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this is the Media Project, a weekly discussion about issues confronting the media.
I'll tell you, Christ, reliably off the record, about some charming people I have known.
Before I meet politicians and grafters by the score, killers play and fancy,
it's really quite a bar, oh, and these Superman meets up to interesting people.
They wallow in corruption, crime and gore, tingling, linked city desk,
full press, full press, extra extra read all about it, it's a mess meets the test,
only Superman meets up to interesting people. It's wonderful, the repgers are the press.
Well, the Media Project's underway and it's going to be an important show because HBR has weighed in.
There's HBR, the Harvard Business Review. Dr. Alan Shartak is here who walks in such circles,
Professor Maritus. Not quite, but it's around you.
CEO of Northeast Public Radio, Rosemary, Mayo, investigative journalist, journalist,
professor, how do you do? Hello. Hello, and I'm Rex Smith, editor of the Times Union in Albany.
We welcome you all to the program and invite you to join the conversation by sending us email
media at wamc.org, but we're getting ahead of it because we haven't had conversation yet.
HBR, the Harvard Business Review, says that really, we people in the legacy media are just whining
that we shouldn't worry that things really should be okay, right? Isn't that what they said?
That is what she said. This is an article by Sarah Green and Rex shared it with us earlier in the
week before the program and I think my response was something like, oh god, don't you just want to slap her?
The headline is publishers stop crying over spilled ink and her basic premise is that
actually everything's going just fine in the media. Yeah, you silly people. Look at all the people
interested in the news and all the people have been fired. She doesn't look at that.
Not just in all the desks and all the rest of it. Sometimes these elitist people, the
home crowd can sort of spit down the hill in an inappropriate way. I don't like it when it happens.
Her point is that a lot of media companies are doing very well.
Isn't that Rex? Or she doesn't deal with the business at all. She's just saying that there's a lot
more people using media than ever before. Which is not news to us. It's a demonstration of this.
We always talk about that. Exactly. It's the frustration that there are all these apparent
interested consumers and we don't have the business model to tap into. No, we fail to monetize.
It's because of the aggregation because the internet enables aggregation because you can be
gathering all this stuff from everybody that is put out there digitally and a person can get
that access to that without paying for the journalism that produces it.
Well, of course, that is changing to some degree. I mean, we've been talking for years now about
paywalls and the development of paywalls and we've watched it go back and forth between those
who think, if you give it out for free, more people will come. You can sell advertising that way
and then the other side which does seem to be winning now, which is we've got to monetize it.
Somebody's got to pay for all of this and we're going to do it. This article to me was more in the
vein of Jay Rosen, who is a New York University professor who I have knocked numerous times because
he separates the media world into two slices. One are the tribe, the dinosaurs, the print people
and the rest are all the good people who are going to save us with digital. And that is bogus
as this is because we are not separate. We are the same. Those of us who are dinosaurs, I started on,
you know, type-arters. I don't advocate for type-arters. You advance to the next method which is
a computer and now we advance into digital media and it's all exciting video and tweeting and
all of that is exciting to us. It is not as if we are a barrier to it. So our complaint here is
that David Carr who's a wonderful writer about the media for the New York Times simply frames
everything he writes about in terms of print. And I hate this story. I can't believe it got into print.
I'll tell you how it did get into print. This is the only academic in the room. I know all about
these journals and people need to have a new thesis in order to publish. And what happens is you
look around and say, hmm, well nobody said this. I'll say this. No, I don't want to say that that's
what happened here specifically because I don't like lawsuits. But sometimes that's what does happen.
You have to publish. You have to publish. And what's interesting is it tends to come around and
around and around. In other words, there's really nothing new under the sun, but somebody will put a
new name on it to get into one of one of these journals. You see it in education, for example,
all the time. This is an opinion piece where she does, it's not really peer reviewed, but she
dismisses if you did have to have a peer review. She dismisses what would be an argument against it
in a single sentence by saying the challenge is finding new business strategies that make money
off our ever less satiable appetite for content. Oh, duh. It's easy for her sitting up there.
