Getting the News
Having bronchitis and fevers for this last week means I’ve spent far too much time online getting news and opinions about the amazing RNC convention. Far too much time, but I’ve learned a few things.
First, Campbell Brown’s interview of McCain campaign spokesperson Tucker Bounds should be studied by every professional reporter. We haven’t seen journalists who would press an interview subject like that in a very long time. Ted Koppel is the only reporter I can think of who even came close. The standard has become: 1) ask the question; 2) get the non-answer; 3) do a soft follow-up; 4) get the same non-answer again. We desperately need journalists who will get real answers from all the candidates and public officials.
One of the other things I’ve realized with all this time on my hands is that virtually every news organization is instantly available online, and if you look through them regularly, there are some surprises. Here’s a quick list, with my take on the quality of their reporting. I deliberately ignore editorial slants, because I normally ignore editorials. Put another way, I don’t care what your opinions are, but I do care about the quality of your reporting. Yes, I am an unrepentant news junkie.
New York Times – great paper, great reporting; wretched, disgracefully sloppy web version. Hundreds of articles referencing non-existent pictures, and even their version of “TKTKTK” left in the copy. Hundreds of articles with “briefly” in their titles that consist of one or two sentences clipped from news services. This is a crime.
The International Herald Tribune web site is excellent, and easily a match for the paper version. This is all the more surprising, as it is owned by the New York Times.
London Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, San Francisco Chronicle, BBC, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, Wired — all great reporting. I have also been impressed with the online versions of the Japan Times and India’s Pioneer, though I’m not sufficiently familiar with local details to evaluate how good their reporting actually is.
Daily Kos, Huffington Post, intellwire, rawstory, slate, truthout, commondreams, cooperative research, and yes, even Drudge – occasionally gets stories out the mainstream news organizations miss, although some of them come with a decided slant.
No one outside the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Daily Kos reported on the 200+ arrests made in the Twin Cities over last weekend until days later, if at all. I find this very disturbing.
Jon Stewart is a bona-fide news source, and one of the few intelligent interviewers around. I enjoy The Daily Show, but would kill to have him doing news reporting and analysis full-time.
Fox is not a news organization at all, and CNN, despite its so promising start, has little left to recommend it other than Ms. Brown. The New York Sun is reported to be near death, and from their amazing error rate and complete failure to even try to separate news from opinion, it comes not a moment too soon.
The Wall Street Journal, which for so many years had such consistently great reporting, is pretty much gone. Another Murdoch “triumph”, and very sad.
So there’s the list, and it pretty much follows the Pulitzer awards. You can get so much so quickly… but I sure wish there were more Campbell Browns around.
Bill Way
New York City
5 September 2008
