Reading much of what passes for opinion journalism today at the national level  is a dreary experience in partisan bickering. So much of what passes for opinion journalism today is actually punditry.

Earlier I highlighted the work of Jim Dwyer, a local columnist for The New York Times who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1995, because his work is anything but dreary. He offers us a model for what opinion journalism is supposed to be: opinion based on reporting.

Compare this recent column by Dwyer to this one by Maureen Dowd, also of the Times. What you have here is nothing less than the difference between serious journalism and fluff. Reporting is the reason for that difference. Dowd’s column shows no reporting effort at all. And the result is predicable dreck. Note that her only quoted source comes from Vanity Fair. Dowd offers us an example of lazy reporting — something we should expect not to see in The New York Times.

One might argue that Dowd is commenting on the culture as she sees it. Fine. And I would ask: Why should I care what Maureen Dowd thinks about anything? What expertise does she bring to bear that makes her a cultural (or political) commentator worth listening to?

R E P O R T I N G

Dwyer’s column, on the other hand, shows us what happens when a serious opinion journalist bothers to ask real questions of real people — and bothers to tell a story.

Consider Dwyer’s lead:

One afternoon, Duane P. Kerzic was arrested by the Amtrak police while taking pictures of a train pulling into Pennsylvania Station. At first, the police asked him to delete the images from his camera, but he refused. He ended up handcuffed to the wall of a holding cell while an officer wrote a ticket for trespassing.

The column examines Amtrak’s apparent aversion to the photographing of its trains despite the irony of running an annual ”Picture Our Trains” photo context (that now appears to be cancelled).

As the story progresses, Dwyer comments on more than the fate of Kerzic and others who have been harassed or arrested taking pictures on government property. He questions government censorship:

But how could Amtrak — the national railroad, whose preferred stock is owned by the American public and whose chief executive and board of directors are appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress — require that a Web site criticizing the railroad be shut down as a condition of settling a lawsuit for wrongful arrest?

What qualifications does Amtrak have to function as a censor?

Followed shortly by this:

Since 9/11, a number of government bodies have sought to limit photography in railroad stations and other public buildings. One rationale is that pictures would help people planning acts of mayhem. It has been a largely futile effort. On a practical level, decent cameras now come in every size and shape, and controlling how people use them would require legions of police officers. Moreover, taking photographs and displaying them is speech protected by the First Amendment, no less than taking notes and writing them up.

Dwyer finishes the column with more examples and then this excoriating conclusion:

Since Mr. Kerzic’s run-in with the police at Penn Station, Amtrak has dropped its Web page on the “Picture Our Trains” contest.

Mr. Colbert wasn’t standing for it.

“This photography contest,” he said, “is Amtrak’s cleverest ruse since their so-called timetable.”

One does not have to agree with Dwyer’s opinion to understand that this is a far better example of opinion journalism than a partisan rant or cultural musing based on little demonstrated reporting.

I’ll grant you than some readers may find partisan rants and cultural musings entertaining. But entertainment is not journalism’s primary concern or purpose — that purpose, stated by Kovach & Rosenstiel: To give citizens the information they need to be free and self-governing.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, punditry, Rhetoric

Peter Baker’s column in The New York Times on Sunday provides a textbook example of journalistic blindness. He discusses how politicians and pundits attack opposition quotes to score political points.

In this case, pundits and politicians attacked this quote from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: “There’s no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control.” He was speaking about Congress.

Baker writes:

With that, the noise machine cranked into high gear. The White House had admitted it might lose the House. Never mind that it was a simple statement of fact and that Mr. Gibbs was not saying he wanted the other side to win or thought that they would. No one has found the political professional who genuinely disagrees that the House could go either way. But the mere fact that Mr. Gibbs said it launched a thousand ships of speculation, analysis, attacks and counter-attacks.

And my question is this: What role did journalism play in amplifying the noise machine? (I’m using the term “journalism” instead of news media because the latter encompasses organizations whose link to journalism is now merely nominal.)

