PressThink: Political Jihad and the American Blog: Chris Satullo Raises the Stakes

Political Jihad and the American Blog: Chris Satullo Raises the Stakes

On September 26, in 668 precision words, Chris Satullo, editorial page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, significantly advanced a debate that Nick Coleman, Dan Rather, Alex Jones and others have trivialized by dumping on the bloggers from a "higher" position. Satullo abandons that, in favor of widening the circle. He says journalists should pay serious attention to bloggers. And he has a warning: Orwellians in the mist.

A pizza-stained paper plate sat between Moulitsas and Atrios. Together, they have more readers than The Philadelphia Inquirer. — Matthew Klam, New York Times Magazine, Sep. 26.

When journalists go after bloggers, op-ed style, they typically have one thing to say: these bloggers, they’re not real journalists. And they don’t have to meet our standards, so don’t trust them.

Two days ago I wrote about an exceptionally pure case in point: Nick Coleman’s Sep. 29 column in the Star-Tribune. (See PressThink, Nick Coleman’s Classic Hit.) It’s too bad he veered from it to “bloggers are scum,” for he was on to something serious that morning.

Coleman—a metro columnist in the Twin Cities who has worked for both local dailies: the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and the Star-Tribune—saw a “war against the media” being fought out today. “A lot of it, we deserve,” he added. “The traditional media have faltered badly, from the run-up to Iraq to the Rather-CBS fiasco over forged memos.” He said he was worried about what was going to happen now.

“We are rattled, and in danger of losing our way.”

Nick Coleman had this sense that the bloggers were involved in the rattling, and the danger. But it was confusing to him. How had professional journalists allowed themselves to be attacked by these information vermin, the bloggers? It was unbelievable that such lowlifes could be credited with a story that was dragging the mighty CBS down.

And if CBS goes down who is going to scrutinize power? Coleman wanted to know. (It’s a good question, too.) A banker, a lawyer, writing a blog in his spare time? “That’s the job of journalism,” he wrote. “To scrutinize the actions of those in power. If you think bankers will do it, your brain is blog mush.”

But Coleman let his hostility—“most bloggers are not fit to carry a reporter’s notebook”—get in the way of his analysis, and so his point about the war and being rattled was never carried through. Perhaps feeling spat upon by particular bloggers, he decided to spit on the bloggers as a group.

But this won’t help anyone understand the “war against the media.” In more vivid language, Tom Brokaw talked about the war at a New Yorker event this weekend. (All three anchormen spoke there, making it newsworthy.) “What I think is highly inappropriate is what’s going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS News that is quite outrageous,” Brokaw said. (See this and this.)

If the worries of Tom Brokaw won’t, the writings of Hugh Hewitt will help you understand this war. Read him consistently, you begin to get it. He gave a public warning to Jim Lehrer before last week’s presidential debate: You saw what happened to CBS, Mr. Lehrer. Be smart, and don’t tilt the debate for Kerry, as we know you want to… (Hugh Hewitt, On Notice: “Jim Lehrer and the rest of the old media should know that they have to play it straight tonight.” Weekly Standard, Sep. 30).

Jim Lehrer takes his seat as debate moderator with the PBS brand as firmly affixed to his back as CBS is to Dan Rather’s. Moderating a presidential debate never carried much of a risk for the mother ship in the past, but in this era of new media, any detectable bias on Lehrer’s part will result in a cyber-tsunami headed towards PBS affiliates across the country.

Hewitt (who said he was only arguing for balance, as in “play it straight, PBS”) made a prediction:

If Lehrer goes in the tank for Kerry, expect an enormous blowback—as predictable as the one which followed CBS’s foisting of forgeries on the public. Only PBS is much more vulnerable to viewer dismay than the Boss Tweeds at Black Rock.

“Vulnerable” is the key word to Hewitt and company on the cultural and Internet right. They believe they have the mainstream news media on the run, in a weakened state, and “on notice” about liberal bias.

Andrew Sullivan’s Sep. 12 column in the Times of London is the best synopsis of the war that Coleman and Brokaw talked about, and that Hewitt also sees happening. (Media Wars: “The Election’s Other Battle.”) There’s also this backgrounder about the “tension between bloggers and news media” from Staci Kramer in OJR. Both are valuable.

But the best column yet written about that tension came and went recently with almost no notice from bloggers or media critics, though it made Romenesko five days late. In fact, Technorati showed zero references at the time this was posted. For me it is the most consequential piece of its kind, and the ideas in it are too important to let pass without comment. (So when you’re done, hit the button and comment.)

On September 26, in 668 words, Chris Satullo, editorial page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, significantly advanced a debate that Alex Jones, and Nick Coleman, and Dan Rather, and many others have trivialized by dumping on the bloggers from a “higher” position. Satullo abandons this position, in favor of widening the circle. He gives the best argument yet for why journalists should pay serious attention to bloggers and what they have to offer. Then he lets the newcomers, the bloggers, have a hit of realism.

His case begins where I would begin. Before you criticize journalists, you should think about your answer to a thousand dollar question: what are journalists for? (In your mind.) I wrote a book about it. Satullo has thought about it. Roll tape:

For any journalist who understands his real job— helping the public life of this nation work well…

Stop right there. The ultimate job of the press, in Satullo’s world (and in mine), is a pragmatic one: “helping the public life of this nation work well.” This view, we should tell you, has rivals. One of them says the ultimate job of the press is to help no one, advance no agenda. “We’re the watchdogs and the truthtellers and we advocate nothing. End of story.” I call it the View from Nowhere. Satullo isn’t on that side. And this affects what he thinks about the bloggers. Roll tape:

For any journalist who understands his real job - helping the public life of this nation work well - the rise of citizen comment on the Internet should be something to celebrate.

Stop. Check it out, Newsroom Joe. Journalists should be cheering the arrival of the bloggers during this campaign cycle. Why? Because journalism is about the enlargement of public life, and that’s what the bloggers are doing. Enlarging the circle.

The blogosphere is a dynamic expansion of things newspapers have long done to aid democratic dialogue, from letters to the editor to experiments in civic journalism.

Blogging is a new way to engage people in discussion of the news, the very thing you care about and do, Nick Coleman.

Many bloggers are citizens who care about facts and ideas. (Some are narcissistic boors, but let’s ignore them.) Good bloggers devour information, making then a smart, skeptical audience.

Journalists, you can stop worrying about bloggers “replacing” the traditional news media. We’re grist for their mill, says Satullo, a mill that doesn’t run without us. Bloggers consume and extend the shelf life of our reporting, and they scrutinize it at a new level of intensity.

Any journalist who would not welcome that is a fool. Given a choice between a world of nonreaders zoning out with MTV or a posse of tart-tongued digital watchdogs, I say: Up with blogs!

Of course, there are others saying the same thing, but I find “up with blogs!” refreshing in a newspaper editor.

Blogs may display the flaws of youth (naivete, hyperbole, self-indulgence), but I find them refreshing.

Good deal. However, there is a problem. It’s this media war. Satullo starts off in a light hearted way:

… many bloggers disdain my type [newspaper editors and columnists] as clueless dinosaurs. The blogosphere is declaring its independence, even as it relies on us fogeys for its daily grist. The sensation is vaguely familiar. I am, after all, the father of two teenagers.

