The Future of Newspapers (and Journalism) Richard Farson I am especially proud to introduce James Goldsborough as the leader of our new conference, The Future of Newspapers (and Journalism). Jim has a most impressive record of achievements. He has written on national and foreign affairs for four decades, both from the United States and abroad, where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, International Herald Tribune and Newsweek Magazine for 14 years, reporting from more than 40 countries. He is a former Edward R. Murrow Fellow at New York‟s Council on Foreign Relations and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is author of “Rebel Europe: Living with a Changing Continent” which was received with raves from the critics. He has written numerous articles in leading publications, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Politique Etrangere, the New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times and Readers Digest. He worked as associate editor of the San Jose Mercury News for seven years prior to joining the San Diego Union Tribune, where he served as editorial page editor and syndicated foreign affairs columnist for 14 years. He has a degree in economics from UCLA, attended UC Berkeley Law School and has been a reporter on the San Francisco Examiner, Honolulu Advertiser and Arizona Republic. We look forward to a productive discussion of this critically important subject. So welcome, Jim. James O. Goldsborough A few years ago I came across an article by cyberspace guru Esther Dyson with this comment: “With electronic distribution, there‟s no real reason for recipes and foreign coverage to be stuck together in one big wad of paper.” Last month I saw a similar comment by Ken Auletta, who writes on the media for The New Yorker: “There is something almost pre-historic about using expensive newsprint and elaborate delivery systems, to homes and newsstands, in the age of the Internet.” I hate their pessimism. The clank of a linotype machine was always music to my ears. But how easy is it to refute what they say? As the population rises, U.S. newspaper circulation has fallen to something just over 55 million daily. The profession has changed drastically over the 40 years since I started as a cub reporter on the San Francisco Examiner, and not always for the better. But I remain convinced that daily newspapers have real advantages over all other forms of journalism — advantages in convenience, organization, presentation and experience. The newspapers that exploit those advantages — as some are and some aren‟t — will thrive. Fifty-five million daily copies may be down from the 65 million of a few years ago, but it‟s still one of every two households. With 2.5 persons per household, that‟s one newspaper for every two people. The danger sign is that the average age of those 55 million is going up. Newspapers must hook and hold young people as in the past, a theme I hope we can address in our discussion.
Dyson finds daily newspapers outmoded and inefficient, but they are still the main source of community-centered news. The networks and cyberspace have no connection to communities, and local television mostly gets its news from the local newspaper. Commercial radio is a wasteland. No wonder we‟re nostalgic for Ed Murrow. If newspaper ownership has become increasingly concentrated, there are still hundreds of independent owners across the nation. The Internet is growing, but how many people want to install a computer at the breakfast table or take one to bed? And let‟s not forget that the newspaper business is profitable. As Auletta reports in The New Yorker (Oct. 10), some companies (e.g., McClatchy, Newhouse) believe that adding staff to achieve quality is the key to newspaper survival, while others (Tribune Company, Gannett, Knight Ridder) are more interested in cutting staff to reward shareholders. I‟ve worked for both kinds and find it no surprise that McClatchy and Newhouse are increasing readership while the others are losing it. Participant Hard to think of a more timely conference. The paper that can produce good news, have a great website, and no salaries, wins. Since that is the extreme, the real winners will be those who have some advertising and low cost. In that reality, what happens? I remember with ILF (WBSI in „83): even then I noticed that our conference, because of people all over the world and some diversity of background, gave me the feeling that reading the conferences was more likely to yield up a more impressive view of reality than could be gained by reading a single newspaper, such as the Times or Wall Street Journal. I have felt that become even truer with blogging. Juancole.com, Billmon.org, talkingpointsmemo.com give more detailed, analytic and courageous news than anything (yes) in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. This is now more reinforced by new additions such as dailykos.com, tpmcafe.com, and the interesting memorandum.com. The willingness of the major press to have accepted Bush's Iraq agenda was the end for me. Even today, the way the press climbs on the Supreme Court and avoids the WMD issues behind Libby, make me sick at heart. And deeper, the press—I am not blaming—just looking for causes—must be in the economic mainstream for its own cash flow, but the economic mainstream is the collusion of two parties and their leadership to arrange for more wealth for the top and less for the rest, basing their rhetoric on a "base" of religious fundamentalists on the right, and alienated minorities on the left. These two "bases” add up to at best 20% of the country. There really is no conservative or liberal agenda. It‟s all Halloween to spook each other. The press plays the role of maintaining the illusion as if it were reality.
What is shocking is we all know this. Now what? Participant To support Doug's concern about the nature of the information one gets from newspapers as compared to the better blogs, in the run up to the Iraq war, every one of the top fifty newspapers editorially supported that invasion, but that was far from the case with the blogs. The newspapers did offer a range of opinion, but never anything from the far left. As a former editorial page editor of a major newspaper, Jim, how do you think fifty newspapers would sign up for the war, when so many of us could see the deception, futility and hidden agenda. Surely they must have seen that too. Is Doug right about having to stay in the economic mainstream, and that was the price? Participant Doug, I think that it may be difficult to exclude any of us who may feel that we are a member of an "alienated minority", but even if we limited it to blacks and browns, those groups in combination with the religious fundamentalists probably amount to more like forty percent or more of our population. Can you elaborate on your last paragraph? I'm not sure I get your full meaning. Participant I think the number tends to be overstated. The hard religious right and the hard left are not as many. People act as if they are there as a way of protest. I think we do not have good numbers that disaggregate these effects. The fundamental idea is that the leadership of the Republicans and Democrats share a common interest in pulling money into their own and broad mainstream pockets. The twenty percent or so of the population that has done well in the last decade. The Republicans appeal to a "base" that is raw boned right wing, but more religious than political. But that is not the bulk of Republican voters. The Democrats appeal to the abortion, affirmative action, and minority rights advocates, but these are not the bulk of Democratic voters. Most black and brown voters are not hard core minority rights types, but moderate, even reasonable. The press highlights the base and misses the real story, that after WWII the country got rich, and a time came—the „70's, I think—when taking from others (the brokers) became more rewarding than making something. Taking has been the game, passing taxes onto the poorer (in hidden forms such as longer commutes, more expensive food, higher interest rates, as well as increased sales taxes and—hey, important for them, cigarette taxes). The result has been a collusion among leadership and the older generation to keep what they have, use the law to get more of it, and damn the next generation and the workers. (Note, wages are flat, which means that on average they are flat. Add in increased costs and the fact that for many they are below average despite Lake Wobegon).
The press has supported this view of the world. The entire bottom half of the population doesn't count and hardly has a political role. Shocking. James O. Goldsborough Thanks to Doug, we're off to a lively start. I would correct Richard only in this: The 50 leading U.S. newspapers did not all "editorially support" the Iraq war. According to an E&P survey, not one editorial page was "strongly anti-war," a position which was generally in line with public opinion. If some newspapers failed to write editorials strongly opposing the war, at least they employed columnists who strongly opposed the war, including this one. As I wrote before the war started, "the nation's watchdogs failed to provide context or balance to the war-whooping talking place on talk radio and cable television." As defenses go that's pretty lame, but at least it shows that not all newspapers were gung-ho for war. When the Colombia Journalism Review examined editorial pages on six of the most influential papers—New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Washington Post—it found wide differences over the war and concluded that not one of them "held the Bush administration to an adequate standard of proof." The fact is the Los Angeles Times and New York Times were very skeptical about the war. That they weren't as clear-sighted as, say, The Nation or Howard Dean, is regrettable, but newspapers were being lied to like everyone else. I don't think it's fair to compare a newspaper that writes for a million people and has to weigh what it says against the facts in hand and a blog that writes for a handful of ideological soul mates. Participant Jim, I don't recall where I read that the top fifty newspapers supported the war, but even if the correct interpretation was that none were strongly anti-war, given how terribly wrong-headed many of us thought it to be, including you, it still remains a rather remarkable statistic. Are you saying that the editorial pages are constructed to accommodate or not depart from public opinion? Fifty out of fifty going along is really a jarring statistic. Let me pose the issue differently. Let's talk about the Fourth Estate. Journalism, our protector because it brings us the truth, is presumably best represented in newspapers because I think they employ the largest investigative staffs. Shouldn't the profession of journalism have positioned the editors to be way ahead of the rest of us? I hate to think that the editors of all these great newspapers with hundreds of journalists at work went along with the war because they were lied to just like the rest of us. Many of the rest of us, millions of us, knew it was trumped up. Even if the newspapers did also print anti-war columnists like you, it still seems that something else was going on besides exercising editorial judgment based on the practice of journalism. Obviously editorial pages are steered by the publishers, and they have ideological positions, but how could all fifty, many of which are opposed to the Bush administration, go along? Is there an economic factor that explains it? Shouldn't
the newspaper be ahead of struggling periodicals like The Nation? Am I being asked to believe in an editorial position because the newspaper has to reach so many people? Isn't that commoditization? Is that the future of newspapers as it has become the present for broadcasting? Or is the Iraq war a special case when "the watchdogs (the journalists, I guess) failed to provide context or balance...."? We can't know the future, and even the present is invisible in most respects. But maybe in these conferences we can make the present more visible, which is the best avenue to the future. Jim, you have the special ability to make the workings of newspapers visible to us. I hope you know just how interested all of us are in the inside story. Participant Just a few late thoughts: Evidence that the New York Times was skeptical? Suggestions on what to read? Daily Kos got 30 million hits in October. Josh Marshall„s writing seems to me a model of good research and compares well, if not better. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
James O. Goldsborough The future of newspapers is not linked to their coverage of the Iraq war. Thank God for that. The erosion of readership began many years ago. But I agree that press prudence—or pusillanimity, as you like, on Iraq didn't help. Nevertheless, they are points to be addressed separately: 1) the press and Iraq; 2) press decline. 1) When the White House, top to bottom, lies to the nation; when the Secretary of State goes to the UN and lies to the world; when the entire machinery of government seizes on the worst attack in the history of the nation as an excuse to launch a war, it is a hardy dissenter indeed who can say no. Individually, such dissent did exist. Institutionally, however, there was a terrible failure. The cause of that failure? Richard is right, in part it was economic. Newspapers depend on advertisers, not subscribers, for revenue. I saw the letters to my publisher from advertisers threatening the newspaper over my columns. He did not—and few publishers did—feel the newspaper as an institution could take that same risk with its editorials. The New York Times tried to split the difference, unwilling to challenge Bush's lies (look what happened to Joe Wilson's wife), but challenging the rush to war. Does press dependence on advertisers weaken its spine? Sure, it does. Any subscriber to The Nation knows the calls he gets asking for a contribution are because advertisers don't respect the magazine's independence and it depends on donations to survive. I am not defending press abdication of responsibility before and during the war. I wrote too many columns criticizing it. But let's not forget the context: Official lies fed our post-9/11 fear and paranoia and made the war an easy sell. Look at Congress. Look at what happened to Dean. Look at Kerry's mealymouthing on the war. Look at the position of leading Democrats today like Clinton and Biden: They want to send more troops to Iraq. I
