Something I've been wondering lately: what role, intentionally or unintentionally, did mass media play in FDR's ability to promote and enact The New Deal? And the obviously related question: can President Biden, especially with a frazzled and divided Congress, realistically expect to gain the country's confidence in his efforts to restore the middle class? Build demand for more infrastructure spending? Maintain American support for Ukraine? I want to live in an America I think Biden has in mind, but I don't see how that can happen when major news outlets prefer to drink the scandal-flavored Kool-Aid that trump indefatigably supplies.
If David Leonhardt isn't reading "Breaking the News," he should be. He recently encouraged readers of NYT The Morning to provide feedback (via a survey that I intended to fill out but never did get back to) to let the staff know "how we are doing." Honestly, I didn't have anything to add that I haven't read from James Fallows. So, NYT The Morning, please tune in!
The Maine Journalism Foundation congratulates Masthead Maine’s owner, Reade Brower, on the pending sale of his company to the National Trust for Local News . We are delighted that the largest media company in Maine will convert to a non-profit outlet with a mission to provide independent, nonpartisan local news across the state, bolstering communities large and small.
The Maine Journalism Foundation is grateful beyond measure to our hundreds of donors and supporters whose efforts have made this possible. It was your trust and faith in the future of journalism expressed through your gifts and offers of support that kept this effort moving forward to this incredible outcome. We are thrilled to have collaborated with the National Trust and look forward to continuing to shape the future of journalism in Maine.
Diana Susan Collins’ assurances that the Kavanaugh hearing FBI investigation was above board was just one of various reasons why I wouldn’t want her on my side in a common sense fight over core issues.
For KWheelock (see comment below on local news) and all: Maine local news rescued by coalition of journalists with public support, in partnership with nonprofit. Maine Journalism Foundation rescued 15 news outlets in Maine from being acquired by right-wing Sinclair or others. A model for how to save local news:
July 2023: "The Maine Journalism Foundation congratulates Masthead Maine’s owner, Reade Brower, on the pending sale of his company to the National Trust for Local News . We are delighted that the largest media company in Maine will convert to a non-profit outlet with a mission to provide independent, nonpartisan local news across the state, bolstering communities large and small.
The Maine Journalism Foundation is grateful beyond measure to our hundreds of donors and supporters whose efforts have made this possible. It was your trust and faith in the future of journalism expressed through your gifts and offers of support that kept this effort moving forward to this incredible outcome. We are thrilled to have collaborated with the National Trust and look forward to continuing to shape the future of journalism in Maine. "
We're very interested in the Maine nonprofit news model.
As it happens, next week we're going to be at an event in Eastport, via the little airplane, to talk with people from the statement Maine Monitor, the local Quoddy Tides, and other news outlets about the status for news in the state (and beyond).
You will have such a good time visiting Maine, especially now that the 40 days and nights of rain have ended!
Safe journey, the Native Americans say
These mini-economies in Eastport, all over rural New England, are perfect for the Our Towns model. The people have endless energy and talent, they need networking and a path. Thank you to you and Deb for creating Our Towns! A great resource.
You might want to touch base with Bill Nemitz, he initiated the Maine Journalism Foundation with others but with a lot of public support. I helped with fundraising ideas a little because they tried to raise 15 mil but then the nonprofit stepped in.
PORTLAND, Maine — In more than 40 years as a newspaper reporter, editor, and columnist in Maine, Bill Nemitz may have asked a million questions. What he never did, however, was ask anyone for a million dollars.
The latter is not something that comes easily to him, but Nemitz, who is now retired, has had to step up in his new role as president of the Maine Journalism Foundation, a nonprofit formed in recent weeks with a dauntingly ambitious goal.
It hopes to raise $15 million to buy Masthead Media, the company that owns the Portland Press Herald, along with the daily newspapers in Lewiston, Augusta, Waterville, and Brunswick, and about 20 weekly newspapers across the state.
Masthead’s owner, 66-year-old Reade Brower, said there’s no urgency, but he’s ready to move on to a new chapter in his life and would like to find a new “steward” for the papers.
Reaching out to foundations and wealthy individuals and asking them to write a check—preferably a check with a lot of zeroes—is not something Nemitz ever saw himself doing.
“It goes against every instinct I ever had,” he says, breaking into laughter. “I’ve been involved in nonprofits before…and when I was asked to go on these boards, my going-in message was, ‘I’ll do whatever you want, but I can’t raise money.’ Because, being a journalist, there’s obvious conflict there,” he said.
Even though Nemitz had never asked for donations, he apparently has a gift for it.
“He’s doing a great job,” says Emily Barr, a retired broadcasting executive who, like Nemitz, serves on the MJF board. “He’s good at it. He’s a natural.”
What MJF aims to do is keep newspapers in Maine vibrant and healthy. Its nonprofit model has been adopted and proven in other cities, among them Baltimore, Chicago, and Salt Lake City.
In many other communities in the last two decades, the for-profit model has prevailed—with devastating results. Hedge funds and venture capitalists with a keen appetite for profits but little interest in quality journalism swooped in to buy up struggling newspapers.
“They come into a market,” Nemitz said of most of these hedge funds. “Particularly of a newspaper that’s doing well, and the first thing they do is extract as much money as they can from that newspaper to maximize the immediate return on their investment.”
Thanks, Jim, for codifying what I've been feeling for some time, with both print and electronic media. The eye-catching headline purports to sum up in very few words, the gist of the article, but often casts a shadow over the neutral or optimistic contents. CNN has seemed to be turning onto the MAGA path, which can affect viewers around the globe who count on that network for balanced coverage.
Nancy, thank you. (And see you soon, in Eastport?)
The summarizing function of headlines and 'deks' / 'subheds' / Tweets is necessary. There's just too much news from too many places to have all of us absorb it in toto.
But, as you know (and say), it's a problem that this part of the process is so obscure and unaccountable. There's practically no "accountability" in writing to the top-level editor, much less the owner. But at least you know who they are, and they explain themselves in public some times.
Is it appropriate to think of editorial visual/verbal choices as undermining the content? I read less of the NYT big stories than I used because they are treated so predictably. This does not seem to be one-sided.
Ideally, we could think of them as *advancing* or enhancing the content.
When I think of the Atlantic print articles I did under a number of editors there, including Robert Manning, Bill Whitworth, Cullen Murphy, Scott Stossel, Corby Kummer, and others, I think of their using the special meta-language of *presentation* to enhance what I said in the slurry of words.
