Foolish news stories are increasing

Today, stories reporting simply that the mayor praised the police at the Garden Club luncheon seems inadequate – even foolish – if the police are in fact entangled in a corruption scandal; the mayor’s comments are clearly political rhetoric, and they come in response to some recent attack by his critics. - The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

Although this form of journalism is unacceptable, where the reporter merely and incomprehensively reports on the surface without digging into the real story, this form of journalism has become more common than one would like to think. Kovach and Rosenstiel made a wrong assumption here, because, if one looks at the more than a thousand Patch websites, it is exactly this abridged and ill-researched form of journalism that a reader finds.

Good journalism avoids this sort of articles because a good reporter knows there is more to the story than the mayor simply praising the police because he feels like it or is in the mood of doing so. If there is a controversy involving the police department, clearly the mayor is staking out a position: whatever the sore spot I’m behind the cops, is the message the mayor is sending. This bit of praise by the chief executive of the city ought to be enmeshed into an article about the controversy, so as to put the event in context for readers.

If the reporter is not sure of how the meaning of the mayor’s praise ought to be interpreted as him backing the police, he should walk up to the mayor or make a phone call to him, to find out whether that’s what he meant by it. If he says, he didn’t mean that by his luncheon comments, then the writer can print and paste that as a quote.

The scanty stories have become an issue in journalism today, where there are hundreds of local sites that are launching to cover their hometown; most of these sites do a poor job at covering their town, and even poorer job at following ethical rules and standards. The authors are wrong in thinking this sort of reporting doesn’t exist, as is implied by their text – it does exist and it is alive and well and it does not seems likely to cease anytime in the future.

Newspaper slogans

During the golden age of newspapers almost every paper had a slogan or a motto that it printed under its masthead stating either its belief or shamelessly boasting of its greatness. Some of the very excellent ones are provided below and a link is posted that will take the readers to a list.

The most trusted newspaper today, the New York Times has for its slogan, "All the News That's Fit to Print," to this day the Times continues to employ this motto; the newspaper also adapted to the digital age by altering the slogan a little bit calling it: "All the News That's Fit to Click."

If you are in the news business maybe you should have a slogan too: here is a complete list.

We strive for coverage

"Journalism can – and must – pursue the truths by which we can operate on a day-to-day basis. “We don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect jurors to render fair verdicts, or teachers to teach honest lessons or historians to write impartial history, scientists to perform unbiased research. Why should we set any lower goals for poor journalists,” Bill Keller, then managing editor of the New York Times, told us at one committee forum. “Whether true objectivity is ever possible – I don’t think that is what we’re here for… We strive for coverage that aims as much as possible to present the reader with enough information to make up his or her own mind." - The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

Disinterested pursuit of truth

"The first principle of journalism -- its disinterested pursuit of truth -- is ultimately what sets journalism apart from all other forms of communication." - The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

Journalistic truth

"Journalistic truth" is more than mere accuracy. It is a sorting-out process that takes place between the initial story and the interaction among the public, newsmakers, and journalists. - The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

When a journalist uncovers a piece of truth, it becomes incumbent upon him, in order to develop it into a neat story, to call interested parties for comments. This is an optional step, but it helps tell a better story. It’s not always a bad idea just to report the truth: reports, secret documents, and so forth.

What this does is it allows people that have a vested interest to react to the story; although these individuals or as they are called “newsmakers” are reacting sometimes there are different takes. And it is not uncommon for one side of the fence to bad mouth the other while being off-the-record which helps the reporter put the story in its right context and right perspective – whatever that is.

So a story can be simply put: (1) the fact or newly uncovered fact, (2) bunch of comments from people that have an interest in the story; (3) comments from both sides: special interest, public officials, and anyone that might have a different view – balancing. (4) And finally arranging all of that together and making it sound as if these people are having a conversation countering and responding to each other.

After reading a story like that it allows the public to figure out for themselves and with some nods and prods from the arranger to figure out who is a lying scum and who isn’t. And it is this process that is often used by the public at the ballot.

Pulitzer's Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play

"It was to assure his readers they could believe what they read that, in 1913, at the New York World, Pulitzer created a Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play. In a 1984 article in the Columbia Journalism Review, Casandra Tate described how the World's first ombudsman noticed a pattern in the newspaper's reporting on shipwrecks: each such story featured a cat that had survived. When the ombudsman asked the reporter about this curious coincidence, he was told:

One of those wrecked ships had a cat, and the crew went back to save it. I made the cat a feature of my story, while the other reporters failed to mention the cat, and were called down by their city editors for being beaten. The next time there was a shipwreck, there was no cat but the other ship news reporters did not wish to take a chance, and put the cat in. I wrote the report, leaving out the cat, and then I was severely chided for being beaten. Now when there is a shipwreck all of us always put in the cat."

Excerpt from: The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

Democracy is fundamentally flawed

"[Walter] Lippmann, already one of the nation’s most famous journalists, argued in a best-selling book called Public Opinion that democracy was fundamentally flawed. People, he said, mostly know the world indirectly, through “pictures they make up in their heads.” And they receive these mental pictures largely through the media." - The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

Democracy is fundamentally flawed. In his book Plato’s Republic that much is obvious – that great philosopher says nothing good about democracy. In fact, if popular interpretations are accurate he actually condemns democracy for the murder of his master Socrates. Very little has changed since those days, except everything has changed.

During 5th century Greece there was no newspapers or magazines to keep the government in check. Today, however, there are strong news agencies who are perfectly capable of keeping the government accountable – although that is slightly changing as agencies become poorer and less able to conduct investigations to keep the leviathan accountable.

People do know the world through indirect exposure. In his book Plato says so with his allegory of the cave that makes it clear: we merely see shadows and not the real things. In other words, our entire existence isn’t even real though we feel it is. No philosopher has yet to prove his own existence: Rene Descartes came close with his absurd “I think, therefore I am.” So it is mostly accurate that most of us know the world through pictures.

Because we receive these images that help us know the world through the media, it is imperative and incumbent upon news agencies to feed us images that are accurate. It is not uncommon to find images, outdated or irrelevant ones, being employed on articles that sometime sway us when they ought not to, but that is mainly our fault.

However, Lippmann probably means image in a metaphorical sense and not images as in photos – he must mean the images painted by words. The media, as Adolf Hitler said, continues to do forever what the public school system ceased doing after 12th grade.