By Arthur Solomon
What ever happened to the responsible press? The press that used to check the veracity of news before reporting it; the press that would report facts, not half truths; the press that would report stories in proper English; the press that would limit rumors to the gossip columnists.
And yes, the press that wouldn't assume that most everything that came from a PR person was tainted.
Those of us who go back a while, especially those like me who were journalists and loved being on the reporting side prior to entering the PR business, (and winced when the word media leaped over the wall from the advertising department to encompass the news gathering staff), are thought to be dinosaurs by the young communications school grads who today are legion in both the media and PR agencies.
Luckily, for me, experience still counts with some agency executives, especially at the top level. So, I don't have to sit on the rocking chair thinking about "the good old days."
Seven specific events gave me the impetus to write this: the Michele Bachmann State of the Union reply, Donald Trump, The Wedding (thus far) Of The New Century, the presidential primary coverage, the Bin Laden killing, the Rep. Anthony Weiner saga and my reading a fantastic book about a sports hero and how he was treated by what used to be called "the toy department.”
First, the (so called) "hard news" reporting.
For years, PR people knew that the TV talk shows would follow the major newspapers to get story ideas. Get a story in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other majors and often a TV producer would call you to book a guest. This still happens, but now there is more often a reversal: TV now mostly dictates what the news journals will cover.
Want proof? The next time Sarah Palin and Michele sends a tweat message that gets picked up on TV, check the next day's newspapers. There it is. Reported as if they were making major proclamations, instead of self-serving, publicity seeking statements.
Bachmann is an elected member of the House of Representatives. She was elected as a Republican and still is a Republican. But to watch TV the night of her State of the Union rebuttal, and to read the next day's newspapers, she received as much attention as if hers was the official GOP reply or she was announcing that she was bolting the GOP to head up the Tea Party.
And as anyone who closely follows politics knows, every time someone who represents the Tea Party says something, the cameras are all over it. Good journalism or journalism to create a conversation topic for the program's pundits?
Just as ludicrous is the TV and print media exposure that Trump received with his trumped-up birther issue. Perhaps TV cable news programs should be reclassified as non-reality shows.
The coverage of the Bin Laden episode resulted in predictably non-news propaganda reports about accusations from Bush devotees that he was not receiving sufficient credit (what a surprise), to criticism of the fluctuating information from the Obama administration, to rumors that there wasn’t proof that Bin Laden was actually dead (known as the no man on the moon conspiracy theory). Even so-called sophisticated broadcasting like National Public Radio was not exempt from questionable reporting.
On its May 7 “On The Media” program, it featured past conspiracy speculations regarding Bin Laden: he must be dead because he couldn’t survive in a cave given his medical problems, he was killed during the 2001 bombing of Tora Bora, to the recent off-the wall theory that he was killed during the early days of the Obama administration and it wasn’t announced until now. Repeating such nonsense on a supposedly serious program actually helps perpetuate these now disproven fairy tales, which can easily be taken out of context for other propaganda uses.
Those of us who grew up as journalists witnessed how the race between the Associated Press and United Press to break news first would result in scoops that sometime never materialized. Reporters for dailies had more time to substantiate information. The heirs of the race to be first are TV journalists.
During the Bin Laden coverage, their continuous reporting of rumors as facts, and then having to correct the information, spotlighted the sloppiness of TV news reporting during breaking stories.
But, perhaps, the incessant coverage of the never-ending, on-going presidential campaign demonstrates best how TV influences the print media. Even before all the votes are counted on election night, the cable TV pundits begin handicapping potential candidates for an election four years away. The print media, which prior to the 24-hour cable “news” programs would ignore such nonsensical political meanderings, now follows suit.
TV news reporting is also famous for the misleading, “we have learned” lead-in to give the impression of reporting exclusive information, when every other station has the same story and it often has been in the a.m. dailies.
The 24-hour Weiner non-actual sex, virtual sexting coverage of an obviously troubled person showed that both TV and print media keep on making it unnecessary to purchase supermarket tabloids for people wanting continuing coverage of salacious stories. (Remember Tiger Woods?)
Now, "toy department" reporting.
For those uninitiated to journalism lingo: When journalism was serious, and not considered an entertainment vehicle, the phrase "toy department" referred to the sports department of a newspaper.
Today, sports sections contain more serious reporting than in the past. Players misconduct and salaries, sports marketing, exorbitant ticket prices and the value of sports properties are often the subjects. But too often, sports reporters regress to the old days, when athletes were automatically praised and new talents were promoted as the next Babe Ruth.
In her excellent book about Mickey Mantle, THE LAST BOY, MICKEY MANTLE AND THE END OF AMERICA'S CHILDHOOD, author Jane Leavy writes how sports writers would write gee whiz stories about ballplayers during the Mantle era.
She also tells of instructions by the legendary sports editor Stanley Woodward of the New York Herald Tribune to the equally celebrated Red Smith: "quit godding up those ballplayers."
As followers of the scene are aware, there still is much cheering from the press box in sports reporting. Every spring and fall, stories are filed detailing the "can't miss" new prospects. But the greatest praises (equaling those that used to be reserved by the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks for their Gods) are now bestowed upon team owners and coaches, especially those involved in football.
Not a season goes by without at least several NFL football owners being hailed as "the finest of gentleman," "a true gentleman," "someone the NFL can be proud off," "a person who has the best interest of players at heart," especially if their teams reach the Super Bowl. And coaches aren't just proficient at their jobs.
They are "offensive and defensive geniuses" and "inspirations to their teams.”
It's as if ownership and coaches were so concerned about their players that they would insist on a complete medical evaluation after an injury before letting the player back on the field, or didn’t need prodding from Congress and the medical profession before admitting that concussions can have serious consequences.
And then there are the ballclub issued notes and similar athlete quotes that are reported each day. Read one newspaper, read three, all the notes and utterances are similar; the notes are often not even rewritten, a “no no” in my “cub” reporting days. A lengthy Wall Street Journal story on June 10 even questioned whether reporters’ locker room access was still necessary.
There have been great sports editors. Vince Doria of the Boston Globe, Henry Freeman of USA Today, Dick Sandler of Newsday, Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times and George (no relation) Solomon of the Washington Post come to mind.
What the sports sections of newspapers need is editors like the above and, of course, Stanley Woodward.
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Arthur Solomon was senior VP at Burson-Marsteller, where handled national and international accounts. He is available at [email protected]. |