Vol. 4 No. 2 (June 2005)
Uncommon Denominator
The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org
"The whole aim
of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to
be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of
them imaginary."
-- H. L. Mencken
CONTENTS
Talking
Points: Go forth, Fourth Estate
Wit and Wisdom: Flags and feeding-tubes
Check It Out: "Votergate"
preview
Quoted! Tom DeLay on air
pollution
Featured Article: "The Ambiguous
Arsenal"
Happenings: Monthly round-up
Endorsements: L. Hunter Lovins
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a
contributor
TALKING POINTS
Last month, the Uncommon Denominator looked at some of the problems
raised by the modern glut of information - centrally, the erosion of the
mainstream media's cultural authority and, in direct relation, the
increasing difficulty we now face in figuring out what's true and what's not.
There are many factors involved in this, but one of them has certainly been the
established media's slowness in adapting to a quickly changing political and
technological climate.
In this "Talking Points," let's look at some of the ways in which the
major news organizations can improve their news reporting operations, and in
the process reclaim some of their cultural status. The aim is not to
celebrate corporate journalism at the expense of the many independent outlets
that have sprung up in recent years. Indeed, these alternative sources of news
have done much to empower both writers and readers by expanding the available
range of perspectives and multiplying the opportunities for informational
cross-checking. Nonetheless, in an age when everybody with a laptop can
claim to be a journalist, and every website can offer itself as a news outlet,
the institutional media still play a vital role in separating the wheat from
the chaff. Our democracy relies on our having access to solid information, and the whole point of professional
journalism is to identify what that solid information is, and to deliver it to
the greatest number of people.
There is no doubt that the major print and broadcast media are going to have to
adapt to changing circumstances - to demands for greater speed and variety, to
more active and assertive readerships, to the competition posed by
nontraditional media, to technological advance, and to a globalized
information marketplace. The question is not whether they will adapt, but how
they will adapt, and therein lies all the risk and all the potential.
One side of journalism's response to the new environment will involve business
and financial decisions: advertising rates, subscription rates, market
segmentation, content ratios, corporate consolidation, and so forth. Then there
is the editorial side, dependent on the business side but ultimately
representing the whole point of the journalistic enterprise, and it is here
that the fundamental adaptations will have to take place. The solution to
the "crisis" in American journalism will come not primarily from the
money managers but from the newsrooms. The threat is in
"adapting" too far - jettisoning traditional functions and abandoning
the essential role of journalism in a democracy. The solution lies in
reasserting the core values of journalism in a manner that wins public respect
and support. For this to happen, owners and publishers will need to put more
money into newsrooms, to invest in the journalistic endeavor as something other
than infotainment.
The greatest challenge to journalism-as-usual comes from that army of
independent online writers known as bloggers (from "web-log"),
and the virtual universe of knowledge they have created, known as the blogosphere. Journalistic and political circles vibrate
with excitement, and trepidation, about the implications of blogging for the
institutional news business. The consensus that seems to have emerged is that
professional (i.e., credentialed, experienced, and paid) journalists can gain a
great deal from their non-professional counterparts, if they have the
willingness to listen and to collaborate.
The great boon of blogging is that it can provide facts, opinions, and
perspectives from places where most journalists can't or won't go, be it
The problem, however, is that in the radically egalitarian, fragmented world of
the blogosphere, we find a proliferation of
informational or perspectival bits, with too little
sense of how it all fits together, and with too little guidance as to what
information is important and what is reliable. Considered skeptically, the blogosphere can resemble anarchy, or the
The goal, it seems, is to merge the strengths of both worlds, to achieve a
synergy between the vibrancy and immediacy of the blogosphere
and the standards-oriented practices of the professional newsroom. This is
what Dan Gillmor, in his book We the Media:
Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People (O'Reilly, 2004),
describes as "a balance that simultaneously preserves the best of today's
system and encourages tomorrow's emergent, self-assembling journalism."
Gillmor goes on: "We will use the tools of grassroots journalism or be
consigned to history. Our core values, including accuracy and fairness, will
remain important, and we'll still be gatekeepers in some ways, but our ability
to shape larger conversations-and to provide context-will be at least as
important as our ability to gather facts and report them."
