Robert Gale Ongley

Tag: Journalism

  • HAS JOURNALISM BEEN ABANDONED? (PART THREE)

    In working toward an answer to the above question, we have established that news organizations have become increasingly biased in their reporting and thus less trusted by the public at large. Political agendas leaning left or right result in a slanting of the information provided to sway our opinion in a direction desired by those running those media outlets.

    The goal of this final post on this topic is to address what this accusation is really saying and to see just how much truth there is to it. To do so, let’s take a look at the source.

    Rush Limbaugh

    It was on a recent broadcast of this conservative talk show host that I heard him make this declaration. It was probably in October of this year. Chances are he’s been saying this for a long time and that it has been echoed by other conservative talking heads. On Limbaugh’s website, I found the text of one conversation he had with a caller on September 25, 2020. The title for this on the website is “We’re in the Midst of a Violent Revolution Started by the Left, Not by Us!”

    Limbaugh refers to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer, and an interview he did with Anderson Cooper of CNN. He was asked by Cooper about whether he was surprised that the president said he might not be accepting of a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the election. Friedman said “it’s stunning, but it’s not surprising.” He went on to say that we have a president saying he will either win the election or delegitimize the election. Limbaugh questioned the sanity of the journalist, claiming Trump didn’t say those things and that Hillary Clinton had actually suggested to Biden that he never concede if he lost the election.

    Limbaugh continued, stating that the mainstream media doesn’t understand how it is perceived. “I’ll tell you how you’re seen. You’re not seen as fair. You’re not seen as objective. It isn’t even biased. It’s so far beyond bias what you people are. You have abandoned journalism. You have all become activists who exist for one reason, and that is to defeat, however you think it’s necessary, Donald Trump. And journalism obviously is not enough to get that done, so you’ve had to become activists.”

    It has been a longstanding complaint of Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts that the media is liberal and doesn’t offer balanced coverage of world affairs, international or domestic. I hadn’t heard them make this charge, though, that journalism has simply been abandoned for the sake of furthering their agenda. Limbaugh and the others probably consider themselves journalists who are giving us the truth. Fox News trumpets their “fair and balanced” coverage. The approach by all of these conservative media toward journalism has long been called into question for its lack of objectivity.

    Where Do We Stand?

    While I do believe there are valid grounds supporting claims of biased journalism on both sides and plenty of reporting that is plain sensationalism, I think it’s going too far to say journalism has been abandoned.

    A friend of mine who is a writer and publisher went on a cruise with an organization of journalists shortly after Trump was elected. There was a great deal of concern about his attitude toward the press. They feared for the direction of the country and for their freedom to express the truth as they saw it. While they may have had an agenda that leaned left and even openly favored one side over the other, there was still an intention on the part of these journalists to use some degree of truth and honesty in giving us the news.

    I realize now that Limbaugh was targeting journalists for their reporting of political and social events, not necessarily all of what goes on in the world. Local news is reported and investigated with far less agenda in my opinion. Coverage of non-political matters such as philanthropy or sports or human interest stories or daily weather requires no slants, so they are usually straight journalism. No opinions needed. Still, even in the political and social arena, I believe a great deal of journalistic reporting occurs without commentary.

    There must be many examples of this in today’s world. The COVID-19 pandemic has been politicized and there are many opinions about it from many sides, but I see in local news a reporting of the facts (as they understand them) based on official numbers. Field correspondents covering war and weather catastrophes are out there providing an accurate picture of the events they’re covering. Investigative reports into hallowed organizations such as the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America and the Red Cross have given us truths that needed to be revealed when no one wanted to hear them. This is journalism.

    Don’t Give Up

    May the pendulum swing back the other way. We need more unbiased presentation of the news, less agenda-driven journalism. We could certainly use more information on how to build unity, less divisive commentary. But journalism has not been abandoned and we should not abandon a pursuit of the truth. We should demand it.

  • HAS JOURNALISM BEEN ABANDONED? (PART TWO)

    At the end of the first installment of this article, we had established that trust of the media is very low. The question of whether journalism has been abandoned by journalists deserves greater examination without prejudice. That’s where we begin.