That some bloggers, pundits, and politicians twist quotes and communicative intentions for political gain is not at all surprising. Are these tactics news?

Baker is writing a column — a bit of opinion journalism. But he fails to tell us what he thinks of the role of journalism in enabling the noise machine:

This is what passes for political discourse in Washington these days. Someone in a position of authority, or at least celebrity, says something modestly interesting and someone on the other side — or sometimes even the same side — blows it up into something resembling a full-fledged contretemps. It’s politics by slip of the tongue.

This at a time when the issues confronting Washington could hardly be more consequential. Yet explaining the new financial regulation bill that passed last week or the new health care program slowly coming into effect is complicated compared to the media catnip of a good partisan spat.

What could have followed these paragraphs: A withering examination of the role of journalism in allowing these silly little spats to become “news.” Instead, Baker indicts “political discourse” as if journalism plays no role in it.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, Politics, punditry, Rhetoric

Jim Dwyer won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1995 for his work as a local columnist for Newsday. Today he is a local columnist for The New York Times.

It is inaccurate to say that Dwyer writes about New York City. He writes about the people who live there and their interactions with the city. He tells their stories. He is able to do this because he’s an old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporter who bothers to get out of the office and into the streets.

How do I know this? Read his work. It’s right there in the words — words you can’t get poking around on the internet or resting on your laurels (or supposed expertise). Recall what I wrote earlier:

…opinion journalism well done is all about caring about the community. It is all about being connected to the community. It is all about well-worn shoe leather and familiar faces. It’s all about visibility and transparency. The good opinion journalist is the person you meet for coffee to discuss her latest column. The opinion journalist is the one who listens (when reporters and editors too often do not). In other words, opinion journalism well done is all about the very things that are apparently important in the new media environment.

Dwyer’s work represents excellent opinion journalism based on reporting and personal experience with the people whose stories he tells.

Dwyer has a point of view and an agenda that is plain to see: He challenges what he believes to be injustice, waste, and corruption.

Check out his columns. Coming next: A close analysis of a Dwyer column.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, punditry, Rhetoric

Among the categories of Pulitzer prizes is “commentary.” The Pulitzer website doesn’t offer much of a description of what this category means: “For distinguished commentary, in print or online or both.” It is clear from the list of winners that this is the category for opinion journalism as I am defining it.

Two things come to mind as I look over the list of winners:

1. Nearly all of the winners worked for large news organizations.

2. Some of them — at least in their recent work — are properly defined as pundits rather than opinion journalists.

The Pulitzer Prize Board’s lack of a comprehensive definition of “commentary”  has the effect of allowing a wide range of entrants and winners — perhaps intended. There’s nothing I can find on the website that suggests punditry is forbidden. In fact, I see plenty of evidence that punditry is prize-worthy.

My purpose is not to argue with the Pulitzer Prize Board or to suggest they are wrong in either judging punditry alongside opinion journalism (under the catch-all “commentary”) or awarding prizes to punditry over opinion journalism. I’m simply highlighting this curious state of affairs because I intend to begin my search for best practices by examining some of the winners.

Who wins Pulitzer Prizes in commentary? Why do they win?

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, punditry, Rhetoric

Don’t laugh.

The concept of independence from faction as outlined by Kovach & Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism is not about (falsely) observing from the sidelines and being fair and balanced (aka. the view from nowhere). It’s about operating as custodians of fact with a discipline of verification for both reporters and opinion journalists.

This means that opinion journalism is actually quite easy to separate from punditry because punditry is not about being independent from faction, nor is it about the journalistic discipline I have been discussing. Punditry is about winning politically (a perfectly legitimate goal).

So what we have in American journalism at the moment, if you accept my characterization of opinion journalism, is a whole lot of punditry and a dearth of opinion journalism — at least at the national level.

