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Chicago Triubine Op-Ed
There was a rule at United Press International, the impoverished news service that ran mostly on the adrenalin of its journalists and an assumption that a couple of sources of big news were always better than just one: "First get it right. Then get it out."
That was 40 years ago, of course, but the level of competition at the wires — with Associated Press and Reuters being the objects in the UPI battle — demanded that news be reported as rapidly as possible, but only after you were certain it was news.
Lots of mistakes were made in that cauldron. It was like working in a blast furnace where people you had never met just turned up the pressure and the heat as they pushed for you to report and write your story as quickly as you could. Then write it again. And again. And again. Different versions each time.
The object was never ideological. It was tactical. The agency that was first with the correct version of the news could get more clients, make more money and survive.
There was a flaw in that thought. It was an assumption that publishers everywhere were interested in competition and the search for the truth. That was wrong. Mostly they were interested in profits.
That was then, this is now.
Given the death of that very noble old ethic, who is to blame in the story of the U.S. Agriculture Department employee who got fired for being a racist for a few hours and then became an apology sponge when everyone everywhere realized how wrong they had been?
I think it's us.
Not the media, which has mutated into an information feeding system that fills its troughs with whatever people seem to want.
Not the right-wing blogger who started the whole mess by publishing a snippet of Shirley Sherrod's address to the NAACP. That guy, Andrew Breitbart, was just working in character. If there are standards in the world of blogging, I can't figure out what they are and don't care to.
Not Tom "Trigger" Vilsack, the jumpy secretary of agriculture who righteously dumped Sherrod then just as righteously apologized and invited her back, one would hope to a better-paying job.
Nope. It's us.
The thought that people get the government they deserve also applies to media: People get the media they deserve. We seem to be fleeing substance at every opportunity, perhaps because substance is painful and hard to read and understand.
In its place, we embrace whatever is put in front of us and treat it as real and bathe in it for a while until another reality presents itself. Remember health care? Death panels were a big part of that debate until they weren't. Then there is our compelling Kenyan president. Tea party people still believe that one.
We pay a lot of attention to Lindsey Lohan and the unfolding array of unfolding starlets and stars who can't keep their noses out of the bad stuff and provide a symphonic soap opera as a daily backdrop to what is happening in our lives.
Go visit Fox. Go visit MSNBC. There are plenty of glib people in both of those places who, despite the protestations of management, have erased the line between news and opinion and just blather on in their own left/right context. Now media seems to think opinion is good, even from reporters. It draws audience.
In fact, it's clear to me that media doesn't even have much of a definition of what a reporter might be. Obviously, someone who manipulates and tosses suspect content into the trough is just fine. That's lots cheaper than having a staff that actually covers things and makes lots of phone calls. What happened to the obligation to witness?
The long and short of this sad development is that we no longer have reliable media. To be sure, lots of news outlets chased down the Sherrod story and found it to be one of redemption, not of racism. But most of the damage was done by the time that part of the story developed.
Lots of this is happening because we have abandoned a bundle of the old rules that used to define how the news media operated. What happens now is something is reported someplace and no matter how bad it smells, it is transmitted everywhere. Then in some cases the old process of checking and reviewing and editing steps in and people find themselves saying, "That thing we said two hours ago, that's just not true."
What good is that?
No good is the answer in a world in which even the federal government can be dragged into the messy world of media and overreact so quickly. Once the mercury is out of the thermometer, it's hard to get it back in.
To the end of time, there will be people who still believe Sherrod is a racist who would not help out a white farm couple because that is the first impression that settled into their simplistic brains and that is what got frozen in there.
We need to find a better way to use media.
Information is immensely powerful and the fuel that makes democracy work everywhere. Bad information is poison to that process.
This problem is only going to get worse as November and the election approaches.
We have two options, one likely and one not likely at all.
We can continue to swim in this ocean of muck and goo, or we can demand higher standards all around.
I suspect muck and goo will take the day.
Charles M. Madigan is the presidential writer in residence at Roosevelt University.
