Tag Archives: journalism

MEGO

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

A hundred years ago, when I was the news director at WMOA Radio, 1490 on your AM dial in Marietta, Ohio 45750; I read that there was an editor – probably in New York – who would mark up copy with the letters M.E.G.O.

The acronym meant: My Eyes Glaze Over – the piece was so boring as to make him enter alpha wave mode such as I go into when I’m behind a high school class trying to get through the TSA security area.

Living in Our Nation’s Capital we have many opportunities to be bored by long explanations by powerful people telling us why something can’t get done – that it’s too complicated for mere mortals such as myself to understand. Continue reading →

The New York Times: Living in the Dark Ages?

BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN

Reading the New York Times on Sunday always reminds me what a technical and professional wonder that newspaper is. For breadth and depth of coverage, good writing, and cultural news, it has few if any real challengers. But it is so afflicted with obvious left/liberal bias in its news coverage (or, often, lack of coverage), and especially in its doctrinaire editorials, it has become a tragic case of ideological rigidity.

It is as if someone created an automobile that was a miracle of design, performance, and style, with one fatal flaw–it could only turn left.

But how can this be? How can highly educated, articulate, bright, professionally competent, ambitious people who run and staff the Times not realize the blatant prejudice that so often distorts news coverage in what they print and what they fail to print? These are people who worship at the shrine of reason and science, proclaim their own fairness, and believe, as most left/liberals do, that they are simply smarter than everyone else, especially conservatives. Continue reading →

FactCheck.Org for Media – Please!

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Did you know that 11 states now have more people on welfare than they have employed?

Really? Yeah, swear to God. It was on the Internet.

Well, that piece of gossip is just not true. It was concocted from statistics contained in a magazine article.

I know that because I read FactCheck.org. In fact, when I get stuff like that forwarded to me, I send it to my good friend Brooks Jackson to find out what is true, half-true, or untrue. He would always send me a link to an article on the FactCheck.org site which had, what else? The facts. Continue reading →

Another Year of Newsroom Narcissism

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner, a dazzling display of media narcissism, is over. But before it slips into memory, as I suggested last year, too, the Association ought to think seriously about not doing it next year. The spectacle is an embarrassment to journalism and the American Presidency.

It reinforces an awful perception of Washington culture. And, staging this circus under the guise of raising funds for journalism scholarships is just short of fraud. The paltry amount of money the Association gives out in scholarships could be raised with a tin cup at the corner of Connecticut and K streets in DC. The budding reporters are a thin cover for a week of extravagant, self-indulgent Oscar parties. Continue reading →

Take a Listen

BY B. JAY COOPER
Reprinted from BJayCooper.com

Those who know me will tell you that I can be quite obnoxious when it comes to word usage. Use a word in a weird way and I’ll do an annoying rant for hours. Let me be clear, I am not a grammarian. I am not good at punctuation (I once lost a promotion because I was told I didn’t know how to use commas.) But I do favor plain English and not bastardizing the language to puff myself up.

All that as background before I rail about “take a listen” which I hear nearly every time I turn on a newscast lately. Chuck Todd just said “take a listen” on NBC’s Nightly News as he introduced a piece. I think every reporter on CNN Continue reading →

The Woodward Fracas

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Bob Woodward doesn’t think much of the Obama White House. You can tell that he doesn’t believe that the President is much of a President. And now the White House is making it pretty clear that it doesn’t think much of Bob Woodward.

This has all come to light in recent days in a bizarre he-said he-said tussle between the veteran Post reporter and Gene Sperling, Obama’s diminutive economic whiz. Politico did a story that said that Sperling threatened Woodward during the course of the argument. The White House pushed back hard and then released the entire email that seemed, in isolation, to be cordial enough.

What it didn’t release was the transcript of the thirty minute screaming match that apparently precipitated the email exchange. Continue reading →

Media Commits ‘Comment Creep’

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“This was Romney’s moment to make the case, that he is the substantive one, the electable one…But he didn’t. Instead he queued up his talking points…”

Who would you think made a comment like that? A cable news show talking head or a political consultant from the camp of the opposition? A newspaper columnist or a blogger? Not this time.

The opinion, not factual reporting or even analysis– was that of Philip Rucker, reporter for the Washington Post and it appeared in a Page 1 story under the opinion-rich headline: “Up close and way out of his comfort zone; On campaign trail Romney boggles chance to make connection with voters.”

