Letters

NEW PATHS OR OLD?

So-called civic journalism ("Are You Now, or Will You Ever Be, A Civic Journalist?," cjr, September/October) is nothing more than a warmed-over version of the old plea for "good" news. In 1986, in my third and last year as the environmental reporter for the Niagara Gazette, ten years of hard-hitting stories about the Love Canal disaster had not diminished the Gazette's -- and more significantly, owner Gannett's -- discomfort with stories that made the city's corporate and political leaders squirm. Four years later, while toxins still leaked into the city's water supply from Occidental Chemical Corp. dumps, the Gazette had eliminated the environmental beat entirely.

Back then, what passes for "civic journalism" today is what we lowly reporters called "kissing up to the chamber of commerce." Only the name has changed.

Lisa Aug
Frankfort, Ky.

We journalists in the latter part of the twentieth century resemble painters who have forgotten they can use more than one color on a canvas. Using more colors doesn't insure a painting will be "good," but it does open up new territories and possibilities. Public journalism is a new color for journalists and I applaud those giving it a try. I also applaud Mike Hoyt's article as the most finely grained portrait of civic or public journalism I have seen.

My only caveat with civic journalism is that it is just one of many untried paths. We journalists, particularly those who lead newspapers, have locked ourselves in a box and forgotten we can open the door. I would like to see a newspaper try satire on its front page, or open advocacy, or polemics. Our only limitation should
 be that of ink on paper (or whatever technology we use to tell a story). Our only essential rule should be "don't lie." Beyond that, all styles or methods are open. "Objective journalism" is proving itself too often blind, socially destructive, and worse, lousy at telling the truth about a situation or event. We despair that fewer people are reading newspapers yet we hesitate to try things that might thrill, anger, or amuse them. Let's put some more colors on the canvas.

Alex Marshall
Staff writer
The Virginian-Pilot
Norfolk, Va.

With the ability to hand out large sums of money to those who will do their bidding, the foundations that back civic journalism projects represent a threat to buy the kind of journalism their benefactors desire. Journalists already are too prone to allow awards and prizes to guide their agenda.

Foundation executives are typically well connected to community power structures and serve those interests, not the requirements of a free press. Newspapers are lax enough in not examining the real power in any community. To invite these same interests into the decision-making of the news media would be disastrous, no matter how high-sounding their message.

Roldo Bartimole
Point of View
Cleveland, Ohio

A WINDOW ON THE MEDIA

Neil Hickey ("The Megamedia Are the Message," cjr, September/October) seems to agree with Al Snyder in urging Disney et al. to guarantee noninterference with the journalists in their respective news organizations.

Even if Disney/ABC and Westing-house/CBS, among others, did make such a public promise, those of us who read Ben Bagdikian and the alternative press know enough not to bet the farm on such a "covenant."

Corporate control of the media is already rampant and will get worse. One need only contemplate the proliferation of TV "news" coverage of Windows 95 -- a most egregious use of valuable news time to puff up a huge corporation. We are still in the dark as to what kind of deal Microsoft made to get all that free publicity. Does anyone seriously think that's going to stop? Consider, for example, cjr's own Darts and Laurels column. Of the eight stories in the latest issue, six deal with corporate or business control of the press. And that's just scratching the surface.

Maryellen Lake
Becket, Mass.

LESS IS MORE

Ronald D. Elving's article, "C-SPAN Gets Pushy"(cjr, September/October), asks whether Brian Lamb's cable television offering can, in Jack Nelson's words, "really be journalism." But the larger -- unasked -- question must be: What is journalism?

When I began newspapering in 1965, the journalistic bywords were objectivity and accuracy. My mentor was an antiwar activist and a leading light of Ramparts magazine, yet he left his opinions at the newspaper's entrance. Reporters were strongly discouraged from engaging in "editing (except to tighten the story), commentary, or analysis." Those functions were left to editorialists, commentators, and analysts, who did not trespass beyond the borders of the editorial, op-ed, and review pages.

These days we see more of the news hole occupied by editorials masquerading as "news analysis." Stories have punch lines or Aesopian morals. Who, what, when, where, and why don't seem to be enough. Television reporters and anchors find it necessary to complement their verbiage with the wrinkled brow, the turned mouth, the ironic tilt of the head.

It is clear from viewers' calls to C-SPAN that many Americans reject some journalists' elitist notion that people must be led by the nose to an opinion. When these viewers say "Thank God for C-SPAN," they are expressing their belief that they do not need information gatekeepers to keep them up to date on public affairs.

Elving says Brian Lamb "wants it all." Hurrah, I want it all, too -- uncut and free of media spin.

Bob Smith
Spencer, Mass.

LEAVING THE POST: THE NEXT STRETCH

As a former Houston Post assistant city editor and survivor of other terminally ill news organizations, I read with great interest Marty Graham's "Romance and Rancor" in the September/October issue.