And “blog triumphalism,” as we know, has a very adolescent view of life:

The ruling spin on Dan’s Big Blunder seems to be: Rather exposed as a biased hack; mainstream media exposed as arrogant, obsolete gatekeepers; the blogosphere rules!

Not so fast, interpreters…

Rather’s meltdown could be a clarifying moment for journalism.

Which is a story line no main line reporter has pursued since the Rather matter blew up Sep. 20: the blown opportunity story. CBS could have seized the initiative during the crisis and transformed itself, right there in the eye of the storm, into an Internet-era news division, pro-active in building credibility, willing to be more open, accountable and interactive. By taking advantage of the crisis, treating it as a moment to break with orthodoxy and become more transparent, CBS leadership might have rescued a very bad situaton, and made of it a “clarifying moment.” (Jeff Jarvis made this point on Sep. 19th.) It didn’t happen. Now Satullo:

But the event is being hijacked by propagandists of Orwellian agenda. Their cover story: We’re challenging the bloated corporations that own the biased mainstream media. This strikes a chord with the hype-weary youth who’ve made the Internet their own.

This brings him to the war, and the war cry of bias:

But the real goal of the propagandists - with their shouts of Bias! Arrogance! Monopoly! - is to destroy journalism. Why? Because journalism is the sworn enemy of propaganda.

I believe Satullo is drawing a distinction between those who are frustrated and angry with the traditional news media, and want answers, as well as changes, which is one group of critics—many of them pro-Bush or red staters, some of whom blog—and another group, posing as critics of bias, who see an oppportunity to discredit CBS News in the wider public sphere.

They want to achieve an historic victory in a very long war between conservatives and the likes of CBS, going back to 1969 and Spiro Agnew, or even further to 1964, when Barry Goldwater met the hostility of Northeastern journalists. (For this background go here.) They want to inflict as much damage as possible on an institution they treat as hostile to Republican Truth, and to the message of the cultural right.

Bias is their lever only because CBS and other mainstream news organizations claim to be un-biased. (And Newsday’s Marvin Kitman said Sunday that’s a fantasy in TV news.) If CBS identified itself as liberal news, made by progressives for all Americans, the war against Rather and crew would go on, but not on the grounds of bias. It would switch to the defeat of “CBS liberalism” itself. Bloggers, says Satullo, be wary of the Orwellians.

They’ve pressed their attack against journalism for 30 years now, frothing about Bias.

But this does not mean the press is innocent of bias, error, laziness and poor quality control.

And shame on journalists for having given them so much ammunition. We screw up too often. We take too many shortcuts. We lapse in vigilance against our own preconceptions.

To lapse in vigilance against your own preconceptions is to take up residence in built deceptions— as with spin alley. This happens way too often, Satullo says. The press should value bloggers who can point it out.

But, in the public forum, overuse has drained meaning from the cry of “Bias!” Often, all it denotes is: “What you reported does not conform to my assumptions.” Or worse: “What you reported, while true, does not advance my agenda.”

It’s the “or worse” case that made Tom Brokaw speak of a “political jihad” against Rather and CBS. But Brokaw, like Rather, is still lumping Internet, blogger, and jihad together and reacting with outrage at the enemy’s tactics. Satullo makes distinctions, so he can warn the citizen bloggers against the jihadis. Howard Kurtz picks up the action:

Although he called Rather’s “60 Minutes” story “a big mistake,” Brokaw said it had led to an attempt to “demonize” Rather and CBS through “demagoguery.”
ABC’s Peter Jennings disagreed, crediting bloggers for first questioning whether the Guard documents were fake and adding: “I don’t think you can just say this is a universal ‘let’s get CBS.’

Their disagreement matters, and this shows why Kurtz is a good reporter. Most amazing of all are the distinctions Satullo drew between “journalism” and Big Media. How often do you hear sentiments like this?

Don’t tell my bosses I said this, but it really doesn’t matter a whit to the republic whether Knight Ridder, the corporation that owns this newspaper, thrives or dies. As loyal as I am to newspapers, I confess it’s not even essential that the ink-on-paper medium survives.

The only thing that matters is for journalism—the practice—to go on, to survive. What is journalism? Satullo does not shy away. He has a definition ready for you.

By journalism, I don’t mean getting paid $4 million a year to have nice hair and interview Kelsey Grammer. I mean the principled, difficult search for the most thorough, accurate, fair-minded account of current matters that flawed human beings can attain.

The media firms that employ journalists have no great commitment to that search. (In this a lot of media critics are right.) But then…

Media conglomerates are not a synonym for journalism. They employ some journalists, and many who only pretend to be. They enable the craft, but also inhibit and cheapen it.

This is one reason why journalists should take an interest in blogging. Independent journalism may have to learn how to live outside Big Media, which is not exactly journalism-friendly, as Satullo says. Bloggers are doing that now. Maybe we can learn from them. But bloggers can learn from us old media types too. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, CBS, or TomPaine.com or the Command Post.

What matters is that journalism survive, that the craft of speaking truth to power with factual care not be snuffed out.

Which puts it beautifully.

Because power prefers lies. Without journalism, lies flourish and liars rule.

Satullo is smart enough to know that those words do not have credibility for all. I found this part poignant.

I know, I know: What an old-media blowhard! But young bloggers, as you shove my type aside and stride to the glorious future, take care that the calendar doesn’t one day turn to 1984. Be wary of the Orwellians.

My one complaint about Chris Satullo’s column is that he didn’t name any “Orwellians.” (I criticized Coleman for that too.) Brokaw did name one participant in the jihad, as Kurtz reported:

He said that Brent Bozell, who runs the conservative Media Research Center in Alexandria, has been “doing as much damage as he can, and I choose that word carefully, to the credibility of the news divisions.” Brokaw noted the growing criticism from left-wing bloggers and expressed skepticism toward Internet detractors: “When it comes to fraudulence, forgeries and claims that cannot be supported, that’s where you see an enormous harm being done to the country.” (My links.)

Satullo’s column is challenging to bloggers but open to their contributions. It’s neither condescending nor sentimental about the blogging trend. In my view his Sep. 26th piece ought to be linked to and read. It ought to be argued about. We ought to know who agrees and who doesn’t with:

The real job of journalism is to help make the public lfe of the nation work well.

For journalists, the rise of citizen comment on the Internet should be something to celebrate and learn from.

The bias discourse has descended into meaninglessness, which doesn’t meant the press isn’t trapped by its own preconceptions.

The survival of Big Media is not critical, the survival of journalism is. There’s a big difference between those two.

Bloggers “who care about facts and ideas,” and there are many of those, should be wary of the Orwellians on their own side, who are themselves engaged in propaganda— the charge they are most likely to hurl at others.

Satullo’s final point is that journalism isn’t summed up in Dan Rather, and “MSM on the run” is a sloppy analysis:

Rather’s mistake was sad, but no watershed. This aging anchor is no more the embodiment of journalism than Paris Hilton is a typical farm girl. Mainstream media is a term so loose as to disqualify any assertions that follow it.

He ends by keeping the lines of communication open:

Let’s, by all means, discuss how journalism falls short. Let’s explore how it can flourish in media new and old. But let’s see the screaming about media bias for what it is: at best sloppy thinking, at worst Orwellian poison.

