Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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On credibility
This is exerpted from a speech Rowe delivered at the ASNE convention
April 1 in Washington.
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 don’t trust you," they shout. "You can’t even get little things
right, so you must really blow it on the big things." "You’re arrogant."
"You don’t respect the privacy of others." "You’re too negative." "You’re
too liberal."
Faced with the litany of criticism, some journalists believe this is
a grim time for newspapers. It needn’t be. We haven’t yet done our best
work.
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 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 before. Our color registers. Our ink doesn’t smear as much.
We confess errors, chat up readers, and sharpen our headlines.
Yet, 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 talk about the gap between the journalistic values
they hold most dear and those they think guide their reporters. They worry
whether they can hire people with the skill and breadth and understanding
to do the job. Reporters say they don’t get the 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 development of newsroom staffs. But, as profits have hovered
near 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 up to editors to provide the leadership within
their companies to demonstrate the relationship between quality journalism
and long-term success in the marketplace.
While editors wage these battles in newsrooms and companies, they witness
a growing chasm between journalists’ perceptions of how professionally
we fulfill our responsibilities and the public’s.
In a January Pew Research Center report, 63 percent of respondents said
they believe news stories are often inaccurate, up from 56 percent in 1997.
Sixty-five 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 public’s 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 Thatcher’s advice to George Bush during the
early days of Persian Gulf crisis. "Remember, George," she said. "This
is no time to go wobbly." 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 and we must make decisions that show respect for those
communities and our profession.
Different media, different standards
Other media that do not share our standards are recasting the definitions
of news. But we do not have to go 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 can’t
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 let’s 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. Simpson criminal trial. What if editors had decided
not to play up that trial to such an extent? What if we had said, "Let
others go ga-ga, we’re going to move most of these stories inside"? Would
newspapers have been worse off? I don’t think so. One editor, one day at
a time, could have made that call. Individual decision-making by
individual editors — reinforcing the highest journalistic standards — is
the only way out of the muck for us.
As we apply our standards, we can also improve our credibility by better
communicating them to readers. Explaining ourselves does not have to be
self-serving. It can and should be respectful.
The bias question
Addressing credibility further requires that we face up to our readers’
complaints of "bias." Two-thirds of the public believes the press favors
one side when dealing with social and political issues. We refuse to come
to grips with this criticism because we believe we are doing God’s work
and we simply can’t imagine why we are being damned, not cheered.
Journalists think stories are unbiased if they are balanced, if they
reflect views on both sides of an issue or have quotes from two sides in
a conflict. But opinion rears its head in ways that are more fundamental
than including both sides.
If we are perceived as writing more about the arguments of those who
demand more money for education, but not looking as deeply at efficient
spending, we are seen as biased. If we write as if it is government’s responsibility
to fix problems, we are seen as biased. If we report on extremes when our
readers live mostly in the middle, we are seen as biased.
We should examine our practices, consider how readers view us and open
substantive conversations in our newsrooms about the demands of excellence.
We practice our craft in a period of rising expectations. People expect
more in all things. And they expect more of newspapers than of other media.
Thus we have an unexploited opportunity to differentiate ourselves in substance
and quality.
Quality journalism requires significant investment. We expect it in
quality clothing or furniture and we should expect it in newsrooms, too.
The lack of adequate resources to guide staffs and to pay them sufficiently
to keep the brightest young people directly affects our credibility.
Other businesses know that in a competitive environment, teaching more
advanced skills is the key to survival. Unfortunately, newspapers spend
much less on training than the average business.
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 of the best newsrooms.
Editors should wage an unrelenting campaign to get more training and
teaching in newsrooms.
The quality of our character
When I embarked on this 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 readers’ 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 "the 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, he said, we may do more than merely inform people.
"We 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."
Kuralt wanted to know about people and what they did; his love was language
and his art — storytelling. He celebrated a world of joy, loss, trial and
achievement. He traveled the country honoring ideas and lives of all sort.
He knew journalism was not just fact-gathering and blathering, but at
its heart, storytelling. It is the love of storytelling and passion for
ideas and people that makes our labor a privilege.
So 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, no doubt, benefited from that, 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 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.
We do this by nurturing editors who are alive with passion for craft
and for coaching reporters and photographers — flesh and blood editors
who aren’t 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 newspaper’s 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.
Rowe, editor of The Oregonian, Portland, is past president of ASNE.