Aug 9, 2023·edited Aug 9, 2023Liked by James Fallows
I recall how sausages were made from Upton Sinclair’s THE JUNGLE, which described the entire gruesome process, including a Lithuanian’s wedding ring in the product. [Highly effective account while total fiction—started as article in socialist newspaper, then expanded into book. Included in the historiography of the Muckrakers.]]
From this flowed the maxim: ‘There are two things you don’t want to know—how sausages and laws are made.’ Jim’s article about the innards of the newspaper business for me touches on glorious BBQ as well as ‘Lithuanian sausage.’
At 89 I have observed a broad range of the good, bad, and ugly in newspapers here and abroad. The best has been and remains magnificent. I recall when the Philadelphia Inquirer was receiving Pulitzer Prizes. Alas, today it, like NJ’s Star-Ledger, is best used to wrap fish.
Still, I am breathless at some investigative reporting by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, The Economist, and others, as well as FrontLine. All this occurs within an environment in which news has become entertainment, many hundreds of newspapers, large and small, have disappeared, and advertising [traditionally 70% of a newspaper’s space] has continued to shrink.
One of the largest newspaper potholes is local reporting. I observed this first hand while serving my local government for 15 years. I only recall one reporter who was aware of the Municipal Land Use Laws, as he reported on complex planning and zoning discussions. Often these local reporters turned over rapidly as the scope of their shallow coverage expanded. They tended to highlight the most strident (and misleading) comments from public meetings in reportage that was distinguished by its inaccuracies.
Good news appears most often in local newspapers—on the sports pages and highlighting some individuals and organizations that deserved recognition. I recall, some years ago, the GOOD NEWS WEEKLY, which disappeared because ‘good news’ doesn’t sell. If you look closely in THE WEEK MAGAZINE, there is a small column of ‘good news’ weekly. The closest to a ‘nice news’ daily was THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, which is no more.
I recall the song Don’t You Bring Me No Bad News.. In journalism today a modern-day rendition could be Don’t You Bring Me No Good News. The economy is an excellent example. Who can tell, from the plethora of ‘Chicken Little’ articles that the Biden economy has been doing surprisingly well? Only those diligent readers who spelunk in Paul Krugman’s columns and The Economist.
I lament the rocky road of newspapers. Still, I applaud those reporters, as reflected by such THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY alumni as Jim Fallows, who are the nobility of their profession. “Social media’ has scant time for serious reporting. Kudos to those reading and thinking subscribers to Jim Fallows and Heather Cox Richardson’s Substacks.
Still, for those who seek good, bad, and ugly news, there are marvelous sources, including some that I have already mentioned, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and (deep breathe), the New York Review of Books.
Despite my laments, I hail those who deserve to be in the Pantheon of Excellent Journalists, of whom Jim Fallows and Charlie Peters are charter members.
Jim I am 89 with my sustained energy seriously impacted by four compression fractures of my lower back. Now I generally write a burst of heart-rather than-head commentaries when the spirit moves.
Your excellent posts have prompted a number of my Ready, Fire, Aim responses. The last time I was so impulsive was when, during the Congo hostage crisis in 1964, I wrote, for four months, a daily early morning Congo Situation Report for The Secretary and others. Uncleared, unproofed, and, on occasion, clearly intemperate.
Thanks Jim for the article. Depressing. Seems that the NYT has fallen into the same syndrome as CNN, whereby management feels intimidated by the right-wing attack on them so the companies bend over backwards trying to convince the MAGA crowd that they (NYT or CNN) aren't really biased against Trump. With the net result that the MAGA crowd considers these sources of news to be untrustworthy, for the opposite reason why they are in fact showing bias toward the right-wing. Is there any comment or defense by the NYT management team to Jim's comments?
Tom, thank you. And I see the basic hydraulics / tectonics of this the same way you do. In part *because* the institution is full of people who mainly vote for Democrats, and also because — somehow — criticism from the political right is more worrisome than criticism from the left, these organizations bend over too far backwards to seem "fair." You also see this at PBS and NPR — though again, as I noted in the piece, NPR still has a (good) public editor.
Someone I know who once had a senior position at the NYT wrote me last night to say: Good points. But the Times will NEVER respond to outside pressure or criticism.
Was this an Atlantic alum who had a brief and unhappy senior level experience at the NYTR? It appeared that he may have chosen to take the fall for a more systematic problem.
Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.
“It is important not to confuse “patriotism” with “nationalism.” As I define it, nationalism is a monologue in which you place your country in a position of moral and cultural supremacy over others. Patriotism, while deeply personal, is a dialogue with your fellow citizens, and a larger world, about not only what you love about your country but also how it can be improved.”
― Dan Rather, What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism
“I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes. ”
“The dream begins, most of the time,with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth”
“We are a nation not only of dreamers, but also of fixers. We have looked at our land and people, and said, time and time again, "This is not good enough; we can be better.”
“Empathy is not only a personal feeling; it can be a potent force for political and social change. And thus the suppression or denial of empathy is a deliberate part of a cynical political calculus. Dividing people and stoking animosity can pave a path to power (and in many recent elections, it has). This has been well known since the time of the ancients. But these divisions inevitably come at the expense of the long-term health and welfare of the nation as a whole.”
To suppress the vote is to make a mockery of democracy. And those who do so are essentially acknowledging that their policies are unpopular. If you can't convince a majority of voters that your ideas are worthy, you try to limit the pool of voters. This reveals a certain irony: Many who are most vocal in championing a free, open, and dynamic economy are the same political factions that suppress these principles when it comes to the currency of ideas.”
Aug 9, 2023·edited Aug 9, 2023Liked by James Fallows
Diana I had the privilege of knowing Edward R. Murrow (and Janet their son Casey). From This is London to his CBS days, he was a strong breathe of integrity. He had to fight diligently to remain full voiced. In his McCarthy broadcast (he had an earlier one on a lieutenant who had been falsely ensnared in McCathyism). Alcoa didn’t decide to sponsor this broadcast until minutes before it went on the air.
Murrow was a pain in the ass to William Paley, CBS’s boss. Murrow continually ran way over budget in his expansive reportages—which were wide ranging investigative reporting. He made a deal with Paley to conduct an inane program—interviewing celebrities in their homes-in order to present his substantive reportage. [Murrow told me that he hated this ‘tripe program.’]
