The Decline of Journalism

I'm a trained journalist. I used to regularly read Washington Journalist Review and Columbia Journalism Review. I'm an admirer of old-school journalists, and I appreciate their mindset. You put aside your own biases and follow the story, wherever it leads. No matter what the partisan spinmeisters say, writing a negative story about the Clintons doesn't make you a Republican, and writing something negative about McCain doesn't mean you're a Democrat. Journalists follow the story.

I loved David Brinkley's Sunday morning show. Brinkley was a hardcore journalist; so were Cokie Roberts and the ever-unlovable Sam Donaldson. George Will, a pundit, was thrown in for good measure.

But today, pundits rule. The people who host TV "news" shows don't come from journalism backgrounds. Olberman, Matthews, O'Reilly, Stephanopolous, Scarborough, Buchanan, Carlson, Abrams, Larry King--these are not journalists. They are personalities. And so, news circa 2008 is far different from news circa 1978.

There are still some true journalists out there. Jim Lehrer, Tom Brokaw, Andrea Mitchell, Bob Scheiffer, David Gregory (though he's aspiring to be a pundit), Brian Williams, Christiane Amanpour, Bob Woodward, Candy Crowley, Anderson Cooper (yes, Cooper). Dan Rather was an amazing journalist in his day. The major newspapers are home to many superb journalists.

But TV viewers want opinions, evidently, not facts. So personalities rise to the top at the expense of journalists.

And today, there's the dilemma of deciding, "Who is a journalist?" The evil "media" now includes the blogosphere, where facts are optional. And so, Andrea Mitchell and Bob Woodward get lumped in with DailyKos and HuffingtonPost. They are not the same. But the blogs get half-baked stories out there, and journalists really have no choice but to follow up to see if there's any truth to it. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity vomit up innuendoes and tabloid-worthy gossip about Democrats, and when Brian Williams doesn't repeat it on Nightly News, he gets accused of being on the Democrat payroll. No, it's just that they didn't find anything credible to report.

But unfortunately, the half-truths and thoroughly-spun tripe from the pundits and blogs is what we end up talking about.

Posted on September 6, 2008 09:10 AM|

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