Support for the Media Project comes from the College of St. Rose, Albany, New York,
offering a Master of Arts and Communications to advance careers in media, PR, and journalism,
fuller part-time options, 518-4545143, and Rosenbaum Media Group, a Digital Communications
Agency integrating high-definition video into PR, marketing, advertising, and social media
campaigns, big picture thinking for local and national clients, Rosenbaummedia.com.
From Northeast Public Radio, this is the Media Project, a weekly discussion about issues
confronting the media.
It's the Media Project, no, not with Rex Smith, not with Rose Mary Armeo, and not
with Iroh Fussfeld. Hi, it's me, Alan, with Mike Spain, associate editor of the Times Union,
here with Daily Gazette Editor Judy Patrick. Today we take a look back at some of the biggest
stories and biggest mistakes of the year, and Alan, that's me, might even offer a few media
predictions. One, what did we watch, and what did we say in 2012? Has it been a good year for the press,
has it been enough stories? Let's go to you, Mike, what do you think?
Well, you know, our version in the establishment journalism, and what the top stories are,
and what the public wants to read about, sometimes can differ. In fact, Google reported the term
Whitney Houston was the most Google term in 2012, so you can see that their priorities are different
than ours. The biggest story, Hurricane Sandy, I think most people would agree on that.
Right, and we like that president this year? That's right, an election. Do you remember that?
It was so long ago. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I have this theory about gun control, which is that
the NRA is, as you know, is fighting all efforts state and national to make major changes,
sensible changes, like doing away with assault rifles, and some of the other things that make so
much sense to me, so that fewer people are killed. Nevertheless, the idea is that people don't have
a long memory. And you know, a new town was a terrible, terrible tragedy, and there have been
several since then, and yet the idea is just let everybody chill out, and then they'll forget it,
and this will, and they'll go away. What do you think?
You know, I disagree. I don't think people are going to forget new town.
Yeah, there's a lot of people saying that that might have been the tipping point, and people,
you know, they should have been this way after Aurora, or should have been this way after previous,
you know, mass killings. But today, it seems like the tide has turned. People are ready to do something.
And you're seeing a flood of media coverage on gun control as well, and I don't think it's going to
let up after the start of the year. Yeah, a big story is going on right now in the Lower Huts and
Valley of New York State, where the Gnett newspaper that covers Westchester County,
Rockland County, and Putnam County, which is all within about 20 minutes of new town, Connecticut,
has published online a list of 44,000 individuals, their names and addresses, who have obtained,
legally obtained, handgun permits. It doesn't mean they own a gun, but it does mean they've legally
obtained a handgun permit, and that information is available under state law, under the freedom
of information law, and they've posted it, and they're taking a lot of heat for it.
It's quite a map, isn't it? I mean, you see little blue dots all over the place. Do you have a gun,
Mike? I don't. My name wouldn't be on that list if we did that story for...
Or if the Daily Gazette did that story for the capital region.
Right, my name wouldn't be on the list either, but I agree with you on that map with all those
little dots, it was impressive, but what is bothering people down in the Huts and Valley is the fact
that their name is available for the public. If you read the associated story, though, you get a
little bit of the context. You get the reporter talk to the people in the neighborhood,
neighbors of people who aren't gone, say, you know, I think I would like to know whether my
neighbor has a gun, whether when I send my child over there to play, whether they know there's
a gun, so maybe they could ask the people do you have the gun locked up?
Tragically, there have been in the last two years in this region fatal accidents involving
children playing with handguns in their parents homes, so that is good information for a parent to know.
Yeah, and you never know when anger will explode, and then something bad, really bad may happen
when a gun is available. I was at the movies the other night in a fight broke out about a lady
in a links coat who had repacked it apparently. I can't guarantee this because I didn't smell it,
but the people in the road did with mothballs, so they asked a lady to move the coat. Now, here's
the point. I know you're looking for that point. And there was a big fight. It really broke out.
There weren't fisticuffs, but there were abusive words and things like that. That's the whole
point. You know, you got a gun. Sometimes somebody takes it out. I once read a story when I was a
younger man in New York where parking spaces are gold. You're following me? Oh, I know.