Murrow and Paley finally split and Murrow took a leave of absence. I last saw Murrow when hie was the keynote speaker at an Eisenhower Fellows meeting with President Eisenhower in November 1960. Murrow gave a marvelous overview of what was going on in the world. Afterward, I asked why he didn’t present this in a book. His response: “I have been trained to write in 5-to-10-minute increments.”
A heavy smoker, he died several years later while head of USIA.
For those who wish to feel the full thrust of Murrow’s magnificence, I recommend the book that includes his This is London broadcasts.
A Murrow anecdote. Murrow, a close confident of Churchill, was back in Washington and had a dinner engagement with FDR on Sunday, December 7th. With the Pearl Harbor news, Murrow wondered what to do. He and Janet went to the White House. He was told to wait, while Janet supped. With Eleanor. Finally, about midnight, Murrow was brought into FDR’s office. FDR then described in astonishing detail what had happened at Pearl [while public announcements were deliberately imprecise.]
Murrow returned to his hotel with an extraordinary news story. He chose to have his meals delivered to his door for two days so that he could not, even inadvertently, reveal what FDR said.
wow, fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing that, I read it laughing but also with a sense of awe.
Your memories are great!
We honor the integrity of politicians and journalists who want to be able to hold their heads high.
One of the very troubling things about our trumpian era of gop, is that regular gop seem to have thrown themselves in with a criminal type with no thought to ethics. No one in my home state, Maine, can believe that our gop would traffic with these types. That is not the Susan Collins we know. And, she is advised by Olympia, Jock, and other ethical gop in Maine, so have they just decided to work from the inside?
Only fellow students of history remember the last century at all, let alone the name Morrow. Some of us, though, treasure history for the stark reason that so many others now love forgetting everything. We have the best universities in the world, we're the richest country ever to exist on the planet. The first thing we do is throw all our marvelous achievements down the memory hole. For money. Why, gop, why.
"Roddenberry’s belief was nothing new. In his eyes, money was clearly a vestige of man’s base past. It was a symbol of greed, a cause of war and hatred and anger and loss. The drive for it was something mankind needed to overcome, and in Roddenberry’s pristine world of the future, man would rise above his dirty urges for riches and concentrate on more noble goals, like science, adventure, green-painted women, and mind-melding rocks." https://fee.org/articles/the-economic-fantasy-of-star-trek/
“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.” Gene Roddenberry
“PICARD: There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy.
WESLEY: But William James won't be in my Starfleet exams.
PICARD: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained in the mechanics of piloting a starship.
WESLEY: But Starfleet Academy
PICARD: It takes more. Open your mind to the past. Art, history, philosophy. And all this may mean something.”
Diana Susan Collins is a Maine embarrassment to its two great senators: Margaret Chase Smith and George Mitchell. Smith was early on the firing line against Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy. She survived the backlash. Senator Tidings did not, and was defeated in re-election in a dirty campaign that used a fake photo of Tidings with US Communist Party head Earl Browder.
I enjoy driving over the Tidings bridge on Route 95–a bit late, but recalls the Smith/Tidings integrity duo.
Ok, Susan is our neighbor (for me, a far away neighbor, but still) in a tiny state.
So we avoid running down our neighbors because we have to live next to them for generations.
The question is why? I understand, Senator Collins was speaking what she thought was right. She has advisors who were the best at their time, Olympia Snowe is still involved in the Maine gop. For Senator Collins and the other GOP like Olympia, why was/is trump so acceptable?
You are all experts here in this comments section, so I think you might know much more than I do. Is the gop selling out, following a strategy or what?
The story above is very cool - thanks for adding it and we look forward to more!
I confess to watching old sitcoms to make sure to keep a sense of reality. Also reading Salman Rushdie, Tom Wolfe, or any great author puts perspective on our current worldly woes.
Rick, what ever you are, you certainly are not pedantic. I believe that I learned phonetic spelling. Thus i & y could be interchangeable. Tidings’ re-election was, I believe, in 1952.
I came close, but you were spot on.
In my days as history professor, I tended to be more careful on names. Now it’s more Toujours gai and what the hell.
It is a great treat to read a journalist on journalism. Thank you for these thoughtful articles at substack!
"Like" all comments, the comments section is great, so more please ! Happy summer to all!
The NYT. It's a business. Having lived in the same freshman dorm as the owner, Art, I can attest that he is thoughtful, and committed, as we all were in the NIxon era, to speaking truth to power.
We're in an age where war is a daily worldwide threat, we have the most major challenges ever to democracy around the world. Climate change cannot be denied as the world burns and floods, blows away.
We need worldwide leadership, let the man work. I mean the President, who, despite the constant drumbeat of nattering nabobs of negativity, is leading just fine. But, we also see the need for a Corey Booker, Deval Patrick, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, as President. Those are really exciting candidates.
But also, Art has a really difficult job to do and he probably just wants to sit at the beach like the rest of us. In school, he was the most generous and compassionate, very down to earth, then he experienced the protest and Nixon years first hand at college. So perhaps some of us from the 60's and 70's can still believe in the dream of world peace, but in the capitalist world, newspapers have to make money. Until Star Trek values are finally adopted, we have to wait for a Gene Roddenberry world.
"Money? No, we don't use money anymore. Everyone has everything they need, and if they want to go to university, they just go. We got rid of money long ago." Patrick Stewart as Captain of the USS Enterprise, STNG
Ok I went to college in the protest and nixon era years when America's college students stopped a devastating, terrible war and got rid of an entire corrupt presidential cabinet. Art was part of that so I think he understands.
We should empower the next generation like we were empowered to bring down the president for good. But, we couldn't stop war and we couldn't stop nuclear proliferation as hard as we tried.
Starting in the 1970's, the fossil fuel giants - to make a lot of money - knowingly burned down the planet while persecuting environmental activists. Karen Silkwood ended up dead. Many other activists around the world are dying now, as they try to save their forests. All of this happens for money, so the superrich can fly high above us and stay in castles in the air. But their world is burning too.
