Anyone who has worked at a newspaper, at just about any level, is familiar with “AP style”. Among other things, AP style dictates the hierarchical progression of the story. You begin with the most important aspects of the story and work your way down to the least important. There are two practical reasons for this:
1) The structure allows an editor to truncate your story, for space considerations, while preserving the most important parts of the story, and
2) Since many readers have the attention span of a five year old, it allows the writer to communicate the most important parts of the story before the next shiny object catches the reader’s eye.
Everyone in the biz understands this is the way that you write a straight news story. (Opinion pieces and fluff features provide you with a bit more latitude). So what do we learn from AP’s approach to covering the continuing saga of Major Nidal Malik Hasan?
They ran a nineteen paragraph, 703 word story yesterday. When do the writers first mention Hasan’s terrorist connections? In paragraph nineteen (aka: the last paragraph), after 649 words of the story (aka: after 92% of the story has been written), we finally get this:
“The FBI learned late last year of Hasan’s repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. President Barack Obama already has ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies.”
This then, according to AP’s own stylebook, is the least important part of the Hasan story. Hasan’s terrorist connections (though we note that AP reporters Anne Gearan and Pauline Jelinek scrupulously avoid the use of the “T-word”) are deemed less important than: Army personnel policies, Army mental health services, suicide rates in the Army, the formation of an investigative panel and making the questionable point that Hasan opened fire on “mostly unarmed soldiers and civilians” (emphasis added) – among other things.
If this all strikes you as sloppy, biased and irresponsible reporting – it’s because that’s exactly what it is.
Right on, Rich. The AP “style” plus their biases and irresponsibility continues to push people away with a world view that many readers not only detect, but reject absolutely.
In fact, I believe that one major factor in the decline of newspapers is that industry’s near-complete dependence on the AP for non-local news. Life is too short to read anti-American lies and spin every damn day. More and more people have probably said, like I have, “why do I need this in my life?” I started skipping AP stories routinely about 3 years ago.
The WSJ, on the other hand, is doing just fine. They don’t use the AP (AFAIK).
I hear news types whining constantly about the Internet, and how valuable their role in our society is, and on and on. I never hear any of them say “you know, maybe the monolithic biased content was a problem since only 40% of the country sides with us”.
Jeff,
I can’t tell you how many people I know who are fans of newspapers have commented in disgust that they cannot understand why papers are taking hard stands on news items that should be non-political at the risk of offending 40% – 50% of their readership. These are folks who understand a newspaper has an editorial bent, and don’t mind the tradition of that on the editorial page, but items like the one Rich references drive them batty; and away from their local paper.
For years it has bothered me greatly that I am raising the Little Fireflies in a household that does not receive a daily newspaper. Having a paper on the doorstep in the morning is as American as baseball and apple pie, but my hometown paper has been so ridiculous for so long I could not bring myself to give them a cent of my hard-earned money. And, from the looks of their plummeting subscription base my neighbors agree. This year I finally bit the bullet and ponied up for home delivery of the Wall Street Journal. I get the journal for “free” at the office, so I never saw the need to get home delivery, but it really, really bugged me my kids were not being raised with a paper in the house. I would much prefer it be a local paper, with funnies and stories about local politics. My kids need exposure to that stuff too, but, the staff at our local paper has such little talent they do not deserve my business. If I give the local paper my money we’ll just end up with more biased news reporting.
I know this sounds silly, and we’ve only been getting the WSJ for a few months, but I still get a warm, happy feeling walking to the end of the driveway in my jammies every morning, picking up the paper and dropping it on the kitchen table where the Little Fireflies are eating breakfast. The daily paper is a beautiful tradition in our country and I am glad I am sharing it with my kids, even though I cannot give them the local coverage they would be most interested in.
I would not mind subscribing to a local paper with an editorial page that slants differently than I. No problem. I cannot subscribe to a newspaper where the news reporters, sports reporters, movie critic and weatherman all work political slant into their coverage. When the sports guy works George Bush’s illegal war in Iraq into his coverage of your town’s NFL franchise’s loss you know it’s time to cut off the cash flow.
