That was my first reaction when I read this guest column in the Seattle Times. And then I briefly flirted with an even more paranoid hypothesis, that an editor in the Seattle Times had a grudge against the authors and had published this in order to humiliate them.
What made me wander on those strange paths? This:
The aftermath of Katrina, as awful as it still is to contemplate, could indeed be a blessing for this country ... and for journalism. By revealing journalists at their best, Katrina simultaneously showed that journalists are rarely at their best in quieter, supposedly "normal" situations.
Katrina coverage showed "journalists at their best". Not if accuracy is a part of best. All sorts of "mainstream" news organizations, from CBS to the Washington Post, have been doing stories in which they admit that the coverage (and sometimes even their own coverage) was terribly wrong. And just a few days ago, the Washington Post published this story, saying that many officials — at all levels of government — think the coverage delayed and handicapped rescue efforts. If that is journalists at their best, I would hate to see them at their worst.
But on reflection I realized that this guest column was just more evidence for something I argued in this post.
But I don't know of a single "mainstream" journalist who recognizes that they failed during Katrina, much less how badly they failed. They are still so pleased that they damaged Bush that they have not even thought about that question.
The "mainstream" media failures during Katrina were far worse than "Rathergate" or the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times. But it appears that no one at the Seattle Times even realizes that the "mainstream" media failed, much less how badly they failed. It might be a good idea to send a few emails to them, starting with the editorial page editor, Jim Vesely (jvesely@seattletimes.com), just to get them started thinking about their failures during Katrina.
How bad was the coverage? I think it may well have cost lives, by slowing the rescue efforts. It doesn't get much worse than that.
Posted by Jim Miller at October 07, 2005 01:51 PM | Email ThisSame is true with the hive-mentality of the media. 'We just calls them as we sees them.'
Riiight.
Posted by: Matt Kelly on October 7, 2005 01:59 PMAnd that, right there, is the problem - so-called journalists with a cause or a mission to "change the world."
No. Your job as a journalist is to inform the public, be objective and be responsible with your reporting.
Want to help disadvantaged people? Work at a shelter, start a non-profit or any number of things. Being a journalist should be last on your list.
Posted by: jimg on October 7, 2005 02:38 PM"While your professors will give you the skills and tools with which to practice the mechanics of your craft, a career in journalism won't mean anything unless you enter this profession for the right reason: helping disadvantaged people."
And all this time I thought journalism was about reporting the news.
Posted by: libertarianobserver on October 7, 2005 02:38 PMHurt Bush/GOP - At their best
All others - Partisan right-wing nuts
Note there is no mention of truth in the ratings!
Posted by: fred on October 7, 2005 02:42 PMWrong.
Your job you arrogant little twit is to answer these questions.
Who
What
Where
When
Why (this one is a little iffy, requires supposition on motives)
After that it is up to the consumer to decide what is important.
And in this information age, people who lack information are undeniably the little guys.
The people who lack information rely on the MSM.
The information is available to anyone who desires it and will expend the effort required to get it. Libraries all have net connection now.
The crazy thing about them is that few of them would tolerate a society like the one they are espousing. They don't want to relinquish their ivory tower position and cushy job environment for anything. The feel a sense of entitlement that gives them the right to direct everyone's lives.
Posted by: Libertarian on October 7, 2005 02:47 PM
That is ALMOST as arrogant as the local politician who recently declared "We are here to make the tough decisions for you."
WRONG!! They are here to REFLECT our opinions and decisions on the "tough" questions.
They really think they know better than us. And we LET them continue that delusion at our own risk. (example: King County politics, what have we done to change anything?)
And the recent promo for the Attorney General, bragging about how he is the watchdog for this state. BULL!!! He won't do ANYTHING about documented (!!) examples of fraud and malfeasance.
I honestly don't know why I bother to even comment anymore.
Kinda like peeing yourself in a dark pair of pants. You get a warm feeling, but nobody notices...
I'm not sure I care anymore. Happy now, you corrupt liberal bastids??
Yeah, I'm fed up.
Posted by: Elmo on October 7, 2005 03:38 PMIt plagues the entire industry, and no, it's not overblown. If anything, we don't really have any clue of just how bad it really is.
Posted by: Cliff Smith on October 7, 2005 04:14 PM"Thanks for your commentary, I look forward to reading your postings, but we have nothing more to add to the topic."