" We honor the capitalists that are planning to go live in their underground volcano shelters when the climate turns deadly" Werner Herzog
I also started adult life in the '60s and had a mixed research/engineering career at IBM, ending up as an academic in Israel. I had the chance to ask IBM CEO Frank Cary once about whether IBM was a "world" company or a US company. He was fairly thoughtful, and he responded that people might have thought so in the '50s, but not recently. Cary was successful through out his career, but was followed by John Opel, who ran the stock price into the ground in the late 1990s. IBM haas been a different company since he was removed, but (thankfully) is still successful. The NYT may still be owned by the same family, but has certainly gone through changes.
Diana, thank you! For my sins, I have never met any member of the Ownership Family of the NYT over the eons, though I have met and know most of the editorial (and business) leadership. Very interesting to hear all this.
Art arrived on our floor, in our section, in the freshman dorm a few days after we all checked in.
He was very down-to-earth, friendly, and a lot of fun.
At the time, the protests in Boston were in full swing and many things were happening. So Art was part of that and was around the peace movement during his college years.
We don't think of you as a sinner, not exactly :) haha
But, I can assure everyone that Art is a regular guy, he put on no airs at college and he just joined in the fun with the rest of us. He didn't ask for any special favors and in fact went out of his way to include everyone in our section in regular study parties that he was hosting in his lounge room. We all spent a lot of time together as freshmen and we remember our dorm mate as someone who enjoyed life and was a straight shooter. I am sure that it is a very difficult, complex job, to keep an amercian legacy newspaper going in the face of so many tech and social changes.
What if paper were discovered right now? Wow! You could put digital info into a solid form that you could do lots of productive things with! And would last longer than the digital world! And that would allow us (to James's points) see a larger perspective as a gestalt.
Jim I just read you article on David Allen. I would have found it extremely helpful until a few years ago (after I retired at 80 from my last full-time job).
I kept lists of ‘must do things,’ ranging from the mundane to possibly climbing the Himalayas. These lists were prickly reminders to my conscience. So one day I stopped keeping lists. OK, a post it now or then, but no more massive, conscience-pricking lists.
A few things slipped through the cracks, but, overall, I tended to do some of the important tasks, and some others disappeared simply by ignoring them.
I tended to embark on creative ventures before the meat and potato stuff.
SHAZAM. I’m now back to lists.
We have just bought a condo and are facing overwhelming tasks of sorting through stuff of 30+ years, moving, some minor/major fixes in the condo, cosmetic enhancements of our house before selling it—all in less than three months.
Now I am re-reading your article on David Allen with greater attention. I feel that I am encountering an ice berg. Sisyphus comes to mind. An antidote may be a combo of David Allen and an ice pick.
I’ll tell you how things work out (if I remember).
Here's another example that's been pointed out on Twitter countless times over the years: a person of color is assaulted or killed by a police officer. The officer is arrested and/or convicted. From beginning to end, the coverage includes a mugshot of the victim. If provided at all, the mugshot is next to a professional headshot of the police officer, in uniform, American flag draped in the background.
A Times managing editor of the 1920s, Frederick Birchall, once said, more elegantly than I am doing here, that if he controlled the headlines, what the editorial page said meant nothing. He might have added, the news stories themselves.
I did send this wonderful piece to several Timespeople. Once upon a time Dean Baquet would take the time to write back and insult me. Joseph Kahn is too busy posing for magazines, and A.G. Sulzberger is too busy destroying the lives of the people he doesn't care about in his sports department.
By the way, I also have accused a few people there of trying to give The Pitchbot material. He is a genius. Now, one of my best friends and I text each other possible Maureen Dowd columns. The fact that she was not fired for her column on Biden's grandchild is a sign of how hopeless that department is, as if hiring Bret Stephens, Pamela Paul, and David French to embarrass the opinion section on a regular basis wasn't enough.
I do think that MD is a special case. In a book that was published TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO, I said that her shtick was getting old. She never forgot, or forgave.
Years ago, Russell Baker praised her writing and humor, so I gave her another look. But since he said it, she must have been good at some point and clearly has stayed too long at the fair.
The NYTimes sure could use that Public Editor again. This is a fascinating article, really about the psychology of news presentation, what the paper/producers want you to see and hope you understand. Thanks, James!
And I agree entirely about the Public Editor at the NYT. Friends there told me that it would not be "practical" to bring people back in that role.
I think it's unsustainable to refuse to do so.
(Story for another moment, which I've hinted at: The time when I was in serious talks about taking on that job at the NYT, when that job existed. But, as they say, that was a long time ago, in another country... )
Mr. Fallows: The presence of the ‘black box’ is evident, but its output always seems to reflect ‘masthead’ values. That is, the end result is to increase conflict/storytelling/engagement strategies. These are not organic to reporting, but executives believe that they increase readership, and so income.
It is important to evaluate hard news and soft news separately, but for hard news, a good model would be an open-source intelligence version of the President’s Daily Brief. Imagine trying to ‘bothsides’ an intelligence issue in front of the president! The sound of the door slamming behind your ejected rear end would be very loud!
This approach would align with reader goals, since we just want to know what’s going on, without the overlay of manipulation.
Thank you,
Ed Salisbury
P.S. You properly note the importance of photographs, but this should be emphasized even more. As an example, in your illustration “5) ‘free speech’ vs lies”, look at the four photographs and ask yourself: which is the crackpot? The normal answer would be ‘none’, while the correct answer is ‘all of them’. The pose of the bodies, the lighting, the facial expressions, all lend gravitas to the subjects, making them seem like important public figures.
Excellent point about the President's Daily Brief, which eons ago I sometimes had a (tightly controlled) opportunity to see, and which has exactly the virtues you describe.
Thanks for the intensification of the "look at the photos!" point, which I agree with.
Something I've been wondering lately: what role, intentionally or unintentionally, did mass media play in FDR's ability to promote and enact The New Deal? And the obviously related question: can President Biden, especially with a frazzled and divided Congress, realistically expect to gain the country's confidence in his efforts to restore the middle class? Build demand for more infrastructure spending? Maintain American support for Ukraine? I want to live in an America I think Biden has in mind, but I don't see how that can happen when major news outlets prefer to drink the scandal-flavored Kool-Aid that trump indefatigably supplies.
If David Leonhardt isn't reading "Breaking the News," he should be. He recently encouraged readers of NYT The Morning to provide feedback (via a survey that I intended to fill out but never did get back to) to let the staff know "how we are doing." Honestly, I didn't have anything to add that I haven't read from James Fallows. So, NYT The Morning, please tune in!
