Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal

Merritt, Davis. (2005). Knightfall: Knight Ridder and How the Erosion of Newspaper Journalism is Putting Democracy at Risk. New York: AMACOM. [Link to Amazon]

Davis “Buzz” Merritt is well-known in journalism as one of the fathers of the public journalism movement. He spent 42 years in the profession, 23 of those as editor and senior editor of The Wichita Eagle in Kansas. He retired in 1999 and now teaches journalism as an adjunct professor at the University of Kansas and Wichita State University.

This is a rather curious book. The public relations material crows: “Part memoir, part history, and part reportage, involving dozens of interviews with key players, as well as extensive research, Knightfall is also an incisive analysis with a clear point of view.” Well spun. Another way to say it: Merritt tries to do too much. If anything holds this book together it is the clear point of view–one that I share:

Given the inexorability and pace of technology, we may not need newspapers in our media mix at some point in the future–perhaps sooner than later. But we will need newspaper journalism, because democracy can thrive without newspapers, but it cannot thrive without the sort of journalism that newspapers uniquely provide.

Merritt defines newspaper journalism this way:

• Its content is not shaped by a limiting technology…

• Its usefulness is based far more on completeness and clarity than immediacy.
• Its claim on credibility is based on it length and depth, which allow readers to judge the facts behind the story’s headline and opening summary paragraph and then look for internal contradictions.
• It has intrinsic value and relevance to people rather than merely amusing or entertaining them.
• Opinions and analysis are labeled as such and are presented separately.

By this definition, newspaper journalism has always been practiced imperfectly when practiced at all. And a large part of Merritt’s complaint is that it cannot be practiced by media giants concerned with increasing profits at the expense of good journalism. He makes his case well.

But Merritt is seduced by the romanticism of the profession, or, rather, the romanticism of writing about the profession. Like so many romantics before him–Dan Rather, Tom Wicker, Bob Schieffer for example–Merritt cannot simply report and write powerfully about his point. He has to sex it up with romantic drama–the ethos and pathos of journalistic war stories. While Merritt is the protagonist of his own heroic epic, he introduces us to a pantheon of journalistic superheroes–men and women of great character and professional resolve who struggle against the corporate dragon. Moments such as these are typical of journalistic memoir:

At every step, his humanity came through first and most strongly. He cared how you were doing; he was constant, relentless even, in recognizing good work with a note or a phone call, and encouraging in positive ways when the work was not up to his standards. And it was his clear standards articulated with grace and style that allowed him, even as the company’s top officer, to inspire the journalists who worked far below him on the organizational chart.

In the margin, I scribbled “Oh, brother!” I can imagine Merritt scribbling to a student who wrote this in his class: “Show, don’t tell!” So why can’t he, and so many other journalists who write memoirs, see that this is romantic drivel? I criticize the narrative bias of journalism not because telling good stories is a bad thing, I criticize it because the story structure is artificial and must be applied with care. Making superheroes out of journalists, making every scene soooooo significant, intrudes on the theme of the story. And in Merritt’s case, the theme is damned important.

Journalists can’t help themselves. I know because I have written this way, too.

Because Knightfall is too many books in one, it is not entirely clear who the audience is. Journalists? Citizens? Corporate dweebs? In a few places, Merritt speaks directly to certain narrow audiences. Because Knightfall is too many books in one, certain audiences will find many parts of the book irrelevant, even boring.

Okay, that’s enough haranguing for one review. You might get the impression I’m not a fan of Merritt. I am a fan and for good reasons, not the least of which is his standing at the leading edge of change in the noetic field. I predicted in my field theory essay (although the metaphor came later) that the change from journalism as lecture to journalism as conversation will lead the profession to embrace the public journalism model. I still believe that.

Merritt’s descriptions of the natural tensions between news and advertising/business offer citizens an assessable look at an important concept: The business of journalism must be good journalism (it’s also good business). A reader will find it difficult to come away from this book thinking that allowing business to influence journalism is a good idea. It isn’t. It never was. And Merritt makes his case clearly, cogently, and (dare I say it?) dramatically.

Readers who are at all concerned with the fate of journalism in America cannot come away from this book feeling good about how the big chains are handling such an important public trust. If newspapers die, however, the harm will be merely to the pocketbooks of investors so long as newspaper journalism survives. Merritt seems resigned to the slow and eventual death of print. All the books in Knightfall share a similar pathos: sad memoir, sad history, sad reportage, and sad analysis. Merritt has chosen to make his last stand on an idea rather than a medium.

He ends it this way:

Citizens will decide, in the long run, what sort of democracy–and what sort of journalism–we have. Maximizing newspaper profits cannot make better democracy. Maximizing citizens can.

Merritt has made important contributions to journalism and deserves a wide audience. The importance of the ideas in this book make it well worth overlooking the flaws in the book’s structure.