Our public editor, Ted Vaden, posted over the weekend on a conference on journalism and blogging. He quotes media critic Jay Rosen (whose PressThink blog is well-traveled) saying journalists are "used to being the filter from God, but people don't accept that anymore."

Heavens. Perhaps Rosen has spent too much time peering at journalism through the lens of his computer screen. He ought to take a tour through some of the material in the latest American Journalism Review, which reports on how journalists covered Hurricane Katrina -- including blogs and online journalism. He ought to be out with a reporter trying to get a reluctant local sheriff to share a report that is public information but that the sheriff controls. Rosen ought to be out driving toward a disaster zone, instead of away from one, trying to find out what happened and why. He ought to be at the tail end of a 12-hour day with an assistant city editor at any newspaper, editing stories on deadline and trying to make them clear and cogent.

I find criticism of the so-called mainstream media often obsesses over the national press and Washington-based journalism. For instance, a recent PressThink item pondered at length whether the Washington Post had replaced The New York Times as the best national paper. While of interest I guess to many people, such debates generally overlook journalism's real-life challenges -- the choices and obstacles faced every day in newsrooms like ours and at many, many smaller news organizations where people are more focused on gathering information than on filtering it.

Comments:

Comment from: Bob Owens [Visitor] · http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/

10/10/05 at 14:22
Filtering occurs at all newspapers, each and every one, the News and Observer included. It is quite shocking that you seem to suggest otherwise.

Filtering occurs on many levels as well, from choosing which topics are “of interest” to the reader, to determining what the story angle should be on the given topic, to hiring a certain kind of writer who might write just a little more to your liking than someone of otherwise equal merit. Sadly, the media is so inbred that other people with blue skin seem to be the norm.

For example, a New York State newspaper wrote and published a series of articles on the 2nd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. There were a minimum of six articles not including sidebars, and the topics were the area soldiers killed in the war over those two years (disingenuously counting stateside training accidents as Iraqi War dead, I may add), the anti-war war rally in a nearby town, and anecdotal stories from families that had lost soldiers or suffered hardships because of the war. Not one of the stories presented in that issue talked about the positive morale of local National Guard units stationed in Iraq, the strong local support for the war effort at that time (contrary to popular belief, much of upstate New York is “red,” not “blue”), or of the support the troops rally held just across from the anti-war rally.

This newspaper had taken a strong editorial position against the war, but as the newsroom was overwhelmingly liberal in their politics, they were unaware of this bias. It simply never occurred to them that the general population might think otherwise. In my experience, this seems to be common across most newsrooms, regardless of size. Filtering does not have to be conscious to be filtering, even though many times it is.

After years of filtering from the media and the rise of alternative media sources, people are starting to determine that they will filter the mainstream media out of their personal lives. If you really want evidence of filtering in the media, simply look at the declining bottom line of print journalism.

Comment from: David Boyd [Visitor] · http://davidboyd.org

10/10/05 at 15:11
How in the world can you hold up the mainstream media's coverage of Katrina as something to be admired? Good grief. Reporting rumors of rapes, beatings, little girls with their throats slashed, bodies stacked up is as irresponsible as you can possibly be as a journalist. How about a little reflection on that type of filtering?

Comment from: Melanie Sill [Member] · http://www.newsobserver.com

10/10/05 at 16:08
David,

With respect, I think much of what you describe was rumor that flew around, much of it in electronic media including television. (TV and print are not the same). Responsible journalists were the ones who worked to verify information and in some cases to tell people what wasn't true as well as what was true. The N&O, for instance, ran a piece a few days into the storm on the "urban legends" circulating, including unproved reports like the ones you describe, saying specifically that they were not true. We ran no stories saying bodies were stacked up or some of the other grisly speculation you mention. Later, it was the New Orleans Times-Picayune that produced the story on all the bad information that had circulated, as you would expect from the major daily newspaper in New Orleans.

I often say there should be a sign on the newsroom wall that says "preliminary reports are incomplete and often wrong." In reporting disasters, those gathering and spreading information have to weigh the urgency of conveying information with the realization that some initial reports are wrong.

Good journalism is good journalism whether it's done by a blogger or a newspaper. That involves sorting out facts from rumors. I guess you might call that filtering. I call it verifying.

Comment from: Jay Rosen [Visitor] · http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/

10/11/05 at 02:07
Huh? You have taken a comment that was offered in a specific context--the act of filtering, and the kind of knowledge that lies behind the act--and fuzzed it up it so that I appear to be expressing some type of general disrespect to working reporters. All so you can turn in a cliche about ivory towerism.

