Last Updated: January 31, 2000
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Leading the Way Out of the Credibility Crisis
by Sandy Rowe
(Speech delivered at the ASNE Convention, April 1, 1998)
ìI am not the editor of a newspaper,î Mark Twain said. ìAnd
I shall always try to do right and be good, so that God will not make me
one.î
Well, my friends, we must have royally fouled up. For here
we are, editors leading newsrooms in a time of frighteningly low respect
for the newspapers we hold dear.
I am here to talk to you about editors and their responsibility for
the credibility of newspapers when many readers have concluded we have
none. We donít trust you, they shout. You canít even get little
things right, so you must really blow it on the big things. Youíre arrogant.
You donít respect the privacy of others. Youíre too negative. Youíre
too liberal. You donít write about things important to me.
Faced with the litany of criticism -- sadly, particularly
shrill right now, some journalists believe this is a grim time for
newspapers.
It neednít be. We havenít yet done our best work.
If this is a time characterized by a continuing cultural coarseness,
it is also a time when newspapers can demonstrate excellence and satisfy
an unsated thirst for quality.
If this is the most cynical of times, a time with trust
for no one -- not politicians, government itself,
big business, and certainly not the media -- then it
also is a time when things that matter to readers cry out for the attention
of reporters and editors.
And if this is a time when the destructiveness and tawdriness
of mass media hang like a curse over even the best-intentioned newspaper
editors, it is also a time when changing values and new media players should
prompt us to seek higher ground.
We have climbed steep hills in years past. Newspapers are
better written and edited than ever before. Newspapers
are delivered on time now -- in many markets hitting
the doorsteps long before dawn. Our color registers. Our ink
doesnít smear as much. We confess error, chat up readers, design
our pages, and sharpen our headlines.
Yet, newspaper circulation falls, or at least stalls. What
will heal -- or help -- us? The answer lies in more work -- this
time on the hardest problems -- ourselves and the character
of our newspapers.
To get more credibility, we first must stop squandering what we have.
In many newsrooms standards are unclear or, given recent evidence, wildly
inconsistent. Editors routinely talk about the gap between
the journalistic values they hold most dear and those they think guide
the reporters they work beside. They worry whether they can
hire people with the skill and breadth and understanding to do the job.
Reporters say they donët get the journalistic support they need from their
bosses. They wonder whether their editors have sold out journalistic
values for business ones. They long for the inspiration provided
by leaders with abiding passion for the gritty world of journalism.
If newsroom values are out of whack or reporters and editors are out
of touch with each other and with their communities, whose responsibility
is that?
It is ours.
Our challenges are not limited to our newsrooms. In some companies
the talk has shifted to financial and marketing imperatives to such an
extent that journalists have concluded their owners are blindly driven
by Wall Street, unconcerned about the quality of journalism.
There are happily some newspaper companies that continue to invest generously
in their newsrooms and in the professional development of newsroom staffs.
But, as profits have hovered near all- time records, many companies have
not invested in journalistic training significantly enough to demonstrate
their commitment to the highest standards. Nor have beginning salaries
at most papers become competitive with those in other professions.
It is now left to editors to provide the leadership within
their companies to demonstrate the true relationship between quality journalism
and long-term success in the marketplace.
But if editors are too weary for the fight, too weighted down with their
own faded ideals, who will raise high the journalistic flag within todayís
media giants?
We must.
And while editors wage these battles within their newsrooms and their
companies, they witness a growing chasm between journalistsí perceptions
of how professionally we fulfill our responsibilities and the publicís.
In a January Pew Research Center report, 63 percent of respondents believe
news stories are often inaccurate, up from 56 percent just a year ago.
Two-thirds of those surveyed said coverage of the personal and ethical
behavior of politicians is excessive, and 65 percent said the press gets
in the way of society solving its problems.
Editors will either confront the massive challenges in their newsrooms
and their companies and in the publicís view of our work or continue
the hand-wringing and self- flagellation, and do nothing.