There was a rule at United Press International, the impoverished news service that ran mostly on the adrenalin of its journalists and an assumption that a couple of sources of big news were always better than just one: "First get it right. Then get it out."
That was 40 years ago, of course, but the level of competition at the wires — with Associated Press and Reuters being the objects in the UPI battle — demanded that news be reported as rapidly as possible, but only after you were certain it was news.
Lots of mistakes were made in that cauldron. It was like working in a blast furnace where people you had never met just turned up the pressure and the heat as they pushed for you to report and write your story as quickly as you could. Then write it again. And again. And again. Different versions each time.
The object was never ideological. It was tactical. The agency that was first with the correct version of the news could get more clients, make more money and survive.
There was a flaw in that thought. It was an assumption that publishers everywhere were interested in competition and the search for the truth. That was wrong. Mostly they were interested in profits.
That was then, this is now.
Given the death of that very noble old ethic, who is to blame in the story of the U.S. Agriculture Department employee who got fired for being a racist for a few hours and then became an apology sponge when everyone everywhere realized how wrong they had been?
I think it's us.
Not the media, which has mutated into an information feeding system that fills its troughs with whatever people seem to want.
Not the right-wing blogger who started the whole mess by publishing a snippet of Shirley Sherrod's address to the NAACP. That guy, Andrew Breitbart, was just working in character. If there are standards in the world of blogging, I can't figure out what they are and don't care to.
Not Tom "Trigger" Vilsack, the jumpy secretary of agriculture who righteously dumped Sherrod then just as righteously apologized and invited her back, one would hope to a better-paying job.
Nope. It's us.
The thought that people get the government they deserve also applies to media: People get the media they deserve. We seem to be fleeing substance at every opportunity, perhaps because substance is painful and hard to read and understand.
In its place, we embrace whatever is put in front of us and treat it as real and bathe in it for a while until another reality presents itself. Remember health care? Death panels were a big part of that debate until they weren't. Then there is our compelling Kenyan president. Tea party people still believe that one.
We pay a lot of attention to Lindsey Lohan and the unfolding array of unfolding starlets and stars who can't keep their noses out of the bad stuff and provide a symphonic soap opera as a daily backdrop to what is happening in our lives.
Go visit Fox. Go visit MSNBC. There are plenty of glib people in both of those places who, despite the protestations of management, have erased the line between news and opinion and just blather on in their own left/right context. Now media seems to think opinion is good, even from reporters. It draws audience.
In fact, it's clear to me that media doesn't even have much of a definition of what a reporter might be. Obviously, someone who manipulates and tosses suspect content into the trough is just fine. That's lots cheaper than having a staff that actually covers things and makes lots of phone calls. What happened to the obligation to witness?
The long and short of this sad development is that we no longer have reliable media. To be sure, lots of news outlets chased down the Sherrod story and found it to be one of redemption, not of racism. But most of the damage was done by the time that part of the story developed.
Lots of this is happening because we have abandoned a bundle of the old rules that used to define how the news media operated. What happens now is something is reported someplace and no matter how bad it smells, it is transmitted everywhere. Then in some cases the old process of checking and reviewing and editing steps in and people find themselves saying, "That thing we said two hours ago, that's just not true."
What good is that?
No good is the answer in a world in which even the federal government can be dragged into the messy world of media and overreact so quickly. Once the mercury is out of the thermometer, it's hard to get it back in.
To the end of time, there will be people who still believe Sherrod is a racist who would not help out a white farm couple because that is the first impression that settled into their simplistic brains and that is what got frozen in there.
We need to find a better way to use media.
Information is immensely powerful and the fuel that makes democracy work everywhere. Bad information is poison to that process.
This problem is only going to get worse as November and the election approaches.
We have two options, one likely and one not likely at all.
We can continue to swim in this ocean of muck and goo, or we can demand higher standards all around.
I suspect muck and goo will take the day.
Charles M. Madigan is the presidential writer in residence at Roosevelt University.