I will be interested to hear what others think. I think Satullo just raised the bar, and hiked the stakes, but almost no one noticed. Roll tape…

After Matter: Notes, reactions and links…

UPDATE: See PressThink (Oct. 8) Satullo Responds: “Bloggers, Journalists, Can’t We All Just Get Along?” (I find so much of the talking about “bias” and “journalism” ignores what writers for newspapers actually do: the best they can to think straight and write straight in too little time with facts that are too sketchy for any sane person to think they constitute “truth.”)

Chris Satullo, Cries of ‘media bias’ hide sloppy thinking (Philadelphia Inquirer, Sep. 26, 2004)

Andrew Sullivan, Media Wars: “There are, I think, three genuinely new power-brokers in American politics and culture in this election season. They are cable news, the blogosphere, and new advertizing/political groups called - after the legislative subsection that helped create them - ‘527s’. Between them, these new forces have helped dilute and even, in a few cases, supplant the network news, the mainstream newspapers and even the political parties as the critical arbiters of the course of an election.”

Tim Porter, responding to this post at First Draft:

What I’ve said before in similar vein is this: “The real lesson both the newsroom and the boardroom need to learn is that, in the age of the 24-hour scroll, the micro-fragmentation of electronic media, and the constant clamor for a news consumer’s attention by everyone from the New York Times to yours truly, all that’s left is the journalism.”

Ernest Miller at Corante comments:

Satullo says that the battle cries of the Orwellians are “Bias! Arrogance! Monopoly!” Why do the Orwellians use these cries? Why do they resonate with the public? Is it perhaps because there is truth in them? A truth that should be spoken to power?
If journalists weren’t so busy claiming that they were objective and, instead, insisted on transparency and accountability, there would be little to be feared from cries of “bias.”

Chris Satullo responds to a critical blog post by La Shawn Barber.

John Fund at Opinion Journal (Oct. 4)

As one prominent journalist recently put it: “In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn’t do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns.” The man who spoke those words—at a time when John Kerry was under attack by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth—was Dan Rather.
To question CBS over how it rushed its story on air is not to engage in a “political jihad,” as Mr. Brokaw claims. It’s to ask legitimate questions about why Mr. Rather and his CBS colleagues felt differently when it came to the National Guard memos.

“We really want a vengeful assault.” John Leo in his US News column: “The e-mail on last week’s Rather-gate column was almost entirely furious with CBS. About 95 percent of some 300 letters and E-mails attacked the network, and all but four or five of those messages denounced my oh-so-moderate suggestion that the goal is not a vengeful assault on CBS but safeguards for fairer reporting. ‘No,’ wrote one reader, ‘we really want a vengeful assault.’”

Cavalier’s Guardian Watchblog: The Fall of the Media Empire (Sep. 16)

Why the revolution won’t be blogged: “Bloggers talk about their importance, but it’s just talk.” J. Kelly Nestruck in Canada’s National Post (Oct. 5, 2004).

Here I Blog, I Can Do No Other, Doug Kern column (TCS, Oct. 5)

Five hundred years ago, the Catholic Church was the big four networks, CNN, the New York Times, and NPR all rolled into one. To its adherents, the Roman Catholic Church was the only authoritative source of truth about the world. In a Europe populated largely by illiterate, ill-traveled peasants, who could contest the Church’s interpretation of anything?
Then as now, a monopoly on information and public narratives leads to abuses. Reporters distort truth for partisan gain, just as clerics distorted theology for personal profit. The lust for big ratings (and the ensuing lucrative commercial deals) leads to sensationalized stories; the lust for big donations led to sensationalized claims for plenary indulgences. Greed and arrogance are the eternal opponents of truth.

Earlier PressThink on Dan Rather, CBS, and the Texas Air National Guard:

Weekend Notes with Forgery Swirling in the Air. (Sep. 11)

Stark Message for the Legacy Media. (Sep. 14)

Rather’s Satisfaction: Mystifying Troubles at CBS. (Sep. 18)

Did the President of CBS News Have Anyone in Charge of Reading the Internet and Sending Alerts? (Sep. 20)

Does CBS News Have a Political Future in This State? (Sep. 24)

Posted by Jay Rosen at October 4, 2004 7:28 PM Print

Before Bloggercon I wrote: I didn't define journalism on Rosen's blog, I explained its purpose: "The purpose of journalism is to refine our mental map of reality."

I want to recall that entry now.

Posted by: sbw at October 4, 2004 8:35 PM | Permalink

sbw,

I agree.

I argue on my blog that journalism has little to fear from the "Orwellians." The true enemy is poor journalism.

http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/026329.php

Posted by: Ernest Miller at October 4, 2004 8:46 PM | Permalink

> The real job of journalism is to help make the public lfe of the nation work well.

Journalism is more than this.

Our nation's schools mistakenly teach English, when, instead, they should teach "tools of thought". Thought is how we, as individuals, plan our very best future.

Similarly, on top of the circle that composes the individual, superimpose the community and on top of that circle superimpose the nation and then the world. Journalism is the community exercise of thought to better our mental map of the world so we can plan our very best future.

Posted by: sbw at October 4, 2004 8:56 PM | Permalink

Aren't you faaaaaaar to kind to Hugh Hewitt here?

Whining that the "MSM" refuses to cover "Oompa-Loompa-gate"?

What a joke.

I understand what you're trying to do here, Jay, but sometimes one needs to just say what one really thinks. Hewitt is one of the Orwellians. A hack of the highest order. The Weekly Standard piece you cite proves it.

Posted by: praktike at October 4, 2004 9:00 PM | Permalink

I love how some in the profession of journalism are quick to point out anything they view as negative with regard to bloggers, but those same individuals don't ever extol one thing that is a huge benefit to online publications - readership. Blogs drive massive amounts of traffic to these publications, offering up many pageviews to happy advertisers. I've traded emails with many editors at publications whose tune has begun to lean towards working with bloggers, as they realize they are good for business, over all things. Many reporters are more than happy to answer followup questions about their articles, especially when you point out that you are writing a blog entry about their article or the topic and want to use them as a source. Did this even happen this way in the past? Nope - at least not within a few minutes, hours, or days. Beyond the recognition factor, they're getting immediate feedback to their work, and are, most importantly, gaining readers (even if just for one article) that they might not have gotten a year or two ago. Online newspapers used to primarily be visited by "locals" - that's not the case anymore.

Posted by: Tom at October 4, 2004 9:08 PM | Permalink

Sigh ... one more time, for what it's worth.

The goal of too many blogging-advocates, from several perspectives, is to replace notions of truth and accuracy, with your *opinion*, your *viewpoint*, your own take on the world.

There are both leftist and rightist reasons for this, and it's sometimes like watching extreme communism meet extreme fascism, as post-modernists parallel power-mongers.

Some people are going to be heard, and some aren't. The question is, *who* is going to be heard. Replacing professional authority with populist demagoguery is not necessary a fantastic change.

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at October 4, 2004 9:25 PM | Permalink

Jay, you're exactly right about this piece, which I read today after following the link from Romenesko. And if Blogger weren't ... well, Bloggered, I'd've posted something to that effect well before now.

Posted by: Lex at October 4, 2004 9:28 PM | Permalink

Lex: The piece, I believe, is major. I look forward to your post when circumstances permit. Thanks.

Okay... so Ernest and sbw, but also others... I take it that you dispute one of my bullet points-- the Orwellian danger Satullo points to isn't serious, you believe. What about the other bullet points? One wants to know.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 4, 2004 10:19 PM | Permalink

Fog is just as easy in blogs as it is in traditional media -- you think you are right not because you ARE right, but simply because you THINK you are right.