Leaders will choose action.
Leadership is a wondrous thing and in short supply in all endeavors,
no less so in newspapers.
I am reminded of Margaret Thatcherís advice to George Bush during
the early days of Persian Gulf crisis. ìRemember, George,î she said.
ìThis is no time to go wobbly.î
Editors, this is no time to go wobbly. We show leadership by clearly
and forcefully articulating standards.
What are our standards, for instance, on the use of anonymous sources?
In the face of intense competitive pressure and in hot pursuit of story,
the salient standard in the early Clinton - Lewinsky coverage appears to
have been that someone said it, therefore we wrote it; the wire service
sent it, therefore we printed it.
That is not leadership. It is a sorry squandering of the credibility
we have. Newspaper editors are the primary journalistic standard
bearers in each community. We all inherited the best practices
and highest ideals of our craft and the courage of those who preceded us.
We have debts that have to be paid not just with proper grammar and usage,
but with decisions that show respect for our communities and
our profession.
Other media that do not share newspaper standards are recasting the
definitions of news. But we do not have to be pulled along.
Commercial television, a kaleidoscope of hype and irrelevancy, first
creates then exploits fame. TV news, dumbed down to such an
extent its patron saints despair, seeks emotion more than enlightenment.
We canít out-TV television. We should not try.
The newest news dispenser, the runaway Internet, makes a journalist
out of anybody who has a modem. It values speed and sensationalism
above accuracy. New media will not adopt our standards.
We are foolish to treat them as if they have. Let Matt Drudge
be Matt Drudge, but letís not pretend he operates from a base of sound
journalistic standards.
The high road is there if we will just take it. If
newspaper journalism and journalists long for greater respect, then newspaper
editors must supply the discipline to play down -- not play up -- the trivial,
the perverse, the bizarre.
Think back to the O.J. criminal trial. In the papers I checked
there were between 75 and 100 O.J. stories on Page 1 during those nine
months. Thatís two or three a week on Page 1. What if most
newspaper editors had decided not to play up that trial to such an extent?
What if we had said let other media go ga-ga, weíre going to move most
of these stories inside the paper? Instead we could have displayed
an additional significant, interesting local story on the front page.
Would newspapers have been worse off for that decision? I donít think
so. One editor, one day at a time, could have made this call.
And this individual decision making by individual editors -- reinforcing
the highest journalistic standards -- is the only way out of the muck for
us.
The notion that readers have created the demand for lowest common denominator
journalism is false. We are doing that ourselves. We can and
must stop.
As we apply our own highest standards we can also improve our credibility
by better communicating these standards to readers.
Readers are in the dark about journalistsí goals and decision-making.
Explaining ourselves does not have to be self-serving. It can
and should be respectful.
Several editor-written columns I see -- notably those by Jerry
Ceppos in San Jose and Rich Oppel in Austin -- respectfully anticipate
readersí concerns and give insight into newsrooms. They donít make
excuses. Theyíre not filled with promotional fluff. They
communicate standards and help demystify the institution.
In early February, Ceppos wrote a column explaining to readers how the
San Jose Mercury News would determine what was worth printing in the Clinton-Lewinsky
mess. In the column, he gave readers a foundation other than
the lowest common denominator on which to judge his newspaperís decisions.
By sharing those standards with readers, he also differentiated his newspaper
from other media. Without saying so directly, he made clear the Mercury
News stands for quality.
As Ceppos himself would tell you, the walk through the fires of hell
he and his editors endured last year in the wake of the ìDark Allianceî
series has had a way of clarifying his focus on the subject of credibility
and the leaderís responsibility for it.
In the Clinton - Lewinsky mess, had each of us discussed our standards
-- for language, for explicit sexual references, for use and identification
of sources -- in our newsrooms and shared them with readers, we could
have made better critical judgments on the reams of reports we were receiving
from the wire services.