    Truth Decay

    The first stop on my journey into the state of journalism is The RAND Corporation. On their website, we read who they are. “The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.”

    In 2018, RAND published a book by Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich titled TRUTH DECAY: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life. The authors define truth decay as “a set of four interrelated trends: an increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. These trends have many causes, but this report focuses on four: characteristics of human cognitive processing, such as cognitive bias; changes in the information system, including social media and the 24-hour news cycle; competing demands on the education system that diminish time spent on media literacy and critical thinking; and polarization, both political and demographic. The most damaging consequences of Truth Decay include the erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis, alienation and disengagement of individuals from political and civic institutions, and uncertainty over national policy.”

    When CNN was launched in 1980, it became the first all-news network and the first 24-hour news network on television. While there is always something happening on our planet, it doesn’t necessarily qualify as news. Ratings are important to any television network and such things as scientific breakthroughs, new inventions or personal accomplishments usually don’t make the grade. Repeating what are deemed as major stories, which often have to do with war and all manner of violence or conflict of some kind, needs to occur so we are all aware of the events that could ruin our sense of peace and security. Okay, I’m letting my cynicism filter through here, but no one can deny that bad news trumps good news in the news universe. So, the big stories are repeated.

    Somewhere along the timeline, CNN executives must have realized it would be interesting to have newscasters, contributors and guests editorialize about the news. Enter opinionated broadcasts. Of course, this wasn’t new. There had been op-ed pieces as part of the newspaper business for a long time. Radio was doing talk shows with political argument since at least the 1940s. Commentators on TV had been analyzing the news since Meet the Press back in 1947. Only thing is, there is a big difference in the discourse of those shows and what we see on cable news networks now. Kavanagh writes, ““Journalism in the U.S. has become more subjective and consists less of the detailed event- or context-based reporting that used to characterize news coverage.”

    This phenomena has become so pronounced now that some news outlets are clearly compromised in their presentation of current events. Our recent election coverage is an excellent example. Trump boasts months beforehand that the only way he can lose is if the election is “rigged.” He then took actions that could hamstring the U.S. Postal Service when it comes to mail-in ballots. He demanded the vote count be stopped in certain places and made claims of voter fraud. To date, none of the lawsuits he has had filed have found any traction in the courts. They’re finding no factual basis for these claims. The media responded along partisan lines, with the mainstream outlets calling his claims false and baseless from the outset and the conservative commentators jumping on the Trump bandwagon without waiting to see if there is any credible evidence of irregularities in our traditionally stable and secure election proceedings.

    With constant bombardment of information from television, radio, the internet and social media, we find it more difficult to discern what is true. Journalists, whether concentrating on just the facts or offering stories based on something less than factual, have a tough sell to a tough crowd. Paul Simon’s lyric from The Boxer, “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” is ringing true.

    Murky Waters

    We’re swimming in a sea of doubt amid sharks with opinions for teeth. It must be frustrating for old school journalists who doggedly pursue their work with integrity and high purpose. Is it still the norm that a journalist confirms a story with a second source instead of publishing or broadcasting on the word of just one? With all the competition for breaking news and headline-worthy content, there must be tremendous pressure on journalists to produce.

    In our final installment on whether journalism has been abandoned, we’ll search for the source of this allegation and explore the depth of its validity.

  • HAS JOURNALISM BEEN ABANDONED?

    My limited experience as a journalist is practically immaterial. I wrote sports for two separate newspapers as an independent contractor. It was a long time ago. Like most of us, I’ve read a lot of journalism and seen a lot of it on TV. Oh, and I just learned that in 2011 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit made a ruling that a blogger is a journalist. To quote Bill Murray’s character Carl Spackler in Caddyshack, “So I have that going for me…which is nice.”