The fog that enveloped CBS News just as easily fogs bloggers and who the hell are we to presume we don't need to listen.

Although it's often abused, the purpose of a comment section -- and the sweetest purpose of democracy -- is the opportunity to add to understanding and useful information, not to simply win.

But you won't see that in most cases because teachers don't teach humility in school and students only by chance learn it on their own.

Posted by: sbw at October 4, 2004 10:20 PM | Permalink

Jay: Okay... so Ernest and sbw, but also others... I take it that you dispute one of my bullet points-- the Orwellian danger Satullo points to isn't serious, you believe.

Goodness, no. Pardon me for being so brief I rendered my comment opaque. I was turning the highlit point into a universal. It applies everywhere. It is so important that it is at the very beginning of sensible education. I wish I had done better.

Posted by: sbw at October 4, 2004 10:25 PM | Permalink

Dave: I signed up late and I believe I am on the waiting list. But it also looks like I have a plan to get me there, and if it works--scheduling wise with other West Coast conferences--then I will bring this story to BloggerCon. Thanks.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 4, 2004 10:38 PM | Permalink

Jay: What about the other bullet points? One wants to know.

Jay, here I am not disagreeing but explaining with a different vocabulary.

Jay: The bias discourse has descended into meaninglessness, which doesn't meant the press isn't trapped by its own preconceptions.

My key phrases 1) Mental map of reality and 2) lens of the media are useful here because the former explains the purpose of thought and journalism and the latter acknowledges that there will inevitably be limitations that need improvement in the process of applying each of them.

The process of improving the map of reality, believe me, is the archaic intent of Philosophy -- and we'd do well to remember it. Next, add a level of recursion -- improving the process of improving the map of reality adds a second level of investigation to further improve the first.

When Jay labels the bias discourse "meaningless", he's really nailing to paper a particular kind of rhetorical abuse that adds little useful information and more often than not is trying to end discussion not illuminate it.

Posted by: sbw at October 4, 2004 10:47 PM | Permalink

Jay,

It is not that Orwellians are not dangerous, they are. However, they're only strong through bad journalism. Orwellians are a symptom of bad journalism, just as a fever is a symptom of infection. Fevers can kill, but what you want to treat is the infection, not just the fever, generally.

As for the other bullet points:

* The real job of journalism is to help make the public life of the nation work well.

Absolutely. And they generally do it through open and transparent information exchange.

Of course. Journalists should also do their best to educate the citizenry as well. It should be a two-way exchange.

* The bias discourse has descended into meaninglessness, which doesn't meant the press isn't trapped by its own preconceptions.

The charge of "bias" isn't meaningless when the other side keeps claiming "objective". We need to move beyond claims of "objectivity" at least as much as we need to move beyond claims of "bias."

* The survival of Big Media is not critical, the survival of journalism is. There's a big difference between those two.

Yes and no. It depends on how you define "big." We need large organizations that have the resources to engage in the prolonged and expensive investigation and reporting necessary for some of the important stories. On the other hand, organizations that attempt to act as gatekeepers or bottlenecks, are a hindrance to journalism.

* Bloggers "who care about facts and ideas," and there are many of those, should be wary of the Orwellians on their own side, who are themselves engaged in propaganda-- the charge they are most likely to hurl at others.

The problem for Orwellians is that they eventually engage in propaganda. Bloggers need to speak truth to power wherever it is necessary.

Posted by: Ernest Miller at October 4, 2004 11:00 PM | Permalink

The real job of journalism is to help make the public l[i]fe of the nation work well.

This sounds great, but what does that mean? Ferreting out the corrupt? Exposing largess?

Stephen talks about a map. To me that map is often a puzzle. Journalists try to figure out what pieces belong to the map. Then they examine the map for distortions. They are constantly reevaluating the contours and completeness of this mental map - thier own and the one the public has (may need to distort their own in presentation to correct for public distortions?).

Journalists also try to explain map differences between communities, cultures and countries, occaisionally, which alters the map view.

Leaders distort the map to win and keep followers. Idealogues and demagogues do too. New Deal, Great Society, Reaganomics, New Economy 90s, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, Get you war on ...

Journalists should exploit this to take the pulse of public discourse and look for distortions (being pointed out and generated). In addition, citizen comment on the Internet should be an incubator for the marketplace of ideas. Nuture, transplant, weed, prune, rather, rinse, repeat ...

The bias discourse has descended into meaninglessness, which doesn't meant the press isn't trapped by its own preconceptions. (link added)

Meaningless in the sense that pointing out the nudity of the Objective Journalism emperor has become wearisome. Rather than continually demonstrating the failure to achieve the impossible ideal, or worse becoming a source for the shrill and Orwellian, what would be better?

Educate. Educate. Educate. See sbw.

Orwellians are the leaders, ideologues, demagogues, et al., see above. They were the voices behind Rather's patriotism on 9/12/2001.

Being wary is one thing. Pointing out your own Orwellians is another. Difficult to do and often unappreciated. What mechanism could encourage or award such bravery? Blog journalism award?

Posted by: Tim at October 5, 2004 1:01 AM | Permalink

Dude, "the press" (as I think you like to call them) are "those in power". Start there. Unelected, unaccountable, completely opaque, they make and break public figures, set the parameters of public policy debates, determine what information we're worthy of receiving, etc. etc. Yes, a bunch of citizens, be they lawyers, fork-lift drivers, housewivers or whoever, can and should keep an eye on "those in power". If by "those in power" you mean the press. Who else is going to do it? The press? Should the press, unique among powerful institutions, be allowed to police itself?

When are you going to drop this bizarre Marxist conceit that the press or the MSM or whatever terminology you prefer to use is not part of "the establishment."

Oh God please no. Why the hell would I want a bunch of damned journalists (many of whom apparently believe that patriiotism is a "baser nationalistic impulse". Too lazy to find the link. It's back there somehwere) monkeying around with the "public life" (whatever that means) of my country. What the hell do they know? Do I get a say in this at all? I mean, in all seriousness, since they're unelected, and for the most part unaccountable, why should I cede them this much authority? (if I even get a say in the matter). And, again, I'm quite serious when I say "What the hell do they know?" What special expertise do they have to improve the "public life" of my country?

PS What's The Philadelphia Inquirer?

Posted by: Eric Deamer at October 5, 2004 3:06 AM | Permalink

It's about credibility -- the perceptual clarity that drives a journalist to challenge their own assumptions about the world in order to report what they actually find with honesty. I am not a member of this tribe, but in those instances when I have dealt with a "professional journalist" who is committing an act of "reporting", I have been repeatedly dismayed and ultimately disgusted at thier low standards. Who teaches these people how to function? I am someting of an expert in several narrow fields, and so on those rare occasions when I am sought out by these people, I have come to expect the following:

1) A preconceived agenda they are trying to substantiate so they can say what they planned to say before they picked up the phone.

2) A surprising level of arrogance, given how superficial their understanding is of just about anything that involves compexity (for example: the real world). Is this a byproduct of their sense of unchecked power? Are they not broadly educated? Do they ever have their assumptions challenged by their peers -- or do they self-select for jobs where this will never happen?