Addressing credibility further requires that we finally face up to our
readersí complaints of ìbias.î Two-thirds of the public believe
the press tends to favor one side when dealing with social and political
issues. We refuse to come to grips with this criticism because
we believe we are doing Godís work and we simply canít imagine why we are
damned rather than cheered for our efforts.
In our defensiveness, we never get to the core of the issue, which is
point of view more than partisan political bias.
Journalists think stories are not biased if they are balanced, if they
reflect views on both sides of an issue or have obligatory quotes from
two sides in a conflict. But opinion rears its head in ways that
are broader and more fundamental than including both sides in a controversy.
Readers see our point of view in the way we approach and define certain
stories. We too easily accept conventional wisdom. We are disinclined
to challenge the underlying premises that drive us.
If we are perceived as writing more about and understanding better the
arguments of those who demand more money for education, but not looking
as deeply at the arguments calling for more efficiency in school spending,
we are seen as biased. If we write as though it is governmentís
responsibility to fix all social or institutional problems, we are seen
as biased. If we use anecdotal leads to humanize the tragic
circumstances of criminals rather than victims, we are seen as biased.
If we report on extremes -- the polar opposites -- when our readers
live mostly in the middle, we are seen as biased.
We canít just keep digging in. We should willingly examine our
practices, consider how readers view us and open substantive conversations
in our newsrooms about the demands of excellence.
We practice journalism in a period of rising expectations. People
simply expect more in all things. We must respond. People fortunately
still expect maturity and judgment from newspapers. That
is why they are disappointed when they donít think they see it.
They expect that editors will apply principled and consistently high standards.
They donít expect us to be guided by situational ethics, to speak high-mindedly
then to pursue every hiccup as if it were The Truth. They donít expect
us to fill our columns with speculation, hearsay and opinion, rather than
fact.
This is the good news: people expect more of newspapers than they do
of other media. In todayís littered media marketplace, newspapers
have an unexploited opportunity to differentiate ourselves in substance
and in quality.
Quality journalism requires significant investment.
If we buy a top-quality car or piece of furniture or clothing, we
expect that the manufacturer has invested heavily in attention to detail
and the proficiency of employees.
In newsrooms, the lack of adequate resources to teach and guide newspaper
staffs and to pay them sufficiently to keep the brightest young people
in journalism directly affects our credibility.
With readers today much more knowledgeable about many subjects than
in the past, and with the huge array of sources for that information at
their fingertips, journalists must have more than superficial grasp of
complex material.
What once was typical for journalists -- a tendency to have broad-ranging
interests but superficial knowledge, is a liability in todayís media-savvy
world. Our audience wonít accept our reporting as authoritative unless
we are able to write authoritatively. Superficial understanding
doesnít cut it.
Other industries know that in a competitive environment, teaching more
advanced skills is the key to survival. High-tech firms average
more than $900 per employee a year on training, and the average of all
companies is $500. If newspaper spending on training equaled
that of high-tech firms, a newspaper staff of 100 would invest
$90,000 annually in training.
Unfortunately, newspapers spend considerably less on training than the
average business. But our people already know that. A
1993 Freedom Forum study showed that 93 percent of American journalists
wanted regular training but that only 14 percent of American newspapers
provided it. The report concluded that the lack of opportunity
for professional development is one reason newspapers are losing some of
their best talent.
Professional-level training is desperately needed in journalistic skills,
ethical decision making and in the dozens of specialty subjects we presume
to report on for our readers.
Newspapers have the profits to invest whatever is needed to make newsrooms
centers of learning that combine the intellectual rigor of university life
with the energy and drive for action in the best newsrooms.
Surely owners must understand that no matter how fine a college education
reporters have when hired, we must not rely on learning by osmosis once
they enter newsrooms. Editors should wage an unrelenting campaign to get
more training and teaching in newsrooms.
