Why Our Society Needs Real Journalists

It’s supremely ironic that the day after the Tribune Corporation declared Chapter 11, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken into custody by federal authorities on mind-boggling charges such as trying to broker for pay the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-Elect Obama. Ironic because it was the Chicago Tribune that uncovered the story. Ironic, also, because the Tribune granted a relatively rare government request to sit on a story. And the government argument – to enable authorities to complete a wiretap of Gov. Blagojevich, rather than break the story and destroy the government’s opportunity to obtain the information – must have been compelling.

I was a business and financial journalist for many years. While with The New York Times (NYSE:NYT), I broke a major story on the punitive settlement against AT&T (NYSE:T) in the original antitrust case between AT&T and upstart MCI (later MCI Worldcom and finally defunct). While the television reporters popped in and out of the courtroom and did their one minute standups outside, I spent days in the courtroom following and reporting on the case. Not only did I know the issues inside and out, but I knew enough to track down the just-dismissed jurors so I could poll them about their decision to award a then-astronomical punitive settlement against the once-sacred “Ma Bell.” It was a heck of a scoop.

So I fully understand the painful decision it must have been for the Chicago Tribune – a decision made at the highest levels – to sit on such a scoop. Knowing what I know, I give the Chicago Tribune tremendous credit for having the integrity and public-mindedness to make this difficult decision. I can guarantee, however, that it was an editorial decision and not a corporate decision. Therein lies the difference between a true news organization and what all too often passes as media these days.

The Tribune has long been an outspoken opponent and critic of Gov. Blagojevich. It has run numerous other investigative pieces identifying serious issues with the governor. And part of the government complaint against Blagojevich outlines a plan by the governor to influence Tribune executives to fire editors he didn’t like (it didn’t work, according to my old journalism school classmate R. Bruce Dold, now chief of the paper’s editorial section), which illustrates the acrimony between the governor and the newspaper.

However, from the start, Blagojevich’s administration has been marked by allegations of corruption, political influence and dealing. Think Tony Rezko. As an Illinois resident, I was not surprised by this complaint (and it’s a complaint, not a formal indictment at this point because no grand jury was involved). I imagine most Illinoisans were not surprised. Yet the allegations of a play-for-pay for a U.S. Senate seat appointment, which is the responsibility of the governor, were shocking, if not positively mind-boggling.

Since it appears the government’s wiretaps caught our governor on tape with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, it appears the Chicago Tribune made the right decision for the people of Illinois, and for the nation, for that matter. Breaking the story would have made the wiretaps impossible.

The Tribune’s decision was one that could only have been made by a serious, professional news organization with credibility and perspective. I’m all in favor of the free flow of information and opinion made by the millions of bloggers and erstwhile news organizations. Here I am, posting away! But there are few controls or rules, in the world of posting or casual journalism. Rumors and uneducated opinions far outnumber truth and careful reporting. Objectivity? Please.

It’s highly unlikely that anything but a news organization with highly skilled reporters could have identified the story in the first place, let alone the decision to sit on it. In and of itself, this makes a strong argument for why serious, established news organizations are vital to our society. If the story had been uncovered by or revealed to an Internet pundit or patchwork “news” organization, would they have exercised the discretion shown by the Chicago Tribune? I highly doubt it.

We have 24/7 news businesses on television, cable and the internet. But even the best of the best are news and information disseminators and interpreters. They are not investigators.

Who has consistently taken the leading role in rooting out news about corruption and wrongdoing? Who was producing articles about wrongdoing at companies like Enron or Woldcom? It was the newspapers, because that’s where serious journalists still live. I’m not saying television reporters or commentators aren’t smart. I’m not claiming Internet postings are useless.

However, their world is a minute-by-minute one. Breaking news rules. Hyperbole and speculation draws better ratings than dogged investigative reporting. Newspapers have traditionally allowed for this kind of careful in-depth analysis that sometimes leads to powerful, important revelations. Who else would pay a reporter for hours of digging that may or may not pay off. When it does pay off, however, it’s often powerful.

The Tribune Company’s Chapter 11 filing indicates many things, not the least of which is the lack of support people have for thoughtful, in-depth reporting. I am guilty of this, as well, having skimmed impatiently through newspaper and magazine articles that seemed to require too much of my time to read, even if they were well-written and carefully crafted. I’m rethinking this practice.

Economic realities dictate that the paper and ink world of the newspaper probably needs to evolve. In some ways this saddens me, because a Sunday morning thumbing through the Chicago Tribune or New York Times is infinitely more relaxing and informative than clicking through articles on my laptop. In the newspaper, you find articles you’d not search for on a website.

This unfolding drama with the Illinois governor should remind us all how much we need news organizations where, somehow, there is enough economic reward to support careful, thoughtful, investigative journalism. Sure, everyone likes to pick on the media, and sometimes it’s deserved. But there are those times when you realize just how important serious journalism, complete with the ethical standards and attention to facts, is to keeping our society informed.