Press Release on Maine Journalism Foundation securing Maine's independent news outlets
contact info:
Bill Nemitz
wknemitz@gmail.com
billn@mainejf.org
The Maine Journalism Foundation congratulates Masthead Maine’s owner, Reade Brower, on the pending sale of his company to the National Trust for Local News . We are delighted that the largest media company in Maine will convert to a non-profit outlet with a mission to provide independent, nonpartisan local news across the state, bolstering communities large and small.
The Maine Journalism Foundation is grateful beyond measure to our hundreds of donors and supporters whose efforts have made this possible. It was your trust and faith in the future of journalism expressed through your gifts and offers of support that kept this effort moving forward to this incredible outcome. We are thrilled to have collaborated with the National Trust and look forward to continuing to shape the future of journalism in Maine.
Gratefully, Bill Nemitz, Emily Barr, Bill Burke
Diana Susan Collins’ assurances that the Kavanaugh hearing FBI investigation was above board was just one of various reasons why I wouldn’t want her on my side in a common sense fight over core issues.
yes, and this is what is very confusing to Mainers about what she is doing
in a tiny rural state, "all politics is local" Tip O'Neill
For KWheelock (see comment below on local news) and all: Maine local news rescued by coalition of journalists with public support, in partnership with nonprofit. Maine Journalism Foundation rescued 15 news outlets in Maine from being acquired by right-wing Sinclair or others. A model for how to save local news:
July 2023: "The Maine Journalism Foundation congratulates Masthead Maine’s owner, Reade Brower, on the pending sale of his company to the National Trust for Local News . We are delighted that the largest media company in Maine will convert to a non-profit outlet with a mission to provide independent, nonpartisan local news across the state, bolstering communities large and small.
The Maine Journalism Foundation is grateful beyond measure to our hundreds of donors and supporters whose efforts have made this possible. It was your trust and faith in the future of journalism expressed through your gifts and offers of support that kept this effort moving forward to this incredible outcome. We are thrilled to have collaborated with the National Trust and look forward to continuing to shape the future of journalism in Maine. "
Gratefully, Bill Nemitz Emily Barr Bill Burke
We're very interested in the Maine nonprofit news model.
As it happens, next week we're going to be at an event in Eastport, via the little airplane, to talk with people from the statement Maine Monitor, the local Quoddy Tides, and other news outlets about the status for news in the state (and beyond).
You will have such a good time visiting Maine, especially now that the 40 days and nights of rain have ended!
Safe journey, the Native Americans say
These mini-economies in Eastport, all over rural New England, are perfect for the Our Towns model. The people have endless energy and talent, they need networking and a path. Thank you to you and Deb for creating Our Towns! A great resource.
You might want to touch base with Bill Nemitz, he initiated the Maine Journalism Foundation with others but with a lot of public support. I helped with fundraising ideas a little because they tried to raise 15 mil but then the nonprofit stepped in.
PORTLAND, Maine — In more than 40 years as a newspaper reporter, editor, and columnist in Maine, Bill Nemitz may have asked a million questions. What he never did, however, was ask anyone for a million dollars.
The latter is not something that comes easily to him, but Nemitz, who is now retired, has had to step up in his new role as president of the Maine Journalism Foundation, a nonprofit formed in recent weeks with a dauntingly ambitious goal.
https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/local/207/foundation-aims-to-preserve-maine-newspapers-but-faces-multi-million-dollar-challenge/97-79f93df5-a719-4277-bef5-4f78ba071dd0
It hopes to raise $15 million to buy Masthead Media, the company that owns the Portland Press Herald, along with the daily newspapers in Lewiston, Augusta, Waterville, and Brunswick, and about 20 weekly newspapers across the state.
Masthead’s owner, 66-year-old Reade Brower, said there’s no urgency, but he’s ready to move on to a new chapter in his life and would like to find a new “steward” for the papers.
Reaching out to foundations and wealthy individuals and asking them to write a check—preferably a check with a lot of zeroes—is not something Nemitz ever saw himself doing.
“It goes against every instinct I ever had,” he says, breaking into laughter. “I’ve been involved in nonprofits before…and when I was asked to go on these boards, my going-in message was, ‘I’ll do whatever you want, but I can’t raise money.’ Because, being a journalist, there’s obvious conflict there,” he said.
Even though Nemitz had never asked for donations, he apparently has a gift for it.
“He’s doing a great job,” says Emily Barr, a retired broadcasting executive who, like Nemitz, serves on the MJF board. “He’s good at it. He’s a natural.”
What MJF aims to do is keep newspapers in Maine vibrant and healthy. Its nonprofit model has been adopted and proven in other cities, among them Baltimore, Chicago, and Salt Lake City.
In many other communities in the last two decades, the for-profit model has prevailed—with devastating results. Hedge funds and venture capitalists with a keen appetite for profits but little interest in quality journalism swooped in to buy up struggling newspapers.
“They come into a market,” Nemitz said of most of these hedge funds. “Particularly of a newspaper that’s doing well, and the first thing they do is extract as much money as they can from that newspaper to maximize the immediate return on their investment.”
full article at link
Thanks, Jim, for codifying what I've been feeling for some time, with both print and electronic media. The eye-catching headline purports to sum up in very few words, the gist of the article, but often casts a shadow over the neutral or optimistic contents. CNN has seemed to be turning onto the MAGA path, which can affect viewers around the globe who count on that network for balanced coverage.
Nancy, thank you. (And see you soon, in Eastport?)
The summarizing function of headlines and 'deks' / 'subheds' / Tweets is necessary. There's just too much news from too many places to have all of us absorb it in toto.
But, as you know (and say), it's a problem that this part of the process is so obscure and unaccountable. There's practically no "accountability" in writing to the top-level editor, much less the owner. But at least you know who they are, and they explain themselves in public some times.
Is it appropriate to think of editorial visual/verbal choices as undermining the content? I read less of the NYT big stories than I used because they are treated so predictably. This does not seem to be one-sided.
Ideally, we could think of them as *advancing* or enhancing the content.
When I think of the Atlantic print articles I did under a number of editors there, including Robert Manning, Bill Whitworth, Cullen Murphy, Scott Stossel, Corby Kummer, and others, I think of their using the special meta-language of *presentation* to enhance what I said in the slurry of words.
I understand your larger point.