I said nothing that at the conference that disrespects the hard work of on-the-ground reporters. And my observation about the "voice of god" being less accepted these days was just made by Andrew Heyward of CBS News (speaking to bloggers). Heavens: Should he climb out from behind his computer screen too?

Here's what the N & O public editor said about another comment I made at the conference, "Rosen claims higher ethical standards for himself and the best bloggers,' compared to newspapers and the mainstream media." Nope. Wrong again. What I said was paraphrased correctly by blogger and newspaper columnist Ed Cone, who isn't trying to sensationalize the matter: "it was asked if blogs were up to the standards set by the pros, and he responded that the pros need to ask as well if they are up to some of the standards set by bloggers (including corrections and transparency)."

Compare those two passages and you have some idea why the question of standards isn't as simple as some would make it appear.

You got it wrong, Melanie.

Comment from: Daniel Conover [Visitor] · http://xark.typepad.com

10/11/05 at 07:55
With all due respect, Melanie, I read your post and see myself circa February -- defending our profession against gratuitous criticism by "experts" and academics with no skin in the game. And you're right to have that reaction -- it says you respect the work of your reporters and editors, that you care about the value of that work to society. Good on you. Now please take the next step.

I attended Jay Rosen's session, and his characterization of the comments he made and the context of the discussion in which they occurred is accurate. And here's the other part -- the tone of the conversation was respectful, too.

I'm used to press critics with political or cultural agendas that oppose the ideals of a free press, and the blogosphere is full of them. But there are also critics who share those ideals and work online to advance them. Rosen is one of those guys.

The "god filter" is simply "news judgment" as we had to practice it in an earlier technological age. It doesn't make sense today, because the technology has changed and it's changing the context in which journalism occurs. It's up to those of us in the MSM to stop being defensive and change with the world around us.

Comment from: Jim [Visitor]

10/11/05 at 08:38
Melanie -- Too funny. You are editorialzing about the scrupulous newsgathering skills of local newspapers by commenting on a second-hand quote you never bothered to verify with the actual speaker, but nonetheless use as a basis for making juvenile accusations about getting a life beyond the computer. You have made your point, albeit not the one you intended. Hysterical.

Comment from: Melanie Sill [Member] · http://www.newsobserver.com

10/11/05 at 09:49
Here is the full quote from Rosen on Ted Vaden's blog. If you think it is incorrect or needs further context, you're free to amplify:

"Increasingly, I think journalists are going to have to tell us, okay if you filter stories to get us the truth, how did you do that? Journalists aren't used to that. They're used to being the filter from God, but people don't accept that anymore."

My point remains: Such debates, and I read them closely, including regular visits to PressThink but also in many other forums, often rest on broad generalizations about the MSM (is this a useful term?) and bloggers as a general category, overlooking the wide variances in the forms. I think that many journalists have never thought of themselves as being filters from God or anything remotely like that. This is where I see a disconnect between arguably intelligent dialogue in some quarters and the daily work of people gathering news.

I often find that such debate misses key points; this does not mean I'm defensive or that I'm saying Jay Rosen is a bad guy. I'm enthusiastic about good journalism and supportive of all efforts to carry it out in any medium. I do think it's important to stress what it takes to do journalism well, and that was the point of my post. Not sure how to respond to a rebuttal like, "you're wrong," which could be described as being defensive.

Comment from: Paul Jones [Visitor] · http://ibiblio.org/pjones/blog

10/11/05 at 11:58
Melanie,
Before accusing Jay of hiding behind his screen, etc, you might take time to read Bloggers vs Journalists is Over.
Can you guess the author?

Comment from: Ruby Sinreich [Visitor] · http://OrangePolitics.org

10/11/05 at 12:08
I was at ConvergeSouth but not at Jay's session. However, I have lived here in the Triangle for decades and I can aver that god-complex (skewing and filtering the news) is alive and well at the News & Observer (was well as other local papers).

I would realy like journalists to stop being so defensive about blogs. We don't want your jobs! We just want you to DO your jobs. If you spend all your time fighting off the bloggers and media watchdogs, the old media willl find that it has quickly made itself irrelevant while bloggers become the trusted source for the truth.

Comment from: Melanie Sill [Member] · http://www.newsobserver.com

10/11/05 at 13:37
I'm away in meetings for a couple of days, but want to make clear that I am not talking about "journalism versus blogging." Not sure where that came from, I don't see the two things in opposition. My point was about the conversation in some media blogs -- the message, not the medium, what's being said versus where it's being said.