And Harvard, you know, well, okay, I want to do a little tangent here, which is usually now at you
for doing Alan. You know, I know. This article reminded me again of how much feelings of the public
about the media are framed, not by what the media does, but what's written about or portray,
how we are portrayed. And the other me, so example, movies that portray journalists always as stupid
and or dishonest. Like an absence of malice. Oh, good example. So this week we saw that again
with a comedian appearing on some actual newscast. This is Will Ferrell, who's coming out with a
sequel to his there. It's wonderful. You know, it's a great comedy. The Accompan, Accompan,
true is coming out. And so he goes on in North Dakota news station as part of the regular, you know,
newscast. And I guess six o'clock. And he's telling jokes all through and you know, the actual
newscasters are laughing and go, what kind of image does that project? I take the other side on this,
not surprisingly, Rosemary. I think, okay, come on now folks, let's loosen up. People are smart.
They know it's Will Ferrell. He comes, I want to most famous faces. And in the country comes on,
you know, they a little bit of looseness here is it's called for Rosemary. I think it suggests that
at KXMB in Bismarck, North Dakota, they take their responsibility not too terribly seriously.
Oh, come on. They asked so pompous. I appeared on the news for way over 20 years,
on low speaking, on low-local news. What did you say?
Nothing of that. What did you say? You said these news guys are so pompous. And I said,
well, but I was the exception to the rules. Oh, yes. Okay. And you know, I mean, I think they
take themselves too seriously. They read what the 23 year old kid wrote on the piece of paper.
It's made believe. It's made believe when you put Will Ferrell in reading the news. I don't let
my students even put fake names. And you can say anonymous source, but you don't say someone will
call David. What Rosemary? You think they should. You think the people who are watching this thing
didn't know what was going on? You know, this is the same local news stories that put all kinds of
CRAP on. You can spell that. A public radio. You can't speak it. No, it's not what you think it is.
The CRAP is the consortium for the Republican approach to politics. Yes. I think this is a
TV station that said we are a joke. They said a very literal. Well, we disagree and I applaud them
for doing it. Anyway, speaking of applause, we have a letter from a reader. Sorry, a listener. I
do this all the time. Don't be speaking of our print fixation. I'm sorry. A listener who other
than applause wants to say something else about the media, the writer Kathleen, I don't know where
Kathleen is coming from because she sent mail to mediawmc.org with respect to the anniversary of
the new town tragedy. Her concern is, as she says, the media communicates with words and words are
powerful. I think we know that, but she is concerned that the terms we use to describe the cowards
who shoot or bomb children in schools on our movie goers and athletes in marathon web runs.
Why are they in our news stories called shooters, terrorists or killers? Why not call them what they
are cowards? Her point is that in writing about this, she says, I respectfully ask that the media
use your power to help the whole world understand the terrorists, shooters, and bombers are not the
holders of real power in our world and the people who try to fight injustice through the courts,
through teaching, through healing are the powerful use those words. Any point? Well, I want to ask you
as the editor of a fine newspaper, how you react to that, Rex. After all, you have to make a
decision if a reporter came to you and said, the cowards who blew up, you know, the thing,
what your reaction to that would be? Not too favorable. I'm reminded of the front page,
the wood is its called in tabloids, the big word on the front page of a tabloid on 912-2001.
In the New York Post, the headline was simply bastards. And, you know, I can understand the New York
Post tries to reflect the working class ethos of the city it serves so you can say, well, it is what
it is. It is the New York Post, but it doesn't seem to me that that's appropriate for us if your
goal is to describe what happened. And what happens is somebody came in and shot children in a school
in Newtown, Connecticut, that person is a shooter. And it is making a value judgment to call that
person a coward. This was, I commend this letter, right? It really made me think, I read it and
thought about it. And I agree with Rex, but I wanted to know why I thought that. And here's the
thing. Her point is not that it's inaccurate to call them kills, but that those are words of
power. You know, if you're reading this and makes you want to go and be one of them, go be a terrorist,
whereas coward, that's it is pejorative. And so you shy away from it. It's similar to people who
say that when we write about suicide, we have to couch it in terms that doesn't make it sound like
a noble or heroic act. Um, the media can't do that. You know, we just cannot do it. We are not
in the in the in the business of making roles or value judgments. We have to just present it
cold without description. Well, that's a sensible thing, except we don't do that. We don't
we we we in fact couch our stories one way or another, just the way we compose them the way we
write it. We'll have a true. Even even the words Alan, she's right about that insurgent versus
freedom fighter. Sure. And the American revolution were the colonists insurgents, terrorists.