agree that the press should be better than all that. We expect more of ourselves, and our failure, though understandable, is inexcusable. I'm not excusing it, I‟m explaining it. 2) Press decline is what this conference is all about. Putting Iraq aside, we have to look for different reasons for the erosion of circulation. Part of it is a drop in quality caused by the big chains caring more about shareholders than readers. The Los Angeles Times is a perfect example of that. Foreign coverage is usually the first place to cut costs, and that ultimately results in a nation uninformed about the world and willing to swallow the kind of lies we got about Iraq. When I worked for the Herald Tribune, all the major capitals in Europe had U.S. correspondents. Today, few of them do. How often do you see by-lines from Tokyo, Berlin, or Moscow today? The foreign correspondents all congregate in the Middle East. Another reason, I might add, that the Iraq war was so easy to sell to a gullible public. But that's another story. This comment is already long enough. Participant Sounds like an interesting story. I'd like to know how that worked. Perhaps you'll tell it another time. Now they're finally getting around to the second half of the commission study on 9/11, the part about the administration's role in the run up to the war. Do you think the press will be as attentive and impressed as it was with the first half? I take the New York Times, and also can get it online, free and even faster. And home delivery is fairly expensive. Yet I willingly pay that amount because there is something about physically holding the paper that keeps me looking, and often being surprised at something I probably wouldn't have seen online. I remember some of my colleagues in the fifties predicting the end of books—surely by this time. Participant Is it the job of the press to report what is happening or to determine what should happen? Should the press take sides on policy? If it should then we can hardly criticize them for taking sides in their own self-interest. Whether or not the country should go to war (or continue a war) doesn't seem to me to be something that the press should be overly involved in. I see the job of the press as being that of a factual observer. So-and-so said this and so-and-so said that. If the press suspects that a lie has been told they should investigate, when possible, to ascertain the factual truth. James O. Goldsborough Richard, I love it—something about physically holding a newspaper! Exactly. Newspapers are the real, tactile, physical thing. There‟s nothing remotely virtual about them. As for Kip's point, I would say this. The press observes and reports: that's part of the job. The press analyzes and opines. That's also part of the job. Unlike abroad, we try to keep these functions
separate. And we fail utterly. That's why the New York Times is, once again, covered in egg. Its reporter, Judith Miller—someone, like Joe Friday, just paid to get the facts—had her own agenda. How did it happen? cry the editors. Never again, cry the editors. Just as they did about Wen Ho Lee. Participant Can we talk about the erosion of the Fourth Estate? Broadcast journalism is all but lost to infotainment. The three main TV networks produced a total of six news segments on the Downing Street Memo, and at the same time produced 465 segments on the Michael Jackson trial. Is the same erosion taking place in newspapers, or can we look to newspapers as the last bastion of truth telling? What will happen if all of our traditional sources of journalistic professionalism are gone? Can we rely on the blogs or some further invention? Participant Just for background: Knight Ridder gets an ultimatum John Reinan, Star Tribune November 2, 2005 "A large investor is demanding that Knight Ridder Inc., the nation's secondlargest newspaper chain, put itself up for sale or auction off its flagship publications, which have wrestled with flat advertising revenue and stagnant or declining circulation. “In a letter Tuesday to the Knight Ridder board of directors, the investment firm Private Capital Management (PCM) threatened to launch a hostile takeover if the company does not move to „aggressively pursue‟ a competitive sale. “It's too early to say whether any suitors will emerge for Knight Ridder or whether PCM will be able to make good on its threat to oust a majority of the company's directors, but Tuesday's disclosure—and the potential that it could trigger more mergers or consolidation—could cause investors to take a new look at newspaper stocks... "There's always been a tension between journalism and business, but in the last decade, business has been very much predominant," the Poynter group's Naughton said. "The mystery to me is why communities don't rise up in anger at what's being done to their media in the name of profit." http://www.startribune.com/... Participant As I see the problem, journalism has all but lost its status as a profession that can stand up for itself. The mark of a profession is its ability to say NO. It is happening across the board with all professions as they become commoditized, and America will be the big loser. Professions do not belong in the private sector without built-in safeguards. They belong in the independent sector
along with universities, research centers, nonprofits, foundations, etc. But they mistakenly think they need to follow the big money in business. I'm sure that Katie Couric's contract for 65 million supplies part of the motivation. Our conference leader is one journalist who has what it takes to say NO. When a column of his was killed by the publisher of the San Diego Union Tribune, Jim resigned immediately. But as far as I know, no professional association went to bat for him. How about that, Jim? James O. Goldsborough We are basically down to two kinds of newspapers: chain-owned and family-owned. Doug's comment points to the problem of chain owned: they are vulnerable to share prices. If Knight Ridder's profit margin (19 percent in 2004) is lower than Wall Street likes, the pressure on management is to cut costs, usually by cutting news coverage. Family-owned newspapers have their own vulnerability. A few years ago, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times—all family controlled--were seen as our four best papers. Now we're down to three because the Chandlers didn't think they were earning enough and sold the Los Angeles Times to the Tribune Company, which (with profits down to 18 percent in 2004) is cutting costs. Family-owned papers can be quirky. The Wall Street Journal, for all the brilliance of its reporting, has, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, one of the most biased and error-filled editorial pages. Why? Because the Bancrofts apparently like it that way. The Copleyowned San Diego paper, where I worked until resigning a year ago over the killed column Richard mentioned, runs totally on the whim of one man, and not a very stable one at that. The upshot of all this is that the family-owned New York Times, and to a lesser degree the family-owned Washington Post, have, by process of elimination, become unique institutions in American journalism. That's why such shockwaves are felt when the Times stumbles, as it has recently, and why when looking for journalistic glory we still have to go back to Kay Graham and Watergate a generation ago. If only the Post had stood up to Bush as it did to Nixon. But there we get into Middle East complexities again. Participant By "Middle East complexities" I am assuming that you refer to our relations with Israel, and the seeming reluctance of the press to discuss that aspect of the run up to the Iraq war. It is the elephant in the living room that no one dares mention. I don't want to seem too paranoid, but last Sunday's New York Times Book Review section carried several pieces on Iraq, and the one most clearly attempting to justify our invasion was a long review by James Traub of two books, The Right War by Gary Rosen and A Matter of Principle edited by Thomas Cushman. There was no mention of Israel in the review at all, which
seems strange since our relationship to Israel is intimately tied to both 9/11 and Iraq. The authors are Jewish, the paper is owned by a Jewish family, and it serves a city with a large Jewish population. I assume there a code of silence operative, just as there is among politicians. If journalism is unable to address that rather large issue, however, it is small wonder that we are in such a mess. Or should I see a psychiatrist? Participant The Israeli connection is critical to understand, and for those in the Jewish community to take on. One view is that the neocon approach was to take on the Middle East in such a way that Israel would be free to be expansionist. Any objective approach, starting either from history or from the current moment, would both say that understanding the Israel connection is a candidate for the keystone to the issues. Certainly those in the Jewish communit(ies) are in a very difficult position. like so many wonderful Jewish jokes, an impossible situation. One that will not be solved in God's lifetime. James, thanks for your steady tone. I will be looking back over your thoughtful comments this weekend with more care—the care they deserve. James O. Goldsborough The New York Times would not deserve the reputation it justifiably has (despite Judith Miller) if it were a "Jewish" newspaper. I've read it for years, known many of its people, worked for it indirectly when it bought into the International Herald Tribune and have written for it and its magazine on numerous occasions. Its position on the Iraq war was far removed from that of the neocon movement, which is animated by pro-Israel views and was behind the assault on Iraq. Some of these neo-cons now want to go after Iran, which is why the FBI's pursuit of Larry Franklin (who worked for Douglas Feith in Pentagon policy planning) for passing secrets about Iran to Israel is an interesting case. Feith, and his mentor Paul Wolfowitz (who was also the mentor of Scooter Libby) agitated for invading Iraq for a decade before they found their man in George W. Bush. The neocons and Bush, their cat's paw, are the ones responsible for burying us in the Iraq hole. The press has its responsibility for the debacle, but cannot be indicted as a whole. The New York Times—Sulzbergers—did not support the war. The Wall Street Journal—Bancrofts—did. David Brooks, the leading neocon on the Times op-ed page, was a war whooper to the point of nausea (few neocons ever wore a uniform), while Paul Krugman of the same page was strongly antiwar. We go astray when we try to pin the war on Jewish interests. Let's not forget that the Jewish vote went 75 percent to John Kerry, who, though mealymouthed about it, was looking for a way to get out of Iraq. Bush sought to buy the Jewish
vote with his war and failed. A simple way to see it is this: Most neocons are Jews, but most Jews are not neocons. Participant The claim is not that the Times is Jewish, but that it would be difficult in New York to take a stance toward Israel that implied solid criticism of its lack of an inclusive stance toward the Palestinians. I grew up in Manhattan, and still spend time with Jewish friends on Long Island. It is very hard, even scary, to raise these issues whether by a goy like me or by my friends in their family circles. I do not have access to the Times select now, so I can't check the pages. There was some diversity on the op-ed page, but the reporting and the main editorials I recall as being rather supportive. At that time I was reading The Guardian and Independent to get what felt to me like a more solid view. Am I wrong about the times editorials? I don't want to distract us from the main idea—the future of newspapers, given the past. I think we can not talk about the long term future, because everything is changing so rapidly. Right now, the bloggers I admire are able to move quickly and with courage and style (again see www.billmon.org and www.juancole.com and their mutual visit yesterday.) They of course make good use of the fruits of standard journalism, but these two, and others, are usually sourcing their own and making very professional judgments. I think this trend will continue. The fact that most bloggers are open to comments about their posts increases the likelihood of some truth emerging. There is a great deal of hype in the blogging world but the very fact that the best seem to create intense draws (Daily Kos on the younger fringe and Josh Marshall's new community at www.tpmcafe.com ) and obviously expanding economic resources. I think the main online sites, such as these, will in fact become more professional and edited with an eye to readerships and finances. That is, they will begin to act like newspapers do now. Will the tech allow continual renewal in the Internet tide pools? Will there emerge a consortium of forces that can shut down the Internet? Worst fear. Another question: Is the chaos of the Internet in fact acting as a major introduction of entropy and deconstruction into the political process? Can a nation be managed if everyone is thinking? Participant Here is a quote from an acquaintance: "At the moment I‟m working in Pakistan on the design of a soap opera for social change—how we communication social development messages (gender, education, health, governance etc) in ways that people will actually choose to watch them—edutainment—rather than the in your face public service
announcements that have zero credibility with their audience. One of the challenges is that Pakistan has a newly (2001) de-regulated media, a corresponding growth of channels and media debate around political accountability etc etc—BUT not the hoped for impact of that media debate on the political behaviour: the role of media as Fourth Estate is not living up to its potential. “On a more community centred approach, I am working with NGOs in Afghanistan to develop their understanding and commitment to advocacy—as a tool in representation and communication of reality and needs. This involves using video as a message to decision makers—working with key members from the FOGO process that originated in Newfoundland—to give fieldworkers and community members a channel to NGO executives and policy setters. The first workshop will be in late November—I‟ll share how it goes when it goes!! In essence though, it‟s an attempt to give the subject (community stakeholders) an opportunity to be the voice of authority: to limit the distortion that any media form inevitably involves and make the object the content creator—a direct link between subject and viewer." Perhaps this gives us pause to reconsider the role of journalism in the years ahead. How necessary will it be? How might its role change to accommodate the internet and the methods being adopted by people such as the above. Participant Jim, my concern is not so much about the New York Times, which I read daily and avidly, as it is about journalism. The remarks you made in your last comment (21) about the neocons being animated by pro-Israel views have been made by you in your columns, but I'm sure you would agree that they rarely if ever appear elsewhere in the press. They were not even a part of the voluminous 9/11 report. Now we are about to launch a Congressional investigation about the possible misleading behavior of the administration in the run up to the war. They will focus, of course, on the intelligence factor, WMD, Saddam's links to Al Qaeda, etc. But you and I know that the real motives of the neocons, who were both the architects of the invasion and the motivating force in the White House and Pentagon, were as you describe—determined to stabilize the Middle East so as to protect Israel. They knew they could not sell the American people on that justification. 9/11 and Bush gave them what they needed. So here we are, continuing this sham, with journalism simply ignoring it...actually cooperating with it. That goes for all of U.S. journalism, as far as I can tell (not the British Guardian and other European papers). I attribute the total silence of politicians and the administration on this issue to the work of the pro-Israel lobbies. Do they also intimidate the press? I know of only two instances where the subject has been approached by a politician and a Times columnist. When Howard Dean remarked during the campaign that if we want to broker a peace between the Israelis and Palestinians we will need to be "even handed" he was immediately jumped on and never broached the subject