Comment from: Ruby Sinreich [Visitor] · http://lotusmedia.org

10/11/05 at 13:42
By the way, one easy way for you to work better with blogs is to include a link to the trackbacks as you do with comments.

Comment from: AC [Visitor]

10/11/05 at 21:52
Mel, Mel, Mel -

Why so defensive?

Surely you know that, like lawyers and plastic surgeons, journo's are at the bottom of the most-trusted polls?

Frankly one of the reasons for this is that you guys get so many details wrong. Each of your readers, just like bloggers, is expert in something. And when they read a story about, say, wireless phone plans and you guys boot some critical detail, they say "phshaw" and you lose a bit more cred.

-AC

Comment from: Jay Rosen [Visitor] · http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/

10/11/05 at 23:37
Let me explain a little more about what a "filter from god" means. First, being an intelligent filter is part of journalism's job. You, Melanie, are acting as a filter when you sit in a afternoon newsroom meeting and decide what makes up the front page. To employ the image of a filter is another way of talking about judgment as an inesapable part of journalism.

Nonetheless, if I asked something like, "What program are you running for filtering news of Raleigh Durham?" or "what are you filtering for when you edit the news?" or, more crudely, "what's the bias in your filter, Melanie?" the chances are you not going to have a very informative answer.

If I am wrong, I shall be delighted. Because the most common answers barely acknowledge the question. "Why, we filter for news, son," "We filter for what's important, current, interesting." "Bias in the filter? We try to make sure we have no bias in our filter." "It's what people need to know, and want to read about. That's our filter." "We're professionals, we know how to filter." "I think people trust us to filter the news-- more than they do the bloggers." "Our sports pages are filtered by a guy who has been around North Carolina sports for 29 years, so I think he's a pretty good filter by now..." And so on.

You get my drift? Those are safe answers, common sense answers, very very general answers-- and all non-answers; On the Internet people don't mind if there's a bias in the filter. In fact, they will patronize your site for that very reason. See, for a successful example, slashdot. ("News for nerds,") This does not mean you should become like them. It means that to be succesful on the Web, you have to be an intelligent filter-- and that means interactive too.

Another way to say this: when it comes to explaining the kind of "intelligent filter" your typical daily newspaper is trying to be, American journalists give answers that amount to arguing from authority, even though they don't see themselves as "god." Their view is never partial, like a person's but "general" like a god's. This used to be an advantage. Increasingly it works against.

Comment from: Bob Owens [Visitor] · http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/

10/12/05 at 09:01
Interesting. Jay does a much better job of explaining the biases of filtering than I did in the first comment on this thread.

Editor Sill is (in this instance) correct: sometimes the media does not "filter" at all. :-)

Comment from: ML the polite right winger [Visitor]

10/12/05 at 11:00
I do quite a bit of public speaking to civic clubs, etc. A "parlour trick" i use is asking for a show of hands to "how many of you have 'common sense' and a 'good' sense of humor?" ... EVERYONE raises their hands - DUH! ... then I rephrase the question to ...

"How many of you think everyone else in this room has common sense and a good sense of humor?" ... no hands go up.

POINT ... no MSM executive will ever admit (or in their mind, think) they have any bias or preconceived political prejudices. The infamous "MSM bias" does not have to be an overt "conspiracy" ... it can be subconscious and quite capable of passing a polygraph test.

J-school students debate this issue countless times in "moot courts". By the time they are MSM professionals they have all the talking points memorized. To the question "are you biased?" Their answer is "Absolutely not ... I'm simply CORRECT and one school of political thought happens to be closer to my view of CORRECT than the other."

Comment from: Paul Jones [Visitor] · http://ibiblio.org/pjones/blog

10/12/05 at 12:21
Sorry that trackbacks here are only hints of where other articles are, so I must report a brief link here.
I think what is being danced around here is the Shaw and McCombs notion of agenda setting in the newsroom which goes back to the early 70s but is still very insightful.

Comment from: Jim Buie [Visitor] · http://jimbuie.blogs.com/journal/2003/04/a_slew_of_new_i.html

10/12/05 at 12:56
ML the polite rightwinger under-estimates j-school grads and the change in perception that the Internet has made on us. Most honest mainstream journalists admit that pure objectivity is impossible.

As someone who attended the ConvergeSouth conference, I think Ted Vaden's quote of Jay Rosen was probably technically accurate -- he got the words right as they were spoken -- but it's difficut in a short report to fully characterize where a source is coming from. It's far more difficult to accurately REPRESENT a source in brief format that journalists have traditionally recognized. Paraphrasing and summarizing and "hearing what you're saying" is difficult enough in marriages, not to mention in journalism. That's why this new "conversational journalism" is so valuable. The future of journalism is interactive. We have to give up our monopoly on publishing. The public resentment comes from the monopoly that we held for so many years.