3) An acceptance of dishonesty amongst their own they would never tolerate from others. This double standard is so obvious to outsiders, and so outrageously bogus as a place to stand when delivering criticism, that it leaves them with no credibility.

I submit that these negative perceptions of "news media professionals" have become so widespread over the last few decades -- based on personal experiences like my own -- that many educated Americans have just written off the entire "profession" as a source for real information. Hence the rise of the blogosphere, and the unmasking of the MSM as incompetent, biased and dishonest.

Posted by: Evor Glens at October 5, 2004 8:57 AM | Permalink

Excellent piece, Jay, really great. It got me thinking, what is the responsibility of the public with regards to journalism? Being a citizen matters to a democracy, is the lifeblood of democracy, and without involved citizenry, democracy dies. Journalism's spirit of a specialized elite speaking truth to power was partially a result of technical constraints in the inability of the public to be involved. It was not just that, of course, but since the technical constraints to journalism are being lifted with cheap printing presses and distribution systems, does the public's responsibility with regards to journalism change? Must we become less of a 'consumerate', accepting one of several competing versions of events written by a professionalized elite?

Indeed, the exporting of spin alley, the mass participation in the rituals of the gang of 500, suggest that is what's happening. There's a cultural appetite to participatory journalism, but participatory journalism doesn't just take place from the perspective of the journalist.

What I liked about Satullo's piece is that it spoke to this public as part of the process, instructing us on how we can aid the process of journalism, or truth-seeking.

I'm bitter at the wholesale propagandizing that passes for political discourse, on the right and the left (though the right has amplified it to an art form). But the answer seems to be about encouraging public education and participation in the endeavor of journalism and truth-seeking. What strikes me as most pernicious about 'pressthink' is the idea of impartiality, which is mirrored in the public by the self-righteous tones of the independents or swing voters, who claim a 'pox on both houses' and often don't vote. When journalists who are brave voice a non-impartial narrative, they are often punished. This indulgence of authority without credibility teaches the public the wrong lesson, which is that partisanship, as opposed to dishonesty, is the big evil to look out for.

And the thing is, the public learns and imitates the gang of 500. That's why spin alley is no longer just in the room you wanted to raze, but all over the internet. So what journalists have to teach us about their craft is critical, and they have been doing a poor job so far.

Posted by: Matt Stoller at October 5, 2004 10:10 AM | Permalink

Fortunately, the blogosphere is much more than those engaged in this war. I wrote about Coleman, because his was the 'last straw' comment, but I find myself growing weary of the analysis of what is essentially a struggle for power.

The discussion is healthy, but it doesn't go far enough. The blogosphere is much more than somebody's fatted calf getting whacked. If we honestly believe in this thing called citizen journalism, why do we care what anybody from the existing power structure has to say?

I like what Charles Leadbetter wrote in Fast Company:

The 20th century was marked by the rise of professionals in medicine, science, education, and politics. In one field after another, amateurs and their ramshackle organizations were driven out by people who knew what they were doing and had certificates to prove it. Now that historic shift seems to be reversing. Even as large corporations extend their reach, we're witnessing the flowering of Pro-Am, bottom-up self-organization.

I'm praying for a viable third political party during the next four years, one that doesn't require the blessing of the status quo. One man's Orwellian threat is another's sound of freedom.

Posted by: Terry Heaton at October 5, 2004 10:13 AM | Permalink

"Sigh ... one more time, for what it's worth.

"The goal of too many blogging-advocates, from several perspectives, is to replace notions of truth and accuracy, with your *opinion*, your *viewpoint*, your own take on the world."

Gee, Seth, that seems to be what some "journalists" do.

"Some people are going to be heard, and some aren't. The question is, *who* is going to be heard. Replacing professional authority with populist demagoguery is not necessary a fantastic change."

A statement that is fascinating in the servility to authority that it implies. As it happens I'm reading Milgram's Obedience to Authority at the moment. Your post suggests that experiment should be redone, but instead of electric shocks the experimenter could have an anchorman read false headlines to the subjects and see how many lies the subjects passively accept as true.

Posted by: Brian at October 5, 2004 10:37 AM | Permalink

Let me revisit to distinguish between this sentence and my own position. The original sentence implies one level of abstraction too many.

My sentence suggests our task as individuals -- and journalism's task in society -- is to help improve individual mental maps of reality the better to be able to plan one's own future. The goal is to make those maps more useful. So equipped, individuals try to decide how to improve community life (including making the public life of the nation work well).

The way the original sentence is written, it would seem justified to misrepresent based on that journalist's perception of the greater good. I don't buy that for anyone -- politician, priest, publisher, diplomat or scientist. You treat one's map of reality with reverence (except when bluffing in poker) for your own safety's sake. If you don't, no one can ever trust you again, nor can you trust anyone else.

The way the original sentence is written, it describes media hubris where to presume to choose what is right for people is an easy leap from "to help make the public life of the nation work well." That seems a dangerous liberty.

Look at hubris in this context:

Hubris: "A Greek term that is difficult to translate directly. It is a negative term implying both arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence, and also a hamartia (see above), a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one's abilities. It is the opposite of the Greek term arête, which implies a constant striving for perfection and self-improvement combined with a humble awareness that such perfection cannot be reached. As long as an individual strives to do and be the best, that individual has arête. As soon as the individual believes he has actually achieved arête, however, he or she has lost that exalted state and fallen into hubris, unable to recognize personal limitations or the humble need to constantly improve."

Individuals, journalists, and society need arête, not hubris.

Posted by: sbw at October 5, 2004 10:57 AM | Permalink

It's a nice touch to fashion a class of critics of the press as Orwellians, which seems to imply that people like Bozell are propagandists, deliberately lying in the service of some nefarious cause. This is a very convenient category to have around if you are an embattled journalist, no?

I recall reading Bozell back in the 80s when he was basically a voice in the wilderness being ignored by a back-slapping press corps that was happy to define diversity of opinion as all the views within their circle of acquaintance. I would not have described him them as "Orwellian", I think the tag is ridiculous in the first place. References to Orwell are alot like references to Hitler, and I'm amazed that anyone here takes them at face value or thinks they are useful terms in the discussion (they are demonizing terms, it should go without saying).

What Evor Glens says strikes a chord because in my field, computer technology, journalism is almost entirely useless. The trade press circulates press releases and the half-witted punditry of uninformed columnists. The MSM is a dumber, slower version of the trade press. On the other side there is a British trend of equally ill-informed barking and boosterism which also has no merit. So real news, meaningful news, has long been spread by the consumers of it themselves, people working in the computer industry or using its products. It simply goes without saying that the "official" press ("professional authority" as Seth puts it) has no value at all. Not even as purveyors of press releases, which one can find on one's own.

I'm sure this experience has colored my perception of the press as a whole.

Posted by: Brian at October 5, 2004 11:14 AM | Permalink

Whatever the demerits of journalism as practiced today, they pale beside the stakes involved in the war between conservatives and the institutions they seek to destroy. Because it's not just journalism they want to take out, it's any authority which is powerful enough to challenge the forces of the Right, which includes strong government.

The two main groups united against strong media and government institutions are religious and cultural conservatives, on one hand, and the rich, on the other. Both want to destroy strong government because it acts as a brake on their ambitions. That's why they celebrate Reagan for saying, "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." He began the long march to destroy the very idea of a strong federal government, and compounded the victory by masterfully using the media to transmit his message.