parking spaces are gold, where the worst thing you can do when somebody is waiting to back up into
a space is to nose dive into that space. You're still following me? Oh, yeah. Well, one day somebody did
and the guy in the front got out who was backing up and shot the guy. So there you go. Sometimes
there are angry moments when if you don't have a gun, you just have your fists. It might do
some damage, but it won't do the same kind of damage. Sadly, if you have a weapon that's capable
of delivering brutal force, people might use it if they lose their temper. And that's probably a
good reason of them under lock and key. And they did not have a gun. Well, it's a magazine under lock
and key during the weekly Meet the Press show that was broadcast on NBC Sunday where the host
David Gregory was interviewing Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association. And he
brought out a magazine, a clip that holds multiple bullets ready to be fired that would hook to a
semi-automatic rifle. And now the Washington DC police say they're looking into whether Gregory
might have violated the law by having that in Washington, DC without a permit where you need one
to have one. Do you think that they're overreacting or do you think David Gregory should face the
music? Well, the question, of course, is who told? I mean, who brought the complaint to the
anybody? No, no, no, no. Yes, but the real question is, was it a gun control person who said,
ah, this is a good opportunity to make them all squirm? Well, yeah. Judy, you were going to say,
you know, one of the things that I tell reporters is don't break the law. And if it is a law that
you're not supposed to have these things, if you're just going to show it off, I mean, they could have
just shown a photograph. I don't know enough about this. Maybe there was a police officer in the
background, they're off stage that was watching this magazine, but it seems like a bottom line thing,
a simple thing. You're not supposed to break the law. Yeah, I mean, reporters don't have any extra
privilege. They are citizens that must abide by the law. So technically, David Gregory might be
facing some kind of admonishment for a good cause to bring up a very important issue,
and to dramatically present it on national television to fuel the debate that's a very significant debate.
Didn't look that impressive. This little magazine, it looked almost like a cigarette case if people
remember cigarette cases, but I thought they could have done just as good a job of presenting what it
looked like with a photograph. Yeah, and you know, the NRA is really blaming the media for gun violence
and trying to try to drive off some of the responsibility. So perhaps David Gregory was fueling gun
violence by bringing that on television. I don't know. The NRA and their statements that were
measured after the tragedy in Newtown is contending that the real issue is media and violence in
movies and video games and perhaps it's copycats that see the attention that stories like Newtown get
and it fuels other people who are depraved to want to do something to get there a moment of fame
as they go out so to speak. So do you think that the media contributes to gun violence when it
publicizes stories like Newtown? Well, it may well be that it does, but the competitive rational is
look at what else is coming out of this. For example, the treatment of the mentally ill has been
nothing short of disgraceful. And all of a sudden, people are calling for a revisit to the way in
which we treat the mentally ill and the way in which we go about looking at guns. So yes,
the fact of the matter is there may be a copycatter out there, but in fact it brings out a lot of
stuff that needs to be dealt with and so therefore I think it's good now. Look, we have the New York
POST. I won't even mention the name as you know I don't like to do it. They're going to exploit this
thing. They're going to put really crazy headlines, but people are really getting an awful lot of
information and people's minds are being changed. I think nobody wanted to touch this. In the election
President Obama was nowhere to be seen on this issue. Now all of a sudden President Obama sees the
moment just like Roosevelt did with World War II and said now's the time to move. Do I have any
doubt he was always there? No, but you know, there are competitive values in terms of running for
president and you have to decide whether or not this is worth it. Now it's worth it. The same thing
with the governor. I don't question either of their motives. I think they're both doing the right
thing, but they had to wait for that moment. And I think the frankly that the press has been a big
part of that. What do you think, Judy? You know, I think the press gets a bad rat for being
anti-gun and I don't think it is anti-gun. I think it explores the issue. We've written stories
about the NRA's Eddie Eagle program which promotes gun safety with kids. We have a hunting page every
week where we have economists who talks about the different guns they use to shoot things and
the advances in that technology. We write a lot of stories about people getting shot, but that's
news. You can't deny when someone gets shot in the city of Skennakty we're going to write about it.
I mean, we're not going to hide it and we're not going to exploit it, but we're going to put it
in context. The people in the communities have a right to know when guns get fired and people get
hurt. Well, the media is not without error. And just as a segue, there's an interesting blog that's
published on the Pointer Institute website by this guy Craig Silverman where he keeps track of the
errors that the media makes. And you know, reporting about gun violence is not one that he cites,
but there have been some embarrassing errors this past year that he's tracked in the media. And
that is getting information wrong, getting names wrong, and one of the biggest, of course,
it's a mistake that's been made commonly is when people are speaking about the president of the
United States and the terrorist Osama bin Laden, they mix up the names. And even some newspapers
this year in 2012 have used Obama's name, the president's name, in headline in reference to
Osama bin Laden. And that's that's un-conjurable, but it's it's happened and he tracks that and he
tracks other errors that newspapers make. And it's a pretty interesting look. And one of the themes
is that you are reporting stories before you get all the information. And I know you touched on
that last week with Rex about the and Judy about the facts that came out about Newtown and they
turned out not to be facts. They were erroneous reports as the details unfolded. Well, that happens
a lot in the news media. It happened with Gabby Giffords. Several major news agencies reported
last January after the shootings in Arizona that Congresswoman Giffords had died in that hell of gun
fire along with others. The media does get it wrong sometime. We're fallible, but we're trying our
best and we're not going after any particular person when we make a mistake, it's a human error.
