All That Informs Is Not Good Journalism
Ezra Klein defends the beat-sweetener genre. And he’s right that these things include legitimate information. Certainly, I read them. The problem is that they’re stories that to really understand you need to read heavily between the lines.
And beyond that, they’re stories where what’s obscured is typically more interesting than what’s revealed. When someone reports that sources they can’t name have given them proof that the United States is running a secret network of prisons in Eastern Europe, the fact is a lot more significant than the mystery about the source. But when someone comes up with a bunch of charming anecdotes about Peter Orszag, the really interesting issue is who told the anecdotes and why? And the same goes for any other administration official. Is this good PR coming from the central White House communications shop, or is it coming from out in the agencies? Why was this particular reporter deemed worthy of the goodies?
A related issue is that a lot of journalists have a kind of contempt for people who do PR and communications work, a contempt that I think is related to the fact that journalists are generally men and PR is generally done by women. There’s little appreciation for the fact that people doing communications are typically just as smart as the journalists covering them, but they’re also better-informed about the subject at hand, better-connected to centers of power, and more committed to having the impact they want to have on the world. Under the circumstances, it’s basically inevitable that press coverage of the powerful will mainly be driven by competition between manipulators-of-journalists rather than by bold truth-telling. This is, however, little recognized inside the profession.
15 Responses to “All That Informs Is Not Good Journalism”
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April 7th, 2009 at 9:13 am
I continue to be unimpressed by this bout of the vapors, especially coming from a blogger who repeatedly muzzles his own convictions (guns, sandy berger) in an effort to preserve, protect and curry favor with the powers that be in his own sphere.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:27 am
“a contempt that I think is related to the fact that journalists are generally men and PR is generally done by women. There’s little appreciation for the fact that people doing communications are typically just as smart as the journalists covering them, but they’re also better-informed about the subject at hand”
I think this is wrong and contradicts the idea that “beat sweeteners” aren’t good journalism. The contempt for people who do communications/pr is not based solely on sexism, rather its based much more on the relentless pushing by those in the PR world of their clients views. Good journalists need access to all the information to write good news and much more often than not those in PR push their side of a particular story to journalists and actively attempt to obscure information and frustrate discovery of contrary data. This is understandable with regard to their role, but in a world with ever faster news cycles precious time uncovering the “real” story from the cover of the “pr” story is wasted. That is where most of the contempt comes from, although I am sure a healthy dose of sexism exists.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Matt-
Maybe if you answered your voicemail once in a while you’d know “who told the anecdotes and why.”
April 7th, 2009 at 9:39 am
guns, sandy berger
compared to ezra’s eternal love for max baucus, that’s nothin’. in fact, compared to anything, those entries were nothing?
Curring favor with politicians is the point, not some counter-factuals about a policy issue like guns.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:54 am
As someone who works in the PR industry (although I’m looking to get out)I pretty much agree. I do feel bad about some of the crap I push out there at times, but I get even angrier when I’m successful at getting it printed. There are plenty of great journalists out there but there are plenty of bad ones as well. Unfortunately I have seen too many times a press release, that really isn’t terribly newsworthy, get turned into a story, sometimes even printed verbatim, simply to fill in space. Of course editors are probably to blame for this more than individual journalists, but the point is that PR is not solely responsible for talking points making their way to the public as news.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:10 am
@nope: Well, currying favor with the powerful is the point. Peter Orzag isn’t exactly a politician.
What I was trying to get at is that we all do some version of this. Very few, if any, people have the personal fortitude and institutional support to tell the whole unvarnished truth at all times on all matters. The rest of us compromise. Journalists learn to flatter power. Activists learn to play nice with others who they’d ordinarily disdain. Judges learn to shut up about controversial issues lest a Senator ask them about it down the road.
Part of what makes politics fascinating to me is that you have to read between the lines on everything. Newspaper articles, public appearances, white papers, endorsements, staff moves, speeches, legislative schedule, etc. No one is above the game in politics; nothing is free of ulterior motives and unseen machinations. Posts complaining that this is so are just whiny bullshit.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Matt, correct me if I’m wrong, but what seems to be obscured in your post is the fact that Beltway journalism is all about who gets blow jobs.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I agree with no. 2. PR people inspire contempt because they are essentially salespeople for whom facts are not only secondary but also irrelevant.