    I occasionally listen to conservative talk radio. I’m not affiliated with either of the Big Two political parties. I have some conservative views and some liberal views. I like to think I vote on propositions and candidates based on their merits. I’ve noticed in my recent forays into conservative talk radio that a couple of the most popular have taken to proclaiming journalism has been abandoned. This has to do with the journalists’ liberal agenda that keeps them from being objective in relation to politics. They are so obsessed, according to their accusers, with destroying Trump and conservative government that they will cast aside reporting the truth.

    I’m going to seek out non-partisan data on the state of journalism in today’s polarized world and report on what I find. Let’s find out if journalism has actually been abandoned.

    Intro After the Intro

    Journalism isn’t what a lot of people think it is, as illustrated in my opening paragraph. I remember in high school wanting to have journalism as my college major. I didn’t even fully understand what I would be studying. I actually wanted to major in creative writing, but I was too uninformed to know it. I did know journalism had to do with writing and it sounded so sophisticated, I figured it was cool to be a journalism major.

    As I like to do, I’ve consulted the dictionary for a clear definition of journalism. The definition I think applies most is “material written for a newspaper or magazine.” This edition of 1991 was written before blogging existed, so please pardon its narrow-minded view of media. Also, the first definition notes it is “the occupation of gathering, writing, editing and publishing or broadcasting news.”

    The point here is that journalism is placed high on a pedestal. The standard suggested for the idealized journalism may be higher than original journalism. Now, I do believe that ethical journalism aims for a standard of truth that has earned for it a place of respect in the arts and in society at large.

    Remembering Tiananmen and the Berlin Wall

    Journalism on the Run

    Journalists have always been subject to scrutiny by governments, organizations and the powerful about whom they may write. The first known example of journalism was a news sheet in ancient Rome around the year 59 BCE. It was called the Acta Diurna, was produced daily and was posted in prominent locations. The printing press led to the first newspaper in Germany circa 1609. It was typical for these early publications to be censored, taxed and placed under various restrictions by their governments to control their content.

    Modern journalism was born in the 18th century as freedom of the press began to emerge. Magazines started to allow for opinion-oriented articles. Newspapers and magazines rose in popularity until they became big business. The cost of gathering news on a large scale resulted in news agencies being formed. Radio and television, satellite transmission of signals and the Internet brought us into the Information Age. Here we have nearly instant communication around the globe, meaning the need for journalism is at an all-time high. In the 20th century, there came to be a growing sense of professionalism amongst journalists. Part of that involved a greater feeling for social responsibility in their chosen profession.

    With the competition between news outlets, especially on cable networks and Internet giants (which now overlap in some media corporations), there is tremendous pressure to break stories first. The rise of sensationalism and the use of drama in relating the stories of the day created a blurring of the line between news and entertainment. The need for speed in getting news out to the public has the potential at least for less verification of facts before publishing them as such.

    With these conditions in place along with media organizations’ reputations for political leanings left or right, journalists are increasingly open to mistrust by readers, listeners and viewers. A Gallup poll taken last year indicated that the trust in mass media has dipped to 41% among Americans. That’s better than the 32% mark seen in 2016, which was the all-time low, but it’s still low. A telling statistic is that 69% of Democrats trust the media while 15% of Republicans and 36% of independents do not.

    I’m comfortable saying the reason for this division of trust is because the press is seen as being liberal in their political leanings. When you’re conservative, you can’t trust anything they say and you assume their coverage of the news and the political leaders is slanted to forward their liberal agenda. If you’re liberal, you find it easier to believe most press coverage with the exception of Fox News which you see as blatantly biased and possibly even brainwashing.

    In today’s political climate, it has become much more commonplace to figuratively if not literally wish to have the journalists on the opposite end of the political spectrum run out of the business.

    Journalism Abandoned?

    Well, you can see why people might be willing to entertain that claim. The news sources could appear to be completely in it for themselves or for the people who share their views. But it’s quite a leap to state that journalism has been completely abandoned, even if you’re pointing that finger only at one side or the other. There’s much more data to be examined and I’m going long on this article already. We’ll look at the subject in greater detail with our next post. Meanwhile, we’ll ride out the national election and watch to see how the journalists handle their responsibility in this potentially volatile time for all Americans.

    Cronkite School of Journalism