So Silverman's error of the year would be reporting that the Supreme Court had struck down the
individual mandate for health care, which happened on a lot of cable news stations certainly after
that proved wrong. They needed a little bit more information to put that in context. Yeah,
turned out if they had read to the second page, they would have found that only one element of that
affordable care act had been declared on constitutional and in the court essentially upheld
Obamacare as being constitutional. But in the effort to try to get information out first in a very,
very competitive atmosphere and having it first means reputation. A lot of media can make mistakes
and a lot of reporters don't check their facts and that's at the peril of their own credibility.
And we try to take a step back and try to verify things, but boy, it's a tough world out there
when you have a lot of competition. Yes, and it's even a tougher world as you guys can attest
when because newspapers have had such a tough time competing in the economic marketplace these days,
even though more people are reading their stuff, they're reading it online and the online
advertising has not caught up with the advertising in the newspapers. And so you've had to fire people
who are responsible for doing the fact checking and doing the editing. Yeah, that's the casualty.
And newsrooms are a lot smaller than they were five, ten years ago and they don't have the staff
to do all that, but it's not an excuse for poor journalism. The practices of fact checking
and double checking your sources and getting more than just one source for a story haven't changed.
It's just taking longer and there's this now appetite to put it online within a few minutes of
when you find something out. So there's a big contradiction there. But speaking about the financial
future for the print media, you know, we're looking forward to a very good 2013. We in the print
media are optimistic that the economy as it slowly heals and as things settle down that advertising
will return and newspapers will become multimedia companies that have a new model that will succeed.
And I think everyone will benefit from that because you know, we are the primary newsgathers
in the local communities. No two ways about that. It's always been fascinating to me how many
radio stations and others follow what the newspapers have been doing. Now, when you get a station like
the one that we're speaking on here in the studio of WAMC, we have a lot of people out in the field,
not enough, but a lot. And that is something that almost doesn't exist in other places.
The major commercial radio stations have been firing and sweating like flies. And so I think that
the point of this all is that the dependency on the newspapers is it going to be even greater to
do this work. But Mike and Judy, what I'm interested in in terms of what you just said about
looking forward to a great year is whether or not people will start paying the appropriate price
for advertising online or whether you think they're just going to come back to the sort of touchy
feeling holding the newspaper in your hand and saying, this is something I can send to my mother
for advertising. What do you make of that? You know, I think the shift online is undeniable.
People of all ages are starting to read their news online. The print product is going to be around
for a while certainly. But I think advertisers too are seeing that they're getting eyeballs on
news websites and there is value there. Sure, they're developing their own online presence. And that's
a competitor for newspapers advertising dollars as well. But I think as more newspapers develop
this paywall and people start to get it used to paying for their product, this is good news ahead.
It's slowly building. And that's an interesting way to talk about it because at the daily
gazette there is a paywall at the time's union there currently is not a paywall. But I think the trend,
if you look around is that people who want to get their news from the local newspaper website are
going to have to participate in some of that by honing up some money or subscribing to a
print edition in order to get the online edition. That is the trend and that may be the turning point
that will return revenue to the source of the news. That is the local newspaper.
There's a Kentucky sheriff, a bike who has now said that media organizations should be compelled
to say who their sources are. You know, we have one famous columnist in our region who writes for
one of the tabloids who says, I have sources and they're good ones. Well, it's not good enough for me.
And there are some people who think when that kind of thing happens, not specifically with this guy,
although certainly with him that people are making up the sources, that there are no sources.
How do you get around that? In the Kentucky case, the sheriff was asking for the idea of someone who
had had sent a letter to the newspaper making allegations about something that was happening
in school. It's different because that newspaper did not promise confidentiality to that source.
So the dynamics there are different. But in terms of generally, when you use an unnamed source,
the editors need to know who the source is. They need to know that the sources in a position to know
and then need to know the motives for why the source wants to be anonymous.
Repetitive newspapers were pretty careful about using unidentified sources. We don't want to do
obviously in any story. The most credible information comes from somebody who puts their name to it.
