Tag: society

Of journalism, objectivity and emotion

A rally on climate change was held in Bend Sunday.

For a moment, I’d like you to step back from your personal views on the topic and consider this perspective: You are the reporter, or the editor who assigned such a story.

In some cases, such a rally brings out counter-demonstrators with a different perspective.

In this case, however, there was none. Turnout was … well, we said “dozens,” so let’s say about 50 folks.

So … as reporter/editor, do you go seeking out people with other perspectives to “balance” the story? And if you do, do you include a line or two from them, or scrupulously make the story 50-5o? (On a holiday-weekend Sunday when you are unlikely to be able to reach many of the experts on the other side? Not that anyone at the rally claimed to be an expert.)

Or do you just tell of the rally, how many were there, and some of their views?

(Or say the rally was for or against … new immigration policies. For or against new gun regulations, or abortion, or any other incendiary, one side-never-will-convince-the-other-side issue.)

Or do you not cover the rally at all, because it’s inherently one-sided?

I personally think you report what happened, and it’s as high or low in your lineup of stories as the rest of the day’s news suggests. Then, when people on the other side hold their rally or gathering, you strive to give it similar treatment. Not “equal.” That’s too precise a measurement for messy humans.

We’re not robots. We don’t count words or syllables. If one side in one of these seemingly never-ending disputes is better organized, it’s not our job to help the other side organize – but it could be our job to note, factually, that lack of organization. Right? The loudest voice shouldn’t always win, but neither should the quietest, just because we consider them “right.”

Someone who’s a regular on our Website’s comments threw out the line, “Whatever happened to real journalism”?

I argued that there’s just as much of it out there as there ever was — even more so, perhaps, in the world of the Internet.

What has changed, far more, is for many, is the partisan nature of the prism through which they view journalism.

If a story doesn’t include their perspective, or their favorite caustic stat or antidote to hurl at the other side, it’s not “objective.”

Talk-show hosts get more hours per week than anyone else to rail against the “mainstream,” “lamestream” media — as if they aren’t part of it. Oh no, they are the “balance” against it.

We get complaints, like all media these days, of being on the president’s side. Others, meanwhile, claim some large corporations dictate what we cover and how, and what to ignore.

It seems there’s barely any room for civil debate and discussion any more — in a world of walking on eggshells and avoiding landmines.

Perhaps Congress and the president are so sharply split only as a reflection of a sharply divided nation, with everyone frustrated but the partisans dug deep into their foxholes, ready to fire at anything that moves. (With words, not bullets, of course.)

But I should hasten to add that our goal is to not let the relatively small number of fierce partisans on both/all sides of these tough, complex issues mislead us into thinking that the majority of our viewers and readers agree with them and disdain our work. Because thankfully, there are glorious occasional glimpses of just what the (Nixon phrase warning) silent majority think, and it’s frustration, for sure – but as much with the discussion-hijackers and the flamethrowers as the policymakers and the govt. bureaucrats who are just trying to do their jobs and help folks.

I’ve been at this gig for a long time, and I know how the blossoming of social media has given folks who used to write occasional pithy letters to the editor or complain loudly over the phone a new megaphone in which to try to take over the discussion and verbally beat the other side into submission … as everyone else walks away, frustrated and disgusted.

I just hope and pray that the signal of democracy — messy but vital — isn’t drowned out permanently by the noise of the haters. (I may do a bumper sticker one day: ‘To BLAME is to B-LAME.” That’s my Blame Society slogan of the day;-) Because if all we care about is “winning” and proving the ones on the other side of this or that incendiary issue are not just wrong or misled, but evil incarnate… we’ll all lose. Big-time.

Some would say that ship has sailed, that we’re already lost. I hope and pray they’re wrong.

Before Facebook, There Was the Phone Book

OK, I know, comparing Facebook to the ol’ phone book is a little odd, but I’ll try.

First, a funny image – that of Steve Martin in The Jerk, running through the neighborhood, shouting, ‘The new phone books are here!”

Well, I wasn’t THAT over the moon about them, but let me tell you, few things were a reporter’s best friend as much as those always-growing (til now) collections of pulp with shiny covers. We learned to keep the old ones, because sometimes, people paid the EXTRA fee to get themselves unlisted (see some parallels there to the world of headaches of ‘opting out’ of having your name all over the Web?)

I even wrote stories, honestly, where I tracked the growth of a community – this one – by comparing the previous year’s phone book pages to the new one’s. Twenty more pages, etc. Or look for new Yellow Pages categories, like ‘Internet Service Providers.’ Sometimes they’d throw me off by changing the font size or columns, but tallying the pages was just another simple way to see how fast we are – whoops, make that – were  – growing.

I bring this up in a not-totally-random fashion. Last week, trying to help someone with a potential news story, I used Google to find a name, then someone local related to them. Twice, I thought I hit pay dirt – turning to the phone book, they were listed!

But alas, both were disconnected.

Why? Odds are, because they now live their lives on cell phones, so who needs an old ‘land line’ phone to pay for? The terms ‘boat anchor’ (or even ‘buggy whip’) come to mind.

I do understand. We switched to the cheaper cable-modem version of a land line, but I just can’t quite bring myself to cut the cord, one that’s fed me like an umbilical cord so much news over the years.

But you watch – phone books will start to shrink, unless there’s some societal revolution that tells people they want their cell number to be found in one, communal place, rather than catch as catch can in Internet phone number search sites.