Comment from: ML the polite right winger [Visitor]

10/12/05 at 14:19
Jim ... I certainly hope you are correct.

My daughter starts J-school at the Univ of Missouri next Fall. I've promised her a new car if she walks into class on Day One wearing her "RUSH is Right!" t-shirt. ... :-)

Comment from: Bob Owens [Visitor] · http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/

10/12/05 at 14:45
I'm a bit skeptical of the reputed impact of the Web on journalism teaching philosophies and most of all ideologies, as the Web has not significantly affected the cloistered "old school" academy of senior tenured professors, many of which are unabashed Luddites across disciplines.

In addition, new j-school graduates do not make policy at news organizations. Their senior editors, decades out of school, do.

Comment from: Daniel Conover [Visitor] · http://xark.typepad.com

10/12/05 at 16:18
Many professors may be unabashed Luddites, and that's not always a problem. But it's a problem when the subject is mass communication.

The sweet and scary thing about being alive today is that networked media has the effect of accelerating the rate of cultural change beyond the ability of our institutions to keep up the pace. This won't always be "good," but it is what it is.

Those of us in the press have been presented a false choice: Hold fast to the Old Verities or sell your soul on eBay. It ain't so. Take the Middle Path.

Comment from: Melanie Sill [Visitor] · http://blogs.newsobserver.com

10/13/05 at 16:34
Thanks for the comments and trackbacks. I'm still out of the office but have some thoughts to add in a new post when I return. Jay, thanks for taking time to expand upon the filter metaphor. Rather than debating it, I would like to set forth briefly an alternate idea on how N&O editors frame our choices each day and our overall mission. I do appreciate the discussion.

Comment from: Ruby Sinreich [Visitor] · http://lotusmedia.org

10/13/05 at 18:46
Well-put, Daniel!

Comment from: John [Visitor] · http://www.johnincarolina.com

10/13/05 at 22:54
Melanie and others on this thread,

Unless something unforeseen comes up, I plan to post at my blog by this time tomorrow night concerning some of the issues raised here.

I'll comment here about some of what I post.

I hope in Melanie's upcoming post she speaks to issues raised by her statements at the time of the Air America struggle.

I also hope she'll speak to matters raised when she posted regarding an email Governor Easley's staff sent her which when we came to see a copy of it courtesy of the Governor's office most of us felt wasn't anything like what Melenie had said it was.

Melanie's actions in both Air America and her Governor's email post bear on MSM as filter and the reputations of The N&O and The McClatchy Company.

John

Comment from: Jay Rosen [Visitor] · http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/

10/14/05 at 10:07
Thanks, Melanie. I look forward to your post. In the meantime, here's Tim Porter has a long and quite interesting commentary on the whole deal.

Comment from: AC [Visitor]

10/14/05 at 23:52
My other thought was: if you think a long day in the newsroom is hard work, you should go pick some 'baccy or something.

I've done hard work, and that's why I work in a cubicle these days.

Newsrooms? Not even close.

-AC

Comment from: Michael of Cary [Visitor]

10/15/05 at 21:21
Whoa - now this is what blogging is all about. And nobody has resorted to "name-calling" yet! Thank you all!

Michael of Cary

Comment from: Melanie Sill [Member] · http://www.newsobserver.com

10/17/05 at 10:06
John, you're free to comment to this post as long as it's on track to the thread. I don't plan to return to the Air America issues from a couple months ago. This blog moves forward, as I will with a post today on how we frame The N&O's journalism.

Comment from: Mr. C [Visitor] · http://peerreview.blogs.com/peer_review/

10/17/05 at 11:32
The Air America issues are linked to the current issues. They are unresolved and symptomatic of the larger issue. MSM, and the N&O, avoid news that shines a light on the fallacies of liberalism, but focus attention on the shortcomings of conservatives. Sometimes it's in the loose-reporting, sometimes it’s in the fast-reporting, sometimes it's in the non-reporting. And nearly everyday the decisions about the loose, fast and non reporting is made in the news and editorial offices of places like the N&O.

I think the issue isn't about whether or not it happens. It does. I think the issue is whether MSM will ultimately own up to it, or change it. Either course is acceptable to bloggers, but continuing to deny it, which you seem to want to do, is not.

Can you address that in your post?

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