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Friday, August 10, 2007

The Trouble With Newsmen (Newspeople?)

One of the pleasures of blogging is getting reader response. My last effort dealt with the impact of the college educated on Hollywood (not good), and I was struck by the comment of a Mr. Al Sparks, who wrote, "I've read about the 'too many college graduates' (TMCG) problem in reference to journalism also. As late as the 1940s, most journalists were NOT college grads. Today, of course, most are, and are also out of touch with their audience."

Ah, Mr. Sparks, how right you are. Things have indeed changed.

Consider this statement:

"It is also true that The New York Times is not a crusading newspaper. It is impressed with the responsibility of what it prints. It is conservative and independent, and so far as possible -- consistent with honest journalism -- attempts to aid and support those who are charged with the responsibility of government. There are many newspapers conducted along different lines, some of them vicious, ill-natured, and destructive of character and reputation, and for mere purposes of sensation they frequently terrorize well qualified and well meaning men to the point where they are discouraged from accepting invitations to give their ability, genius, and experience to the administration of public affairs."

Those words were in a letter written in 1931 by Adolph Ochs, the publisher of The New York Times.

Can you imagine any publisher writing that today? Can you imagine a publisher who believes it's his duty to "aid and support those who are charged with the responsibility of government"? That publisher would be labeled "unsophisticated," blind to the "adversarial relationship," indifferent to the need to "speak truth to power." And, God knows, the man certainly doesn't want to "make a difference."

I was on The Times during the Vietnam War. I recall once going down to the newsroom, on the 3rd floor, to suggest a story on some problems at a military hospital. I was properly irate, as only someone with a fresh diploma could be. But Robert Alden, a legendary Times reporter, sat me down and quickly tempered my righteousness, recounting the history of military medicine, and the lives it had saved. He asked that I consider that background when suggesting my story. Can you imagine that today?

There have been many changes in journalism since World War II, but the most striking has come in the resumé of the journalist. Of course, there have always been college graduates in journalism. Even Ernie Pyle, the everyman reporter of World War II, had studied at Indiana. But what we've had in the last 50 years is a deluge of college graduates. They have brought some improvements. But they've also brought into journalism the culture, attitudes, and arrogance of the academic world.

I don't suggest that all was sublime before the sheepskins arrived. For every great paper of the past, there were twenty we'd like to forget. For every grand statement of Adolph Ochs, there were spectacles like a news photographer, in 1928, strapping a camera to his ankle and sneaking it into Sing Sing so readers of the New York Daily News could see Ruth Snyder
electrocuted on the front page.

But there have been, especially since the sixties, disturbing trends in journalism. Just as Hollywood, in its hiring practices, has replaced talent with education, journalism is in danger of replacing experience with report cards. Journalism is not a profession. There is no specific body of knowledge required, and there is no licensing. What is needed is a sharp set of skills, high powers of observation, and a humility about how much we can understand quickly, and these come only from experience. But when you've gone through Yale or Stanford, when you've been told how smart you are, when you got 700s on your SATs, you start to believe what mom has whispered in your ear. You start to think that you "know." It's a kind of self-inflicted grade inflation. I'm bright, therefore I'm right.

The impact of this attitude has been profound. As reader Sparks said, there has been a separation between journalism and its audience, and I believe it derives directly from the separation between our universities and the nation. College graduates, especially from supposedly elite schools, see themselves as a class apart. They are encouraged to do so, especially by the sixties crowd that still patrols the hallowed halls. (Well, let's not say "patrols." It's so Marine-ish, my dears. )

I recall editing a story about the Soviet Union for The New York Times Magazine. It was written by a Canadian professor. I made my notes on his first draft, then waited for his second, which came in due course. As I read it, though, I realized something odd had happened. The professor had changed all his conclusions, making them more pro-Soviet. I called him, not hiding my annoyance. How, I asked, could a scholar flip all his opinions between the first and the second draft? His reply was direct. "You don't understand," he said, "peer pressure in universities."

It was an admission that's stayed with me my entire career. "Peer pressure in universities." It not only affects what goes on inside those institutions, it has an impact on alumni. It helps shape our lives, our world view. We feel it every time we go to the mailbox and find a copy of our alumni magazine. There are certain ideas we're simply expected to embrace, an outlook that, we're told, defines us and our crowd. It twists how today's journalists see their country and the world.

In the years since 9/11 we've become accustomed to the torrent of abuse directed at the president, and the country, from inside many of our institutions of occasionally higher learning. Even more insidious is that notion of separateness. "We're the good people," they seem to be saying. "We're not part of you. We're separate, and you're not equal."

The college class of 1942 was the first to graduate following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A young man named Charles Pearson received his degree that spring from Dartmouth, and served as the class valedictorian. In his address he said, "Do not feel sorry for us. We are not sorry for ourselves. Today we are happy. We have a duty to perform and we are proud
to perform it."

Charles Pearson never returned from the Pacific. But his words set the tone for a generation of students, and their teachers, who knew the meaning of obligation. The young generation of journalists coming out of college today too often hears very different words, with very different ideas of what obligation is about. And they see the example of Harvard, which ousted a president, Larry Summers, who attended each commissioning ceremony for Harvard students who chose to enter military service. They replaced Summers temporarily with one former Harvard president, and permanently with the first woman to hold the post. Neither, it seems, could find the time to attend this year's commissioning. Well, people have such important things to do.

A message is sent, and young journalists have heard too many messages like that for the last generation, and we will pay a bitter price.


Which is why:
US public sees news media as biased, inaccurate, uncaring: poll

Click on the link for the full story in Breibart.

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