I recall how sausages were made from Upton Sinclair’s THE JUNGLE, which described the entire gruesome process, including a Lithuanian’s wedding ring in the product. [Highly effective account while total fiction—started as article in socialist newspaper, then expanded into book. Included in the historiography of the Muckrakers.]]
From this flowed the maxim: ‘There are two things you don’t want to know—how sausages and laws are made.’ Jim’s article about the innards of the newspaper business for me touches on glorious BBQ as well as ‘Lithuanian sausage.’
At 89 I have observed a broad range of the good, bad, and ugly in newspapers here and abroad. The best has been and remains magnificent. I recall when the Philadelphia Inquirer was receiving Pulitzer Prizes. Alas, today it, like NJ’s Star-Ledger, is best used to wrap fish.
Still, I am breathless at some investigative reporting by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, The Economist, and others, as well as FrontLine. All this occurs within an environment in which news has become entertainment, many hundreds of newspapers, large and small, have disappeared, and advertising [traditionally 70% of a newspaper’s space] has continued to shrink.
One of the largest newspaper potholes is local reporting. I observed this first hand while serving my local government for 15 years. I only recall one reporter who was aware of the Municipal Land Use Laws, as he reported on complex planning and zoning discussions. Often these local reporters turned over rapidly as the scope of their shallow coverage expanded. They tended to highlight the most strident (and misleading) comments from public meetings in reportage that was distinguished by its inaccuracies.
Good news appears most often in local newspapers—on the sports pages and highlighting some individuals and organizations that deserved recognition. I recall, some years ago, the GOOD NEWS WEEKLY, which disappeared because ‘good news’ doesn’t sell. If you look closely in THE WEEK MAGAZINE, there is a small column of ‘good news’ weekly. The closest to a ‘nice news’ daily was THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, which is no more.
I recall the song Don’t You Bring Me No Bad News.. In journalism today a modern-day rendition could be Don’t You Bring Me No Good News. The economy is an excellent example. Who can tell, from the plethora of ‘Chicken Little’ articles that the Biden economy has been doing surprisingly well? Only those diligent readers who spelunk in Paul Krugman’s columns and The Economist.
I lament the rocky road of newspapers. Still, I applaud those reporters, as reflected by such THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY alumni as Jim Fallows, who are the nobility of their profession. “Social media’ has scant time for serious reporting. Kudos to those reading and thinking subscribers to Jim Fallows and Heather Cox Richardson’s Substacks.
Still, for those who seek good, bad, and ugly news, there are marvelous sources, including some that I have already mentioned, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and (deep breathe), the New York Review of Books.
Despite my laments, I hail those who deserve to be in the Pantheon of Excellent Journalists, of whom Jim Fallows and Charlie Peters are charter members.
Keith, truly excellent perspective on the range from magnificent-to-terrible in modern journalism.
And, yes, I can still remember the days in a sophomore American Lit class in college of reading and parsing 'The Jungle.'
Jim I am 89 with my sustained energy seriously impacted by four compression fractures of my lower back. Now I generally write a burst of heart-rather than-head commentaries when the spirit moves.
Your excellent posts have prompted a number of my Ready, Fire, Aim responses. The last time I was so impulsive was when, during the Congo hostage crisis in 1964, I wrote, for four months, a daily early morning Congo Situation Report for The Secretary and others. Uncleared, unproofed, and, on occasion, clearly intemperate.
These days I am a somewhat wiser pain in the ass.
An example to us all !!!
Thanks Jim for the article. Depressing. Seems that the NYT has fallen into the same syndrome as CNN, whereby management feels intimidated by the right-wing attack on them so the companies bend over backwards trying to convince the MAGA crowd that they (NYT or CNN) aren't really biased against Trump. With the net result that the MAGA crowd considers these sources of news to be untrustworthy, for the opposite reason why they are in fact showing bias toward the right-wing. Is there any comment or defense by the NYT management team to Jim's comments?
Tom, thank you. And I see the basic hydraulics / tectonics of this the same way you do. In part *because* the institution is full of people who mainly vote for Democrats, and also because — somehow — criticism from the political right is more worrisome than criticism from the left, these organizations bend over too far backwards to seem "fair." You also see this at PBS and NPR — though again, as I noted in the piece, NPR still has a (good) public editor.
Someone I know who once had a senior position at the NYT wrote me last night to say: Good points. But the Times will NEVER respond to outside pressure or criticism.
Sigh.
Was this an Atlantic alum who had a brief and unhappy senior level experience at the NYTR? It appeared that he may have chosen to take the fall for a more systematic problem.
Good guess! But someone else ...
Dan Rather comments on the news:
Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.
“It is important not to confuse “patriotism” with “nationalism.” As I define it, nationalism is a monologue in which you place your country in a position of moral and cultural supremacy over others. Patriotism, while deeply personal, is a dialogue with your fellow citizens, and a larger world, about not only what you love about your country but also how it can be improved.”
― Dan Rather, What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism
“I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes. ”
“The dream begins, most of the time,with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth”
“We are a nation not only of dreamers, but also of fixers. We have looked at our land and people, and said, time and time again, "This is not good enough; we can be better.”
“Empathy is not only a personal feeling; it can be a potent force for political and social change. And thus the suppression or denial of empathy is a deliberate part of a cynical political calculus. Dividing people and stoking animosity can pave a path to power (and in many recent elections, it has). This has been well known since the time of the ancients. But these divisions inevitably come at the expense of the long-term health and welfare of the nation as a whole.”
To suppress the vote is to make a mockery of democracy. And those who do so are essentially acknowledging that their policies are unpopular. If you can't convince a majority of voters that your ideas are worthy, you try to limit the pool of voters. This reveals a certain irony: Many who are most vocal in championing a free, open, and dynamic economy are the same political factions that suppress these principles when it comes to the currency of ideas.”
THANK YOU again Diana!
thank you for your kind reply!
Diana I had the privilege of knowing Edward R. Murrow (and Janet their son Casey). From This is London to his CBS days, he was a strong breathe of integrity. He had to fight diligently to remain full voiced. In his McCarthy broadcast (he had an earlier one on a lieutenant who had been falsely ensnared in McCathyism). Alcoa didn’t decide to sponsor this broadcast until minutes before it went on the air.