again. When columnist Tom Friedman wrote that Sharon had both Arafat and Bush under "house arrest"--Arafat surrounded by tanks and Bush surrounded by the pro-Israel lobbies, he was immediately called an extremist by the American Zionist Organization and has not said a word about that subject since. I go on at length about this because I see our politicians' inability to discuss it, and the press's unwillingness to cover it, as the main reason for the horror of 9/11, for our reckless invasion of two countries, for the growing deficit, for the devastating loss of international respect and for our crippling and dangerous war on terror. It's hardly a minor item, and the press looking the other way is, to my mind, inexcusable. Participant Kip, your friend's work in Pakistan may not close out journalism, but it would be a boon to democracy. It's very much in keeping with what we discussed in our last conference on the survivability of democracy. Participant If we combined an ethic, vaguely Christian, that we should help those in the greatest need, and added an internet of local news gathering to highlight difficulties real people are having, then we could close a loop between haves and have-nots that is positive, rather than the negative loop of increasing distancing currently dominant. It requires an ethic plus a technology. (wouldn't solve all the problems, such as come from real conflicts, say over water use, but it would go a long way to making the species an attractively coherent community). James O. Goldsborough I don't think the neoconservative role in the Iraq war was in any way ignored by the press. I think it was fully discussed and it is my impression that the public is fully aware of it. It was discussed to the point that some of the leading neocon war-whoopers (like Brooks) started to write that the word "neoconservative" was actually a code word for "Jewish," and why didn't people just come out and say so? The answer to that—as to all Brooks' facile war arguments—is easy: Because a great many Jews opposed the war and a great many Christians supported it. These issues were discussed in the press. The nexus between neocons who wanted to invade Iraq in the name of Israel and born-again Christians who want Israel to prevail in order to prepare for Christ's second coming was discussed in the press. The press did not drive the nation to war, the lies of the Bush administration did. The fault of the press - like that of Congress and the people as a whole - was to not see through the lies. Vietnam is a parallel: We should have known it was a mistake before we started, but hubris and power blinded us to the lessons of history. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Santayana
Participant Jim, I realize that there was press coverage about the neocons being the architects of the war, but their long term connections with the Likud, and their main interest in protecting Israel against neighbors angry about the conflict with the Palestinians were not covered. I don't believe that the US public has any understanding of that history. Wouldn't that be a job of the press?
James O. Goldsborough Richard, the newspapers I read and the newspapers and magazines I have written for have fully reported on the neocon-Likud connection. Through the New York Times News Service and the Washington Post-L.A Times News Service, many other newspapers also have access to Times and Post articles that have clearly linked the neocons to Likud and have reported, for example, how Iraq war architects like Feith and Perle worked for Netanyahu and urged him in Likud policy papers to oppose peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu in fact tried to wreck the Oslo peace agreement at the Wye meeting with Clinton, going so far as to try to blackmail Clinton into pardoning convicted spy Jonathan Pollard as a quid pro quo for peace. Whether all the newspapers that take the Times and Post wire services ran their stories, I don't know. I certainly would regard it as the job of the press to make the connection between the neocons and Likud clear to American readers, and I believe that connection was made. I did half-dozen columns along those lines myself. The superiority of the press over the blogs when it comes to such reporting is that the press is more reliable. Any errors we make—not just of fact, but of interpretation—are corrected, and on subjects such as this, believe me, many readers and agencies go over the material with a microscope. I'm far from an expert on blogs, but I cannot imagine that they are as reliable, as subject to scrutiny, correction and libel, as the press. The thought that there is some kind of conspiracy of silence in the mainstream press to cover up the neocon-Likud connection just doesn't strike me as credible. I know about pressure brought on publishers and editors to tone down coverage perceived as "anti-Israel," and columnists who frequently criticize Israeli policies are routinely branded either anti-Semites or self-hating Jews, but over the years I've found that such pressure and such criticism is not only ineffective but counter-productive to those who use it. Participant Some very strong assertions delivered in a reasonable tone. Reliable means rely on. I find Juancole.com much more reliable than the New York Times on Iraq and implications. That is, if I read only Cole I would be better informed than if I read only the Times. I also think he is accountable. I could give other examples. Of course the average blog, like the average paper, is pretty thin. The advantage of the blogs, the weak ones, is that they are voices
of those left out, whereas the normal weak newspapers are quite conventional. I think one would learn more from reading the mix of "left" and "right" blogs and come up with a fuller picture. If we take the mainstream media and look at some crucial stories, what do we get? 1. Bush's health 2. Bush dad's speech at a northeast university just before the war saying "don't do it." (No coverage in the the New York Times.) 3. The pack on Bush's back. 4. Cheney, Enron and California …and we get headlines like last week's in the New York Times "Republicans Tackle Deficit." and “Democrats‟ Battle Forces Senate to Lock Doors” (I‟m paraphrasing but think I‟m close.) The issue isn't however this article or columnist versus that one, but the overall impression of reality given by the paper over time. The very occasional Likudneocon article did not connect the dots into the White House and explore the thesis that thus the neocons diverted American interests in the interest of Israel. I was left with suspicions but no guidance. And there is much to appreciate in the MSM. ABC's daily The Note is very helpful, though snide, and the Washington Post‟s White House briefings are good. Participant I've been paying rather more attention to the entire contents of my local paper (San Diego Union-Tribune) for the past several days. From one point of view journalism is simply a way to package local advertising. There's nothing scholarly about the news, there's no way for the reader to access the raw input, no way to check the facts for themselves. Quite often columnist A says one thing and columnist B says exactly the opposite. Journalism isn't very good at providing historical detail for stories. There's an immediacy about newspapers (well, news in general) that tends to create a "reaction" response in people.
James O. Goldsborough Consider the question of foreign news coverage: It isn't as good as it was a decade or two ago when more newspapers and networks had more correspondents (except for CNN, the networks all use stringers from continental Europe today and fly their correspondents in from London on breaking news). But the blogs have no foreign correspondents. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all have 20-30
foreign bureaus. The blogs may give you Reuters and AP, but I guarantee that any Reuters or AP reporter will be hired away by those three newspapers if he's good enough. Where would we get our foreign news coverage without newspapers? The blogs don't do it, the networks are shallow and commercial-driven, and CNN goes after visual stories, not in-depth coverage. With the American public already largely ignorant or indifferent about the rest of the world (look how easy it was for the neocons to vilify the French and Germans for their very legitimate opposition to Bush's war), how much worse would it be if newspapers weren't providing foreign coverage to those Americans who do care? What I find most detestable about the recent New York Times failures—both Wen Ho Lee and Judith Miller—is that in both cases the Times, which has always been our best source of foreign news, let its reporters twist foreign news coverage to pander to public and official prejudices. But note that when the New York Times fails, it's very big news. Who notices the blogs‟ failures? Participant A few decades ago, news coverage had more reporters on the scene, but today some of the blogs cover foreign places in more detail because bloggers are living there. It is easy to follow for example France, Italy, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, through blogs. And they are getting better fast. China and Japan are much better covered in the blogs. Yes, it takes work to get them, but more of us are. The problem of the press is that the rest of us can't get to a positive future for the US if the US press hides. 1. The facts about the current situation. . 2. Actions already under way to get beyond the problem. The press is caught in a picture of the world which is an extension of the bipartisan embrace of the current economic model, neoliberal economics, which has encouraged or supported redistribution from the bottom of the economic ladder to top over the past three decades. The following data are from the last Clinton years. The Bush years are probably worse. The wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans grew an average $1.44 billion each from 1997-2000 for an average daily increase in wealth of $1,920,000 per person ($240,000 per hour or 46,602 times the minimum wage). From 1983-1997, only the top five percent of U.S. households saw an increase in their net worth, while wealth declined for everyone else. The share of the nation‟s after-tax income received by the top 1 percent nearly doubled from 1979-1997. By 1998, the top-earning 1 percent had as much combined income as the 100 million Americans with the lowest earnings. The top fifth of U.S. households now claim 49.2 percent of national income while the bottom fifth gets by on 3.6
percent. Between 1979 and 1997, the average income of the richest fifth jumped from nine times the income of the poorest fifth to roughly 15 times. The average hourly earnings for white-collar males were $19.24 in 1997, up from $19.18 in 1973. These results reflect the key legislative and regulatory distributional principle guiding our current economic model . The press does not follow this story in the detail that suggests connecting the dots to policy. Yet this is the model our official policy insists be emulated abroad. It is creating a more extreme form of the have/have not. By the embrace of Christianity by the declining Roman Empire, the conditions were set for Mohammed, who organized the marginal poor in a simple society of justice and reward though the community conversations. The free market model forces other countries to develop a market aligned elite, and freeze out the rest - which is often the majority. In Indonesia and Malaysia I understand that about fifteen families own 60% of the national listed stocks. It has fascinated me why the view of the world from the Times news page is that most things are working except for a few glitches, the book section gives the impression that the world is in bad shape. Why the difference? (The difference is less than it was five years ago.) I think we are agreeing more than disagreeing about the current state of the press. The question is, “OK, now what?” My daughter works for The Tampa Tribune, my daughter and son in law work for the Los Angeles Times. Our local paper, owned by the New York Times, does local news well because it doesn't have to even think about the national and world. The Tao tradition suggests that knowledge creates difficulties. If we really had an informed public, what then? Democracy says that knowledge is important, along with low economic differences between richer and poorer. So I would say that our newspaper problem is tied to our governance and economic problems, and they are aligned in a plutocratic way bad for most of us in the short run and all of us in the long run. Participant I read today that there is a new blog created every second. Participant Worth reading is John Marshall's overview of where he is going with his blog, and he balances between reporting and integrating. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006959.php I also came across Robert Steele‟s Open Source site and there he says he has 600 book reviews at amazon. They are very worth reading and Amazon pulls them all together. As Robert's site says, a postgraduate degree in two hours.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/memberreviews/A1S8AJIUIO6M9K/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-89787463022324?%5Fencoding=UTF8 James O. Goldsborough The rich getting richer relative to everyone else since the 1990s has been a major story in the press. I've read stories on that in all the major newspapers, and I'd bet the news magazines have done covers on it, though I don't read them anymore. I know the NYRB has thoroughly covered the story with copious stats. One thing we're forgetting is the convenience factor in newspapers. Some people can't spend hours blogging and prefer an institution that does it for them. That's what newspapers do. They separate the wheat from the chaff. (And print the chaff as Adlai Stevenson said, but he was joking). The better the newspapers the better the winnowing. If there are a million blogs out there you're sure to find some stuff that doesn't make the newspapers, but can you trust it? When Paul Krugman of the New York Times writes on the income gap you can trust his figures. If they're wrong, they'll be corrected. Who corrects the blogs? It's the same thing for foreign news. How many foreign correspondents do the blogs have? When I'm blogging foreign news, I go to foreign newspaper sites —le Monde on the French protests, the Guardian on the wretchedness of Tony Blair, Die Zeit on what Europe thinks of U.S. foreign policy, Haaretz on what Israelis think of Bush‟s Middle East policy, etc. etc. I trust those sources to be well informed. Doug mentions that many blogs are good, and I don't doubt it. But they lack the pedigree. And how will they get it? We bemoan the influence of advertising in the press, but advertisers pay for $500,000 overseas bureaus and top-notch correspondents. The blogs will never have that. If all that isn't enough, blogging hurts my neck. Participant Your defense and advocacy of newspapers is compelling, Jim. Having quit over having one of your columns killed seems not to have led you to harbor any ill will. Indeed, I suspect you have deep sentimentality and nostalgia about it all. I promise not to keep the neocon issue going past this comment, but I must note that when you say that the newspapers all made clear the connection between the neocons and their relations to the Likud, the pro-Israel lobbies and the role of our relations to Israel in 9/11, Iraq, etc. I just have to tell you that I read the New York Times daily, and I can't recall any such articles. I'm not saying there weren't any, but certainly nothing like the coverage given to other less important issues. For example, compare that coverage to the daily and lengthy coverage of Karl Rove. Which is more important for the public to know? I'm sure there are plenty of stories worth our attention that aren't being told. There is clearly something else operative here, much as you may want to defend the newspapers.
