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Jewish World Review Sept. 20, 2005 / 16 Elul, 5765 (Journalistic) Disaster: When emotions and opinions dominate facts and reason By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
NBC anchorman Brian Williams thinks a lasting legacy of Hurricane Katrina
for journalists will be an end to a period of deference to elected
officials.
"By dint of the fact that our country was hit we've offered a preponderance
of the benefit of the doubt over the past couple of years," Williams told
David Bauder of the Associated Press. "Perhaps we've taken something off
our fastball and perhaps this is a story that brings a healthy amount of
cynicism back to a news media known for it."
Given what a zoo the White House press room has been on briefings on Iraq
and during the Valerie Plame affair, those of us who live on Planet Earth
haven't seen much evidence of this deference.
Williams was in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina, and his reporting often
went beyond describing what he saw to expressing how he felt about what he
saw.
"Brian took his anchor hat off and put his human being hat on in a lot of
the broadcasts that I saw," said Jeff Alan, who has written a book about the
changing face of network news.
"If I let my emotion or anger get the better of me, what some have called a
failing of a journalist I think should be taken the other way around on this
story," Williams told Bauder.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was hailed for the same thing in a fawning
profile in New York magazine.
"Anderson Cooper's on-air breakdown was an honest expression of his
complicated personality — and a breakthrough for the future of television
news," said the headline on Jonathan Van Meter's story.
Among others who often let their emotions and opinions dominate their
reporting were Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera of Fox News, ABC's Ted
Koppel, and NBC's Tim Russert.
This makes for great television — for Oprah or Dr. Phil. But it's lousy
journalism.
Journalists are patting themselves on the back for their coverage of
Katrina. But I doubt a more adversarial style will lead to the journalistic
renaissance Williams imagines.
I was inundated with emails after my column praising the Katrina relief
effort. The vast majority expressed sentiments like this:
"Thank you for providing a factual analysis to counter the malicious,
arrogant or simply stupid strident voices of the media," said a businessman
in Pennsylvania.
"I'm so tired of reading articles that tear the federal government's relief
efforts to shreds and is based totally on a lack of knowledge and ignorance
on the reporter's part," said a lady in Austin.
These people want less moralizing and finger-pointing, and more reporting.
Their ranks are likely to increase when shortcomings in the media's coverage
to date become more apparent. The "toxic soup" that was supposed to have
enveloped New Orleans doesn't exist. The death toll from Katrina figures to
be nearer 1,000 than the more than 10,000 figure so widely bandied about.
"For all the media's efforts to turn the natural disaster in New Orleans
into a racist nightmare, the death knell for one or the other of the
political parties, or an indictment of American culture at large, it was
none of that at all," said historian Victor Davis Hanson.
"What we did endure instead were slick but poorly educated journalists,
worried not about truth but about preempting their rivals with an ever more
hysterical story, all in the fuzzy context of political correctness about
race, the environment, and war."
Many suspect the goal of the media's Katrina coverage is to bring down
President Bush. If so, it doesn't appear to be working.
A recent Washington Post poll did show Bush's popularity at an all time low
of 42 percent, which the Post trumpeted in its story.
But while 54 percent disapproved of Bush's handling of relief operations, 57
percent said state and local governments were more responsible for
shortcomings, and 60 percent suspected Democrats of trying to use the
disaster for political advantage.
Since the media already have blamed Bush for everything that has gone wrong,
as more information comes out, his numbers can only rise. Indeed, in the
daily Rasmussen robo-poll, he's already back to about where he was when he
won re-election.
By adopting a more adversarial stance, journalists are unlikely to bring
down the president. But they are likely to bring down their ratings, their
circulation, and their credibility.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
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