Both the bigots and the rich want to destroy journalism because they don't want people to know what they are doing. Both of them have power on some level that they could exercise with impunity if they could just get rid of people checking up on them. So, when public schools in rural Pennsylvania (where I live) institutionalize mandatory prayer, they can get away with it if the press doesn't expose it and the civil rights division of the Justice Department doesn't stop it. When corporations want to pollute or treat workers like servants, they can succeed if there is no effective EPA or OSHA, and if there are no reporters willing or able to write stories about sick communities and injured workers. Best of all would be if they can change the law so that none of the above is illegal, and to change the values of the country so that all of the above is considered virtuous.

That's the ultimate goal of the people Satullo calls the "Orwellians." And it's sickening to see people who have nothing in common with them acting as their cat's-paws, under the mistaken belief that they're somehow confronting a corrupt power, rather than aiding it.

Posted by: Mithras at October 5, 2004 12:03 PM | Permalink

Mithras,
Amen! It is precisely Orwellian in that they are (knowingly or unknowingly) aiding corrupt power in the name of opposing it. To my mind, the MSM is already enabling corrupt power. The claim from the right, then, is that they aren't assisting it as actively as they should be.

There nevertheless are two corruptions: 1) MSM incompetence, and 2) the cultural and corporate right that wants both government and media watchdogging to go away so that it's playtime on the school boards and in the boardrooms and helltime on the shop floor and in the work cubicle.

This next point will be of more interest to those who disagree with my political position:

Jay, aren't you trying to have it both ways when you refer to Orwellians (which is demonizing) and at the same time claim to be tired of the "bias wars" as unproductive? How would we ever name names to specifically figure out who to recognize as an Orwellian without first checking facts, and second, connecting these facts to the sources of their distortion, and then third, labeling the sources of this distortion as Orwellian and holding them responsible?

Bias wars can mean simply "propaganda wars", but for many of the participants, it also means precisely trying to figure out who the Orwellians are and holding them responsible. The competing views on answers to that question seem to pretty accurately mirror what we think of when we refer to the bias wars. Does the appelation "Orwellian" really take us out of the "bias wars" box, or simply refer to the same problem by way of literature rather than journalism?

Posted by: Ben Franklin at October 5, 2004 12:47 PM | Permalink

Oy!

I was going to respond, but now we've got two new media partisan robots/knuckle-dragging bullies tag-teaming it. "Ben Franklin" and "Mithras"! Together at last. It's a comment box shrill-a-thon!

Posted by: Eric Deamer at October 5, 2004 12:51 PM | Permalink

As I wrote on my blog, I think the debate over "Orwellians" is a distraction from the problem of just doing better journalism. Part of the reason it is hard to identify "Orwellians" is because often the charges against them are going to look like the charges they level. Moreover, Orwellians gain traction through a subtle mix of accurate and true criticism with propaganda. Pointing out the distinctions is very difficult.

In any case, by attacking the "Orwellians" you end up playing their game (and let us not forget that there are "Orwellians" on both sides).

As long as there is a strong First Amendment, then the best thing to do is simply ignore the Orwellians and engage in good journalism.

Posted by: Ernest Miller at October 5, 2004 1:00 PM | Permalink

Speaking of Orwellian ... I think this is book review in NY Newsday is a candidate:

http://www.nynewsday.com/features/booksmags/nyc-bkrev3989800oct03,0,7012540.story

The author of the book review "is a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education and a recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle." In his review, which is titled "Facism on the Couch," he compares bloggers to the editor of the anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda rag "Der Stürmer":

Goldensohn's report on Julius Streicher - the editor of the lurid hate sheet "Der Stürmer" - describes how the Nazi propagandist "smiles constantly, the smile something between a grimace and a leer, twisting his large, thin-lipped mouth, screwing up his froggy eyes, a caricature of a lecher posing as a man of wisdom." With his anti-Semitic and pornographic obsessions, the journalist may well be in the grip of a severe personality disorder. But if so, it's nothing more severe than one might encounter at a television studio in downtown Washington, D.C., with some blogger eager to grab his or her 15 minutes of fame on the little screen.

This comparison is rather disgusting. But why bother to label it Orwellian? Why not simply point out that NY Newsday should acknowledge that its editors allowed such a cheap shot into print and that such comparisons are not what one should expect from a newspaper?

Posted by: Ernest Miller at October 5, 2004 1:08 PM | Permalink

I'd say "Orwellian" applies in the sense of "Animal Farm".

Yes, many high and mighty journo could dearly stand to be taken down a notch or two.

But replacing them with the pigs is not a good revolution.

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at October 5, 2004 1:26 PM | Permalink

Thanks for the link! I attempted to trackback to this post from mine, but it didn't work for some reason. Although I tried to skewer him, Satullo graciously responded. Ideologically we're very different, but I admire him for taking the time to defend himself.

Posted by: LB at October 5, 2004 2:27 PM | Permalink

Lee, Ben and others: Ernest said perfectly well what I would say about "naming the Orwellians." It's not as simple as all that.

Part of the reason it is hard to identify "Orwellians" is because often the charges against them are going to look like the charges they level. Moreover, Orwellians gain traction through a subtle mix of accurate and true criticism with propaganda. Pointing out the distinctions is very difficult.

Like Ernest, I'm not sure the capacious and inexact term Orwellians does much good as a description of individuals; and it's not how I would put it in a post of my own. But at the same time, I'm pretty sure I know what Satullo means when he says it.

For the basic impulse is known to all of us. It could be said to live in all of us-- although there are huge arguments to be had about that. Certainly it's known on the Left as well as the Right, and in groups of all size. It's the impulse to let power override external truth, and then to invent its own truth.

Probably the most common experience of it is when you're on the sour end of Political Correctness, in all its forms, Left and Right, neigborhood, family-wise, within your taste group. That's where we first grasp the concept of the party line, which facts are not allowed to disturb. But even a chat board troll, as one might exist anywhere on the Net, has a touch of the Orwellian about it.

Historically, one reference point is the "rule or ruin" philosophy among the most driven sects within a broader ideological movement. The methods are the same everywhere. If you cannot control the group you make certain it can't function. If you can't dominate a conversation you undermine it. Sowing confusion is as good as capturing attention.

I have emailed Satullo and asked why he didn't name anyone to go with "Orwellian." So I may have more to report then.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 5, 2004 2:30 PM | Permalink

To be polite, the problem is really more of ideology than any specific person. That is, advocacy of a bad idea, as opposed to criticism as a bad person.

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at October 5, 2004 2:37 PM | Permalink

Seth Finkelstein says, "Replacing professional authority with populist demagoguery is not necessary a fantastic change." Seth, what is the source of journalists' "professional authority"? Is there some licensing agency, some body that sets standards, a special degree, a board that admiisters discipline?

None of the indicia of professionalism exist here. What exactly is it that separates journalists from bloggers -- the medium? That can't be the answer. Objectivity? We are not buying that anymore, if we ever did. I am eager for the answer.

Posted by: Ronald at October 5, 2004 3:11 PM | Permalink

Bad journalists resent bloggers for the same reasons that hookers resent nymphomaniacs.

The amateurs are more enthusiastic, often better, and they give it away for free!

Posted by: Parker at October 5, 2004 3:14 PM | Permalink

Is it worth pointing out that the Orwellians, Propagandists, Bias-hunters, Pundits, Public Relations, Political spokespersons/speechwriters, and Spin Masters all operate under the protection of the First Amendment.