The blogs are in their infancy, so maybe some different and more sophisticated forms will appear. But there is something wonderful about reading articles that do not require a forced journalistic balance that often gives space to undeserving ideas and people. Jim, now that you are writing for an online newspaper, how do you find it? Participant The major deficiency in newspaper coverage is in the quality and quantity of coverage on science. Rarely is there a qualified "science reporter" on the staff and much mythology gets propagated on such topics as "global warming", "nuclear energy", "overpopulation", etc. The Economist seems to be a rare exception. Why the reluctance to do credible science reporting in the newspapers? On line sites from credible organizations do a much better job so the information is out there and readily available to any enterprising journalist. James O. Goldsborough To Douglas Strain, I would say this: I doubt we can ever expect a general circulation newspaper to have the same specific coverage of science, medicine, architecture, music—any specific discipline such as those—as a specialized magazine or web site. However, you will have noted that many newspapers now publish weekly special sections on in these areas. That's probably as good as it's going to get. Interesting that you should mention The Economist as an exception on science, since The Economist is notably skeptical and in my view, biased, about global warming, an issue on which the New York Times has done a good job. I wrote many columns on the subject over the years, drawing on the expertise of the Scripps Institute, which is in my backyard. To Richard's points, I'm sorry, but I do not think there has been a conspiracy of silence in the press about the neocons and their links to Israel. It has been all over the press under this administration. As for my resignation over a killed column, it was an aberration. I've worked in newspapers and magazines for four decades without running into any kind of influence or censorship over what I write. Over the past decade I wrote for the San Diego paper and despite my fairly consistent position that Likud opposition to an Oslo-type settlement with the Palestinians was harmful to U.S. interests, I encountered no censorship. As to the column that was killed, a fairly innocuous analysis of why the Jewish vote went 75 percent to John Kerry in the past election (the column subsequently ran on the front page of Forward, the national Jewish weekly under the headline: "Too Hot for San Diego"). That was simply a dumb mistake by the publisher, David Copley, who was about to undergo a heart transplant. I was promised it would not happen again, and I believe it; however, I thought this one issue of censorship was as good a pretext as any to make a point, and I believe my resignation had its effect. The publicity over it (the story ran in more than 100 papers at home and abroad and God only knows how many blogs) was deeply embarrassing to the newspaper, which has its pretensions. Subsequently, some
of the more unacceptable practices at the paper—s such as censoring the cartoonist and manipulating letters to the editor—have abated. Participant Just to clarify, I don't think there has been a "conspiracy" of silence either, just a force that is overwhelming for politicians, who are completely silent, and may affect journalists. I'm sure there is no conspiracy among politicians. They just know better than to mention it. While I understand that revenues from publishing newspapers have generally declined, and I guess fewer newspapers are locally owned, do we know what the income picture is now and is likely to be in the future? Obviously, newspapers can't survive the loss of a market unless they become publicly supported, but do we know what their financial condition is now? James O. Goldsborough The newspaper industry is a long way from being publicly supported as it is in some countries. The U.S. industry is enormously profitable. The 13 largest publicly-traded newspaper companies earned an average pretax profit margin of 19 percent last year, and show me a retail or nonsoftware industry that wouldn't kill for such margins (think of steel or automobiles). The problem is that Wall Street expects such margins, and when profits come in lower, shareholders scream and you get reactions like at Knight-Ridder and the Tribune Company, slashing news staffs to satisfy investors at the cost of news coverage and readers. Slashing news coverage pushes down circulation and at some point advertising dollars will also decline. At present, display advertising remains strong because the economy recovered from the recession, and display ads are so cost-effective. Classified advertising, especially in employment, has fallen because of on-line competition. Participant Jim, I know you do not believe that the press got us into the war with Iraq, but I would like to share with this group how that might have happened by quoting from something I wrote some time ago. The scathing Senate report on CIA intelligence failures in Iraq gives us yet another group to blame for the mess we are in, for a moment taking the focus off the other targets—the neocons in the Defense Department, the White House staff and President Bush himself. As guilty as these parties may be, the ignored culprit is the media. Without its unwitting complicity, we wouldn‟t be in Iraq. From the beginning of President Bush‟s call to war, the media inadvertently reinforced his objectives, helped foment a war fever, and contributed to gross misunderstandings that led the American people to back an invasion. This was done, not by the content of their reporting, but by its form.
I refer not just to broadcast journalism‟s recent shift in emphasis from news to entertainment, and the obvious appeal of high ratings that war stories bring. Nor to the consistent drumbeat to the war given by the Fox Network. There is a more pervasive and insidious aspect of the media coverage of the lead up to the Iraq war that is less well understood. It is the domination of form over content. In the psychology of communication, form usually wins over content. How we say something is often more important than what we say. It is the form the media takes that unintentionally contributed to our entry into the war. That consequence has been accomplished in three principal ways—repetition, graphic design, and rules of coverage. When we repeat a message often enough, the repetition itself becomes more influential in gaining acceptance of the message than does its content. Take for example the reporting of statements by President Bush on his intentions to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and remove the tyrant Saddam Hussein from power. With almost no variation in that one-line message, it was repeated as front-page news practically every day from August 2002 to the end of combat. Granted, there is some obligation to report the words of the president, but to repeat that message, over and over again, as if it were news, and as if the statement were based on fact, was clearly both powerful and irresponsible. Consider the paradox of the twenty-four hour radio and television news format. Instead of using that time for in-depth analysis, which one might reasonably expect, reporting is often more superficial than that of the half-hour network news shows. The round-the-clock format essentially repeats only the headlines, over and over. Constant repetition of quotes suggesting the possible connection between Iraq and 9/11, for example, when practically every journalist suspected there was no evidence of such a connection, eventually led forty-two percent of Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind that horrible act. Small wonder they supported invasion. The graphic designs introducing the coverage, with dramatic slogans made into eye-catching war logos, served to validate and legitimize the war. The presentation of catchy phrases such as “Showdown with Saddam” when incorporated into striking logos, gave the prospective war not only appeal, but also legitimacy. Just as a printed message is usually weightier than a spoken one, a logo communicates solidity, reality, and in this case, inevitability—all combining to unconsciously convey a kind of tacit acceptance, even approval. Policies governing what kinds of stories and photos can be presented are again illustrative of the power of form in making the war palatable, and acceptable. Rules of form essentially prohibit showing maimed victims or dead bodies, for example, from the first Gulf War. In one sense these are understandable policies, because showing the true horrors of war can be sickening. But the effect of
leaving out that dimension is to sanitize war, again contributing to its acceptability. Finally, journalism‟s requirements for balanced reporting, which requires that every investigative report include an opposing view, even if that view has little or no substance, continually led the journalists to include alongside any depth analysis the administration‟s unsupported statements in a pro forma attempt at supposed balance. Yes, the first casualty of war is truth. But long before the beginning of this war, truth became lost in the overwhelming power of the form in which it was buried. James O. Goldsborough Richard, in answer to your critique I would refer you to the title of this conference. In setting out, I made a distinction between newspapers and journalism because they are not the same. Nor is the press and the media the same. My position is that newspapers, because of their tradition, mission, ownership and closeness to communities are different from the rest of the media. Some papers fulfill their responsibilities better than others, and I concede that the chains present a danger. But except for anomalies like the Murdoch press, the press takes its responsibilities to truth and objectivity seriously and that is what separates the press from the rest of the media. In considering the rest of the media, we must make distinctions. Traditionally, network news, the closest thing to the press, was different from the press because the network news didn't editorialize. Walter Cronkite's criticism of the Vietnam war after the 1968 Tet offensive was a unique event. People like Ed Murrow and Walter Lippmann did specials. For a while CBS let Eric Severeid editorialize, but that went out with him. You mention 24-hour TV and radio shows. They are either biased, like Fox, or tedious, like CNN, and give you as much advertising as news. Television will always be a visual not an intellectual medium, and talking heads yelling at each other are no substitutes for the reasoned essays offered by newspapers. Talk radio isn't news at all, except for NPR, and we can see how the ideologues have been going after NPR lately. Your criticism of journalism for the "form" of its presentation of the Iraq war does not apply to the press. We made front-page stories of Bush's lies, but gave just as much space to the refuting of the lies. We presented columnists who were critical of the war and those who supported it. Trying to keep the distinction between news and editorials, we tried to present objective news coverage. Some newspapers did this better than others, but except for aberrations like the Murdoch press (which has the European tradition of blending news and opinion) most newspapers would never allow their editorial positions on something like the war in Iraq to influence its war coverage. No newspaper's editorial page is more gung-ho neocon, pro-Bush than the Wall Street Journal, and yet its
reporters are as fair and objective as any I know. Most of them hate their paper's editorial page. Participant One part of future hope is that the reporters will learn from the bloggers that detail and research pay off. I think of the difference in detail between the normal press and what Josh Marshall has done with Bush's Veterans Day speech. (See for example: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006989.php and his newer post today on Melman.) I find I want to underline more heavily in this kind of post than in the New York Times or Washington Post articles. Not to say there aren't nuggets there, but overall thinner. I think the blogs are pushing toward 1) more egregious use of English, which I think is unfortunate but fits the younger generation, and 2) a more college-like methodology, of digging for details, making comparisons, and looking at multiple perspectives. The role of the small journals, like Harpers, Atlantic, also seem important in holding up good examples of writing and synthesis. The role of the New York Review of Books and The London Review are also important (and many others). It is the mix and the cross influences that will be important, and beneficial to us all. Interesting that the news companies are making 19%. I think the stock holders see the papers in the most purely financial terms: an advertising outlet selling stuff, so we deserve our cut. Participant Newspapers have a lot of ads, but the beauty is you don't have to look at them the way radio and TV requires. Jim, I think that because you presented opposing views to the Bush statements, you think newspapers did. You were almost alone in your arguments. No other columnists I read were able to say the things you did. Newspapers certainly did not. But they printed Bush's one line statement practically every day, front page. Newspapers are not guilty of logos and other harmful forms, but they sure are guilty of repetition. And of course not getting into the real reasons for the war. Did you ever read in an American newspaper a full version of Osama bin Laden's statement after 9/11 or the one he issued last year? I sure couldn't find one (except on the Internet). How do you explain the fact that at one point 60% of Americans believed that Saddam was responsible for 9/11? Is that the 60% that doesn't read newspapers? Jim, I awoke this morning still not content that we have a meeting of the minds on the question of the press dealing with the real issues of our going to war. You say you are aware of the pressure not to write articles that are "anti-Israel", but