Yeah, the credibility is on the line. If a newspaper or any media organization is quoting
unnamed sources and they're getting information correct time after time, they're going to have
credibility and people are going to believe them. But if they're just going with rumors and
attributing it to unnamed sources, that's irresponsible. It will come back to haunt them. I'm
positive. What do you guys think about the Baltimore Sun, which ran a full page cartoon on its
front page for the first time? Are we crossing the Rubicon here? Yeah, it was an interesting way.
I think it was an end of the year wrap up that we're using this cartoon to do that. Which is
an interesting thing. We're all working on wrapping up the end of the year by rehashing some of the
stories we've covered. So it's a different way. My editorial cartoonists can offer their own
little view of the world. It's an editorial view. It's one with an opinion. But it's always something
that readers like to see. I actually tried to see this online and I was unable to.
So it's something I definitely would like to see. It's something different. They say a picture is
worth a thousand words. Yeah, whatever works. Right. And as we go forward in the new year,
it's going to be harder work than ever for you, Judy and for you, Mike. And this is going to be
tough road because fewer bodies, more work. And people hold you to a standard which continues to
be the highest for our newspapers, particularly our local newspapers. So good luck to both of you.
Yeah. Well, thanks. You know, newspapers do hold a very important place in our local communities.
And we have a franchise and it's something we don't take lightly. And we need to maintain that
and support that. And you know, we'll be giving up a lot if we don't do just what you said,
work hard and keep it intact. You know, but running the newspapers a little bit like starting up a
well oil machine every day. The system has all these protections in place. There are traditions
that you have editors saying check that source. You have reporters going out to the scenes and
getting important information. So even though we have fewer people around the system helps us
get the paper out every night. And that's one of the things we say in the newspaper. The paper
will get out. The stories will be as accurate as we can make them almost like the radio station.
You're always on unless you have a power failure. And then you're online. And today, thanks to the
magic of our super engineering staff, I'm actually talking to you from home and sounding like I'm
in the studio, right? You do. You sound like you're right across. It's like a virtual Alan. But I'm
missing the angry looks usually give me and that high rowing. But Judy, I've always been like
Ferdinand the bull. The story. I always try to be the pickador to try to get you to erupt in a
great moment of anger. And I've never been able to do it. Yeah, you can get me going if you talk about
not letting the public have access to information or someone who won't call a reporter back after
you know, two or three weeks of trying. If you withholding information from the public is something
that really sets me off. So that's your tip for the new year. So with that in mind, it was the
media project. It was not with Rex Smith. It was not with Rosemary Armeo. And it was not with
Ira Foswell, but was with two super people. Gazette editor Judy Patrick and Mike Spain, the associate
editor of the Albany Times Union or of the Times Union. And David Castina, of course, was our
wonderful producer. So good luck to all of you. And happy New Year to everybody. And we'll be back
with all of these wonderful characters and more in the new year. Happy New Year.
Corruption. Crime and door tingling. Ling City desk. Full press. Full press. Extra extra read all about it.
It's a mess. Meet's the test. Whole loose peg of men meet such interesting people. It's wonderful
who represents the best. Now you remember Mrs. Sadie Smuggering. She wanted money to buy a new
perk coat. To get insurance, she employed Stolda Green. She up and cut her husband's only
folk. She chopped him into fragments. She stuffed him in a trunk. She shipped it all back
younger to her uncle in Poodon. Now New's peg of men meet such interesting people. It must have
startled poor old Sadie's on tingling. Ling City desk. Full press. Full press. Extra extra read all
about it. It's a mess. Meet's the test. Whole loose peg of men meet such interesting people.
Alan Shartock is a political scientist and professor emeritus in the Department of Communication
at the University at Albany. Rex Smith is editor of the Times Union. And Lydia Colbyta is an anchor
at WNYT News Channel 13. David Castina is producer of the Media Project. A production of
WIMC Northeast Public Radio which is solely responsible for its content.
The Bill on New's peg of men are such interesting people. It's a wonderful deal.
Represents are full. Now publishers are such interesting people. Their policies and act
roll bad at thing. They claim to represent the common people. Funny Wall Street never has
complained. All the publishers have worries for publishers must go to working folks for readers
and to big shots for their dose. Now publishers are such interesting people. It could be
prestigious and I don't know. Hanging length, circulation, tingling length, advertising,
get those readers, get that pay off. What a headache, what a mess. Oh publishers are such interesting
people. Let's give free chairs a freedom of surprise.
Hi there. This is David Castina producer of the Media Project. Hit or remind you that if you're
a regular listener if it's the first time you've ever heard the show, you can always go to our
website at www.wamc.org. Listen to us live online or you can podcast the Media Project anytime.
That's www.wamc.org. Thanks for listening.