They are the lubricant, the sugar spoon, the placebo.

Actual harm is the first test of constitutional protection and then truth.

I've determined that the phrase, "war against the media", is Orwellian and much to broad. We are not at war with media. Also, "attack" is too strong a term. It needs a euphemism. I nominate the War on Media Bias (WoMB), or Battle Over Objectivity and Bias ('cuz it's funny), or even the Media Reformation, Media Revolt or Media Revolution. Bloggers should refer to themselves as J-proles, Net-laborers, or the lumpenproletariat of journalism, against the Media bourgeoisie. Peer reviewed journalists is right out. Why take the name of the medium or oppressors rather than the cause?

"Martin Luther posting his blog on the Wittenberg door" is my kind of propaganda.

This is not my kind of propaganda: The war against the media has been waged by the Right in America, conservatives, for 40 years because they're a consipiracy of "the rich", "the bigoted", "the religious" and the weak-minded deluded.

Corporate media is under "attack"

What is being attacked? (truth)
Who is attacking? (liars)
When did this attack begin? (40 years ago) <- Jay!
Where are the attacks coming from? (the liars from the Right)
Why are they attacking? What are their grievances? (the liars want "Big" Media to lie for them, and lie more often)

The WoMB

Who are the allies of "Big" Media? (everyone not-Right)
Who are their "enemies"? (liars from the Right)
What is the goal?

It is a stealth attack (here comes the paranoid sytle)

Corporate "Big" Media is the castle wall protecting

New Deal Government
Great Society Government
the Civil Rights Movement
the Cultural Revolution

Posted by: Tim at October 5, 2004 3:28 PM | Permalink

Cutting through all the bs medieval journo-theology handwringing about the state of journalism, I have this to say, having finally been angered to speech: we're never going to get incisive truth and fact-digging from the brain damaged journalism school kindergarden trained aholes crippled by all that adult protection from the real world. Reporters, journalists, used to be outsiders, whether from the working or upper classes, with native wit and independence, both so sorely lacking in in today's media bunnies. From now on, and especially if the fascorepubs win, bloggers will stalk them minute by minute. grrr

Posted by: AM at October 5, 2004 3:44 PM | Permalink

"...the best column yet written about that tension [tension between bloggers and news media] came and went recently with almost no notice from bloggers or media critics, though it made Romenesko five days late. In fact, Technorati showed zero references at the time this was posted."

Jay, thanks for bringing Satullo's column to light - and for the link to it, although following it gives you this: "Sign Up. It's Free! Create an account below. As a member of Philly.com you'll enjoy free access to..."

This does explain the 0 references on Technorati.

Posted by: Anna at October 5, 2004 3:45 PM | Permalink

Pretty reasonable discussion of the David and Goliath mythology.

As a consumer of news, I find bloggers a good source of links to MSM articles and many bloggers offer concise summaries and comments. Lots of news is now available very quickly.

Like anyone else, I tend to feed my own bias... but not all the time. The wide variety of blogger bents truly provides a level of diversity that MSM has not provided.

I'm sure blogging will one day soon be taught in schools, churning out moronic deconstructionists. The MSM will use these minions to take over the blogging world.

We are probably seeing the crest of the blogger wave that will crash, becoming corporate pablum within 5-years... or whenever when enough "credentialed" bloggers can be created at columbia, nyu and berkerly.

I'm dyslexic, get over the sprelling and grammar.

Posted by: Horst Graben at October 5, 2004 3:55 PM | Permalink

"Because power prefers lies. Without journalism, lies flourish and liars rule.

Satullo is smart enough to know that those words do not have credibility for all. I found this part poignant."

They don't have credibility coming from *him*. The reason they don't is that so many of his colleagues, at CBS and CNN and the New York Times, are clear examples of the "powerful" "lying." And it's the bloggers doing the "real journalism." So unless I know him well, I have no reason to trust that Satullo isn't just another "powerful liar," with a bit of hypocrisy thrown in.

Posted by: ralph phelan at October 5, 2004 4:12 PM | Permalink

"But let's see the screaming about media bias for what it is: at best sloppy thinking, at worst Orwellian poison."

Or perhaps, I don't know, TRUE? I mean, the voting record is avaiable for all to see - what, 11 to 1 Dec, or something like that? Just because something is not helpful to the debatge (because people don't listen) doesn't make it untrue.

"If CBS identified itself as liberal news, made by progressives for all Americans, the war against Rather and crew would go on, but not on the grounds of bias. It would switch to the defeat of "CBS liberalism" itself."

Not exactly... it could switch to a fact-based debate, something we don't have now. The reason "the Right" (in all its evilness) wants to destroy the liberal media is because the liberal media has been trying to destroy them for years, through the use a very large "bully pulpit" that allowed to rebuttal or even acknowledgement that what they said might not be The Truth (tm). When someone tries to destroy you, you generally fight back.

"Both the bigots and the rich want to destroy journalism because they don't want people to know what they are doing. Both of them have power on some level that they could exercise with impunity if they could just get rid of people checking up on them. So, when public schools in rural Pennsylvania (where I live) institutionalize mandatory prayer, they can get away with it if the press doesn't expose it and the civil rights division of the Justice Department doesn't stop it."

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. People not on the evil, evil Right would never, oh, brainwash elementary school students regarding, say, treating the earth as a goddess or anything (Gaia). Or teach "history" that never happened (because the actual history makes socialism look bad), or anything like that... It's only the evil, evil Hitler-reincarnations on the evil, evil RIGHT that would EVER do anything like that...

Get a clue. Some people on BOTH sides want that... their goals are essentially identical - control over people and destruction of their ideological foes.

"That's why they celebrate Reagan for saying, "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." He began the long march to destroy the very idea of a strong federal government..."

History lesson: the "strong federal governement" was primarily created during the last hundred years - basically, since the passage of the general income tax. Before that, the FEDERAL government was weak, and the states were stronger. That's how the founders designed it.

Now, you may certainly WANT a "strong federal government", but that's not what's in the Constitution - and the history of strong federal governments the world over is not one that I would like to see repeated here.

Posted by: Deoxy at October 5, 2004 4:19 PM | Permalink

AM we're never going to get incisive truth and fact-digging from the brain damaged journalism school kindergarden trained aholes crippled by all that adult protection from the real world.

Nice fulminating! Gotta luv it. ;-)

[I suppose this is not off-topic, but it certainly is peripheral. Apologies.] People think when they think. They don't think when they don't. But they think they think all the time. The root cause isn't j-school, it's regular school that doesn't know what to teach... or know enough to care.

When you read something that doesn't match up, it is only the trail left by people crashing through the jungle closer to stupidity than they really need to be. Blogs or no blogs, you can't expect people to be any more clever than they are brought up.

Posted by: sbw at October 5, 2004 4:20 PM | Permalink

"Bias is their lever only because CBS and other mainstream news organizations claim to be un-biased. (And Newsday's Marvin Kitman said Sunday that's a fantasy in TV news.) If CBS identified itself as liberal news, made by progressives for all Americans, the war against Rather and crew would go on, but not on the grounds of bias. It would switch to the defeat of "CBS liberalism" itself. Bloggers, says Satullo, be wary of the Orwellians."