Murrow was a pain in the ass to William Paley, CBS’s boss. Murrow continually ran way over budget in his expansive reportages—which were wide ranging investigative reporting. He made a deal with Paley to conduct an inane program—interviewing celebrities in their homes-in order to present his substantive reportage. [Murrow told me that he hated this ‘tripe program.’]
Murrow and Paley finally split and Murrow took a leave of absence. I last saw Murrow when hie was the keynote speaker at an Eisenhower Fellows meeting with President Eisenhower in November 1960. Murrow gave a marvelous overview of what was going on in the world. Afterward, I asked why he didn’t present this in a book. His response: “I have been trained to write in 5-to-10-minute increments.”
A heavy smoker, he died several years later while head of USIA.
For those who wish to feel the full thrust of Murrow’s magnificence, I recommend the book that includes his This is London broadcasts.
A Murrow anecdote. Murrow, a close confident of Churchill, was back in Washington and had a dinner engagement with FDR on Sunday, December 7th. With the Pearl Harbor news, Murrow wondered what to do. He and Janet went to the White House. He was told to wait, while Janet supped. With Eleanor. Finally, about midnight, Murrow was brought into FDR’s office. FDR then described in astonishing detail what had happened at Pearl [while public announcements were deliberately imprecise.]
Murrow returned to his hotel with an extraordinary news story. He chose to have his meals delivered to his door for two days so that he could not, even inadvertently, reveal what FDR said.
I GENUFLECT BEFORE MURROW’S INTEGRITY.
wow, fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing that, I read it laughing but also with a sense of awe.
Your memories are great!
We honor the integrity of politicians and journalists who want to be able to hold their heads high.
One of the very troubling things about our trumpian era of gop, is that regular gop seem to have thrown themselves in with a criminal type with no thought to ethics. No one in my home state, Maine, can believe that our gop would traffic with these types. That is not the Susan Collins we know. And, she is advised by Olympia, Jock, and other ethical gop in Maine, so have they just decided to work from the inside?
Only fellow students of history remember the last century at all, let alone the name Morrow. Some of us, though, treasure history for the stark reason that so many others now love forgetting everything. We have the best universities in the world, we're the richest country ever to exist on the planet. The first thing we do is throw all our marvelous achievements down the memory hole. For money. Why, gop, why.
"Roddenberry’s belief was nothing new. In his eyes, money was clearly a vestige of man’s base past. It was a symbol of greed, a cause of war and hatred and anger and loss. The drive for it was something mankind needed to overcome, and in Roddenberry’s pristine world of the future, man would rise above his dirty urges for riches and concentrate on more noble goals, like science, adventure, green-painted women, and mind-melding rocks." https://fee.org/articles/the-economic-fantasy-of-star-trek/
“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.” Gene Roddenberry
“PICARD: There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy.
WESLEY: But William James won't be in my Starfleet exams.
PICARD: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained in the mechanics of piloting a starship.
WESLEY: But Starfleet Academy
PICARD: It takes more. Open your mind to the past. Art, history, philosophy. And all this may mean something.”
Gene Roddenberry, goodreads quotes
Diana Susan Collins is a Maine embarrassment to its two great senators: Margaret Chase Smith and George Mitchell. Smith was early on the firing line against Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy. She survived the backlash. Senator Tidings did not, and was defeated in re-election in a dirty campaign that used a fake photo of Tidings with US Communist Party head Earl Browder.
I enjoy driving over the Tidings bridge on Route 95–a bit late, but recalls the Smith/Tidings integrity duo.
great detail, thank you!
Ok, Susan is our neighbor (for me, a far away neighbor, but still) in a tiny state.
So we avoid running down our neighbors because we have to live next to them for generations.
The question is why? I understand, Senator Collins was speaking what she thought was right. She has advisors who were the best at their time, Olympia Snowe is still involved in the Maine gop. For Senator Collins and the other GOP like Olympia, why was/is trump so acceptable?
You are all experts here in this comments section, so I think you might know much more than I do. Is the gop selling out, following a strategy or what?
The story above is very cool - thanks for adding it and we look forward to more!
Diana GOP today should be pronounced goop.
at least you are keeping your sense of humor!
I confess to watching old sitcoms to make sure to keep a sense of reality. Also reading Salman Rushdie, Tom Wolfe, or any great author puts perspective on our current worldly woes.
Your reminisces are fantastic, more please!
I can be pedantic, or presume spell check overruled you. It is spell check's fault.
Tydings.
Rick, what ever you are, you certainly are not pedantic. I believe that I learned phonetic spelling. Thus i & y could be interchangeable. Tidings’ re-election was, I believe, in 1952.
I came close, but you were spot on.
In my days as history professor, I tended to be more careful on names. Now it’s more Toujours gai and what the hell.
It is a great treat to read a journalist on journalism. Thank you for these thoughtful articles at substack!
"Like" all comments, the comments section is great, so more please ! Happy summer to all!
The NYT. It's a business. Having lived in the same freshman dorm as the owner, Art, I can attest that he is thoughtful, and committed, as we all were in the NIxon era, to speaking truth to power.
We're in an age where war is a daily worldwide threat, we have the most major challenges ever to democracy around the world. Climate change cannot be denied as the world burns and floods, blows away.
We need worldwide leadership, let the man work. I mean the President, who, despite the constant drumbeat of nattering nabobs of negativity, is leading just fine. But, we also see the need for a Corey Booker, Deval Patrick, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, as President. Those are really exciting candidates.
But also, Art has a really difficult job to do and he probably just wants to sit at the beach like the rest of us. In school, he was the most generous and compassionate, very down to earth, then he experienced the protest and Nixon years first hand at college. So perhaps some of us from the 60's and 70's can still believe in the dream of world peace, but in the capitalist world, newspapers have to make money. Until Star Trek values are finally adopted, we have to wait for a Gene Roddenberry world.
"Money? No, we don't use money anymore. Everyone has everything they need, and if they want to go to university, they just go. We got rid of money long ago." Patrick Stewart as Captain of the USS Enterprise, STNG
Ok I went to college in the protest and nixon era years when America's college students stopped a devastating, terrible war and got rid of an entire corrupt presidential cabinet. Art was part of that so I think he understands.
We should empower the next generation like we were empowered to bring down the president for good. But, we couldn't stop war and we couldn't stop nuclear proliferation as hard as we tried.