If you apply the word when they go up the building, anybody in the anybody in the in the
millies, we do do this or the way we describe sexual attacks, you know, the specific words are
different and sometimes we actually change them. So for example, as you appropriately use the
Afghanistan example, you know, when they were on our side, we use one one word and when they
were our enemy, they were the other word. So the writers exactly write that words have power
and that the media needs to think about how we employ them and when it's difficult to do it.
It's not something that we do. I mean, doesn't when Rex writes the headline on the Times Union,
does he think about context? Don't you do that when you've been an editor or when you're writing
Rosemary? Yes. And still I am after 40 years still constantly surprised by how words can turn on.
I mean, I remember once in Virginia, we wrote about a song that is has a title, but it is known
as the Black National Anthem. And so in our headline written by the way, by a Black reporter,
so there was no intent to whatever we called it, the so-called Black National Anthem. And we were
inundated with mail saying that how dare you call it that it is the black, you know, it like,
because so-called does have a certain sarcastic nuance to it. You never thought so words do have
meaning that people read closely and it's really hard to figure it out. And yes, but things people
don't understand what headlines too is just that they're very difficult to write because you have
a limited amount of space, a certain font size. And so oftentimes the shorthand that will fit
does not precisely match the aspirations of the reader for precision. But by the way, I do want to
correct I-I don't write headlines. I don't usually have that job there. But you have? Do you have
it? You have it? I have on occasion written headlines. Will the witness answer yes or no? Have you written
a headline? And I don't need to be corrected therefore. Rex, I got to ask you- Yes,
yes. I have to ask you a question. And that is don't you think though that there are people who are
stakeholders in anything? So you might get any ethnic person. You might get anybody who is black,
or why don't you wish your Catholic or something? And who often read into these words,
Pajard of intent, which was never meant? Yes. Happens all the time. And an interesting story
this week that we should comment on is the release of the 911 tapes in Newtown. And again, here are
extremely powerful words. And the state officials tried to keep those tapes because they didn't-
they thought it would be hurtful to the people who have survived. It's hard to hear. It's like the 911
New York tapes when people were calling, you know, their loved ones- Which were never released.
Because it's under different state law, the actual words of the people in the towers that were
hit have never been released yet. Right. And Mass, they have not some of the actual recordings
have been released because individuals have been given the map. So again, thinking about this,
I strongly believe those tapes need to be public and we should have them. And yet when reading
them today, how do I describe to the public why it's important that they have these words? That's
exactly the question I was going to ask you Rosemary. So answer your own question since you
positive that you think it's important that we did it. I don't because there's always a balance.
Now I want to know the justification for doing it. Okay, I'd make a couple of points and then Rex,
please, you know, bolster me on this. One is that the media cannot write for victims and survivors.
They should just not read the paper on this stuff or look in the news. You know, it's- they're going
to be- they have been hurt in the worst way possible. So of course, anybody who writes about it is
going to add to that and she's stay away from the news media. Keep these people away from the
we don't write for them. That's the sad truth. Now who do you write for again? For the public.
And that's the vast majority of people, not those directly. What if the vast majority of the people
didn't want to read that too hurtful to everybody? How would you know? But it's-
No, but let's assume you could know it. Let's assume that- Well, that's my second point is that
many people who are not directly related also think it's wrong. It's an invasion of privacy.
But the stuff is first historical. I hate that we're still waiting on the Kennedy material.
