Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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A note from the president
Amid the constant criticism some see a future for us
By Sandy Rowe
For the last several years, I’ve collected industry articles I want
to save in a file labeled "What ails us." I could have labeled it "Industry
articles," but "What ails us," is regrettably accurate. So much of what
is written about the press — whether in our own publications or in the
trade press — has to do with our flaws as identified by critics, both inside
and outside the craft. The file, overflowing after just a year, now bulges
from a second folder.
I used to think the self-examination and flagellation was a phase; now
I realize it’s congenital. Some of it is substantive and useful, and on
rare occasion it even generates action, but the negative cant to it is
so unrelenting, it is almost a surprise and always a pleasure to run across
someone who doesn’t believe things are going to hell.
Tom Johnson, president of CNN and former president and publisher of
the Los Angeles Times, is such a person. Johnson was one of 10 panelists
at a discussion held at Stanford University in mid-June during the John
S. Knight Fellowship Reunion. Johnson, full of passionate and thoughtful
observations on the craft, was the hit of the show.
The core question under the microscope was, "Is it possible to do significant
journalism in an era of bottom-line concerns and technological change?"
Jim Risser, the director of the Knight Fellowships, set up the familiar
litany of barriers to significant journalism: competitive pressure leading
to lowest common denominator journalism, too much attention to sensational
and celebrity-driven stories, the drive to keep it short, the lack of interest
in major public policy issues, corporate profit pressures, and cuts in
news staffs.
Johnson chipped away at the assumption that significant journalism and
significant profits aren’t likely to be nurtured together. There’s no reason
they can’t be, he believes, if owners and leaders put equal support on
excellent journalism and financial strength.
"High quality editorial content and good profits can coexist provided
editors and publishers are joined at the hip on what it takes to be successful,"
Johnson said. And that includes a heavy dose of original reporting on significant
subjects.
Amen. Publishers and editors may not often be in open disagreement over
priorities, but there’s enough unspoken disagreement to generate a damaging
fuzziness around the journalistic goals at many newspapers.
In a refreshing change from those who suggest the business world is
too complicated for mere journalists to grasp, Johnson says media companies
would benefit tremendously from having more top executives who have news
experience and news values prominent in their portfolios. "We need more
journalists who also develop the management training so you can be the
decision-makers of the future," he told the Knight fellows. "Who better
to lead these organizations than those of you who have the core values
of journalism?"
Johnson thinks much of the press bashing is just spin. "Most reporting
IS accurate, IS fair, IS responsible. We have been battered for the last
30 years" by politicians and others who didn’t like the accurate and truthful
reports about themselves, he said, citing Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson
(for whom Tom Johnson used to work) as well as today’s crowd in the White
House and Congress. We should not let the beating we take from the politicians
discourage us. "Most of what we do is very good."
A look into the future was provided by David Weir, the vice president
for content management (yes, that’s his real title) at Wired Digital, the
San Francisco company that operates HotWired and Wired News. Weir’s journalistic
roots go back to Rolling Stone, Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative
Reporting.
The truly humbling experience, according to Weir, is to try to do good
journalism on the Web. "They poke holes in your hypotheses, they demand
to see your sources." He thinks the relationship all media and their audiences
have are undergoing a dramatic change and that we perhaps are seeing the
end of the old relationship. At the end of the day Web users decide how
good it is or is not, Weir said. "We can’t get away with saying ‘Hard Copy’
made me do it."
The range of opinions and concerns expressed at Stanford was another
reminder that there is no single cause to what ails us and that we should
be wary of simplistic or formulaic solutions. But high quality content
and our credibility are surely bound together. It’s the connections between
the two and the evaluations of our audience we must better understand.
Rowe is ASNE president and editor of The Oregonian, Portland.