Starting in the 1970's, the fossil fuel giants - to make a lot of money - knowingly burned down the planet while persecuting environmental activists. Karen Silkwood ended up dead. Many other activists around the world are dying now, as they try to save their forests. All of this happens for money, so the superrich can fly high above us and stay in castles in the air. But their world is burning too.
" We honor the capitalists that are planning to go live in their underground volcano shelters when the climate turns deadly" Werner Herzog
I also started adult life in the '60s and had a mixed research/engineering career at IBM, ending up as an academic in Israel. I had the chance to ask IBM CEO Frank Cary once about whether IBM was a "world" company or a US company. He was fairly thoughtful, and he responded that people might have thought so in the '50s, but not recently. Cary was successful through out his career, but was followed by John Opel, who ran the stock price into the ground in the late 1990s. IBM haas been a different company since he was removed, but (thankfully) is still successful. The NYT may still be owned by the same family, but has certainly gone through changes.
Diana, thank you! For my sins, I have never met any member of the Ownership Family of the NYT over the eons, though I have met and know most of the editorial (and business) leadership. Very interesting to hear all this.
Thanks!
Art arrived on our floor, in our section, in the freshman dorm a few days after we all checked in.
He was very down-to-earth, friendly, and a lot of fun.
At the time, the protests in Boston were in full swing and many things were happening. So Art was part of that and was around the peace movement during his college years.
We don't think of you as a sinner, not exactly :) haha
But, I can assure everyone that Art is a regular guy, he put on no airs at college and he just joined in the fun with the rest of us. He didn't ask for any special favors and in fact went out of his way to include everyone in our section in regular study parties that he was hosting in his lounge room. We all spent a lot of time together as freshmen and we remember our dorm mate as someone who enjoyed life and was a straight shooter. I am sure that it is a very difficult, complex job, to keep an amercian legacy newspaper going in the face of so many tech and social changes.
What if paper were discovered right now? Wow! You could put digital info into a solid form that you could do lots of productive things with! And would last longer than the digital world! And that would allow us (to James's points) see a larger perspective as a gestalt.
David, thank you.
(For anyone who does not know, this is *the* David Allen of GTD, whose writings have changed my life — as I wrote in an Atlantic article nearly 20 years ago: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/07/organize-your-life/303455/ )
Paper is miraculous. We keep coming back to it.
Jim I just read you article on David Allen. I would have found it extremely helpful until a few years ago (after I retired at 80 from my last full-time job).
I kept lists of ‘must do things,’ ranging from the mundane to possibly climbing the Himalayas. These lists were prickly reminders to my conscience. So one day I stopped keeping lists. OK, a post it now or then, but no more massive, conscience-pricking lists.
A few things slipped through the cracks, but, overall, I tended to do some of the important tasks, and some others disappeared simply by ignoring them.
I tended to embark on creative ventures before the meat and potato stuff.
SHAZAM. I’m now back to lists.
We have just bought a condo and are facing overwhelming tasks of sorting through stuff of 30+ years, moving, some minor/major fixes in the condo, cosmetic enhancements of our house before selling it—all in less than three months.
Now I am re-reading your article on David Allen with greater attention. I feel that I am encountering an ice berg. Sisyphus comes to mind. An antidote may be a combo of David Allen and an ice pick.
I’ll tell you how things work out (if I remember).
Here's another example that's been pointed out on Twitter countless times over the years: a person of color is assaulted or killed by a police officer. The officer is arrested and/or convicted. From beginning to end, the coverage includes a mugshot of the victim. If provided at all, the mugshot is next to a professional headshot of the police officer, in uniform, American flag draped in the background.
Yes, thank you.
The OJ "darkened" cover photo of course fits this pattern.
A Times managing editor of the 1920s, Frederick Birchall, once said, more elegantly than I am doing here, that if he controlled the headlines, what the editorial page said meant nothing. He might have added, the news stories themselves.
I did send this wonderful piece to several Timespeople. Once upon a time Dean Baquet would take the time to write back and insult me. Joseph Kahn is too busy posing for magazines, and A.G. Sulzberger is too busy destroying the lives of the people he doesn't care about in his sports department.
By the way, I also have accused a few people there of trying to give The Pitchbot material. He is a genius. Now, one of my best friends and I text each other possible Maureen Dowd columns. The fact that she was not fired for her column on Biden's grandchild is a sign of how hopeless that department is, as if hiring Bret Stephens, Pamela Paul, and David French to embarrass the opinion section on a regular basis wasn't enough.
Thanks!
I do think that MD is a special case. In a book that was published TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO, I said that her shtick was getting old. She never forgot, or forgave.
Years ago, Russell Baker praised her writing and humor, so I gave her another look. But since he said it, she must have been good at some point and clearly has stayed too long at the fair.
The NYTimes sure could use that Public Editor again. This is a fascinating article, really about the psychology of news presentation, what the paper/producers want you to see and hope you understand. Thanks, James!
Thanks for your kind words.
And I agree entirely about the Public Editor at the NYT. Friends there told me that it would not be "practical" to bring people back in that role.
I think it's unsustainable to refuse to do so.
(Story for another moment, which I've hinted at: The time when I was in serious talks about taking on that job at the NYT, when that job existed. But, as they say, that was a long time ago, in another country... )
Mr. Fallows: The presence of the ‘black box’ is evident, but its output always seems to reflect ‘masthead’ values. That is, the end result is to increase conflict/storytelling/engagement strategies. These are not organic to reporting, but executives believe that they increase readership, and so income.
It is important to evaluate hard news and soft news separately, but for hard news, a good model would be an open-source intelligence version of the President’s Daily Brief. Imagine trying to ‘bothsides’ an intelligence issue in front of the president! The sound of the door slamming behind your ejected rear end would be very loud!
This approach would align with reader goals, since we just want to know what’s going on, without the overlay of manipulation.
Thank you,
Ed Salisbury
P.S. You properly note the importance of photographs, but this should be emphasized even more. As an example, in your illustration “5) ‘free speech’ vs lies”, look at the four photographs and ask yourself: which is the crackpot? The normal answer would be ‘none’, while the correct answer is ‘all of them’. The pose of the bodies, the lighting, the facial expressions, all lend gravitas to the subjects, making them seem like important public figures.
Excellent point about the President's Daily Brief, which eons ago I sometimes had a (tightly controlled) opportunity to see, and which has exactly the virtues you describe.
Thanks for the intensification of the "look at the photos!" point, which I agree with.