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Words & Reflectionsthe television news business as a reporterand media critic. When I callreporters and producers, they routinelytell me they’re not allowed to comment.For some, just the suggestion ofa conversation over coffee stirs fear fortheir jobs. The culture of TV news is sofirmly tethered to whim and pique,they say, that they could be fired if theirnames were to appear in print. Thesubject of the story almost doesn’tmatter. Sounds like the caprice foundin a movie studio—or the CIA.The CBS station’s spokeswomeninadvertently led me to two extraordinaryinsights into the thinking of manypeople who are in charge at the nation’snews outlets.First, the news business, to them, isa business whose product happens tobe news. If that means they’re seen asproviding a public service, so much thebetter. But it’s not required. That’swhy many local stations have standingorders for all inquiries to be referred topublic relations departments. Nationalnetworks, too, try to exercise tight controlover which employees commentabout what topic and when they do sountil they get too big to corral. (Thoseprominent journalists who are willingto criticize themselves, or their peers,often get tagged as troublemakers.) Indoing so, these companies are followingthe pattern set by General Motorsor General Electric in hyper-managingthe company’s image.Second, there’s a fundamental lackof trust. These networks and stationspay their staffs to sort through complexstories, often turning their subjects’lives upside down in the process.But they don’t trust those same newsprofessionals to act competently—tobehave themselves, really—when theythemselves are questioned. If there’smore tangible evidence of the contemptwith which some media companiesregard those who report andpresent the nation’s news, I haven’tcome across it.These attitudes prompt some importantquestions. If the companies donot trust their own reporters and producersas professionals, why shouldtheir viewers? And if those staffers arenot ultimately worthy of trust, doesn’tthat undermine the credibility of newscasts—the“product” these companiesare hawking?It would seem that over time badethical positions prove bad for business.Such aloofness (from the public)and distrust (of their own staffs) doesnot explain the erosion of ratings onbroadcast television. Cable stations andVCRs probably have much more to dowith it. But it doesn’t seem as thoughthe networks and local stations aredoing themselves any favors by imposingthis kind of silence at a time ofindustry-wide anxiety.The networks were probably prettycontrolling back in the day of EdwardR. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, too.CBS broadcaster William Shirer (authorof “Reich: A History of Nazi Germany”)left the network because of histangle with disapproving bosses. Butthe recent absorption of so many mediaoutlets by major corporations can’thelp this situation. The entertainmentmega-companies Viacom and Disney,respectively, own CBS and ABC. Themanufacturer and defense contractorGeneral Electric owns NBC, whichteamed with Microsoft to createMSNBC. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporationholds the Fox network andthe Fox News Channel along with amovie studio, a satellite TV venture,and other interests. The online, entertainmentand publishing behemothAOL/Time Warner owns CNN.None of these parent companiesdisplay particularly journalistic impulsesof the kind that might recognizethe value of allowing those whose jobit is to ask questions to answer them aswell.A few months ago, prompted by thesituation in Baltimore, where I live andwork, I wrote about this phenomenon.Two of the four local stations withnewscasts maintain not exactly a “nocomment,” but a “don’t comment”policy. The rule is that if an outsidercalls to ask about a story on the air, thenew station jingle, the meatloaf at thecompany cafeteria, or the cube root of27, that call should be bounced wordlesslyto the general manager or spokesman.One of those two stations sometimesallows its reporters and staffersto talk about general journalism issues.The other almost invariablydoesn’t.The story generated strong response.The readers were, understandably,outraged. The professional journalists,equally angered, were pleased to seethis usually ignored topic receive publicexposure. From a newspaper’s TVcritic: “It’s bad here in Philly—and gettingworse.” From a magazine editorwho is a former big-city newspaperreporter: “How can we have the guts torun a controversial story and then puta muzzle on staffers to comment?” Froma network producer: “Even in the placeswhere there is no set policy againstspeaking to the press, one is still verycautious. It’s not merely hypocrisy, it’salso a) cowardice and b) hyper-awarenessof how reporting works.”In the column, I quoted an MSNBCspokesman who jokingly said the cablenews channel put no locks on thephones. Keith Olbermann, once ananchor there, suggested otherwise. In1998, Olbermann delivered the convocationaddress at Cornell, his almamater. He gave a talk excoriating hisindustry, his station and himself forcoverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal,intending to deliver a message ofpersonal responsibility.After his remarks received criticismfrom others in the media, the cablenetwork forbade Olbermann from commentingpublicly. By Olbermann’s account,he wasn’t allowed to return acall from a newspaper reporter whomhe had known for years. He was evenrebuffed after offering to allow a publicrelations staffer to listen in on a differentextension. Olbermann was not longfor MSNBC.At The Sun, our public relationsdirector likes to know who gets interviewedfor what, although it appears tobe more of an attempt to prove to ournew owners, the Tribune Co., that we’repart of the great multi-media bandwagonthan any effort to silence reporters.I am not suggesting that anyoneshould be required to speak. But forjournalists, in particular, I think it canhelp restore trust with the public. Whena writer for the Columbia Journalism96 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001