This, I highly doubt will happen.

So is the rise of the cell phone a triumph of privacy, in a way? Spam and junk calls still find their way to them – usually by ‘robo-calls,’ where an automated dialer hits EVERY number. (I have to explain that to folks who call about a scam and wonder, ‘How did they get my number?’ They didn’t – they call EVERY number, in a row.)

But in a way, the future dimunition, even possible demise of the lowly phone book as a place everyone turned to as a place to find your and just about everyone’s name, address and phone number is sad, and perhaps another piece of the loss of community – as we all go our separate ways, for better and/or worse.

And that’s a shame. Not just for reporters, but for those young rascals who used to flip through it, eyes closed, randomly point at a number to call and say, ‘Pardon me, but do you have Prince Albert in a can?” (Rimshot.)

It’s not the kind of societal change many will have heartburn over (unless you work for what used to be THE Phone Co.) But it’s sad, nonetheless. To me, anyway.

I mean, not everyone in the phone book was your ‘friend,’ Facebook style. But somehow, connecting only to ‘friends’ seems a bit … insular. (Especially when people ‘friend’ you on Facebook and you have NO clue who they are, then you are stuck on that dilemma of accepting, rejecting or ignoring.)

(Another phone book plus – no profile photo required. Leaves more to the imagination, which is something we need to cultivate in these days of amazing movie special effects that can outshine our wildest dreams. Besides, if you have a ‘face for radio’ like yours truly, who needs everyone knowing what you look like?;-)

I remember reading of a reporter who used to randomly point at names in the phone book, call them and turn their lives into wonderful features. I know that’s possible, because everyone has at least one story to tell – the story of their lives, which can be as fascinating as any novel or movie.

Yes, you can probably do the same thing online. But it’s not the same – and these days, I daresay, the percentage who would agree to share some intimate details with a stranger over the phone are probably dropping even faster than those old-fogey landline phones.

No, now we share more such details of our lives than ever before – the crises, the joys, the random day-to-day thoughts (such as this!) with people who are our online “friends.” More open, in a way, than ever before, but more closed as well.

Such is the paradox of modern life, I suppose.

Signal-to-noise ratio in article comments

OK, time to try doing what I said I’d do here – expound at length on something of interest (to me, anyway), then boil it down for the on-air version.

We’ve had more than 4,000 article comments since we began the first version in early February – about 1,000 a month – postable comments, that is. Another, oh, 1,000 or so un-postable – some that make me nervous to think I might live near or interact with these folks;-)

So that’s sort of a 3-to-1 signal to noise ratio, in terms of wheat to problematic chaff – except for the fact I probably don’t hold to as firm a line as I should.

NOBODY reads Terms of Service – who has time, interest? – but they are there – and for our Website, they ban : “Posting or transmitting any unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or harmful information of any kind.”

Man, I could probably eliminate 95 percent of the posts, if I defined those labels rigorously. But it’d sure be a boring discussion – except of course that I’d be spending too much of my time explaining why this or that comment got deleted.

Our posts are anonymous – though folks can give their real names if they want, and some do. On the other hand, The Bulletin recently started having article comments – but only by paid subscribers – and the most they’ve had on any one story is… three. I do understand the tradeoffs involved.

But in talking to my big brother David today, it reminded me of the whole pluses-minuses thing to forums – for him, it’s viiting stocks/finance ones, for my boss at the station, it’s cars. Somewhere there’s folks already arguing about/discussing/offering advice on whatever subject you’re interested in.

And if the moderator doesn’t allow flamewars to burn out or hijack a previously interesting, thoughtful discussion, great – but I’m sure they get grief from the few screeching “censorship” or “freedom of the press.” Which is silly, because on the Internet, there’s always a place you can talk/argue about whatever it is you want to say. Whether anyone will be listening is another matter entirely.

So if the interesting or at least neutral posts outweigh the “you idiot!” etc. distractions, the signal-to-noise ratio is acceptable. And I’ve found just enough supportive, enlightening or at least not scarily negative posts to keep the thing going. Corporations are just not used to providing platforms for people to dump on them – fairly or unfairly. But my argument is, better in your forum then in a place you can’t monitor or weigh in on. And as I’ve said, folks come to our defense quite often without us lifting a finger.

So the typical routine on the more negative comment threads – and I can almost predict which stories they come about on – is the following sequence: Attack. Defend. Attack the Defenders. Defend the Attackers. Someone pleads “can’t we get along?” And eventually the argument loses steam and folks move on, except for an occasional add-on by someone late to the gathering.

I’ve been slammed for “deleting comments I don’t agree with,” when all that happened was a new version of a story came along and the old one is moved out (but linked to). I’d rather keep updating the same story, to keep the comment threads intact, BUT search engines like Google News don’t re-index existing story URLs, so that’s a point in favor of new stories, rather than updated ones.

Life’s full of tradeoffs. Fortunately, our current comment system from JS-Kit does provide for my favorite kind of community regulation – self-regulation. It allows folks to vote on whether they like a post or not (believe they slide up or down as a result), or mark posts as offensive (if, under the default settings, five folks make such a marking, a post VANISHES).

I know far bigger media outlets than ours have often abandoned comment systems for how they are abused. But USA Today is hanging tough, and several others as well. It just seems worth it, to me.