The Careful (and Necessary) Work of Journalism

The decline (it has not been lost--and it was never in very abundant supply) is lamentable. But you write as if the corporate stewardship of print journalism has nothing to do with the decline.

It also may be a faulty conslusion that there is less investigation, less learning, less solid information, etc. Media forms have never remained static.

My hunch is that almost none of the work that went into this series would have been as feasible, or carried out in the same way, if we were stuck with the tools, information, processes, etc of 30 years ago.

Good point - you're obviously right about corporate ownership and I should have noted it.

And certainly there were not the same tools 30 years ago, there wouldn't have been an interactive web site, databases to research, etc. But the same kind of hard investigaive work went into Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate reports, for example.

Agree with your overall point. But one point you seem to imply w/o quite saying: are newspapers the only ones that can do this work? I think we're sometimes too quick to conflate the need for good, long-form, expensive journalism with an assumed need for it to be published on dead trees. It's about business models and incentives, not specific media.

Agree with your overall point. But one point you seem to imply w/o quite saying: are newspapers the only ones that can do this work? I think we're sometimes too quick to conflate the need for good, long-form, expensive journalism with an assumed need for it to be published on dead trees. It's about business models and incentives, not specific media.

I agree. Take a look at crowdsourcing: the work that Talking Points did in being able to ouster AG Gonzalez after its investigation using crowdsourcing gives hope to all of us about the future of journalism. The greater fear I have is about the financial future of journalism: I think it will continue to be done, but how will those who do it get paid as more and more volunteers and bloggers and unpaid interns replace what used to be staff jobs?

We lost one newspaper in the Seattle area , and our county daily nearly has had a reduction in subscribers and staff . My son working at a printing press for newspapers and they have had one factory shut down and the remaining one has had a reduction in force. Investigating reporting has become something of the past , or a select issue . But some parts of this I have found good also. I have noticed less of slant in the local media , all they have room for is basic news .

The community newspaper began to change with our culture changes . News rooms became more selective and political in what was reported ,omitted , and at times even the slant of the article . I served on a newspaper board once and was amazed by the professional aspect of the newspaper , the tradition it honored of integrity and fairness. They the reporters and editor were ideologues . Not sure if that is the case, but I learned from my experience to never trust a newspaper story , ask the person in the story their take of the situation. Regardless whose side your on , journalism has taken the role of reporting a story a certain way , and the people in the story are just characters that make the story turn out the way it was meant to sound. So when I watch Fox , I assume its bent to the right , when I watch CNN to the left , when I watch a glen beck or a Oberman I usually turn it off . But what journalism has lost in my opinion is reporting the news , it has become reporting the slant it gives .

We lost one newspaper in the Seattle area , and our county daily nearly has had a reduction in subscribers and staff . My son working at a printing press for newspapers and they have had one factory shut down and the remaining one has had a reduction in force. Investigating reporting has become something of the past , or a select issue . But some parts of this I have found good also. I have noticed less of slant in the local media , all they have room for is basic news .

The community newspaper began to change with our culture changes . News rooms became more selective and political in what was reported ,omitted , and at times even the slant of the article . I served on a newspaper board once and was amazed by the professional aspect of the newspaper , the tradition it honored of integrity and fairness. They the reporters and editor were ideologues . Not sure if that is the case, but I learned from my experience to never trust a newspaper story , ask the person in the story their take of the situation. Regardless whose side your on , journalism has taken the role of reporting a story a certain way , and the people in the story are just characters that make the story turn out the way it was meant to sound. So when I watch Fox , I assume its bent to the right , when I watch CNN to the left , when I watch a glen beck or a Oberman I usually turn it off . But what journalism has lost in my opinion is reporting the news , it has become reporting the slant it gives .

I say good riddance to the monopoly old style journalism held on the information available to the populace. Like the invention of the printing press, the internet has exploded the amount of information we are privy to. We are no longer deceived by the twisting or omission of information which political hacks posing as journalist have been getting away with for decades.

Sorry, but it's far worse today. Legitimate newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets do solid reporting and have to run their stories through a gauntlet of editors, and if they see something that doesn't add up they question the reporter about it (I do that for a living). Today, however, anyone with a computer can post something on line without any fact-checking or historical perspective and it can be accepted as truth because it's what someone wants to hear. Now who's being deceived?

That's why you read several newspapers a day; I try to. The trouble is that we as a news culture don't look at things with a critical eye and subscribe to news outlets that tell us what we want to hear.

oh my gosh! Are you serious. "no longer deceived by the twisting or omission of information." Nope now we have downright lies with the intention of deception. The average reader, like my dad, believes that if they are on the radio, they wouldn't be lying.

Take several of your favorite talk show hosts on the right. Underline their "facts" then do a snopes.com or any other non-partisan fact checking source. You can even just google their story. Then go to the sources listed which they used to debunk the sorry excuse for journalism. Some of these fact checkers do their research without leaning to the right or the left and are now being quoted by journalists.

People who listen to these right wing entertainers as sources for truth, also buy National Enquirer to see who's alien baby showed up with three nipples.

I've found many newspapers have become McPapers. In my brief time of reporting as a stringer, I would have a fact down right changed by an editor that would totally change the story's credibility. It was impossible to churn out newsworthy stuff enough to fill a paper and make sure the quotes were accurate. I made a little over 10 cents an hour because I was freelance and just having fun. Seldom were my stories messed with, but when they were, I had my small community to answer to. The circulation of the paper I reported to was one of the largest ones in the state. You just can't take back words that affect people.

That something that don't add up is more often than not adding a little political cover for someone with an axe to grind. A recent example is none other than Dan Rather, wouldn't you agree?

Hardly, because I know what happened there. The problem was not that Dan Rather went on the air with it in the first place but, according to the producer that lost her job as a result, that it was rushed and thus botched; she said it really needed another week. Keep in mind that ABC News, hardly a member of the right-wing coterie, broke the story in the first place.

I seem to remember it being outed on the blogsphere before ABC mentioned the event. I suppose Dan & Co. didn't have time to rustle up a mechanical typewriter to produce a better forgery. You can't just buy one at wal-mart anymore.

But no matter, what you seem to be advocating is the death of freedom of speech on the internet by amateur journalist. I think Chairman Mao took the same position if I recall.

I can only guess which networks you would advocate as being the "people's choice" for their "official" news information. We can't trust them dumb ole people with such important things as investigation to see if what they heard from a news source is true! Most of them went to public school for goodness sake!

I seem to remember it being outed on the blogosphere before ABC mentioned the event. I suppose Dan & Co. didn't have time to rustle up a mechanical typewriter to produce a better forgery.

You assume that what CBS did; I don't, because it has better things to do that try to take down conservative politicians. (That's part of the conservative movement's shtick -- "everyone's against us.")

But no matter, what you seem to be advocating is the death of freedom of speech on the internet by amateur journalist. I think Chairman Mao took the same position if I recall.

What does that have to do with it? Really? I've been in the field for half my life, and there are procedures you're supposed to follow before you publish anything; with the TANG story CBS failed to follow them. But if you want to take that tack, bloggers in Alaska actually drove Sarah Palin out of the governership.

Anyway, what often happens is that the legitimate news media used them for tips and did their own due diligence.