) to figure out for ourselves, strictly from what each side is saying, whether somebody's lying.
Which is not the definition of journalism that I learned in college, let me tell you.
At least some members of the media have decided that it is their job, after all, to tell us whether something is true or false. I've seen quite a few stories in recent days contrasting what Sarah Palin is saying (and what McCain and others are saying on her behalf) with her actual record. If only they'd bothered to do that with what the Republicans said about Al Gore in 2000, and what George W. Bush said about himself.
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What drives me crazy about the two talking heads representing "either side" model, is that they just sit there and try to talk OVER each other, and say REALLY STUPID THINGS. (but as you noted, are not called on that by the news person) Stupid things like completely discounting false information without addressing the meat of it or how it got out there in the first place, and just trying to shout louder when the "other side" pushes on the issue. I've been forced into overhearing CNN at the gym a number of times recently, and over and over it's two people trying to literally SHOUT over the other person, to the point where I start completely losing what either is saying.
To say nothing of the idiocy I watched down south when I was there in August, when they were covering Obama's potential running mate. Again with the strange passiveness of the reporter, and the really irritating approach of two opposing people yelling at each other.
It makes my skin crawl.
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I can only imagine that the networks aren't following suit because they'll get the same reaction: pols will be afraid to go on. That's what makes The Colbert Report work: enough conservatives don't realize it's making fun of them that they get sucked into the trap.
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Will New Zealand do?
I found more details on Troopergate in that publication than I've been able to find in any of the US sites. It feels like the US sites just say the same old blurbs over and over and then spin it. This has an interview and the link back took me to a pdf file with the FULL transcript of the phone conversation that was taped between the governor's aid, Bailey, and one of the people he was pressuring.
More, there's a note there that under questioning, he revealed that he got the questionable, privileged information from Todd Palin.
So THIS is why they're issuing a supeona for the first dude!
Interesting.
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I've got one sharpish essay about the state of journalism here:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/207127.html
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When I read "A Team Of Rivals", I was surprised that in the political world as Lincoln came to power, newspapers where openly organs of parties and other political or social groups.
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What the crickey?! It's like the search for truth is irrelevant! I hate hate that McCain/Palin can flat out lie, and instead of the media checking the facts and reporting, "Palin's a big fat pants on fire liar", they just report everything she says like it's reality.
What the f...
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It's a disgrace.