So long as it claims not to be biased, CBS news is lying every second it's on the air. If CBS identified itself as liberal news, made by progressives for all Americans, and no more "reliable" or "mainstream" than FOX, I for one would be satisfied, and 90% of the fight would go out of those hounding them for their bias.

Plus, market forces might start acting a little more naturally, so that folks who don't have cable would still have a choice of "liberal news, made by progressives for all Americans" and "conservative news, made by conservatives for all Americans," instead of just three flavors of "liberal news, made by progressives for all Americans." That's just not fair, and it couldn't persist if the liberals in the news business didn't continue to persist in believing that they're just "normal."

A hint guys - when your staff votes more uniformly Democratic than Berkeley CA, you're liberal.

Posted by: ralph phelan at October 5, 2004 4:22 PM | Permalink

When in 90's a group of Islamic radicals was let to rise without warning from media... Set11 was also a failure from media something that isnt often refered. That was a big loss of credibility for media, after all media wasnt better than governement, in a sense was worst because downplayed it or sided with it. A big part of the sense of protection and care that public felt from media was completely shattered.

Lets make a study and compare how many papers journalistic pieces warned about Islamic radicals and how many had Kyoto protocol and Global Warming as the main theme. We'll see that media until Set11 was mainly Pop culture driven, and still is. And that is "Orwellian" in itself ; which is another term for "group thinking" something that has much more probabilities to happen in journalism than in bloggers which have a more distributed power and much more diferent expertise.
Yes i think if there was blogs in 90's probably Set11 would have less chances to have happened.

Posted by: lucklucky at October 5, 2004 4:24 PM | Permalink

Satullo's article is a tour-de-force! But now let me quibble with the precious irony of one statement:

"Mainstream media is a term so loose as to disqualify any assertions that follow it."

Doesn't Chris know that all generalizations are wrong? ;)

Posted by: Michael W at October 5, 2004 4:27 PM | Permalink

The point, at least so far, is it's not the microclimate of any one blogger, it's the winds of the Blogosphere, diverting the birdie in a huge badminton game. The rants and fringes border the edges, but Jarvis, Reynolds, Sullivan, Volokh are hardly Orwellian. Now, Orwell -- who wouldn't be pleased to be named in the same breath...

What about the journalism programs? Maybe NYU is full of budding balanced geniuses. Down heah, at the undergraduate level, the vocal teachers at Texas are glib reflexive "progressives," and the students I meet and teach appear only one cut above the School of Education. Haven't ever met a partisan fallacy they didn't like, if it gores the rubes.

I love the idea of "tools of thought." Is anyone learning that these days?

Posted by: A Hunny at October 5, 2004 4:28 PM | Permalink

Ronald, "profession" is not the same thing as "licensed".

One thing which goes around on this blog is that a journalist's professional authority rests in some supposed adherence to an external set of standards, not that he or she is either a good typist or a popular person. Think of it as "moral authority".

Of course, they don't do it well at all. Pretty poorly, in fact. So that leads to the idea of getting rid of it all, of just replacing the messy, complex, convoluted ideas, with the pure clarity of ranting. Where the measure is not how true it is, according to an incredibility hard to obtain standard of truth, but rather how many people agree, which is very easy - and very appealing to those who would like propaganda to be judged on how many people it convinces (might makes right).

It's like replacing a secular dictator with religious fanatics. The dictator is abominable, but the revolutionaries will be even worse.

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at October 5, 2004 4:42 PM | Permalink

Seth:

Well, the received wisdom of "what goes around on this blog" may be good enough for you but those of us in the cheap seats sometimes have our own kooky ideas.

Journalism isn't a profession. It's a craft. In (I think) one of the Andrew Sullivan pieces which Jay Rosen linked above, he says "All you need is a clear conscience and a telephone",(I guess maybe you need a computer too) and that he finds fancy J-Schools to be a waste of money. At a talk about Columbia J-School the dean, (Nicholas Lehman?) admitted that some of the best practitioners of the craft never went to any J-School, let alone graduated from college, at which point I decided he was running the biggest scam I'd ever seen and walked out.

Posted by: Eric Deamer at October 5, 2004 4:55 PM | Permalink

One thing that causes me to welcome the fact of blogging is that "real" journalism is not as accurate and knowledgeable as it might wish.

I've spent most of my life in the Islamic world--form North Africa to South East Asia. Much of that time I was working with American, local and international journalists. I knew the facts on the ground and I also knew how they were/were not reported.

As a blogger, now, I can report what I saw as the facts on the ground. Whether a reader takes that as "truth" or "opinion" is up to him/her. But at least something other than "received wisdom" is available. And that, IMO, is invaluable.

Yes, there's lots of uninformed opinion out there. But I can turn on my local news or read the local paper and find plenty of that, too. As in any other information-gathering enterprise, you have to consider your sources.

I'll go to the legal blogs like Volokh.com daily, and in great preference to whomever happens to have the court beat in almost any paper. As a "for instance".

Posted by: John Burgess at October 5, 2004 5:02 PM | Permalink

Mr. Rosen:

You give Mr. Satullo too much credit and ignore his own little Orwellian twist.

First, may we define "Orwellian" as the practice of taking purportedly neutral or factual terms and pouring biased or false meaning into them? That is, would an Orwellian blogger or journalist be one who expressed his own world view using ostensibly "objective" language and terms? (If this isn't the definition you have in mind, I would like to know exactly what you do mean.) I suppose I'm interested to think whether an Orwellian is primarily someone who presents false information as true or someone who presents partisan information as neutral (or both).

Another aspect of Orwellian language, though, was the fact that its enforcement came from powerful entities. That's the purpose of Big Brother and the role the pigs play in "Animal Farm": those who control language maintain that control by intimidation or punishment of some sort.

Certainly government officials may engage in this type of behavior, and those journalists who challenge this are to be commended. But the charge from the blogosphere is that journalists may also be the ones chanting "Two legs bad! Four legs good!" Mr. Satullo's parting shot about claims of media bias being "at best sloppy thinking, at worst Orwellian poison" seems to me to be just as open to the charge of Orwellism as anything. In stating that, he's trying to delegitimize those of us who think journalists aren't being fair or truthful. He's trying to define the problem by denying there's a problem, and that offends me as an abuse of language.

Frankly, I don't like the term "journalist", so maybe that makes me one of Satullo's targets. But I don't like it because it connotes a narrative aspect while also claiming objectivity, and narratives cannot be objective! They may strive to be fair, but they cannot be objective because they are written by subjects. I'd be happier if you'd think of yourselves as "reporters"; you get facts right or you get facts wrong. But you "journalists" feel compelled to produce "stories" and then refuse to acknowledge the longstanding narrative conventions that go with that mindset.

Then, of course, a piece like this one comes along in which you examine flaws in the Other that are reflections of your own. Physician, heal thyself!

Posted by: slarrow at October 5, 2004 5:05 PM | Permalink

Hi, Seth. Granted -- journalists aren't licensed. Some professions that are not licensed by the state do, however, have self-policing mechanisms. But let's not get sunk by semantics. "Profession" or otherwise, I don't see any distinction between the "ranting" by blogs and the "ranting" by Paul Krugman or, if you won't let me select a columnist, by any number of Professional Journalists. If by your "revolution" metaphor you are suggesting that the existing order is better than the alternative "because at least the trains run on time," well...

Posted by: Ronald at October 5, 2004 5:07 PM | Permalink