When Journalists Arrive…Review requested an interview withJeff Gerth, the talented but controversialinvestigative reporter for The NewYork Times, Gerth initially insisted thathe speak only off the record. Whenchallenged, he relented. Yet Gerth’spartner on stories about the Wen HoLee spy charges, James Risen, declinedto comment for that piece, even thoughserious questions had been raised aboutthe fairness of their coverage. The Timesfelt compelled to publish a story dissectingthe implications of its own articles.In doing so, it sought to redeemits credibility by demonstrating to readersits fairness.Policies intended to button reporters’lips, whether explicit or not, serveto keep the decision-making of newsorganizations mysterious and obscure.Such a policy further distances themedia from the viewers and readers.Journalists should not be forced torespond to requests for interviews. Butthey might win some converts if theywere to offer some insight into howthey make decisions about their coverage.At worst, they might think thingsthrough a bit more thoroughly the nexttime.All of this should go without saying.But it shouldn’t pass without comment.■David Folkenflik is the televisionwriter and media critic for The(Baltimore) Sun.david.folkenflik@baltsun.comViewer Dissatisfaction Understates the Anger atLocal TV NewsA journalist reports on audience concerns, but is anyone else paying attention?By Ike SeamansIn ancient Greece, and later in Rome,messengers carried news throughoutthe empire. If recipients didn’tlike it, they’d kill the messenger. We, inthe media, are descendants of thosemessengers and now many viewers andreaders want to kill us.What they don’t like is that we provideinformation they don’t want and,worse, we fail to deliver news they dowant. This might be the main reasonwhy newspapers and TV news—networkand local—have been for yearslosing audiences at an alarming pacewith no end in sight.Local television news is by far thefavorite whipping boy. According to a1999 study by the Project for Excellencein Journalism, affiliated with theGraduate School of Journalism at ColumbiaUniversity, “Survey after surveyreveals it [local TV news] to be themost trusted source of news inAmerica…. Yet many critics deride it asthe worst of the American news business.”In a more recent, scathing report,Thomas Patterson of theShorenstein Center on the Press, Politicsand Public Policy at Harvard Universityargues that local TV news is“deliberately shortsighted, is rooted innovelty rather than precision, and focuseson fast breaking events ratherthan enduring issues.”At many stations, according to theProject for Excellence study, news hasdegenerated into simplistic, sensationalizedcoverage of “eye candy, stunts,and hype.” A lot of newscasts presentimportant stories by accomplished journalists,but they’re often buried underan avalanche of irrelevant and insignificantminutia—usually crimes, accidentsand fires—because consultantsand managers are convinced this socalled“breaking news” is the best wayto “grab” viewers despite ratings thatcontinue to spiral downward, provingpeople aren’t buying it.As if to prove the critics correct, aMiami news director boasts of doing allthis in abundance, cynically saying theaudience is afflicted with ADD (AttentionDeficient Disorder), their attentionspans so short they can usuallyonly handle easy to grasp stories.“A lot of good journalism is goingon,” says Terry Jackson, Miami HeraldTV critic. “The Firestone tire story wasbroken by a Houston TV station. However,they get sidetracked in this rushto be immediate, to beat or to matchthe competition. That’s where localnews falls down.”I’ve been hearing harsh criticismabout how local TV does its job fromviewers since I returned to Miami fromNBC eight years ago. It’s getting moreintense. After writing an op-ed piecefor The Miami Herald about what localTV is doing wrong, my station askedme to do a similar investigation for ournewscast. This assignment was unprecedentedin an industry not known forself-criticism. Usually what we do is fallback on well-worn rationalizations toexplain why audiences are disappearing,even though several recent prestigiousstudies have identified the realculprit: It’s us. Plain and simple, viewersdon’t like what local TV news is anddoes.I talked with people of all ages inmost socioeconomic groups. To a person,but from their particular vantagepoints, people described local TV newsas being distorted and poorly reported.Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 97
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