I still don't think the column was intended as a joke or intended to humilate the authors, but I must say that Vesely did not close off those two possiiblities though I directly asked him to do so in my email.
(I generally send emails to those I criticize. I think that's only fair and in a few cases I have changed posts after I received their replies.)
Posted by: Jim Miller on October 7, 2005 04:57 PMYou might want to start with your hometown papers there...since nearly 1/3 of their home page deals with non news and what is on late night television that night. Just take a gander at the most clicked articles each day and you can see it is newslite, which is surprising given Seattle's high-percentage of degree'd residents. (As opposed to Los Angeles, where I live, with it's 50% illiteracy rate)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/mostemailed/
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/most/index.asp?mosttype=mostread24
As for New Orleans, my favorite is Geraldo's Friday Night of Fiction, telling America that the masses are starving at the New Orleans Convention Center while Reuters news photos from earlier in the morning show plenty of cases of water and MREs being delivered to the area.
Or their profs, for that matter.
"a career in journalism won't mean anything unless you enter this profession for the right reason: helping disadvantaged people."
Unreal. And they both have degrees.
Posted by: jiimg on October 7, 2005 07:28 PMWhat is amazing is that the worse things get for the Seattle Times, the farther to the left they move. It is like they have a death wish.
Posted by: Janet S on October 7, 2005 07:35 PMYou see, there are an equal number of people who are just as convinced as you are that the Times, the P-I, and the TV stations are too far to the RIGHT, and getting more so each day.
The volume of letters, phone calls, and e-mails was equal, and constantly so, from both ends of the political spectrum, during my tenure there, which began in 1968 and ended in 2000.
They don't care what you think, and they never will. The more they hear it from the right, the more they hear it from the left. They think the lefties are just as wacko as they think you are, and they treat the lefties' complaints accordingly.
They (and I mean the bosses, not the reporters) will swing left or right, depending on which way they think they will sell more ads and make more money.
The reporters and editors, whatever their political leanings might be, are so busy clinging to their jobs that they will do whatever they are told. They will, and they have, sold out their fellow employees in a hearbeat.
They have no "socialist agenda." That's just a bunch of crap that you'd expect to hear from some of the loonies here, who probably tell their kids to root for the Sheriff of Notingham. Get it straight. They'll do what their bosses tell them to do.
I can tell you also, for a fact, that any reporter who comes in there with an agenda to "represent the disadvantaged" won't be there for long. Those guest columnists who Miller cited live in an ivory tower and do not have a clue. They are not at all representative of journalists today, who are almost entirely company men and women, without much of a backbone between the lot of them.
Sound Politics posters on this thread are absolutely correct to scorn the "mainstream media," even though your reasons for scorning them might be diametrically opposed to mine.
Posted by: Ivan on October 8, 2005 11:55 AMBut I am not sure you understand my critique of the Katrina coverage. I am saying (1) that the "mainstream" media made an enormous number of errors covering Katrina and (2) that those errors may have cost lives during the Katrina.
I would like to think that (almost) no matter where you are on the ideological spectrum, those two points would bother you. But I see no evidence that anyone at the Seattle Times, or in other "mainstream" news organizations even grasps that they failed.
And I think if you will look at the longer post that I linked to on my own site, you will see that some of the criticisms that I make of the media could come from the left -- as well as the right.
I would appreciate it if you would do all of us a favor and respond to some of my specifics: For example, I argued that the coverage of Katrina was so bad that it could be described as a "massive failure". Do you agree? And if not, why not?
And I thought that there were a number of patterns in that failure. I'd be interesed to learn whether you agree with me on any of those patterns and, if not, why not.
Posted by: Jim Miller on October 8, 2005 01:53 PMThs short answer to your question is that I'm not qualified to answer it. Any cataclysm of this magnitude will always bring out the best and worst in people. Journalists are a reflection of the society at large, and as a rule no better or worse than people in any given occupation.
Your contention might have some plausibility in general. I can't give you any insight into the specifics.
That's not a copout. It's an honest answer. Given the quality of "mainstream" news media performance lately, I would have no basis to dispute your contention, but none to affirm it, either.
Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler is about the best source I know of on the Internet for deconstructing, in detail, faulty press coverage. That's always a good place to start.
Posted by: Ivan on October 8, 2005 02:20 PM