Not just another day…
In a moment of over-wrought oratory, I told my students yesterday to mark their calendars because 30 September 2004 would become an important moment in journalistic history–the moment the lead campaign reporter for the The New York Times refused to be spun. This is, I said, a moment that will start us on the road toward a different journalistic future.
This is a rhetorical maneuver.
I have a stake in the professional success of my students. But I also have a stake in what they do with journalism and how they think of journalism upon leaving SMSU. The last thing I want them to be thinking is that journalism is just something they do for a living–one choice among so many other career choices.
Some historical moments are thrust upon us with fanfare and tumult. This is not one of those moments (although my rhetoric certainly suggested it as such). It will be years, I think, before 30 September 2004 is recognized for what it may become. Yes, may become. The future is not written, and so we can lose this moment.
You may read Nagourney’s debate article here.
The first thing you may notice is that his article is standard fare–certainly not the stuff of great moment. He gives us the blow-by-blow in a he-said, she-said structure. There are a few sentences devoted to background. And there are a few liberties taken with value-laden words following from his subjective experience of the debate.
And there was something missing (for the most part anyway).
Here is the sixth paragraph from Dana Mibank’s and Jim VandeHei’s article in the Washington Post:
It will take days to see how the millions of American viewers reacted to the debate, but instant polls by the major networks, subject to less rigorous methodology than the high-profile campaign polls, showed Kerry had significantly outperformed Bush. The Democrat was hoping a strong performance would reduce the narrow but consistent lead Bush has had in opinion polls nationally and in key electoral states.
This is spin. Instant polls are nonsense. Milbank and VandeHei know this. Yet there it is in a news article. Nagourney does not cite such polls, and he does not suggest who won. He does not cite specifically or anonymously any campaign insiders or pundits.
Unfortunately there’s something else he does not do: Nagourney’s fails to fact-check the candidates assertions (leaving that to sidebars and other articles). This debate was full of specific assertions that need to be checked–any few of which might have been checked and the results reported as part of the news. This could have added political utility to the article.
Nagourney’s article is less than exciting compared to his refusal to report from Florida. One could easily argue that Nagourney’s article represents no change at all when we consider how The New York Times covered the debate in a series of articles–including this typical analysis by Todd S. Purdum.
I prefer, however, to talk it up, to persuade you that on 30 September 2004 we witnessed an important moment. If I do my job well and others join in, if reporters follow Nagourney’s lead, if bloggers keep up the critical chatter, if Jay Rosen keeps his sharp eye on similar situations, if editors begin to take notice and allow reporters to ignore spin, if readers write letters of praise, if professors teach students that spin isn’t news and partisan opinions are not reportable/verifiable facts, if all these things happen and more, it will become true that on 30 September 2004 an important moment in journalistic history happened.
Nagourney decision means nothing…
Transported via the magic of cut and paste from PressThink comments section. For use in a future post of Andrew’s, maybe. A reader writes…
Prof. Rosen:
To answer your question: Nagourney’s decision means nothing. It means, maybe, that he grew a spine, when he should have begun his reporting career already equipped with one. It is foolish for reporters to go into “Spin Alley” in the first place, and it has always been thus.
How did Nagourney ever justify, after watching an event, going to another place full of partisans from both sides, to be told about something that he just saw? To me, what that means is, he didn’t have confidence in his own judgment. So he went somewhere where the folks were primed to tell him what his judgment should be. That is ridiculous. What would H.L. Mencken think?
To me, it only makes sense to visit a place like Spin Alley if sources are there who normally don’t return your calls and can’t be bothered with you. In Spin Alley, those sources (Karl Rove et al.) are accessible to be interviewed on any subject. I suspect that’s why the foreign press goes there. They get interviews they otherwise would not get.
I would respectfully suggest that you retire the phrase, “Nagourney’s Choice.” It invests drama and significance in something that has neither. You may as well congratulate him for not picking his nose in public.
Posted by: Dexter Westbrook at October 1, 2004 04:34 PM | Permalink
Dexter: I agree with you in this: It is foolish for reporters to go into “Spin Alley” in the first place, and it has always been thus. I have written so at this blog, and back in November I called for the press to just stop going to Spin Alley. They never should have been there in the first place.
Still, it does not follow that Nagourney’s decision means nothing. When people recover their senses, it means something. We can celebrate a return. When elites no longer accept the absurd logic they had previously rationalized as craft wisdom, that counts too. When professionals end indefensible practices, or quit the herd mentality, or de-couple their car from a runaway train, the action can be publicly significant, even if there is nothing astonishing in a discovery like: Quit spin alley, you lose nothing. Or: that train is about to crash.
We have a herding problem in our press. The inertia of the herd, the judgment of a herd, the fear of a herd are factors in journalism. It’s really bad sometimes. I don’t believe that herd thinking must prevail. But it does, often.
Speaking as a critic who would like to see the press improve where it can, I take any high-level resignation from the rituals of the herd as potentially good news. That’s no reason you should. But it’s how I think. Bravo Nagourney for that decision.
Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 1, 2004 11:55 PM | Permalink
We have a herding problem in our press.
Building Complexity from Entropy: There’s an old military saying which goes: “A leader commands; a good leader leads; a great leader finds out where everyone’s going and gets out in front.”
Pressthink rewards leaders of conventional wisdom and opinion. Credibility is built by being correct and recognition is achieved by being first.
Isn’t this classic human social behavior? Is there a way to criticize a herd mentality and praise independence that does not sound like a fashion critic or someone studying fads?
post-debate chatter
Just a collection of links I’ve collected for my American Dialogues course: The first round. I’m mixing commentary from bloggers with that of columnists for the “traditional media,” as well as overview news articles. More later, ac (after coffee). Mich…