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A journalists tells what went on in the Washington bureau he used to work in ... how all too many stories attempt to hoodwink the reader not by what they say, but what they don't say ... and why he's glad to be out of the business.
By Gerry Storch, Retired Journalists
Walk into any newsroom in America and you will hear and see one thing loud and clear.
CNN. It will be on all the TV sets scattered around.
Don't be so foolish as to think Fox will be on, except maybe in times of war.
Of course, if the newsrooms were fair, they would have left-leaning CNN on one week, right-leaning Fox on the next, alternating them to provide different viewpoints in the background hubbub.
But who said USA newspapers were about fair?
As if I needed another reminder, I got one when I opened, on March 14, the Weekend Journal section of the Wall Street Journal. There on the front page, with a story about college students foregoing spring break to volunteer on presidential campaigns, was a picture of a Clinton volunteer and another of two Obama volunteers. Inside on the jump, there were two more pictures of Obama volunteers, and two more of Clinton volunteers.
No, there weren't any of McCain volunteers. They weren't important enough, I guess. Plenty of room and plenty of time for Clinton and Obama volunteers. But goshdarn it, not enough for McCain volunteers. We spilled coffee on our desk and forgot to buy peanut butter at the store and just couldn't summon up the energy to get McCain photos ... what a rotten day at the WSJ!
Seeking an answer on what happened, I attempted to contact the Corrections and Amplifications department, e-mailing as listed in the Journal. It bounced back as undeliverable. There you go.
This was quite the disappointment as I feel the Journal is the best American newspaper, with often brilliant writing and brilliant concepts, and (usually) trustworthiness. I learn a lot from it every day, though under Murdoch, it's starting to become like any other paper. If it has an ethical/fairness lapse like this, what does that say about the rest?
All I want as a reader from any story and accompanying photos and graphics is the salient facts, with the reasoning behind them, with evidence for any asserted trend, and what the implications for the future might be. I want consistency, dependability. I don't want Simon Cowell treatment of one side and Paula Abdul treatment of the other.
Most importantly, I don't want anything important left out. That's how the unfairness generally is done in the media ... not by what's said, as they're too canny for that, but by what's not said.
I can tell you about that first-hand as I recall my waning days at Gannett News Service in Washington (you can see my journalistic bio elsewhere on this site).
There was little or no muttering about the Democrats, but poor Bush, well, it was amazing the treatment he got. He went to Yale and got a Harvard MBA and learned to fly a giant bomber in the reserves and built a successful business in the rough and tumble oil industry and was a decent governor of the nation's second largest state ... but all that didn't matter ... no, he was invariably referred to as dumb ... like him or not, at least he had a resume and it was considerably more substantial than those of his incessant critics.
Sometime in '01 we hired a political reporter from one of the big Florida papers. She sat behind me and started inveighing one day against Katherine Harris, who had been Florida's secretary of state during the disputed election in 2000. She trashed Ms. Harris, who also served as Florida campaign manager for Bush, for enabling him to "steal the election" with her decisions in office.
I asked her, did she know who Gore's campaign manager for Florida was? A blank stare, a slight frown. No, she did not. I informed her it was Bob Butterworth, who was also Florida's attorney general, and whose office was engaged in lawsuits against Harris.
If it was wrong what Harris did, then why wasn't it wrong what Butterworth did? Why did Bush receive acrimony for Harris' actions while Gore received none for Butterworth's? If Bush was trying to steal the election, wasn't Gore trying to do the same thing? A blank stare, a slight frown. And no answer.
Wondering why a Florida political reporter would have no knowledge of the Democratic aspects of the controversy, I did a search of articles in USA Today, which was a couple floors above me. I looked for mentions of both Bush and Katherine Harris in a story, and both Gore and Bob Butterworth in a story. I got dozens of hits on Bush/Harris. But I got only one on Gore/Butterworth, and that was an outside story USA Today had used.
So there was tons of stuff examining Bush's actions in Florida, which is fine with me, but a big "black hole" regarding Gore's actions, which isn't fine with me.
It's not what they say, it's what they don't say.
I was lucky during my Gannett days to work with great writers like John Hanchette, John Omicinski, Ellen Hale and Mike Lopresti. They were great because of their skills, but they also were great because no one owned them.
How many can you say that about today? I wish I knew ... or maybe I don't wish I know.
BLOOKERS: Do you agree with this essay and have something to add? Be sure to post. If you think I'm all wet, hey, be sure to post.
UPDATE and POSTSCRIPT ...
After I wrote the above and thought about it after I put it on this site, I wondered if maybe I was a bit too harsh on my former profession ... but then I received my May 24 Wall Street Journal and no more worries.
There, in the Weekend Journal section, with a headline of "The Other Campaign Trail," was a "story" by June Kronholz on prospective delegates to the political conventions.
By golly, the prospective Obama delegates, they were worth writing about. And the prospective Clinton delegates, they were worth writing about, too.
The prospective McCain delegates ... well, they weren't worth writing about.
Yes, of the 20 paragraphs in Kronholz's dismal effort, 19 contained her enthusiastic if not giddy descriptions of the grass-roots Dems' bake sales and "poetry slams" to win their hoped-for trip to Denver. She mentioned 10 individual Dems.
The 20th paragraph grudgingly admitted that "excitement is high among the Republicans, too" .. and that in Florida, 836 people are running for 114 seats to the GOP conclave in St. Paul. It gave the suspicious impression that some editor, desperately trying to make the story "look good," slammed it in.
But no individual Republicans were talked to and of course when it came to the photos, Kronholz magically generated three of the Democrats but couldn't bear to supply any of the Republicans.
Newspapers have gone down the tubes financially since I left, and ethically as well ... I'm glad I'm no longer in.
Another UPDATE and POSTSCRIPT ...
Then came the July 19 Journal Weekend section and unfortunately only a paltry improvement
The front page featured a sprightly ... and fair ... story/review by food critic Raymond Sokolov on Obama's and McCain's favorite restaurants. He dined at both.
The front page, though, didn't show photos of both. It showed just one. Let's see ... which one could it be ... which one could it be ... could it maybe possibly be Obama's favorite restaurant in the primo journalistic position? Yes!!!
McCain's favorite restaurant wasn't worthy of being shown on page one.
On the jump, we were greeted with another picture of Obama's favorite restaurant, plus an inset of one of its dishes. Somehow, along with them ... please don't faint ... the Journal summoned up the energy to run a photo of McCain's favorite restaurant.
Incidentally, Obama's favorite restaurant is Topolobampo in Chicago ("a superb little shrine to the full panoply of Mexico's cuisine," Sokolov writes). McCain's favorite is the Asylum, near his ranch in Sedona (Sokolov admired its "unpretentious efforts to bring sophistication to the Verde Valley").
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