Now, stop and think a minute . . .

A recent discussion with my son-the-reporter of course got around to the crisis that newspapers are going through these days, and how opinion writers and TV pundits just about everywhere are weighing in on what the outcome might or should be.

The noise seems to center on newspapers’ falling advertising revenues, on the one hand, and on the other the speculation that more and more folks are getting their news from the Internet, or from entertainment like the Jon Stewart show, Rush Limbaugh, or the talking heads at MSNBC and Fox News – none of which, by the way, are “hard news” reporters, but rather commentators on what may have begun as hard news — not exactly Huntley and Brinkley, Walter Cronkite or the PBS Newshour.

I admit to being addicted to some of the cable news shows, but that’s not where I get hard news. Before I tune in to MSNBC, I've listened to NPR, read the New York Times and other of the much-maligned “mainstream media” as well as assorted magazines for national and international news, and of course the Waxahachie Daily Light for local goings-on.

So what about the newspapers? How shall we be informed if they disappear? Can we agree that hard news is a good place to start, or will we be satisfied with the pre-selected information we get from favorite TV shows or Internet web sites?

Of course, no one really knows what will happen, any more than the effect of the Internet could have been predicted back when Gutenberg’s printing press got our attention in 1440, or when William Randolph Hearst (aka Citizen Kane) took over the San Francisco Examiner in 1887 and turned it into a mighty publishing empire.

And over the years just about anyone who gave it a try could publish and distribute news in printed form. Back in the mid 20th century a simple image transfer medium consisting of a sheet of gelatin in a box, called a hectograph, was ideal for young aspiring reporters to print neighborhood newsletters. So we did.

If we’d had some advertisers we might even have made money, but …

Thanks to the Internet, of course, YouTube has become a player in the dissemination of information, and so it was that Frank Rich, writing about the situation for the New York Times, was able to share this bit of history:

To time-travel back to the dawn of the technological strand of the disaster, search YouTube for "1981 primitive Internet report on KRON." What you’ll find is a 28-year-old local television news piece from San Francisco about a "far-fetched," pre-Web experiment by the city’s two papers, The Chronicle and The Examiner, to distribute their wares to readers with home computers via primitive phone modems. Though there were at most 3,000 people in the Bay Area with PCs then, some 500 mailed in coupons for the service to The Chronicle alone. But, as the anchorwoman assures us at the end, with a two-hour download time (at $5 an hour), "the new telepaper won’t be much competition for the 20-cent street edition."

There’s a crowd that believes, sincerely, that there’s no problem, we’ll just get our news from the Internet. But there’s a catch: Most of the serious reporting that makes it onto the Internet sites is done by print reporters, published in newspapers, and picked up by web sites. What happens to those stories when a newspaper folds?

Oh, say some, there are smart people everywhere who will find, investigate and report the news we need. You don’t have to be trained in journalism to do that.

Maybe so; I won’t argue that point here. But do you have any idea what it costs to send a reporter to, say, Iraq? Try $10,000 a month – and that’s not salary, folks. It covers travel, food and lodging, of course, but also local transportation, security, translators, “fixers” (the people who get you into places you need to be and out of places you need to leave and generally keep you out of trouble), satellite phones, and of course armored vests and a camera or two. Just for starters.

But what if you don’t care about war zones, or for that matter any foreign news? Then ask yourself who, exactly, will be interested enough to cover your local city council meetings? Who will go to Austin to discover legislation that might be making its way through to becoming law that will affect your life? Who will bug the Center for Disease Control to get the news we need about swine flu? Who will spend hours and hours covering often tedious Congressional hearings, to make sure we know what our legislators are up to?

“Citizen journalists”? Do you think? Let’s ask Thomas Jefferson:

The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.

Originally published in the Waxahachie Daily Light, May 11, 2009.

sex, lies and the internet

Lies and sex, not to mention lies about sex, are nothing new to the world of politics. Back in 1884, Grover Cleveland’s opponents famously chanted, “Ma, Ma! Where’s my pa?” in hopes that drawing attention to Cleveland’s reported illegitimate child would defeat his run for President.

Sort of what Karl Rove’s minions did to John McCain in 2000; except in the Cleveland case, where the charge was probably true, it didn’t work and in the McCain case, where it most assuredly was a lie, it cost him the primary and probably the election.

Last week the New York Times, a paper I love and rely upon and one that is held in great esteem by professional journalists around the world, ran a story about McCain’s relationship with a lobbyist a few years back.

A female lobbyist, the item noted, going on to say that “convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him.”

What bothered me, and many others, about the story was the way it was received, which of course resulted from the way it was presented.

The substance of the Times story was to call into question McCain’s sincerity in opposing lobbyists’ influence while under the influence of at least one lobbyist himself. But you can guess what the TV news shows, pundits and wall-to-wall talk shows picked up, and you’re right: The sex angle, complete with a photo of the very attractive lady lobbyist, stunningly decked out in evening attire.

I believe it was a newsworthy story, with or without with an extra dollop of drama; I just think the romantic angle itself warranted waiting until the reporters had indisputable evidence because they could have anticipated that sex rather than lobbying might become the story.

As it turned out, the New York Times became the story because they published it, and on page one, and now everyone’s attention is somewhat diverted from the seriousness of the matter alleged.

In the last dozen years, sex and lies have been joined by the Internet as weapons of choice in political struggles.

To be sure, there are great enhancements to public discourse in the incredible amount of information that’s available to anyone with access to the Internet, and the value to candidates who want to get their messages out and bring in contributions is, well, immeasurable.

But the use of the Internet for mischief has, sadly, become almost an institution in our politics. For those who would destroy a candidate for public office by publishing lies, it’s a piece of cake now: easy anonymity, free distribution to the entire world if one so chooses, and of course the liberty we enjoy to speak freely and say just about anything.

A couple of months ago I wrote about an Internet rumor that had been circulating for well over a year; I pointed out that it may have originated with Insight Magazine, a Washington Times (that would be Rev. Moon, of course) publication, but if not then certainly it was given a significant boost from there through the Fox news network and onto the Internet.

The rumor, about Barack Obama, was reported on and thoroughly debunked repeatedly in the mainstream media, then and since, but like those trick candles we all hate it just keeps on keepin’ on.

Last week, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reported that Barack Obama, again, “is the subject of a shadowy smear campaign based on the Internet that falsely suggests he's a Muslim intent on destroying the United States. Obama is a Christian and has been fighting the e-mail hoax, which also claims he doesn't put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, and he's been trying to correct the misinformation.” Link.

Those emails also claim that Obama took the oath of office with one hand on the Koran, obviously confusing him with Congressman Keith Ellison, of Minnesota, an African-American who actually is a Muslim and who did take his oath of office upon a copy of the Koran. (A copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson, by the way.)

The Star-Telegram also reported that Obama, at last week’s rally in Austin, addressed the issue head-on:

“Well, I've been going to the same Christian church, praying to Jesus for the last 20 years. So don't insult me, and don't insult the Muslims.”

I find even more distressing than the non-ending clearly questionable rumors and lies the fact that some people are apparently willing to believe them. Anyone accessing the World Wide Web knows – or should know – about web sites like snopes.com, which check the truthfulness of Internet rumors.