that there is no conspiracy. I agree. This is much larger than a conspiracy of a cabal or a small factional group. This is not a problem of the neocon architects or the Bush committee on Iraq. It is much deeper and more pervasive. And it isn't just about our going to war, but about many actions we take that get us into trouble. You don't seem worried about that pressure, but I am, and I think you of all people should be. First of all, it is not just pressure against "anti-Israel" articles, which would be bad enough, but it is pressure against any article that might disturb the status quo in our relations to Israel, observed now by all parties. You, for example, never wrote an anti-Israel article, but you did expose some of the difficulties represented by our national posture. It is our one-sided support of Israel, no matter what, against the Palestinians that has made the Middle East and much of the rest of the world angry. Any suggestion that we should be "even-handed" (the term used by Howard Dean) is regarded as a code word for anti-Semitism, explained to me by the survey researcher Dan Yankelovich, who is not a right winger. And it is policed that way not just by the main policing forces represented by the proIsrael lobbies, but by the entire Jewish community. I know you will counter by saying that at least half the Jews, even in Israel, have not supported the ultraright wing attitude toward the Palestinians, and I agree, but when it comes to policing our politicians and our press, it is not just the right wing working, it is larger Jewish community. So your logic that not all Jews are neocons misses the point. They may not be architects of the war, but they are the force that makes it impossible to discuss in any depth or intensity our relationship to Israel. When your publisher killed your article mentioning Jews, and which led to your resignation, you explain that action by attributing it to his mental state during an illness. I'm confident, however, it was much more likely due to the pressures he felt from the Jewish community here in San Diego to shut you up. You explain the impossibility of that by noting that the article, on close examination, was indeed favorable to the Jews. But it wasn't the content, it was just one too many articles about Jews. Again, the power of form over content. I harp on this because I think it is the main failure of the press. A tragically serious failure. And it continues. We may now enter a major discussion of the lead up to the war, but you can bet that it will never deal with why the Middle East is angry with us, really. Even if the investigation leads to an impeachment of Bush for his lies, it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. Kerry is an enthusiastic supporter of Sharon. The Democrats are at least as unwilling to discuss this as are the Republicans. It saddens and frustrates me that our politicians cannot open their mouths about this issue, and while you say the press can, I very rarely see any articles dealing with the work of the pro-Israel lobbies. I did see one in the Times about the Franklin security breach, supplying classified information to AIPAC, where the power of the lobbies was mentioned. But one article in four years of war on terror is not much.
Sharon conducted a massacre of the sort that Saddam is now on trial for. He deliberately provoked the second Intifada, and has not only violated every imaginable international agreement, but has invaded and occupied the Palestinian territories, held their leader hostage with tanks, and killed several times as many Palestinians as Israelis were killed by them. We do not deal critically with those issues in a way that could lead to an alteration in our posture toward the Middle East. That is the basic reason the world is angry with us. We have compounded the problem with the invasion of Iraq and other Bush behavior, but that remains the fundamental reason. And we cannot discuss it fully. I regard the Fourth Estate as the most vital profession. We desperately need to protect it from just the kind of pressures you mention. You seem to think these pressures are ineffective, but to me they seem overwhelmingly powerful. Shouldn't the journalism profession rise up to fight any political pressures of any kind? Isn't the strength of a profession marked by its ability to say NO? Participant Jim, what about the role of AIPAC and its liaison with every House and Senate office? The history of the US alignment with Israel is crazy because it was an attempt to establish a nation state, with its western economy connections, in a place already inhabited. It was a heart transplant that could never work unless Israel had taken the well being of the middle east as its goal. But that was not possible. Israel as an extension of the US also makes the US an extension of Israel. It is an ultimately unwinnable position. On the newspapers and the blogs: Compare the entire content of today's times with just two blogs. http://Juancole.com today and Kevin Drumm at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ Which gives a deeper and more reliable picture of what is happening in Iraq and the buildup to the war? The blogs seem to have not just the edge, but an overwhelmingly higher level of delivery of news and analysis. What I like about this conversation is that we are actually getting at core issues that create the basis for a serious discussion. let's keep going. Participant Both Republicans and Democrats are faulted for not having a plan for the future. While our posture toward the Palestinians is only a piece of the puzzle, it is an important one. It is difficult, therefore, to see how anyone can build a strong, comprehensive plan while this issue is off the table. Perhaps that is part of the reason both parties are failing.
Participant Having grown up a second generation American in a large Lithuanian Jewish extended family in WLA and Beverly Hills, I know the pressure to support the Diaspora. At the same time I know the pressure to oppose war and oppression. Of the seventeen cousins I grew up with, at least five openly criticize Israel's offenses against Palestinians. One has been active in proPalestinian movements. Perhaps 2 who remained relatively active in the temple became Zionists, and the rest are silent. Yes, the silence is like a commandment—thou shalt not speak publicly against thy kin. I think that commandment holds in most religious groups. Is Bush's stance that the war is a Christian cause not a huge factor in keeping active American Christians from criticizing him? And in attracting many more zealous Christians to blindly support his holy war? There is a distinct and palpable hierarchy of religious power here, and it controls what all of us say. And what most of us write. And what many of us think. James O. Goldsborough Doug, on AIPAC, here are a few paragraphs I wrote from a May 6, 2002 column about Bush's "tilt" toward Israel (just after Sharon razed the Jenin refugee camp and Bush praised him as a "man of peace"): “When Bush gets to the point, as he must, where he presses Sharon to take the steps everyone knows are the sine qua non of peace, Sharon, or more likely the more photogenic Benjamin Netanyahu, will be back on our shores urging supporters of Israel's government to stand with Congress and oppose the president. “So how does the process work? Why would the Senate, 94-2, and the House, 352-21, pass resolutions that completely ignore the complicated Middle East context and weaken U.S. diplomacy? Why would they pass resolutions tilted completely to one side that support Sharon's invasion of the West Bank and brand Yasser Arafat an unfit partner for peace? “It is no accident such resolutions are passed just as U.S. diplomacy gets serious, just as the „window of opportunity,‟ as Secretary of State Colin Powell described it last week, shows a little light. They are attempts to sacrifice principle on the altar of money. A former member of Congress described the process to me. “AIPAC is the chief American-Israeli lobby. When AIPAC seeks a proIsrael resolution in the House, he said, the woman who is its chief lobbyist approaches key leaders of the minority party, for example, Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo. Together, they work out language for the resolution. That done, she goes to the majority party, to Tom DeLay, the GOP whip. Delay, a born-again Christian, is fanatically pro-Israel.
“When DeLay, who is also the House GOP's main fund-raiser, sees what Lantos has worked out with AIPAC, he toughens it up, fearing that if AIPAC spreads the word that Lantos is more pro-Israel than DeLay, AIPAC will raise more money for Democrats. “As the White House and State Department are trying to soften the language, Congress hardens it. “Resolution drafted, it comes to the floor. Here's how the former member of Congress describes what happens: "‟‟I looked for ways to support the resolution. If I could support it, I would. I like to choose my own battles. If I could not support it, friends would tell me about all the problems I was creating for myself. I would take the floor to explain why I could not support it.‟ “‟The ritual is the same. It matters not what party is in power or who is the president. The State Department strategy is always the same, preferring to ignore the resolution rather than oppose it. The ritual always starts with the minority party, and its goal is always the same: To show the president that he doesn't run things.‟ “‟What about the other side?‟ I asked. Doesn't it have a lobby as well? “‟On this issue,‟ explained the former member, „there is no other side. All the money, all the lobbying, is on one side.‟“ The congressman, I can now reveal, was Tom Campbell, now dean of the UC school of business on leave as California's director of finance. He gave the best explanation I have heard on how the system works. Note that it is 1) bi-partisan, and 2) nearly consensual. I was not the only reporter reporting such things. The press' stand on this issue, its disgust with what Amos Elon, Israel's most distinguished writer, described as "35 years of Israel's mean, arrogant landgrabbing and deeply humiliating occupation," is what eventually caused Bush to adopt a more even-handed approach. TV and radio didn't do that; the blogs didn't do it. The mainstream press did it. What Campbell described to me is abhorrent and deserves to be brought to light. But while saying that, we have to understand political realities. There is strong bipartisan, historical consensus in this country to support Israel. Republicans and Democrats outbid each other on the issue, whether motivated by money, or, like DeLay, Christ's second coming. Change happens at the margins, like with Carter at Camp David, Bush I and Baker pressuring Shamir, and Clinton at Wye and Camp David. When presidents are willing to take on the AIPAC lobby as in cases like that, the press—not Congress—is their natural ally. And the press, far more than any but a few members of Congress, is more willing to spell out to the public
the dangers of being joined at the hip to Israeli extremists, that is, is more willing to connect the dots. Participant Fascinating article, Jim. I daresay there wasn't another newspaper columnist in the country writing that way. But should the press lead or follow? Good point, Tony, about the way in which any religious group might remain silent about its own, and antagonistic to outside critics. The problem I see is that it seems to me that the accusation of anti-Semitism is so much more damaging than the accusation of godlessness. Could that be? I haven't traveled in Europe extensively enough to know about any publicly supported newspapers. Jim, were you referring to government controlled press of Eastern Europe, or something more like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, applied to newspapers? James O. Goldsborough Newspapers in various Western European nations (and Mexico is another example) receive subsidies of various kinds. In Mexico, they receive newsprint subsidies (that can be raised or lowered to influence editorial content). Across continental Western Europe, newspapers receive various kinds of tax, mailing and even direct subsidies to help keep them in business. For various reasons (much stronger libel law is one) the press is weak in nations like France and Italy, so governments help them out. Because the main television outlets are state owned, controlled or influenced, newspapers help to keep alive the illusion of dissent. Participant Eloquent all around. Lots to think about. Participant This is a fascinating discussion. Jim, I am deeply impressed with your willingness to resign in order to send a message about censorship. It gives me increased faith in journalism. And while I'm delighted that it was widely reported, I wish it had received as much coverage as some of the New York Times reporter scandals. I'm interested to see the either/or type of discussion arising around the blog vs. newspaper issue. In my mind there is ample room for both and in fact they compliment each other. I know true investigative journalism is expensive and rare—perhaps blogs can occasionally help point the direction for more detailed investigation. However, in the final analysis, like Jim, I look to the credibility of sources and would be much more likely to trust a major newspaper than a major blog—for the reasons he mentions. Finally, I think a major question is, do most people even READ anymore? Book purchases are down even though more books are being published and many of the people I know -- even among the most intelligent -- find it hard to reserve time for reading after they've gone through 200 emails a day.