Great post. Sad, too. Any other real journalists out there a wee bit angry about their profession?
I’ve often wondered that too Toto. Is there any kind of backlash building within the journalism community? Hope so.
V,
I think the MSM’s attitude could be summoned up in their attitude at the end of the 2008 election, when charges of bias were starting to be leveled openly and consistently against their coverage:
“You are obviously in the tank for Obama.”
MSM: “I don’t know what you mean. We only cover winners.”
In so deep they don’t know what they don’t know.
or Clintonesque in disingeniousness.
I remember reading a couple of articles from appalled journalists towards the end of 2008 presidential campaigns and something every once in awhile since. If there is a growing backlash, it appears to be taking place very quietly.
Veruckt, I think they’re all assuming “circle the wagons” position against the public’s anti-MSM backlash. Perfect head in the sand battle-stances, too.
I haven’t gotten a newspaper in years, and I also stopped watching the national news during the Bush/Kerry election because I got so pissed over the slanted reporting. I’ve only recently started watching CBS again only because it’s sandwiched between the local news broadcasts. I’ve noticed a change recently even with Katie Couric. Every once in a while, they’ll do a broadcast that’s against the mainstream, like they’re testing the waters. Last night the story was Obama over in China while at home his ratings are significantly down in the areas of Afghanistan, the economy, health care, and I forget what else. They do have a long way to go to get to balanced reporting, but at least my blood pressure doesn’t spike as high whenever I watch it.
I agree with Eric. No backlash. Circling the wagons, definitely.
The entire industry has lived in a bubble far too long. And let’s not forget that industry is unionized, which encourages job protection over all else, including survival of the industry those jobs depend on.
So, fine, do what you gotta do, newsers. It’s a sad day for us who value what newspapers used to be, and what they can be when done right. I sympathize with Rufus’ lament above, however, our local suburban paper (Chicago Daily Herald) isn’t too bad, if you ignore the AP stuff.
My impression is that Woodward and Bernstein “spoiled” it for everybody. Not that Woodward and Bernstein did wrong. Watergate was a legitimate, and important, story. But it imposed a template on all future reporting–reporting is about Speaking Truth to Power.
Unfortunately, in the minds of journalists, Truth meant liberal dogma, and Power referred only to Republicans.
Speaking Truth to the Left would be… gauche. And there’d be no movie deal.
Lars – exactly right. Watergate plus Vietnam basically ruined journalism.
Not my theory though – I read that somewhere, I think it was “Breaking the News” by James Fallows (a pretty good book).
The list of ways the media killed itself is pretty long.
And let’s not forget that much of what they reported didn’t require much more work than transcribing what “Deep Throat” told them to write. A person who it turns out had an agenda they were more than willing to support.
I wonder when people will remember truth and facts are completly different?
Everyone knows what the truth is because they know the facts. The idiot reporters should have known better.
Great comments on this thread, as usual. I’ve worked in several small market, big corporation owned newspapers – not in the newsroom but in production. From my perch in the shadows I’ve observed the following: most newsrooms seem to have the same gloomy atmosphere and are staffed by miserable people.
The younger the journo the more grumpy they were and seemed to think the weight of the world was on their shoulders. No body appreciated them and didn’t see their genius on their climb to the ivory towers of journalism. These were the kids taught by the Woodword and Bernstein generation. Eager to speak truth to power, the small market papers were just a line on their resume. Instead of learning their craft, they followed the templates set by corporate regional managers: be sure to slant stories toward the impact on minorities and be sure to get your photographer to shoot people of color to go with your story. Even if your story has nothing to do with minorities find a way to include that angle: reporting on minority issues gets the young journalist promoted to bigger markets.
The older journalists, staff writers and copy editors were generally more cheerful than the younger ones. These were the ones who had learned in smoke filled rooms using typewriters and ribbons. These were the ’shoe leather’ reporters who knew how to write and meet a deadline without confusing a byline with saving the world.
As this generation goes into retirement, or takes buyouts as their positions go dark, so goes the last of the good reporters.
Very good, Widow.