On the other hand, the PR write the journalists’ stories for them in most instances, and no good deed goes unpunished.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am
This may sound hopelessly naive. But as a non-insider, when I read the NYTimes’s glowing profile of Peter Orszag, the value of that piece for me, whatever its flaws, is that it tells me who Peter Orszag is. (I’ve heard the name a million times, but who is he?). This is far from the first time I’ve heard media critics claim that the “real” story is who leaked what to whom (Kaus is fond of saying that), but that kind of stuff is of zero interest outside the beltway.
And how do you distinguish brownnosing from journalists getting starry-eyed over the Obama people just like the rest of us?
April 7th, 2009 at 10:59 am
The “journalists men, PR women” shows a certain inside the beltway mentality. Outside the beltway, journalism is pretty split down the middle and in some newsrooms more female.
A question that might be asked is why are so many Washington journalists male.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Yeah, count me among those somewhat dubious that sexism is the primary driver of the antagonism between journalists and PR people. Sexism might color that antagonism, but it doesn’t create it. PR people and journalists basically each has something the other wants, and they’re going to do their best to manipulate the other party into getting it. Neither party comes out smelling like roses, but PR people are usually harder to sympathize with, simply because they’re working for a client, generally with a naked agenda.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:37 am
PR people and journalists basically each has something the other wants, and they’re going to do their best to manipulate the other party into getting it. Neither party comes out smelling like roses, but PR people are usually harder to sympathize with, simply because they’re working for a client, generally with a naked agenda.
I don’t know about the sexism angle, but I think this is Matt’s whole point: Neither side comes out smelling like roses. And yet, somehow, the journalists still cultivate something of a holier-than-thou culture that pretends they are brave truth tellers and not, for the most part, merely willingly manipulated lazy transcribers of releases. (Press releases put out by those same reviled PR people.)
Besides, having a naked agenda doesn’t necessarily make one unsympathetic. I mean, who’s more “virtuous”, the person who writes press releases for the Coalition to Ban Land Mines or what-have-you, or the reporter who writes up the quotes along with some quotes from the other side, for “balance”?
April 7th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
“willingly manipulated lazy transcribers of releases” — this is an exceedingly reductive idea of what journalism consists of. While the “holier than thou” problem is a real one, lets not lose sight of the fact that journalism as a profession adds immeasurably to the ability of those in a democracy to govern themselves and at all levels, federal state and local. Print journalists are struggling to keep up with online and with the Jerry Springer influenced cable news shows.
And a 2nd point about the PR Dept. at the “Coalition to Ban Land Mines” — most PR people do not work for feel-good save the world non-profits, and the problem with PR is not with the value or merit of the message being pushed, but with the very fact that a one-sided message is being pushed.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
“willingly manipulated lazy transcribers of releases” — this is an exceedingly reductive idea of what journalism consists of. While the “holier than thou” problem is a real one, lets not lose sight of the fact that journalism as a profession adds immeasurably to the ability of those in a democracy to govern themselves and at all levels, federal state and local. Print journalists are struggling to keep up with online and with the Jerry Springer influenced cable news shows.
Certainly journalism is an important part of democracy. And what we have is better than nothing.
But that’s not really saying anything about whether the institution of journalism could be better, or whether it is currently not particularly deep or illuminating, but instead very often a shallow rehashing of warring talking points.
And a 2nd point about the PR Dept. at the “Coalition to Ban Land Mines” — most PR people do not work for feel-good save the world non-profits, and the problem with PR is not with the value or merit of the message being pushed, but with the very fact that a one-sided message is being pushed.
Well, I think that every political issue has at least two sides, and one of them must be closer to right than the others. So there are certainly a lot of PR people that are basically working at least slightly on the side of the angels, mercenary or not. (Although of course the position fully on the side of the angels doesn’t always have a press shop, or a well paid one…)
But again, the problem is not really that people are paid to push one-sided messages. The problem is that the pushing works. Because reporters print it without offering independent analysis.
And a crucial part of fixing that, and getting a press that not just be better than nothing, is for journalists to recognize that they are a key part of the problem.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
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