That should be out so we can look at it for historical reasons. And number two is this is the end
of life. And that is important and deserves to be recorded. It doesn't matter whether it's painful
or joyful. It's historically important. I think you're exactly right. I- if we are going to believe
now has become sort of a catchphrase that's widely used. The rough first draft of history,
the journalism is you can't hope to do as well in recording that history if you don't have
access to all the material. You don't have to have an opportunity to give people a sense of what's
really going on unless you have access to as much raw data as possible. So openness is always the
best first chance. I really like what Rosemary said about the media cannot write for victims
and survivors. I often hear from people objecting to coverage saying, what if that were your kid?
What if this was your family? Of course. I would too. Absolutely. But that is not the standard we
can apply. In fact, we need to walk away from that kind of stuff. It's just for my own personal
edification because I think the issue is it's a matter of balance. I think Rosemary's point about
the Kennedy material because so much time is a lapse makes an awful lot of sense. Everybody's gone,
you know, Jackie's gone, the president is gone, the kids are gone, one kid is gone, you know,
the other, of course, is the ambassador to Japan. And so the question until you guys is,
you will admit that this is a matter of balance. It's not right or wrong. What are we balancing?
You're balancing, you know, the pain that inflicts on people, you're balancing the fact that when
you let this kind of stuff out, and I, by the way, don't quite agree with you as to the potential
for motivation. I think the motivation is what we call red meat in the business. In other words,
people say, oh, golly, as Rex always say, golly, you as Martha, look at what this guy said as his
child is being killed or whatever. I mean, I think it's terrible. I do want to read that stuff. That's
why we, that's why we read novels and short stories. It's drama. Of course, I want to read it.
But these tapes do more than that. You saw that in the reportage today by the Associated Press,
where they looked at calls made by new town officials to the state police,
kind of state police, and the calls went unanswered, except they did more reporting. And they actually
said, stay police, stay in Ancestor, they're already on route. And I think there's a story there
on how the dispatchers were handling, and they were getting all these calls. It's quite heroic.
They were saying, get everybody we have out there. You can hear that in the background.
The tapes are really interesting. Isn't that reason enough to get them?
Well, on one side of the balance equation, it is. You didn't hear Alan A. Lian. You didn't hear Alan
saying, I don't understand your argument. I understand both of your arguments. But I also
understand that there are different motivations on the part of editors in terms of selling it.
We saw a similar story this week from MSNBC. Somebody may want to talk about that.
You think that's a selling, I don't know. You know, if the goal is to sell newspapers,
that's a wonderful byproduct of great storytelling. But it may not be a byproduct,
or maybe the main motivation. There's a great value in giving people a sense of the world
beyond their own experience. As Rosemary says, it's why we read novels. There is something to be
said for even that terrible experience that every young reporter has where you have to go knock on
the door of a family, when a kid is killed or something has happened. You go knock on the door
and you say, tell me about how you feel about your kid being killed. And you hate to do it.
And everybody says, tell me about how you feel about your kid. You are memorialized.
Yes. People who die. That's one question. And what you give your readers then is a sense of how
the world operates that the readers themselves don't have to go through. You're giving people
better understanding of what it is to be human. And that's a great role of journalism.
Beyond just telling them what's going on in town, board meetings and planning boards and so on.
And so it is not a case, as you often say, of Goliath, you as Martha, look what this guy said about it.
Well, Goliath is a fine thing. I think it's great for the...
I thought it's two. Yeah, sure. That's fine. But that's, you know, Goliath could be what a
space explorer discovers out in the edge of the universe. That can be a Goliath story. But I think
there's a real value even against... If it's a balancing, Alan, I generally balanced in...
As Rosemary would in favor of openness, but you do make judgments all the time about saying,
you know, we're not going to do this. We're not going to take advantage of a child, for example,
who doesn't know what they're doing in the code of ethics of the side of professional journalists.
One of the major tenets is minimize harm to the extent you can.