Opinion journalists may certainly be identified by political persuasion. The politics of opinion journalists can/do/should inform their columns. Sometimes that means taking a hard look at the opposition. And sometimes that means taking a hard look at one’s own side. And, if you’re dealing with someone truly skilled and intelligent, it means dealing with news situations in something like their proper complexity, i.e. not always so easily split down the simplistic right v. left divide.

This ends my preliminary discussion of opinion journalism. I am now in pursuit of excellent practice. Holler if you see anything.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, Rhetoric

I’ve written many times about the discipline of verification — the subject of chapter 4 in The Elements of Journalism. Among the things this chapter cogently discusses is the near profession-wide misunderstanding of objectivity. The word is supposed to indicate a process of gathering and testing information; it was never meant to indicate a philosophical or political stance.

Kovach & Rosentstiel argue that the process — the methods — have been “intensely personal and idiosyncratic,” i.e. no discipline at all. They spend a lot of time in the latter half of the chapter attempting to describe what a discipline of verification might look like. Indeed, I think what they are really doing is creating one if its first articulations.

I plan to examine their discipline and add a few methods of my own. But for now I want to make something plain regarding opinion journalism: Its practitioners are subject to the same discipline because they are subject to the same craft — namely reporting. To the extent that a person peddling opinion reports and verifies, he or she may be called an opinion journalist. To the extent that a person fails to do these things, he or she may be called a pundit (acknowledging that pundits may also report and verify on occasion).

Both deal with opinion. And both may deal in useful opinion, i.e. opinion with a high degree of civic utility for the citizen.

The difference is that the opinions of the opinion journalist should spring from the craft of journalism first.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, Rhetoric

I find it helps to read a good book more than once.

A few days ago I began my third close reading of The Elements of Journalism (2nd Ed.) by Kovach and Rosenstiel.

This book has become canonical in journalism — in professional practice and academic study. That doesn’t mean it is a flawless text. I have plenty of nits to pick with it. But, as a whole, it is one of the finest expressions of the craft and ethics of journalism available today. It is one of my must-read books for journalists. And if I had a must-read list for citizens, it would have a safe spot there, too.

I don’t want journalists and citizens to just read this book (or even just read it closely). I want journalists to do what it says, and I want citizens to hold them to it.

You’ll hear all kinds of lip-service paid to Elements. You’ll see all kinds of failure to live up to its demands — especially in opinion journalism.

I’ll be approaching my search for good opinion journalism and my castigation of punditry passed off as same (nothing wrong with punditry that doesn’t claim the mantle of journalism, IMO) with Elements as one of my foundations. It is a convenient whip because so many journalists will nod and tell you it is a proper expression of what journalism is supposed to be.

Thank you for handling me the whip. Now I intend to use it.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, punditry, Rhetoric

The following is an expansion of a blog entry I wrote a few weeks ago about opinion journalism. I’ll be focusing on the rhetoric of opinion journalism  for the time being on Rhetorica.

Sometimes Wikipedia is no help at all. Search for “opinion journalism,”and here’s what you get:

Opinion journalism is journalism that makes no claim of objectivity. Although distinguished from advocacy journalism in several ways, both forms feature a subjective viewpoint, usually with some social or political purpose. Common examples include newspaper columns, editorials, editorial cartoons, and punditry.

Unlike advocacy journalism, opinion journalism has a reduced focus on detailed facts or research, and its perspective is often of a more personalized variety. Its product may be only one component of a generally objective news outlet, rather than the dominant feature of an entire publication or broadcast network.

The article is clearly marked as a stub, which means that it doesn’t meet Wikipedia’s standards for, among other things, detail, accuracy, and citation. It’s the start of an article on opinion journalism and not a very good one in my opinion. My opinion on this is based on my expertise (no guarantee of anything other than I didn’t simply pull this opinion out of thin air or rely on an ideological lens).