For journalists, that means listening carefully to the
blogosphere, getting ideas and sources there,
checking facts, and synthesizing the available knowledge into a coherent and
authoritative account of reality. This is hard work, of course, but it holds of
the promise of dramatically revitalizing the news business. In a recent article
in the Columbia Journalism Review titled "Emerging Alternatives:
Terms of Authority," Jay Rosen suggests that "the age of global
interactivity that is now descending changes the terms of the [journalistic]
transaction not only by upgrading what publics can do for themselves, but also
by granting new powers of invention to journalists." Rosen maintains that
this will enable journalism to "ground its authority interactively."
"The terms of the transaction," he writes, "imply a new kind of
public, where every reader can be a writer and people do not so much consume
the news as they 'use' it in active search for what's going on, sometimes in
collaboration with each other, or in support of the pros." In essence, the
paradoxical challenge for professional journalists will be to retain their
authority and their influence by relinquishing a measure of their traditional
grip on the news.
But that does not mean relinquishing their news judgment, their
independence from corporate and ideological interests, or their commitment to
socially responsible reporting. In fact, the current turbulent environment
obliges journalists to recommit themselves to the essential principles of their
profession.
They require institutional support from their higher-ups to do so, but what
they may find, contrary to the example set by Fox News, is that good journalism
actually makes for good business. This is the thesis of a new book titled The
News About the News: American Journalism in Peril,
by Robert G. Kaiser and Leonard Downie Jr., Associate
Editor and Executive Editor, respectively, at the Washington Post.
Kaiser and Downie argue, in essence, that while
tinkering with the financial operations of news organizations certainly helps,
the profession will benefit most from a reassertion of high-quality journalism,
involving the thorough and responsible reporting of issues that matter to the
broad public. That sounds obvious, perhaps, but it needs saying in an age when
the contrary pressures and temptations are very real. The credibility of
professional journalism is at stake, and the fundamental way of preserving it
is to provide excellent professional journalism.
In practical terms, this means a few things:
* Reduce the dependency
on anonymous sources. The practice of quoting unnamed officials or
participants has allowed a great number of major discoveries, but may now be
reaching a point of diminishing returns. Not only does anonymity, when
over-used, diminish the authority of a story (if not necessarily its truth value),
but anonymous sources are also an effective means of planting disinformation in
the media.
* Assert the importance of professional training, certification, and
expertise. This is particularly the case in specialized areas of
journalism, such as science reporting. As members of a profession with a long
and distinguished history, and with real differences in quality between
different outlets, journalists should be comfortable explaining not only the
criteria used in editorial and employment decisions, but the very purpose of
such criteria.
* Develop investigative journalistic projects funded by nonprofit
organizations. Investigative reporting is the life-blood of the Fourth
Estate, and as long as the reporting itself is accurate, the source of funding
is not the principal concern. As Philip Meyer, a professor at the University of
North Carolina school of journalism, puts it: "Allowing charitable
foundations to pay for the news might be risky, but it is probably no more
dangerous than a system in which advertisers pay for it" ("Saving
Journalism: How to Nurse the Good Stuff Until It Pays," Columbia
Journalism Review, Nov./Dec. 2004).
* Avoid being intimidated or influenced by conservative attacks.
Instead, journalists need to expose these attacks for what they are: an effort
not to improve the quality of journalism, but to undermine the media's
credibility and cow reporters into toothless coverage of controversial
policies. Far from being biased, that kind of intrepid reporting will be
indispensable to giving the public a faithful picture of the modern political
environment. It would be in the public's interest if the attacks and efforts at
intimidation would themselves become the subject of reporting.
* Aggressively call attention to political content masquerading as
journalism. A sense of professional courtesy has tended to inhibit
journalists from fully analyzing the ideological slant of such organizations as
Fox News or the Washington Times, but the conservative infiltration of
the news business has now reached the stage where it is a legitimate news story
in itself. In addition, journalists should stay ahead of the curve by
investigating the ongoing conservative effort to co-opt the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting.
* Put objectivity ahead of the cop-out idea of "balance."