As Sam Zell, the Trib’s relatively new owner, explained, the bankruptcy of the Tribune Company was a perfect storm of declining advertising revenues, high leverage and more. But most of the nation’s newspapers are in trouble. I hope there is a future for serious news organizations to continue their work, handling news in a proactive rather than a reactive manner.

Disclosure: No positions in companies mentioned.

Comments

[Reggie Midd...:]

Very interesting viewpoint. I have been discussing something along similar lines on my blog and will cross post this. See boombustblog.com/index... and boombustblog.com/index... and a follow up that I will post today including your perspective as well as that of other journalists that have emailed me.

2008 Dec 10 06:53 AM

[Ferdinand E...:]

Interesting. After I was transferred from the infantry against my will, and put in the artillery where I made myself supremely unpopular with my superiors, I gravited to an arrangement where, among other things, I wrote for the European edition of Stars and Stripes. Upon leaving Europe for civilian life, the major that I worked for suggested that I had the talent to make a career for myself in journalism. I waited until I was outside the kaserne to laugh, because I had grown up in Chicago, and the Chicago Tribune offered the worst possible example of lies, deceit, deception, and predudice. In addition, its editor/owner, Colonel Robert R. McCormack, barely hid the fact that he wanted England crushed (by Hitler), and the scheming, incompetent General Douglas MacArthur made president of the United States.

Hearing that that rag has cleaned up its act almost makes me wish that I was back in Chicago. Almost.

2008 Dec 10 10:09 AM

[Greg Trees:]

Tad:
A terrific artical.

Newspapers suffer because they have lost public confidence.It is not just the internet. They have failed in the past 15 years to inform the public thus protecting organisms that threaten our society. The Tribine got most of this issue right. Good for them

2008 Dec 10 11:42 AM

[Steven Hansen:]

i was schooled by the hearst foundation. for every good example of the print media getting it right, you can come up with an example of them getting it wrong.

in the end, it is obvious the print media's days are numbered. with smart phones and the internet, news delivery is destined to be electronic.

2008 Dec 11 12:17 AM

[Tad Gage:]

I'll agree that there is probably no room for printed newspapers in the future. I enjoy them, but also realize it's simply not practical. My point is that whatever the actual tools are for disseminating information, we would benefit from having true news organizations. Even today's newspaper reporters have to produce Internet material, and most are pressured to meet hour-by-hour deadlines that leave little room for in depth reporting or careful article development or editing. Certainly little room for investigative journalism.

2008 Dec 11 01:19 PM

[Truth and T...:]

This comment is a retort to a journalist at the Seattle Times, Drew DeSilver, Economy/Markets reporter. This journalist was rude and absolutely refuses any points of view that don’t match his own - even though we (at least 20 or so people) have been keeping him abreast of changes in a recent Washington Mutual case. He refuses to report on a recent filling that’s public record in the State of Texas and on docket at the Delaware Bankruptcy court. His refusal to even report on the case is based in part to our inability to ‘prove’ the filing is true with hard evidence. With that:

The Extinction of Investigative Journalism

Has the internet done to true professional investigative journalist what nature did to the Dodo? Am I wrong in contending that sound bites, two minute stories, opinion pieces and what I term “internet-echo” seem to be the norm for news reporting? We’ve all seen it lately, during the lead up to the presidential election; stories would break only to find out (later) the journalist didn’t do their home work and verify key facts but in a fever to be able to say “you heard it here first” – ran with the story. Is that journalism or a salaried position as a twitter with a journalism degree? Sadly for newspapers, journalism and the American public, it appears to be the latter.

I’m not sure if investigative journalism is dead but I do know that very few journalists are looking for the ‘scoop’. Many journalist have become so politically correct that they will not ask tough questions and when presented with a possible ‘block buster’ of a story they sit idly by waiting for the story to come to them instead of going out and breaking the story as Woodward and Bernstein did . It’s certainly true that breaking stories are now birth on websites like seekingalpha and blogs where people like you and me do the tough investigative work, ask the hard questions and draw attention to actions we see as unjust.

But you see, we (the average Joe’s) often get it wrong – we get emotionally tied to our causes. We get blinded by the forest and that’s why we need the return of the professional spirit and drive that existed in two reporters in their late twenties who broke the Watergate story at the Washington Post – we’re missing the ‘professional’ truth seekers and the way this nation is going – we need them now more than ever.

I once wrote in a story that there are “versions of truth – pointing out that truth is nothing more than an assertion. An outcome that isn’t testable, provable until it has passed and subjects itself to scrutiny.” And that’s where our new-age journalists are dropping the ball – the scrutiny, the digging, the verifying.

I started this piece with a question, has the internet done to true professional investigative journalist what nature did to the Dodo? Maybe not yet, but American society performs in much the same way as nature does, we weed out the weak, lazy professionals (regardless of career) and they in effect become extinct and replaced.

May 17 12:06 PM