The headline and the story violated what I, and I assume other consumers of American journalism, consider one of the sacred standards of reporting: objectivity.

Rucker’s opinions weren’t confined to the first couple of paragraphs. Most of the piece was opinion or at best subjective analysis. But it wasn’t labeled commentary or analysis or opinion. It was presented as a straight-up news story, on the front page, no less. Continue reading →

Random Thoughts

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

WASHINGTON POST’S FOUL LANGUAGE
The Post ombudsman reported this week that the newsroom is arguing over whether to include foul language in its reporting.

Those who favor the use of the f-word and others like it, believe they make the writing more vivid and less dull. What a talent pool we draw from today when a journalist can’t make his or her writing vivid and interesting without swearing?

There are a lot of reasons to maintain the current standard, but the most compelling to me is the ever-widening behavioral sinkhole our society is already in. We live in a media environment in which it is almost mandatory that you behave badly to get coverage. Protesters get more attention if they beat up a cop or burn a car. Politicians get more attention if they call somebody a liar or claim their adversary is cheat or a racist. People who truly do not deserve coverage get it for being brazen, abusive, disrespectful or rude, while others who make reasoned, intellectual arguments and actually work at something worthwhile, get ignored. Why encourage more of it? Why sanction more mediocrity, less civility and the dumbing-down of politics and social interaction even more? Continue reading →

Perry’s Rock and Perceptions of Prejudice

BY MICHAEL JOHNSON

For six days the Washington Post conducted what, in the extreme, could be described as a smear campaign against Presidential candidate Rick Perry. At best it was a case of highly prejudicial and irresponsible reporting, editing and ‘ombudsing’.

It was irresponsible, regardless, because it raised the ugly specter of racism without clear reason. It lowered the journalistic bar yet another notch, setting a precedent that will only encourage even less responsible media and partisans along the long, long road to next November.

The campaign began on October 1, with a front-page story about a rock that stood near one of the entrances to a ranch leased, not owned mind you, by the Perry family. On the rock was inscribed the word “Niggerhead”, a grotesquely offensive term apparently once used to describe everything from products to geographic locations.

The Perrys claimed they painted over the name of the rock in 1984. The Post reporter Stephanie McCrummen said she talked with 12 people, seven of whom said they saw the name still on the rock in the 1980’s and/or the 1990’s. One anonymous source claimed the rock wasn’t painted over until a few years ago. Continue reading →

Journalists’ Tell-All Books A Troubling Trend

BY MICHAEL JOHNSON

Every author wants to be popular enough to make a living from their efforts. But more and more journalists are cutting financial deals and skirting their own professional code of ethics to get on the best seller lists.

The reigning king of journalist bookdom is the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward. But this year, according to Reliable Sources columnist Howard Kurtz there is a stampede of journalists headed toward the publishers’ doors.

Many of the top names in national political journalism writing for fun and profit include Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, NBC’s Chuck Todd, and MSNBC’s Richard Wolffe; the Post’s David Maraniss; the New York Times’ Jodi Kantor and New Yorker writers David Remnick and Ryan Lizza, according to Kurtz. Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin and New York Magazine’s John Heilemann just published their moneymaker called Game Change and they have already signed a multi-million contract for a 2012 tome, according to Kurtz.

Most of the books have five common traits:
Continue reading →

Its Time for Media Reform: Part II

By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Apparently, it’s okay for the media to pay their sources, to buy news. ABC news does it and so do others.

More proof of that came on Sunday when CNN’s Reliable Source Anchor Howard Kurtz asked one of his panelists about ABC paying $200,000 to the central figure in a news story for information and material that would make its news broadcasts more appealing and therefore more competitive.Lauren Ashburn of Ashburn Media responded that the high demand for ad revenues among news operations is moving the needle toward that kind of checkbook journalism. The answer she said was to find ways to generate more ad revenue so the news operations would not be forced to buy and bribe their way to bigger ratings.

By that analysis, it is okay then for members of Congress to exchange campaign contributions for earmarks in legislation, because the pressure to raise so much money for their campaigns leaves them no other choice. No, actually, it is not okay. It is against the law. Checkbook journalism should be, too.

Continue reading →