James O. Goldsborough No question that the Internet has changed our reading habits and obliterated some of the best forms of reading, letters and correspondence, for example. Publishers were always coming out with the collected letters or correspondence of some great figure or other—Mencken, Nicholson and Sackville-West, John and Abigail Adams are some recent ones that come to mind. But who writes real letters anymore, and who keeps emails? That literary form has been killed by the Internet. I quite agree with you, Mary, that there is room for both blogs and newspapers, but what I fear is that the blogs will drive out the printed word and we'll end up with everything online. I saw a newspaper article the other day on "Googling Proust." I thought that is about the dumbest idea I've ever heard. The thought of wading through the seven turgid volumes of A la Recherche while sitting at the computer is mad. Whatever the advances of on line technology and whatever regrets we have for the demise of letters and correspondence, it seems to me there will always be room for the comfort and companionship of bound books and daily newspapers. There will be a winnowing—we'll never get back to the number of book titles we used to have or to 65 million newspapers per day, but what survives should be better, a survival of the fittest. The rest will end up on a blog. Participant I read more than ever. I've a tablet PC with 600 books on it, and reading in the semi dark, in bed, in the back of a car, and being able to make marks, look up words, find the first or recent appearance of the same character— amazing. Most of those books are classics, and I've gone through the standard 17, 18 and 19th century English novels. They are all for free at http://gutenberg.org …and you can check for example at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ and the reader is downloadable from there. Another reference to world lit is (for example looking at Balzac) http://www.grtbooks.com/balzac.asp?idx=1&yr=1799&aa=BA&at=AA All of the Greek texts (and Latin) are available clickable into an English dictionary word by word. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ And much Chinese including the Lao Tzu with each character clickable into an English dictionary and Chinese etymology. http://zhongwen.com/dao.htm With all of philosophy and political science also available, it is hard not to enjoy cross referencing. And hey, if you are reading a novel and it mentions a picture, say by Caravaggio, just google it and you will find it. Same with maps. zoom in with googlearth at http://earth.google.com/
and you can fly into the site and for example see the shadows of people standing around the Eiffel tower. As for Proust, I can run the electronic French and English side by side. What we need to anticipate (future of newspapers) is how this will affect research. Today the Republicans put up a video of speech excerpts from the major senators now in opposition to the war, showing their attitudes in early 2003. Excerpts, so it is necessary to recontextualize, and all that stuff is available. And we get smarter, and more gets written, some of it even good. Read ten entries from www.billmon.org for a language treat about the most important events. Real letters? Go back twenty years. Child off to college, gone. Now, daily emails between kids and parents. In 1989 I got in a cab in Washington, D.C. "Hey man, what do you do?" the driver asked, heavy southern inner city accent, 'I'm a consultant." "Hey man, everybody gets in my can is a consultant. The question is what kind of consultant?" "I do stuff on strategy with organizations and the Internet." "Internet? I got one of them computers. For my daughter. She's 4." (pause) "You know, man, she feels more connected to the whole world with that thing than I ever did in my whole life. When I dropped her off at her child care this morning she said Daddy, you know what I'm gonna do today?'' “No, honey, what?' 'I'm gonna send you an email." I love books, and now can spend time with a few bound in leather 300 years ago. I can write letters and pen in little drawings. Participant To support your comment, Doug, today I read one of the most balanced and carefully documented articles on the run up to the war I've seen— and it was online. Here's the link to what they call a think tank without walls. http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2925 James O. Goldsborough Doug, I have to say, if you are typical of the modern man then newspapers probably won't survive in the form we know them now, that is, as a primary source of news and analysis of the news. The Internet is the greatest research tool ever, and it is impossible for newspapers to fulfill that role. Newspaper people, like me, are fully aware of how the Internet has revolutionized how we do our jobs. I used to go into newspaper libraries and search and cross-search through decaying yellow envelopes containing decaying yellow clippings from that newspaper. It was impossible to find things from other newspapers. Our primary source was the annual Facts on File. We all know how easy it is today to look up almost anything. For experts and specialists, the heyday of newspapers already is passed. Your above description of your research methods surpasses anything the printed
press can provide. But where I think newspapers have an edge is in those areas I've already mentioned - things like trust, organization, comfort, convenience, selectivity and tradition. People are used to newspapers like they are used to books. I own the 10-volume 1835 Murray Edition Boswell's Life of Johnson, bound in leather and gold and with various remarks scribbled in it from sundry of its 19th-century owners. The comfort I get from pulling out one of those books before the fireplace can never be replaced electronically. Newspapers, I hope, will always provide that same kind of comfort, and when they are very good, say in the class of the New York Times, the editorial selection and display are so well-done that I defy any web site to match them. And as long as the Times is around, other newspapers will have a standard to be judged by. If they slip too much, they will be out of business. In San Diego, the Union-Tribune got so dishonest that a website, called the Voice of San Diego, was started by a local philanthropist and its local coverage is now better than the newspaper's. The Voice has in turn motivated the newspaper to invest more in local coverage. Thus it's possible that competition from the web can save newspapers as well as destroy them. But they will only survive if they improve. As I said earlier, an examination of newspaper profits shows that those investing more in coverage, like the New York Times and McClatchy, are keeping and expanding circulation. Ones failing to invest, are rapidly shrinking. Ten years ago the daily circulation of the San Diego newspaper was 380,000; it had just forced the Los Angeles Times to close its San Diego edition (circulation 60,000) and there was every hope the Union-Tribune would pick up those 60,000 and thus grow to nearly a half million. Today the paper's admitted circulation is 314,000 (it may be lower for some newspapers have been padding circulation figures). The newspaper has lost 17 percent circulation at the same time population has increased by about the same amount. Why? Because it‟s not very good and not at all trusted. Participant Responding to the current interest in prisoner interrogation and torture, and because when I was in the Navy I was the officer responsible for preparing our men for possible POW status, I submitted an article to several newspapers about how the Germans interrogated the airmen who were shot down over Germany during WWII. I think it is a story most Americans would be shocked to learn--that every one of the thousands of airmen eventually cooperated fully with the interrogation, giving up all kinds of information of value to the enemy. Believe it or not, they were all interrogated by one man, raised in Wisconsin, who befriended them, and knew more about each one of them, and their squadron, than they could possibly imagine. They went back and forth between dark solitary confinement to friendly sessions with him where he would give them food and drink and casual talk about the US, their families (about whom he knew a lot--e.g., "How is your dad doing at the bank?" or "Is your sister still a cheerleader?"). Eventually all capitulated to that form of interrogation. Everyone. Once in awhile, I submit articles to newspapers and rarely get them published. I realize that the New York Times gets 200 submissions a day or a week or
something like that, so I never think mine will be accepted. But I would like to ask the question of Jim and this group whether a newspaper would not publish such an article because they would fear reaction from the veterans, the public, and the advertisers. Would they fear casting aspersions on The Greatest Generation? It seems to me that in a climate encouraging the most bestial kinds of torture, such an important piece of knowledge should be considered. But could a newspaper risk it? Just so that you won't think I made this up, while I no longer have the document the Navy gave us to prepare the servicemen and women that carried the more detailed information about the interrogations, including the fact that it worked every time, I will copy here the paragraph on the Air Force web site dealing with those interrogations. "Dulag Luft, located near Frankfurt am Main, was the Luftwaffe Aircrew Interrogation Center to which all Allied airmen were delivered as soon as possible after their capture. There each new prisoner, while still trying to recover from the recent trauma of his shoot-down and capture, was skillfully interrogated for military information of value to the Germans. The German interrogators claimed that they regularly obtained the names of unit commanders, information on new tactics and new weapons, and order of battle from naive or careless U.S. airmen, without resort to torture. New prisoners were kept in solitary confinement while under interrogation and then moved into a collecting camp. After a week or ten days, they were sent in groups to a permanent camp such as Stalag Luft III for officers or Stalag VIB for enlisted men. A nearby hospital employing captured doctors and medical corpsmen received and cared for wounded prisoners." James O. Goldsborough Richard, I don't think any good newspaper would "fear" publishing an article like the one you mention. They might think it dated, that is, less pertinent than current torture stories, of which there are so many, but they wouldn't fear it. I've run into very little fear of any kind on newspapers. I used to hear, for example that newspapers feared publishing articles on Israel's attack on the USS Liberty during the Six-Day war, but such articles get published every time something new pops up about that incident, like when Adm. Moorer spoke out on it last year. The Union-Tribune, which publishes in a Navy town, published both op-eds and editorials saying it was time for Congress to fully investigate the cover-up of that attack. The Israeli consulate wrote its de rigueur letters of denial to the editor, but that was it. Newspapers are always going to be more careful, insist on more facts and demonstration of arguments than blogs, because there is so much more at stake for them. Do blogs get sued? Two years ago, I got involved in a complicated goaround with a blogger named Rand Simberg because he'd made up a story about so-called German werewolves attacking U.S. forces in Germany after the surrender. He quoted from a so-called "Reuters" dispatch of August 12, 1945, that had Congress calling on Truman to send more troops to put down the
"werewolves." I recognized the story as nonsense (I knew of it because Fox News ran it, not because I knew of Simberg's blog). I'd done a column attacking Condi Rice for a speech in which she compared Iraqi resistance to the werewolves because in fact the werewolves never existed, and I said that Condi, as a Stanford PhD, ought to know better. I called both Gordon Craig (of Stanford) and Fritz Stern (of Columbia) our two leading Germanologists, and cited them on the non-existence of the werewolves and called Alfons Heck, who had been the leader of the Hitler Youth in '45 (who were supposed to be the werewolf‟s shock troops). Heck lived in San Diego (he died just this year), and said werewolves were a figment of the sick imagination of Goebbels. Simberg then wrote the Union-Tribune demanding a retraction of my attack on him because he said he wrote it as a blogger's spoof and only an idiot like me (and I suppose Condi) would take such a thing seriously. He got a mealy-mouthed editor's note saying I should have known it was a spoof. Really? I called Reuters during the course of my research and asked them if they'd heard of Simberg's so-called dispatch. They said they had heard of it and were investigating. Even Reuters didn't know it was a spoof. I conclude three things from that episode: 1. Bloggers can write anything they want. I cannot imagine a newspaper columnist making up anything so dangerously asinine. 2. Even when columnists are right and bloggers are wrong, timid editors are willing to appease readers and (confuse the issue) by running retractions (apologies, explanations). 3. Newspaper columnists put a hell of a lot more work and effort into what they do than the bloggers. I wrote two articles on the werewolves, the first when Condi misspoke and the second when Simberg tried to legitimize Condi's mistake by quoting the made-up dispatch. Note that the way Simberg tried to legitimize the story was by quoting a newspaper dispatch. It was another example of Welles' "War of the Worlds" phenomenon, the difference being that Welles was doing fiction, not disinformation. Participant I well remember that column of yours about the werewolves. Jim, we have discussed the fact that at least the major newspapers are not in immediate financial danger--even returning a healthy profit--but what about the future of newspaper journalism? I know that international coverage is shrinking. Is there a discernable move toward infotainment in the rest? I note that the newest section offerings in the New York Times have to do with dining and style and such. Is newspaper journalism still in a position to protect us from tyranny?
