Arthur Solomon

Arthur Solomon

When I decided to become a journalist, years before jumping to the PR business, I did some cursory research with three New York journalists, asking them how best to prepare for a career as a reporter.

I received the same answer from all three: Go to college and take a liberal arts course, because having a broad education is what best prepares a reporter from having tunnel vision. In particular, they advised me to take as many English, history and philosophy courses as I could. Working on a high school and college newspaper and becoming a college correspondent to newspapers would also be a plus. Taking journalism courses would not impress hiring editors, they said. They look for candidates with broad-based liberal arts degrees.

That was not a problem when I went to college. There was no such thing as a journalism or communications degree. I took the liberal arts course, majoring in English, in addition to being allowed to take a few journalism courses in my senior year. But it was reading every story in every section of several newspapers on a daily basis, augmented by weekly news magazines that provided a “master class” in journalism that no communications school’s curriculum could match. My self-styled syllabus also included reading historical non-fiction books, fiction and the classics, which educated me in stylistic differences.

The times have changed. And while I’m not a believer in the “good old days” schmaltziness of history — for people who like good journalism, the “good old days” would be the late 30s to the early 50s — and though I think some outstanding journalism is still with us in the New York Times, Washington Post and Newsweek, good journalism has largely been replaced by the less than sub-par TV news outlets, evidenced by the 24/7 cable coverage of the 2016 election.

Today, communications schools turn out would-be journalists in an assembly line fashion. In particular, cookie-cutter journalism reigns in the realm of cable TV beat political reporters, who instead of uncovering new information during the 2016 election campaign, acted as town criers for campaign-provided material from the GOP and their candidate.

As we approach the inauguration of a new President, here’s some tuition-free advice to would-be TV political journalists. After watching way too many hours of trivial political TV reporting and echo-like pundit discussions during the 2016 campaign, I’ve come to the conclusion that knowing the lingo is more important to a successful career than knowing the facts you’ll be reporting on.

Based on the coverage of the presidential election the lingo you’ll need to succeed is fairly short. But you must say them with assurance. Taking acting lessons can help you master that.

Below are the phrases that you’ll have to work into your reporting regardless of the situation:

Over-the-top: This can be used to describe a comment that a candidate makes that is outrageous.

Low expectations: This can be used to describe what a candidate says about a rival.

Presidential: This is a word that political journalists must use to describe how a candidate looks; it easily can be changed to nonpresidential.

School teacherish: An essential term to describe candidates who reporters think hide their true personalities, used only when referring to women.

Policy Wonk: This is the code word for a candidate who actually knows all the details of legislation (unlike reporters).

Debatable: This is perhaps the most important word for TV political reporters to remember. It is their lifeline when surrogates make accusatory statements about an opponent. When that happens, the TV reporters, who most likely don’t know the facts behind the accusations, can say, “That’s debatable,” to give the impression of knowledge, when in reality they haven’t the slightest idea if the accusations are correct or a lie.

Most important election in our lifetime: This describes the election you’re reporting on regardless of the year.

Surrogate: It has replaced “supporter” to describe propagandists for candidates.

Grading on a curve: This is used when one candidate doesn’t know the facts, but the TV industry wants to keep that person in the contest in order to gain viewership.

Pundit: Any person who provides analysis regardless of how wrong they’ve been in the past.

Expert Analyst: Anyone who’s asked to provide analysis of the campaign. When used to describe several people substitute, “Our all-star panel.”

Binary choice: That was the new hip word for GOP surrogates and TV reporters during the 2016 presidential campaign. Keep this in back of your mind but chances are you’ll never have to use it. Because there’ll probably be another “in” word meaning you have to vote for one person in future elections.

Interesting: Used when a reporter can’t add anything to what has been said. Best uttered with a hand on chin or while nodding.

There’s still what is probably the most important hurdle aspiring TV reporters must pass: The visual test conducted by the “casting directors,” who do the hiring in this new age journalism.

Female candidates must be energetic and score high on the attractiveness test. (In this case, the saying that beauty is only skin deep is what matters. Inner beauty? Counts for nothing.) Men hopefuls must look like leading actors in Western movies, perhaps like Gregory Peck, Clark Gable or Rock Hudson.

And there’s the rub. What to do if you’re a truly qualified woman who doesn’t look like a Hollywood beauty or a man who looks more like Woody Allen than a rugged, handsome leading film star? All is not lost. There’s always plastic surgery.

On January 20, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States. Part of his acceptance speech should include a shout out to the pundits, pollsters and especially the cable TV political reporters and their producers.

After all, Trump might not have made it if they hadn’t been absent in their lack of journalistic judgment regarding what constitutes important news, if beat reporters hadn’t echoed everything Trump said, if they hadn’t let him rearrange program agendas by permitting him to call in at will, reported on his every tweet as if it was a sermon from the mount, permitted his surrogates on programs despite knowing they were less than truthful and if they hadn’t largely glossed over Trump’s personal behavior and business conflicts. 

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Arthur Solomon was a senior VP at Burson-Marsteller. He now is a contributor to public relations and sports business publications, consults on PR projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].