The most compelling part of the tapes, I think, was the teacher shot in the foot. She's bleeding on
the floor. She's got all the kids on the floor and the door's not locked. They're free to send
somebody or to get up herself and go unlock the door. She's speaking completely calmly and
rationally and the dispatch is trying to help her figure out what to do. Oh my God, it's just such
an amazing story. And that needs to come out. I want to tell those kinds of stories. One of the
reasons that kind of thing needs to come out is because sometimes there were things to be learned
from this so that it's not replicated another time. That's true. For example, lock the door. Yeah.
Very interesting. Anyway, again, to join the conversation, media at wamc.org. This is the Media
Project from Northeast Public Radio, Alan Shartock, Rosemary Armeo, and Rex Smith here. We invite
your comments. By the way, what Alan was referring to earlier is the inflammatory remarks that
sometimes force people out of journalism. In this case, it was the MSNBC host, Martin Bashir.
Is that how you pronounce it? Bashir? He resigned after making negative remarks
about Sarah Palette, the former Alaska. And we are talking about really negative remarks. Yeah,
it was very tough stuff. He talked about her long diseased mind. And he said,
a world class idiot. Yes, indeed. But I think it got worse than that. I don't want to do this on
this family radio station, but I think it did get pretty specific. He told the story of Thomas
Thistlewood, a former overseer at a plantation who described in diaries how he dealt with wayward
slaves, Biden-Wen case, having another slave, defecated in the mouth of the miscreant, is the
story here. So he said, quote, when his palin invokes slavery, she doesn't just prove her rank ignorance,
she confirms that if anyone truly qualifies for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood,
then she would be the outstanding candidate. He apologized. Yeah, isn't that quite outrageous?
So the real question is should he have resigned or been fired? We're having said that about
same effect. I mean, he's been punished. Yeah. And he deserved it. You know, this is a scary
story to me because now I'm having my little bit of play in radio. This is the first time I've
done that working at WAMC. And sometimes when you push, when you're outrageous, we try to do it
on purpose because it's as you call it, Alan, good radio. So I can almost see that he's
almost aiming for this and he just steps over the line, which you didn't see until after.
Well, I have a thesis, which is that when the right wingers, the rush limos and the other
guys, there's always a guy coming up behind them who can outright wing you. So your approach
has to be you have to keep the the other guys back. I think that goes on on the left sometimes,
too. And I think that's what happened in this case. He was in love with his, you know, his
rhetoric. That at least seemed that way to me. And he wasn't going to take any back step to
anybody else. And it's interesting because somehow the right wingers don't seem to be punished
in the same way that the people on the left. Well, rush limbo certainly still has quite the
following. It's not as though he has lost any while denouncing the mainstream media. He is,
of course, the most significant voice in mainstream media. It's kind of an amazing notion, but
he manages to walk that fine line, I guess you'd say. Maybe we should say all credit to rush for
being able to do that, huh? Maybe we shouldn't. Finally, in the realm of just reminding you that
people are out there trying to work very hard to bring you truth, very difficult situation going
up for Bloomberg News in China. Chinese authorities have conducted unannounced inspections of their
bureau. But this comes after a controversy about an investigative series that had been prepared by
Bloomberg News that has not published that seems to have been spiked. There's an old term spiked.
Nobody has spiked. We use spikes in newsrooms. In fact, in the volleyball court. Yeah,
well, that too. An old reporter, I walked through the newsroom as a young reporter and I was
whistling. And this old cops reporter said, if you don't stop that, I'm going to throw this spike
at you. And I said, what? And apparently there's a superstition that's whistling in the newsroom
is bad luck. And this guy threatened everybody had a spike on their desk where you'd put a print
card. Yeah, yeah, sure. Bloomberg anyway has spiked a story. Apparently, there is significant
pressure on Bloomberg. And a Bloomberg reporter has been excluded from opportunity to cover things.
Just stands to show you how hard it is sometimes to maintain coverage on foreign soil.
In this case, I feel for Mike Forsythe, a reporter on the project to quit Bloomberg.
Apparently over the story. What were his choices? And Bloomberg, by the way, not that it's relevant to
the story. That's announced that even though he owns a cable series, he doesn't watch television.
Right. All right, that's all for this week. Hope you join us again next week on the media project.
It's a wonderful, derepressed, and depressing.
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