Besides being a rather poor start (you’ll discover why in the balance of this essay), this stub has the unfortunate distinction of being the first entry in a list of search results for “opinion journalism” on Google. I’ve actually had a couple of people — including a professor at my university — quote this stub to me as proof that I am wrong about opinion journalism. Whether I am right or wrong  is hardly a useful distinction here. I prefer to think of my thoughts on opinion journalism as useful in understanding how opinion journalists might fulfill the primary purpose of journalism. That is another way of saying that one can use my definition of opinion journalism as a critical lens for examining the state of journalism for the purpose of understanding its current practice and then, perhaps, demanding better. My description of opinion journalism does not so much create a contrast with “advocacy journalism” as it does with “punditry.”

Opinion journalism matters. It matters because the columnists (in all media) who produce it can be among the most effective journalists in fulfilling the primary purpose of journalism: To give citizens the information they need to be free and self-governing. Opinion journalists can make information useful by suggesting how to use it, i.e. how to think about it and how to react to it. Following good opinion journalists should help readers think about the news by encouraging them to critically examine news situations in particular contexts.

Like reporters, opinion journalists should operate as custodians of fact with a discipline of verification. Like reporters, opinion journalists should tell stories about citizens. Unlike reporters, however, opinion journalists use what they’ve learned from their reporting to, among other things, promote agendas and suggest solutions to civic problems. Here’s what I said in an oft-quoted posting of mine examining the difference between analysis and opinion journalism:

The key for me is good reporting in both analysis and opinion writing. The difference is one of intention: opinion should be about changing hearts and minds with knowledge and wisdom; analysis should be about knowledge and wisdom (i.e. organized information embedded in a context and the capacity to know what body of knowledge is relevant to the solution of significant problems). Analysis, therefore, should not promote specific agendas; it should examine agendas.

In a jumble of words, opinion journalists report and tell us what they think about what they report and why they think the way they do about what they report.

Proper journalistic reporting is the primary form of invention in the rhetoric of opinion journalism.

Pundits need not report. They may certainly think. And they may even be well informed. Their opinions may even be valuable. But without acts of reporting (all that stuff that goes into operating as custodians of fact with a discipline of verification) that build a foundation of information and knowledge, punditry is 1) not journalism, and 2) of questionable utility in fulfilling the primary purpose of journalism.

Exactly why should we give a rip about any particular person’s opinion — published in the paper or spoken on television — if not based on reporting or recognized expertise? I would ask the same question of my own commentary on Rhetorica? Why should you give a rip? Well, agree or not, I have demonstrated expertise — no guarantee of value, but at least my opinions are based on something. (You’ll notice I stick to a limited set of issues based on my education and experience. I have nothing of value to tell you about, say, abortion or deficit spending because I have not done the necessary reporting.)

On the local level, opinion journalism well done is all about caring about the community. It is all about being connected to the community. It is all about well-worn shoe leather and familiar faces. It’s all about visibility and transparency. The good opinion journalist is the person you meet for coffee to discuss her latest column. The opinion journalist is the one who listens (when reporters and editors too often do not). In other words, opinion journalism well done is all about the very things that are apparently important in the new media environment.

On the state and national levels, opinion journalism is also about caring about the community — just a larger community. State and national opinion journalists should be local opinion journalists writ large.

Yes, I realize I’m painting an ideal portrait. Opinion journalism is subject to the same communicative challenges, biases, and errors as so-called objective journalism. I believe the difference, however, is that good opinion journalism can present not only a informed opinion but an informed personality — one you can come to know and deal with whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em.

It is rather easy to criticize opinion journalism these days. In my opinion the craft is in  a sad state (24-hour cable news has played a role in this). Opinion journalism has largely slipped into the practice of punditry to the detriment of citizens.

I will also make it a goal to look for and promote good opinion journalism — from the rural weeklies to the network and cable giants. Rhetorica readers can help in this regard. If you read, see, or hear something good (i.e. opinion based on reporting), let me know.

Technorati Tags: Journalism, opinion journalism, punditry, Rhetoric