James O. Goldsborough Very pertinent to our discussion is an article (first of two parts) just published in the New York Review of Books by Michael Massing who is one of the more astute observers of the press. The title of the article is "The End of News?" I quote from it briefly: “The campaign against the press is only partly a result of a hostile White House. The administration's efforts have been amplified by a disciplined and well-org organized news and opinion campaign directed by conservatives and the Christian right. This well-funded network includes newsletters, think tanks and talk radio as well as cable television news and the Internet. Through the Internet, commentators can channel criticism of the press to the general public faster and more efficiently than before. As became plain in the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry, to cite one of many examples, an unscrupulous critic can spread exaggerated or erroneous claims instantaneously to thousands of people, who many, in turn, repeat them to millions more on talk radio programs, cable television, or more official 'news' Web sites. This kind of recycled commentary has become all the more effective because it is aimed principally at a sector of the population that seldom if ever sees serious press coverage. “Massing quotes from a book, Tuned Out (Oxford Univ. Press) David T.Z. Mindich: "America is facing the greatest exodus of informed citizenship in its history." Encouraging, isn‟t it? Participant The conservative think tanks (nine of the top ten) have been impressively influential, but I think they devote most of their efforts into mainstream media--op-ed pieces in the major newspapers, magazine articles, news conferences, lectures and conferences covered by the press, interviews on Jim Lehrer's program and on many other talk shows, and their own publications, newsletters, etc. Doubtless this material is picked up by many Internet-based activities, but we can't fault them for not trying to get into the newspapers, which they do quite successfully. Although journalists are reported to be 80% Democrats or liberal (Eric Alterman has shown that there is no liberal bias), the far left positions are, as far as I can tell, never represented in the mainstream press. Maybe that's one reason we are ill-informed. An interesting paradox--the more news organizations and outlets, the less informed citizenry. Could that be? If it is, then God help us in protection from tyranny. Participant I just returned from seeing Good Night, and Good Luck, the Edward R. Murrow attack on Senator Joseph McCarthy. It is a straightforward condemnation of broadcast journalism for becoming a slave to market interests.
Those days with CBS as the "Tiffany of TV news" departments, with Eric Severeid, Walter Cronkite and company making commentary in addition to reporting the news are surely gone today. My friend Frank Stanton was president of CBS then and Bill Paley was Chairman, CEO and owner. Stanton is mentioned in this film, but the conflict is between Paley and Murrow. I think it was largely Stanton who protected the news division, and kept it out of the market orientation. But it soon collapsed, even under their reign. That was fifty years ago. Participant I am finding myself increasingly analytical about the way I read news. This conversation has encouraged my doing so. Jim raises the issue of trust and comfort. What I am noticing, as I pick up today's New York Times for example (Penny reads it, and we have house guests who are reporters for the Los Angeles Times.). I am reading *for bias*. That is, how will the editorial page, or David brooks, or Frank Rich handle the stories...? But when I read Dailykos.com I know I'll be in the midst of a youthful left firestorm of reactions, or if I go to Talking Points Memo I'll get as close to a human whom I trust struggling to be clear (Josh Marshall), and while I know his bias, I read him for a drill down into the facts and the better story. Same with Juan Cole. I trust these guys more than I trust the mainstream press, with a few exceptions like James Fallows. The books I increasingly like are the big special press art books, with graphics and text. I've been trying making some pages like that myself. And plain old new books, I am reading Mary Catherine Bateson's Willing to Learn, and it is very nicely printed. But most reading, including now Austen's Mansfield Park, I read on the computer, mouse interesting passages, and copy them, which creates a file of quotes, which at the end of the day I can scan, reminding me of everything I wrote, and creating a day's log file... How will this evolve? Faster than we expect, I expect. James O. Goldsborough The deck is stacked against newspapers. It seems I cannot pick up a publication these days without more bad news. Today's dose came on the front business page of the New York Times, in an article lamenting a week that included Bob Woodward trapped in his own web, announcements of layoffs at the Chicago Tribune and the L.A Times (same company) and a takeover bid for Knight Ridder because shareholders deem its stock price too low (thus, when KNR is bought out, news coverage will be cut to increase revenue and the downward spiral will continue). The main theme of the Times article was
something called Google Base, which apparently is positioned to steal $100 billion worth of classified advertising from newspapers in coming years. It's hard not to get down in the dumps over such developments (progress?), but I always fall back on the idea that each time a new medium comes along obituaries are written for the old ones that prove, like Mark Twain's death, exaggerated: Movies would kill radio, television kill movies, the web kill television, etc., etc., and it didn't happen. There's room for all the media because they all do some things better than the others and some things not so well. Though the Internet is superior to the press in many ways, as I have argued throughout our discussion, the press is superior to the Internet in many ways. For example, despite all the excellent news web sites Doug has mentioned, many of them previously unknown to me, I could never be content getting my news solely from these sites. The saying, "News is what the Times says it is" has meaning in the news business. It means that in 100-plus years of existence an institution like the Times learns something about what is news and what isn‟t; what's important and what isn't, what goes on the front page and what goes inside, who is a good news editor and who isn't. In a world of hundreds of newspapers and thousands of blogs, we need an institution that sets the standards for others to follow. The more we chip away at the newspapers that have historically set the standards for journalism, the more we enter news anarchy. Whatever the inevitable success of the blogs, I cannot see them substituting for the standard-setters, which, imperfect as they are, are necessary. I will confess, however, that when Doug says he reads Jane Austen on his computer, we have passed through the looking glass. To me, Austen will always be leather-bound books passed on by my grandmother, a comfortable chair, a fireplace and a whiskey and soda. The idea of reading her on a computer fills me with dread. Participant Well Jim, I'm pretty computer and tech savvy and there's no way I would read a book on a computer—unless, of course, I had no choice. This conference has given me much to think about in terms of the challenges, needs, and behind-the-scenes maneuvers that comprise journalism. There is so much on which to report these days that no single medium can possibly accommodate everything. Newspapers are very convenient in many ways in that they offer a very good blend of local, national and global news (and advertising). Besides which they are great for cleaning windows after I've finished reading (: I learned recently that newspapers started as part of the coffeehouse craze that swept London in the late 17th century. They haven't always been bastions of quality and standards, but it is certainly useful to have a few that are dedicated to such. Your point that it takes some time to know what is and what isn't news is well made.
Much of what we opine about various papers, reporters and editors is simply a matter of personal taste—and there is great diversity in taste today. Participant Jim, I had house guests this weekend who were complimenting me on my Shakespeare volumes from the early 1900s. I explained that I ate peanut butter for two weeks while I was in graduate school in order to be able to afford them. I will never feel that way about a volume on a computer. You make an excellent point about new media not replacing the old. This is also true in the area of collaborative technologies in which I've worked for 20 years. Everyone thought e-mail would replace faxes. Nope. What I've noticed in the towns where I live in Connecticut is that there is very good support of the very local papers (in the small towns). Can you think of any ways in which local papers and large papers work together to revitalize print journalism? Just a crazy random thought... James O. Goldsborough Mary, that is an excellent question about local and national papers working together. They don't do it very well. The national newspapers tend to be chains, and chains are the enemies of local newspapers. My sister lives in Palm Springs; my brother lives in Marin County; both newspapers in those communities are owned by Gannett, the largest and easily the worst chain in homogenizing news, eliminating analysis and banalizing opinion. To me, Gannett papers read like blog printouts. In places like Marin and Palm Springs, you take them for movie and TV schedules and the like—not news—and take the Los Angeles Times or New York Times for news. The New York Times’ national edition is a national resource. I don't know where we'd be without it. The chains aren't the only problem: Many family-owned local and regional newspapers still operate at the whim of the family. If the family is rightwing ideologues, you get something like the Murdoch New York Post, the Scaife paper in Pittsburgh, the Freedom newspaper in Orange County, the Copley paper in San Diego. Those kinds of newspapers drive people to the blogs. I don't know of any leftwing ideologues running daily newspapers, but for the rightwing the leftwing is anything that isn't rightwing. The best example of the kind of cooperation you mention comes through the news services of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times-Washington Post. The hundreds of community papers throughout the country can't afford vast news services, and so take those two national services, which are the best. All papers, large and small, take the AP wire service, but AP is pretty basic. I think that without the New York Times and Los Angeles Times-Washington Post news services, local newspapers would be in worse shape than they are. You may be stuck with a lousy local newspaper in Manchester, NH; Enid, OK; or Greenville,
Miss., but when you see some Times or Post by-lines in your daily paper, you have a little more connection to the nation and to reality. Participant Jim, I suspect that readers of the Times, like me, are also readers of the blogs. That is, more of them are like Doug, voracious readers, who appreciate the benefits of both. I think you will find that blogs, like newspapers, come in all shapes and sizes. Most are terrible. There are some, however, that seem to give a richer news diet on certain subjects than even the Times. And they do have the added plus, not mentioned here, but rather important, that most of them do not depend upon advertising, as newspapers do, so do not fear offending advertisers or subscribers. Interesting that there are no daily papers that are owned by left wing ideologues, but a number that are owned by right wing ideologues. And of course, most are owned by Republicans, even if they are not heavily ideological. Since the majority liberal reporters are careful not to show a liberal bias, one really has to go to the blogs to get that side of the news, and those liberal interpretations. I suspect that if the ownership of newspapers were more equally divided on political lines, we would now have single payer health care, better environmental management, public education that could compete with other nations, stronger regulation of business and other advances that are pushed by the left. One of the points the Edward R. Murrow character in Good Night, and Good Luck makes very strongly is his opposition to the idea of "balanced" reporting, when the opposing position is not, to his mind, worthy of coverage. He refers not just to McCarthy, but to all news stories. Whatcha think about that, Jim? James O. Goldsborough Murrow's right about that, which is why the so-called Fairness Doctrine was dumped. But Murrow was an editorialist doing a TV magazine. He could hardly expose the exploitation of grape pickers and be expected to balance his views (á la Wal-Mart) by saying it kept wine prices down. To do that—as to try to balance his anti-McCarthyism—would defeat his purpose. Newspaper (but not magazine) reporters seek to present both sides, letting the reader decide. It's carried to extremes sometimes, as when you saw some idiot or other quoted in the Abu Ghraib stories on the value of torture (imagine Murrow trying to balance his reporting about the buzz-bombing of London). Honest reporters seeking balance may have a hard time keeping their views out of some stories, but at least they try, and then it becomes the job of their editors to balance that story with another. What makes a network like Fox so awful is that no one even tries to be balanced. Anyone who followed the New York Times reporting from Iraq soon saw that Dexter Filkins and John Burns had very different ideas on that war, but both strove, as honest reporters always do, to be objective.