In her first-person narrative, Graham painted a poignant picture of those sad and chaotic days after the Hearst Corporation bought the Post's assets and owner Dean Singleton shut down the oldest paper in the nation's fourth-largest city. But several points were omitted that might lend a fuller picture of the immediate aftermath of the Post's demise.

Within hours of the announcement that the Post was closed, several former editors scrambled to help city desk reporters find jobs. Our desks became clearinghouses for editors around the country who were looking for good reporters.

Yes, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel did a few interviews en masse, as Graham reported, but they also gave four-day interviews/Florida beach vacations to others; yes, some talented white males are still out of work partly because of newsrooms' diversity efforts, but The Oregonian and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among others, hired talented white males; an education writer was eventually entertaining offers in the Washington, D.C., area, where there already are legions of good journalists; another city reporter is now a statehouse bureau chief; my paper, the Houston Chronicle, quickly snatched up the Post staff it had been admiring for years, hiring at least a half-dozen reporters, editors, and assistants. There are still other examples.

As a five-year UPI veteran, I know how it feels when owners run news organizations into the ground through bad business practices and ignore the value of good journalism. But in the aftermath of the death of The Houston Post, I was impressed with the way the journalism community around the country circled the wagons to keep good people working. These journalists will find that they will not only survive, but thrive, in the post-Singleton world.

Wendy Benjaminson
Houston, Tex.

I'm afraid that my former HoustonPost colleague, Marty Graham, read too much into what I told her while she was writing her cjr piece on the death of the paper. While I did tell her that I put off looking for another job for three weeks after the Post was killed, I never told her I was depressed, as she implied in the article.

Yes, I was saddened and angered by the demise of the newspaper. However, as I wrote in the Houston Press, it had more to do with the brutal breaking of that special bond that had linked us to our readers for so many years. But I got over that, and as any of my friends can attest, I never approached anything resembling depression. In fact, I came to enjoy thoroughly my extended vacation. This may sound sacreligious, but I have not missed the Post -- and the only time I really wished I still had a column was when it was revealed that the supercilious Phil Gramm had been in the pornography business. Oh, what joy it would have given me to write about that!

Juan R. Palomo
Houston, Tex.

WHEN YOU COME TO THE CAMP

As contact points between journalists and interviewees, we have some responsibility for the impact of reporters on the people here in the refugee camps. Gradually we have started to feel more and more ambivalent about what they are doing -- what you are doing. Apropos Ray Schroth's article ("But It's Really Burning," cjr, September/October), we would like to present some thoughts and ideas related to our experiences.

We would like to propose that journalists and photographers work in a manner that is respectful to their subjects. It is unrealistic and arrogant to expect that people working in camps will reorganize their schedule around the needs of visitors, will gather up photographically cute children, or invite visitors into workshops and groups which will then be disrupted.

It is not okay for children to miss school, to leave their homework undone, or to stay up late because someone needs a story. People working in camps are not there to provide information for journalists, act as tour guides, etc. No visitor, not even a journalist, should expect these things. But all visitors, even journalists, will find tremendous hospitality in any camp they visit. It is only necessary to phone first to arrange a time, or perhaps send a fax with an outline of a proposed article in order to fit in with the normal schedule. Visitors who don't speak the language should either bring an interpreter, or be prepared to pay someone at the camp at the going rate. Journalists should also be aware that any one interviewee is not necessarily representative of anyone else in the camp. They should realize that not everyone will want to be interviewed or photographed, and that they should ask permission first.

We ask also, please, that journalists be courteous enough to fulfill their promises and send copies of articles or photographs to the people they have interviewed. It doesn't matter if it is in English, German, or Chinese; we will find someone to translate (well, Chinese might be a bit of a problem).

We know we cannot control what you report; we do not want to, nor should anyone else be able to. But many camps have their own newspaper, photography, or video projects. A key aim of these projects is to give the displaced the means to tell their own stories -- to control their own image, their own portrayal.

It would be very positive if these groups had more of a chance to represent themselves in the international media. It would not be hard to make links to them -- for photographs, articles, diaries, and so on. The world would benefit from joint media projects involving the people who are living the reality that Western journalism is working so hard to define.

Rachel Hastie
Alexandra Jones
Volunteers
Center for Women War Victims
Zagreb, Croatia

NEWSPAPER HISTORY

Jules Feiffer's "Paperland" cartoon (cjr, September/October) brought back memories of my first day at newspapers that are now dead.

New York Newsday, September 25, 1985: A crisp, gorgeous fall day in New York. Happy to be there. My first assignment was a piece on security at the United Nations for a future event I've now forgotten. I met a woman from The Washington Post whose work I'd admired, and another reporter I'd worked with years ago. He welcomed me to New York.

I drank in the day, loved being at the brand new tabloid in town, the brand new paper of quality.

Duration of my stay at New York Newsday: nearly four years. I left to work on a novel.

The Baltimore News-American, October 12, 1978 (or thereabouts): I was a newly minted editor. People were deferential. A reporter introduced himself and tried to sell me right away on a travel story he'd done on his vacation in Cairo. I said I'd see what I could do. I was his editor and we also became friends. Now he's a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and I doubt he remembers my first day, though it's possible.