When I embarked on this quest for greater attention to the cause of
improving newspaper credibility, a friend suggested that I was really talking
about character.
Credibility means accuracy and reliability and trust which, to
be sure, would be a great prize. But pursuit of that prize might
be easier, he suggested, if we adopted the larger goal of journalistic
character.
Credibility can be measured more or less. Character is felt and
ties directly to the whole nature of content rather than just to its accuracy.
Character as the criterion involves how we choose stories, how we play
them, how we perceive our priorities and readersí interests and needs.
Regarding that, nothing I know of offers deeper insight than the
words of the late Charles Kuralt. In a speech 15 years ago,
Kuralt pleaded with us to turn at least part of our attention away from
the pursuit of the entertainer, the politician and the criminal and toward
ìthe decent and honest and sometimes noble lives of our fellow citizens
-- and to the worlds of work within our communities -- the worlds of law,
medicine, education, science, business and the arts.
If we would do that, Kuralt said, we may do more than merely inform
people. ìWe may help educate them occasionally. We may help broaden their
vision and elevate their spirits. We may accept the responsibility we have
to be better than we are, broader than we are, calmer and more reflective
than we are.î
Kuralt wanted to know about people and what they did; his love
was language and his art -- storytelling. He was fascinated by the
grain of the wood, and ignored the dirt in the cracks. He celebrated a
world of joy, loss, trial and achievement. He traveled the
country honoring ideas and lives of all sort.
He knew that journalism was not just fact-gathering and blathering,
but at its heart was storytelling.
It is the love of storytelling and a passion for ideas and for people
that makes the labor of newspapering a privilege.
So, you might logically ask, if wise journalists with passion for craft
and excellence have been unable to effectively tackle the credibility problem
in simpler times, what makes us think we have the determination or ability
to do anything about it today?
Just this: I believe there is a growing consensus among editors that
we have recently directed extraordinary time and attention to the very
real concerns about market share and corporate mission statements
and quarterly budget revisions. We have gained knowledge from that
and no doubt benefited. But we have been diverted from the place
where our passion is most needed: in our newsrooms. We can change
that.
We must stand unflinchingly for what we believe -- with owners
and publishers no less than in our newsrooms. We cannot be reluctant
to confront the most difficult issues on either side of our house.
It is a time for inspired and courageous leadership.
ASNE hopes to help you provide leadership in newsrooms through the Journalism
Credibility Project. This long-term project -- with funding from McCormick
Tribune Foundation and the commitment of the next four presidents of ASNE
-- is designed to help us understand the factors that impact credibility
and build on the credibility we have.
Credibility is not theoretical, philosophical or remote from our work.
It is at the heart of our professional lives.
Credibility is not about selling more newspapers. It is about
building the quality and integrity of our news.
It is not about finding some new journalistic fad or silver bullet to
solve our problems. It is about thoroughly understanding, clearly
articulating and relentlessly applying the highest professional and ethical
standards.
It is not even about what we have the right to do; obviously, we have
the right to print just about anything we want. It is about doing the right
thing.
Our central responsibility as editors is to make the believability --
a combination of accuracy, authority, skill, judgment and respectfulness
-- of our newspapers THE central concern of our newsrooms. Ahead
of profits. Ahead of what corporate thinks of us. At the front
of the line -- in time, commitment and passion.
We do this in part by being open, not defensive, about our weaknesses.
We talk about them. We examine our successes and failures, in meetings,
in memos, in the middle of the newsroom floor where we can be overheard
by all.
We do this by nurturing editors who are alive with passion for craft
and for coaching reporters and photographers -- flesh and blood editors
who arenít reluctant to state their responsibilities to their newsrooms
and who honor their hopes and ideals, editors who understand that
everything they do, everything they print contributes to their newspaperís
character and credibility with the public.
That is all the prize that editing a newspaper has ever had to offer.
It is a great deal indeed.
Thank you.
