by David Hall
David Hall was most recently editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. His critique of CJR's Best Newspapers poll appeared in the January/February issue.

Give this much to American Journalism Review: its editors are neither ashamed nor afraid of American journalism. Since its predecessor Washington Journalism Review was founded in 1977, AJR has matured, standing at the center of a siege on journalism by an unallied triumvirate. One army is those critics who cannot find perfection in the news so they decry the ideals of journalism. Another camp comprises a nervous generation of owners and publishers who run their newspapers as if they distrust news, the commodity of most market value and compelling brand loyalty. Then there is the ragged but most troublesome army, the newsroom cynics who see no glory in the hard news of local, daily journalism, so they withhold their talents for projects and investigations -- Capital J Journalism. AJR embraces none of those mendacious extremes, which behave intellectually more like covens than soldiers. AJR for a quarter century has accepted journalism's imperfection while believing journalism can improve if it will build on its heritage, the heritage of democracy.

AJR has done a tough job well, with slips along the way. Analyzing the magazine draws the clear conclusion that it acts like a newspaper while living in a magazine's skin.

The magazine, published since 1987 by the College of Journalism of the University of Maryland, has stood for the right things: ethical journalism and the primacy of news. And AJR gnaws like a city editor on issues such as media consolidation, group ownership, Internet-driven changes in media, and the angst of so-called modern management in newsrooms. AJR wades often in swift waters. The January-February issue heralded "Paradise Lost?" on the cover, and although the question mark declared tentativeness, the article did take on bravely the ethical, journalistic, and business uncertainties at the Los Angeles Times. Everybody wants to know how the perfect newspaper, endowed by dollars and sunshine, could become humbled just like many other newspapers in recent years.

The reporter worked hard but more questions were raised than were answered. The omissions tell much about the perspective good reporters and editors often have on American journalism, romanticizing it to the point of lost perspective. At the L.A. Times perspective has always been lost in the mythology of a newspaper that spent money without worrying about its source.

The reporter could never get Otis Chandler in perspective. Chandler is a great man who pushed and pulled the L.A. Times to greatness -- but he did not labor alone, as he would testify. Chandler inspired the newsroom but he also picked fine business managers who outfitted his juggernaut, people who are ignored in the AJR search for a current villain. The article's big flaw, however, is in ignoring Nick Williams and Bill Thomas, Chandler's editors. Thomas was simply the finest American newspaper editor during the 1970s and '80s, who used the L.A. Times's abundant dollars to build greatness, one brick at a time. As for Otis Chandler, his place in American journalism is too important to trivialize as mythical.

American Journalism Review just completed an eighteen-issue, marathon report on the state of the American newspaper. The project was launched in May 1988 with an examination of the Chicago Tribune's efforts, not only to refine news coverage but also build business and journalistic ties with online services, television, and other newspapers within the Tribune Company Again, many issues were raised that need to be revisited. For one, the Tribune newspaper should be isolated and analyzed to determine why it does one of the best jobs of any major metropolitan daily in offering traditional news coverage and feature sections that keep a news edge. Perhaps that unfortunate word, synergy, is the reason -- but probably not. Something is going on in the Tribune's newsroom that its editors did not learn in an afternoon panel at ASNE. The magazine should find out.

The eighteen-issue examination of newspapers has concluded, which will disappoint thousands of AJR's readers. Editor Rem Rieder said the magazine intends to follow up the series, however, with three articles a year for the next three years, rereporting issues, such as the diminishing amount of statehouse coverage. The problems raised need more intense evaluation, and several of the issues need fresh coverage to bring new developments to light and to correct omissions.

In the sense that gave rise to AJR, the state of newspapers project is a review of American journalism. Yet the word, review, has never fit the magazine. Its strength is reporting and helping set an agenda for what American journalists discuss. When AJR ventures into classical criticism it can be silly. Consider a recent short piece that critiqued movies about journalism, which said:

"Ultimately, the movie and the true-life episode pose the same worrying problem. They are too much about getting the story and not enough about getting the truth."

Such naivete would be bad enough if a free-lancer wrote that paragraph. A senior editor of AJR wrote it, however, betraying a lack of understanding about daily journalism's most basic dictum: Get the story. Then get another story. Then another, until none is left. Leave truth to the ages, to the Pentateuch, Graham Greene, and Anne Tyler.

AJR prides itself on being current on Internet journalism issues. Yet last November it devoted five pages to explaining that online ethics are somehow more tricky than traditional journalism ethics. The piece contained this banal statement: "This is a time of considerable confusion for journalism and news as a business. That means it is also a time for clearheaded and careful thinking about what we are and what role we are to play."

And finally, in the last year AJR ran one article that was irresponsible in its ignorance, an examination of joint operating agreements. No good story can proceed from a misleading premise, and this AJR piece on industry economics bought the line that Joint Operating Agreements were established only to maintain two-newspaper voices. That was only a part of the story that Congress hid behind as publishers lobbied hard, knowing that the day of the multipaper metropolitan area was about to end. Their scheme to protect profits was ingenious, shameful, and legal. To publish a story based on talking heads, no numbers, and no understanding of modern media competition is really irresponsible -- and not consistent with AJR's standards. Let's forgive Rem Rieder this one, if he will come back and do the story with a reporter who understands the business of newspapers.

Readers of AJR expect substance and they usually get it.

Last September the magazine ran an analytical and statistical comparison of newspaper content in ten newspapers today versus those same dailies in 1963. Editors should give that report several readings and much thought. Not all today is better.

The weekly newspaper, still vital in communities from the crowded northeast to the plains of Nebraska, was analyzed in December by an AJR report that showed how these quaint community publications are really generators of big bucks -- and therefore prey to companies with money to invest that makes owners so rich many cannot say no.

AJR was not the first to grapple with credibility questions. But it cooperated with the Gallup Poll in July/August 1998 for a thoughtful examination of how the news-choice habits of Americans have changed. Newspaper editors can use the data to wring their hands, make their newspapers more trivial, or get back to being newspapers. Their choice. But the Gallup information in AJR is permanent stuff for bedside reading.

American Journalism Review is popular with reporters, editors, and news directors because of its contemporaneous commentary. It has a current feel, including the columns by Reese Cleghorn, president, and Rieder. And let's all tell the truth: we turn first to the pages on people who are hired, fired, and retired.

That is like a good newspaper. If American Journalism Review wants to improve as a model for journalism, however, it should fix its dreadful design.

AJR's design is actually typical of the chaos and timidity that reigns on the news and layout desks of American newspapers. Design has been taken away from editors and turned over to designers, many of whom know nothing of the drama and urgency of news and only about art, which does not always translate to a printed page. On the cover of AJR you often find pastels, the rage among designers, which are printed over light colors and emerge unreadable. Searching for the publication date is a monthly adventure. Inside, no graphic consistency ties magazine content together, reflecting a designer whose imagination does not match confidence, ability, or appreciation of AJR's role. AJR, which has become an authoritative publication for American journalists, should make its design something to admire and inspire, not an obstacle to readers.

The shortcomings of AJR deserve attention because the magazine is vital. It does sell sizzle, especially on its covers. But don't we all, if we are honest? No malady is so dreaded as being unread, and AJR entices its subscribers with the hot stuff they talk about.

AJR affirms reporting. It elevates ethics. Over the years the magazine has tried to report stories about editing successes as well as failures. If the magazine is ambitious but uneven, it only treads the path of the imperfect but indispensable daily American newspaper.

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