Duration of my stay at the Baltimore News-American: two years and two months. I left for a better job, in Philadelphia.

The Miami News, August 28, 1975: Go over and do a piece on how long people have to wait in the emergency room of Jackson Memorial Hospital, the city editor told me on my first day. There'd been some complaints about delays. I did that assignment, and what I remember is coming back that first day and telling my editor what I'd found, what the frustrated patients were saying. I was glad to be a reporter again. I'd been out of the business for a while.

Miami's a tough town and the paper was declining rapidly after its halcyon days that I missed so, in retrospect, it was almost all downhill after that particular first day. But being in Miami was worth the hassle, worth the journalistic struggle. Very much worth it: I met my wife there. She was also a reporter in the Magic City.

Duration of my stay at The Miami News: three years. We both got jobs up north, in Baltimore.

The Washington Star, July 1, 1969: A sticky summer day in Washington. From my apartment on Capitol Hill, I had an easy walk to the great national paper I'd always wanted to work for. I was delighted to be at the Star -- at that time, still in an intense competitive battle with the hated (by me and other Star people) Washington Post. But I also remember thinking on the first day that I was going to have to work right through the horrible, humid Washington summer. I'd plotted and schemed to escape those summers before.

On that first day, a friend and former editor of mine at The Washington Daily News greeted me. He was my editor again. He found a typewriter for me close to the city desk. He joked about keeping an eye on the new reporter. I didn't care where I sat. This was the Star. One of the best damn newspapers in America, probably the best afternoon paper. It was a privilege to be there.

Duration of my stay at The Washington Star: four years. Funny, it was a place I never thought I'd leave. I know why I left -- because I got into a nasty argument with the metropolitan editor, because I wanted to write a book -- but it's still painful to deal with.

The Washington Daily News, August 29, 1966: An underrated Scripps-Howard tabloid, the Daily News was my entree into Washington. I'd come from the Hartford Courant. The Daily News gave The Washington Post and the Washington Star a run for their money on many a day. I remember walking into the newsroom on that first day. The city editor tossed me a packet of clippings from the paper's library, all written by a reporter I'd heard of who'd just left the paper.

He was a helluva writer, one of the best in town. The editor said, "Just do what he did."

I gave it my best shot. And being a young reporter in Washington at that time was about as good as it gets in the newspaper business.

Duration of my stay at the Washington Daily News: two years and four months. I left to work for a congressman. That didn't last. I went to the Star.

The thing is, I've never worked for a paper when it folded. I tell my friends in the industry that according to my calculations I leave a paper on an average of nine years before it dies.

That's nothing to be proud of. I've mourned the deaths of all those papers, though they were all different, qualitatively and otherwise. The death of New York Newsday was perhaps the saddest -- next to The Washington Star -- because it made such an enormous contribution to the city in such a short time. Perhaps it's romantic and ahistorical to say that no newspaper deserves to die. But New York Newsday certainly didn't. It deserved to live and flourish in the city it defined so well.

David Holmberg
West Palm Beach, Fla.

MR. WARREN'S PROFESSION

Publisher's notes are seldom worth commenting on, but the one in the September/ October issue is doubly outrageous.

It excerpts the remarks made by James Warren to the graduating class of the Columbia journalism school. Warren said, and I quote, "Cokie Roberts of ABC and National Public Radio took $20,000 from one health care association right smack in the middle of that very health care debate she was covering as the network's congressional reporter."

Warren knows that to be untrue.

He knows it because he called me about it; I explained the facts to him. They are that her engagement to speak was made a year in advance, before the health care debate became a congressional matter on which she would report. When the situation changed, she attempted to cancel but was persuaded that in good faith, with all the invitations printed, she really should not. She spoke and donated the fee to the hospital where her sister had died.

Warren's clear disregard for facts is perfectly understandable. He is trying to establish a reputation as a fearless iconoclast and is taking the easiest route. As Stanislavsky remarked in a different school, if you can fake sincerity? that's acting!

Richard Wald
Senior vice president
ABC News
New York, N.Y.

James Warren replies: Though I never spoke to Wald on this particular matter (I dealt with an ABC spokeswoman), the facts are these: a complete discussion of this one episode (which also included Cokie Roberts not allowing C-SPAN cameras to cover her address before the Group Health Association of America) was contained in my February 20, 1994, column. My address at Columbia mentioned only the substantial fee. While my address did not (as the by then year-old column had) mention her giving the fee to charity, my point remained the same: when money passes hands, even if directed to charity, the relationship between reporter and subject changes. It's the same as when you attend too many Washington dinner parties with people you cover. I suspect that if Wald had read any of my writings on this, or any other, subject (which apparently he has not), he might have second thoughts about both questioning my accuracy and falling back on the silliness about my "trying to establish a reputation as a fearless iconoclast." It seems that a Pavloan thrust to question motive is a last refuge for those who practice situational ethics of the kind one might associate with ABC News.

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