Everybody knows that true objectivity is impossible, but at some point the
journalistic craft means calling it as it is, with the journalist's own
knowledge and judgment coming to bear - even if that involves direct
confrontation. By contrast, the specious notion of "balancing" a
story by simply offering two or three different viewpoints can undermine
objectivity by implying that all these perspectives are equally valid. It is an
abdication of journalistic responsibility not to assert what the journalist
knows is true.
And
that, indeed, is what we rely on journalists to do for us. At their best, they
are not mediators, or ideologues, or mere scribblers, but people with the
dedication and the talent to go get the story and bring it back to us more or
less intact, and basically straight. That's why they matter to a democratic
system, and that's why they get paid.
WIT AND WISDOM
"Even if the flag burning amendment does become law, the larger problem will
remain of how to respectfully dispose of older, tattered flags. Well,
fortunately the
CHECK IT OUT
In preparation for the upcoming release of the full-length version of the
documentary film "Votergate," which investigates electoral irregularities
in the 2004 election process, a free 30-minute webcast
preview has been made available. The documentary, for which the Commonweal
Institute played an advisory role in its early stages, explores the
still-unresolved questions surrounding the use of electronic voting machines
and the possibility of electoral error or even manipulation. The film-makers --
Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels and Robert Carrillo
Cohen -- have "traveled the country, recording elections, bewildered
voters, activists protesting, corporate and government officials trying to
cover up the flaws in the voting system. [They] have filmed investigations by
pioneering activists, such as Bev Harris, interviewed
the key players, including whistleblowers, politicians and the leading computer
scientists who have proven the machines can be hacked by a 16 year old."
The online preview of "Votergate" is an
initial glimpse into what they found. Check it out.
QUOTED!
"It has never been proven that air toxics are hazardous to people."
--
FEATURED ARTICLE
The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey Lewis's
"The Ambiguous Arsenal" which appeared in the May/June 2005
issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
"If you read the Washington
Times, in addition to believing that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are
hidden somewhere in Syria, you might believe that 'China's aggressive strategic
nuclear-modernization program' was proceeding apace. If munching on freedom
fries at a Heritage Foundation luncheon is your thing, you might worry that
'even marginal improvements to [
"So, it may come as a shock to learn that
"Estimating the size, configuration, and capability of
Click here to
read the whole article.
HAPPENINGS
The Commonweal Institute has submitted recommendations regarding election
process improvements for ensuring election integrity to the Election
Assessment Hearing (EAH) in
CI's recommendations were based on an analysis of election systems and the
procedures that might be implemented to prevent the adverse impact of equipment
problems on election outcomes. Some of these procedural changes were designed
to lessen the likelihood that possible election fraud attempts would succeed.
Dennis Paull, a CI Advisor who chairs CI's Election
System Reform Committee, led this effort.
Technical and professional experts, computer engineers and experts,
statisticians, researchers, attorneys and journalists who have been
investigating problems with election processes in the November 2004 elections
will gather at the EAH to deliver data and recommendations not previously
publicized, but necessary to repair and safeguard our democratic election
processes. An initial compilation of prepared statements with supporting
documents was delivered to the Carter-Baker Commission the next day. The
results of the Election Assessment Hearing, combined with submissions from
around the country, will be made available to state election officials to aid
them in making more effective and informed decisions.
Click here for a general set of Commonweal
Institute recommendations about voting system reform. The specific
recommendations submitted to the Election Assessment Hearing will be made
available on CI's website soon.
ENDORSEMENTS
"Developing effective messages that speak to specific constituencies remains one of the critical tasks facing all think
tanks today. As the founder of two think tanks, I am well aware of the
challenges that arise when you propose to combine activism with lofty ideas.
What does it matter how good our ideas are, if we can't speak in ways that
broad-based, diverse constituencies understand? Concepts like Natural
Capitalism aren't easy to communicate. As Commonweal Institute develops ideas
and implements new, creative strategies for communicating moderate and
progressive concepts, we'll all benefit." -- L. Hunter Lovins, Co-Chair of the Natural Capitalism Group of The
Global Academy
GET INVOLVED
If you agree with L. Hunter Lovins
(see above), there are a number of ways you can help the Commonweal Institute
achieve its goals.
Right now, as you read, you can simply forward the Uncommon Denominator
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Institute. Getting the word out is crucial.
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© 2005 The Commonweal
Institute
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