Our system, for better or worse—and unlike the Europeans—seeks to separate news and opinion. We don't expert columnists to be balanced and we don't expect reporters to be biased. We don't expert reporters to be robots, but we expect them to be objective. When I was with Newsweek in Paris, I recall seeing an advertisement by the conservative daily le Figaro for a reporter. It said something like "only journalists of the right (correct) political tendency need apply." In America, you get asked about your politics if hired as an editorialist, not as a reporter. In Europe, they don't make that distinction. Reporters on Paris' le Monde and le Figaro are as politically different as their editorialists, and it is the same on London's Guardian and Telegraph, and Frankfurt's Allegemeine and Rundshau. As a young reporter I worked on newspapers as politically different as The San Francisco Examiner and Honolulu Advertiser; Arizona Republic and New York Herald Tribune. No one asked who I voted for. Participant The editors of the New York Times Book Review section, commenting on a Jonathan Alter review of Mary Mapes book about her role in the CBS scandal that dealt with Bush's National Guard service, note that "The blogosphere, of course, played a significant role in the CBS affair. 'Blogs are a wonderful addition to the media culture but the public should stop assuming that what they read on the Internet is more accurate than what they read in the mainstream media, because the reverse is usually the case,' Alter said. 'In this case, I was surprised to learn how wrong the original blog reports turned out to be, but they are still accepted as true by people who did not pay close attention to the story.'" Participant As you know, I think that form rules in most everything, including journalism, and I complained that the constant front page repetition of Bush's one-liner about toppling Saddam contributed to the war fever. Now, seeing the daily coverage of the bombings in Iraq, which do kill our troops in small numbers, I wonder if that constant repetition is fair journalism. Is it newsworthy—as front page news or the lead every day on TV news? We lost more troops in a week of WWII than we have in all the years of the Iraq war so far. I don't remember any coverage in those days of the loss of small groups of servicemen. Of course, in some of our invasions and battles in WWII we lost hundreds or thousands in a day. James O. Goldsborough War is always a very big story, nothing is bigger. Even silly political conflicts like Grenada—19 dead Americans—are big news. I like how the New York Times has covered Iraq, with death counts every day and as much coverage given to the slaughter of Iraqis as to dead Americans. The public would love to forget about Iraq, pretend it will go away. Newspapers have a job to put the blood and guts on the front pages every day so we can't forget. This is America's dirty little war, and the more publicity it gets the more people like Jack Murtha will speak out and the sooner the whole disgusting episode will be behind us, militarily if not morally, politically or historically. Richard, people like you and
me, who wore the uniform, can never forgive the neocons who started this war because none of them had ever worn a uniform. If Bush hadn't ducked out of Vietnam, he might have understood war and history and power and might have had more sense than to take the nation down such a blind alley. The more the press puts the death and destruction in Iraq on the front pages, the more Americans are compelled to be face to face with what they have done. It is our main chance to get out of the swamp. Isn't it interesting how little support Murtha has had from his fellow Democrats? People like H. Clinton and Biden are as pitiful as McCain. They're still arguing for more troops so we can win the war. There is no war, just a foul occupation and resistance. World War II France looks ever more like the model: occupation, resistance and collaboration (Vichy). And what does that make us? It isn't that we lose hundreds a day or four a day. It is the horrible nature of the conflict. It took ten years in Vietnam to lose 58,000 Americans, and, at present rates, in ten years in Iraq we'll only lose about 10,000 Americans. But I believe the Iraq conflict deserves the same press coverage, because morally, it is even worse than Vietnam. It is worse because it is the second time we've made the same mistake. Participant I agree completely with your analysis of the war, Jim, and appreciate it when the media supplies clear evidence of its immorality and misdirection. But it's my very appreciation of those daily horror stories that makes me suspect that my anti-war position is being favored. I think you're saying that the special immorality of this war justifies that kind of coverage. Is that right? Or would any bombing deserve that space, no matter how similar it is to hundreds that have gone before? Or is it because we've labeled it a war even though it really isn't? Or is it because "if it bleeds, it leads?" I often think that the evening TV news that regularly leads with a bloody traffic accident or a shooting gives us a seriously distorted picture of life. I wonder what I would do if I were editor of the Times. Probably I would move most of them to the inside pages, much as I'd like to rub the administration's nose in the mess. I have somewhat the same feeling when I read about Bush's (or Clinton's and Cheney's) implied cowardice in avoiding service that might have put them in Vietnam. Almost everyone I know tried to avoid service in Vietnam. These men, Bush and Cheney, now occupy jobs that are far more dangerous than service in Vietnam would have been, but that never seems to be mentioned. Remember Colin Powell's wife wouldn't allow him to run because she was afraid he would have been killed. James O. Goldsborough Richard, you would not BE editor of the Times if you put war stories on the inside. Maybe the editor of the Washington Times or the New York Post, but not the New York Times. When your nation is involved, wars go on front pages, even when the war has turned into resistance to occupation.
Note that we still have has many troops in Iraq as in the beginning. The difference between Clinton's avoidance of Vietnam and that of Cheney and Bush is that Clinton opposed the war. Morally, that puts him in a different category from Bush and Cheney, war hawks who let others do the fighting. You say we should admire them because they now occupy dangerous jobs? But the primary danger they face is a consequence of their own ruthless acts. Is that not justice? Knowing what we know about the character of Bush, I suspect that if he had known what he was getting into in Iraq, he wouldn't have done it. As for Cheney, I agree with Brent Scowcroft, he has become unrecognizable. Participant Touché, Jim. The Times probably wouldn't keep me if I buried the war news. Well, I wouldn't have buried ALL of it. Your analogy with the Vichy French is telling. I had never thought of that. I've heard you joke that you never met a Frenchman who did not claim to be in the resistance. I wonder if Iraqis will so identify themselves when we leave. Do you believe Bush did not order a bombing of Al Jazeera? Would it be our first deadly act against a journalistic establishment? Agreed that Bush and Cheney have made their jobs more dangerous than they might have been, but I was just referring to the higher percentage of our presidents have suffered assassination attempts than the percentage risk of service during the Vietnam war. Ten of our 42 presidents suffered attempts, four assassins were successful. I hadn't even calculated the new terror threats. And I don't think we should admire these men, but since they were willing to risk the traditional assassination dangers, I don't think we should play up their resistance to service in Vietnam as cowardice. But I agree that there is a moral difference between those who were for the war and those who opposed it. I'm sure Cheney's remark that he had other priorities then will haunt him forever. Participant Robert Scheer and opinion editor Michael Kinsley have both been fired by the Los Angeles Times and replaced by two conservative columnists. Scheer is a thirty year employee of the Los Angeles Times and a strong liberal, Kinsley is somewhat less a predictable liberal, but surely a radical and contrarian thinker. What's going on there? I know they're owned by the Chicago Tribune and that profit has a new emphasis, but why the editorial changes? I guess I should read Ken Auletta's article in the New Yorker. On the question of journalistic balance, it would seem to me that the more important task is to be an unbiased watchdog on every politician, every administration. Isn't that how to protect our democracy? If they feel they must bring in some opposing view just to "balance" they may be weakening their case. James O. Goldsborough The Los Angeles Times is a sad story. A mediocre newspaper when I was growing up, Otis Chandler turned it into one of the best in
the seventies and eighties. For awhile in the 1980s it had more overseas bureaus than the New York Times and still has 24, three more than the Washington Post. But Otis was pushed out by greedy siblings who wanted higher revenues; they brought in Mark Willes from General Mills (known as the cereal killer), who vowed to push circulation from 1.2 million to 1.5 million, which made the siblings really happy. But Willes confused news and advertising, and the sibs let him go, eventually selling out to the Chicago Tribune, one of the most conservative newspapers in the nation. Under the Tribune, Times' circulation has fallen under 1 million, and hundreds of jobs have been cut. I wrote some columns on the Tribune takeover. Here's part of what I wrote in a November, 2000, column: One sees a sign of the decline of newspapers in Pew Research Center statistics for this month's election. Thanks mainly to cable news, 70 percent of voters now cite television as their primary source of campaign news, followed by newspapers at 39 percent, radio at 15, Internet at 11, and magazines at 4. The trends are bad for newspapers. At 36 percent, cable was up from 29 percent in the 1992 election; the Internet up from 0 percent in 1992 and 3 percent in 1996, and newspapers down from 57 percent and 60 percent in those years. The newspaper decline, said Pew, "occurred across all demographic groups, although it has been somewhat more pronounced among well-educated voters, who traditionally have been steadfast newspaper readers. “ Newspapers always have had one central role: To serve their communities. It was all right if owners made fortunes as a byproduct, so long as the community was served. This community function began to fade as the big media empires absorbed the press, but California was never fertile ground for the empires. California's cities have their distinct characters, and family newspapers have been the thing. That has begun to change, as we saw this year with the sale of the Chandler-owned Los Angeles Times to The Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune, but the tradition was preserved in Santa Barbara when a local woman bought the News-Press back from the New York Times, whose Santa Barbara adventure was a dismal failure. What does New York know about Santa Barbara or Chicago know about Los Angeles? Newspapers are declining for reasons much of their own making. It is not inevitable that the Internet will drive them to
extinction. Grow as it will, the Internet can never serve communities as newspapers did. However much we marvel at the speed and precision of microchips and Web sites, they are as cold as their names, and not at all interested in something as amorphous as a “community.” Newspapers have become willing participants in their own executions. There are various indicators of this: Newspaper families in places such as San Francisco and Los Angeles who have lost their commitment to the community and to the profession. Media empires that create one-size-fits-all products that elevate shareholder interests over community ones. Editors who try to ape the electronic media by creating "pretty" newspapers instead of concentrating on the press' primary job: To report the news. Ideological newspapers that prefer to peddle the views of proprietors and editors rather than reflect the diversity of changing communities. The "featurization" of news, a patronizing attempt to win young readers by replacing news with features and news space with big pictures. This month's dismissal of Robert Scheer fits the Tribune pattern. The Times has now removed all anti-war criticism from its edit page, which has been taken over by neocon war-supporters like Max Boot and Jonah Goldberg and non neo-con war supporters like Niall Ferguson. The people brought hired to replace sheer are either neocons or local columnists who won't write about Bush or war at all. No more Bush criticism in the Times, bad for business. The Tribune also fired rightwing cartoonist Michael Ramirez, who was never in step with Los Angeles and won't be missed by anyone. The Times will not have its own cartoonist, which means Tribune editors will now pick daily syndicated cartoons to fit their prejudices. It's the "dumbing down" process so beloved of newspaper owners today. Support the government, support the troops, above all don't challenge or offend. That way, advertisers stay happy and ad revenues stay up. If you lose readers, so what? Newspapers lose money on sales anyway. Make newspapers more like the splashy mags, which practically give their products away to keep circulation up and advertisers happy.
I have argued since this conference began that newspapers can only survive through quality. What the Tribune has done to the Times has ruined a once-great newspaper. If that is the future of newspapers, then there is no future for them. We are down to the New York Times and the Washington Post. It is interesting that the San Francisco Chronicle has hired Scheer to do his weekly column now that he's off the Los Angeles Times. I guess what's gotten too rich for Los Angeles still goes down smoothly in San Francisco. Too bad the Chronicle has only half the circulation of the Times. Participant As we enter the last day of our conference I want to thank Jim for his devoted, thoughtful, fascinating and informative leadership. It really helps to hear from someone who has been there. Participant Jim, thank you so very much. This was a fascinating discussion. -Ω-