THE MEDIACRACY

THE COURAGE TO IGNORE SPIN

WALTER PINCUS NEIMAN WATCHDOG - I believe a new kind of courage is
needed in journalism in this age of instant news, instant analysis, and
therefore instant opinions. It also happens to be a time of government
by public relations and news stories based on prepared texts and
prepared events or responses. Therefore, this is the time for reporters
and editors, whether from the mainstream media or blogosphere, to pause
before responding to the latest bulletin, prepared event, or the most
recent statement or backgrounder, whether from the White House or the
Democratic or Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Of course, I'm not
talking about reporting of a bomb blowing up in a restaurant, soldiers
being shot, police caught in a firefight, a fire, an accident, a home
run in the ninth to win a game, an Oscar winner, or a drop in the stock
market.

I also am talking solely from the point of view of a reporter who has
spent almost 50 years watching daily coverage of government in
Washington become dominated by increasingly sophisticated public
relations practitioners, primarily in the White House and other agencies
of government, but also in Congress or interest groups and even think
tanks on the left, right or in the center. Today there is much too much
being offered about government than can be fit into print or broadcast
on nightly news shows. The disturbing trend is that more and more of
these informational offerings are nothing but PR peddled as "news.". . .


The truth of the matter is that with help from the news media, being
able to "stay on message" is now considered a presidential asset,
perhaps even a requirement. Of course, the "message" is the public
relations spin that the White House wants to present and not what the
President actually did that day or what was really going on inside the
White House. This system reached its apex this year when the White House
started to give "exclusives" -- stories that found their way to Page
One, in which readers learn that during the next week President Bush
will do a series of four speeches supporting his Iraq policy because his
polls are down. Such stories are often attributed to unnamed "senior
administration officials." Lo and behold, the next week those same news
outlets, and almost everyone else, carries each of the four speeches in
which Bush essentially repeats what he's been saying for two years.

A new element of courage in journalism would be for editors and
reporters to decide not to cover the President's statements when he --
or any public figure -- repeats essentially what he or she has said
before. The Bush team also has brought forward another totally PR
gimmick: The President stands before a background that highlights the
key words of his daily message. This tactic serves only to reinforce
that what's going on is public relations -- not governing. Journalistic
courage should include the refusal to publish in a newspaper or carry on
a TV or radio news show any statements made by the President or any
other government official that are designed solely as a public relations
tool, offering no new or valuable information to the public.

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.
view&backgroundid=00102

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GREAT MOMENTS IN PBS COWARDICE

LOUIS WILEY JR, CURRENT - The title of a recent e-mail from PBS caught
my eye: "Editing of Coarse Language/New Practices." Henceforth,
producers would face two new requirements: (1) if a word is bleeped or
wiped (silenced), the entirety of the word must be bleeped or wiped,
meaning that "mother-F-word" would now have to be "bleep bleep," and (2)
if the F-word or the S-word were uttered to camera so that viewers could
recognize it from the speaker's mouth, the lips must be pixelated.

My first reaction? If public broadcasting begins to pixelate lips, such
scenes would become excellent fodder for Leno, Letterman, Stewart and
others — and for some viewers, the sight is bound to introduce humor in
scenes where that is entirely inappropriate and distracting.

My next thought? If public television producers are forced to not only
bleep words but also to pixelate lips, most will simply cut the scenes,
no matter how powerful or relevant, rather than see them turned into a
joke.

What's behind these new rules? It strikes me that PBS's lawyers are
merely reflecting rising broadcaster fears of another F-word - the FCC.

The FCC's indecency campaign is hitting producers of cultural and
history programs, including WGBH's American Experience, Masterpiece
Theatre, Mystery and even Antiques Roadshow.

The Roadshow? Well, what would you do about a nude photo of Marilyn
Monroe estimated to be worth more than $20,000? Pixelate it? Edit it
out? Risk showing a frontal view briefly? WGBH decided to risk a
complaint and the legal expense of defending the editorial decision to
show the photo. The nudity was an essential part of its collectible
value and showing it was not in a sexual context.

Being on public TV won't get these programs off the hook. Based on a
single complaint, a small public station in California was fined $15,000
for rebroadcasting an episode of The Blues before 10 p.m. In that
program, musicians and the son of the famous record producer who
published them, use the F-word, the M-f word and the S-word. The station
felt the words were a valid part of the music culture being portrayed
and were in no way sexual in nature. But the FCC disagreed. The station,
KCSM in San Mateo, is appealing. . .

http://current.org/fcc/fcc0613indecency.shtml

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MEN DESERTING TV NEWSROOMS

PAUL FARHI WASHINGTON POST - As the news director of WTTG-Fox5,
Katherine Green gets stacks of tapes and resumes from reporters and
anchors who want to work in her newsroom. Some applicants are young and
green, some older and seasoned. But the most common characteristic is:
Most are women. By Green's estimate, women applicants outnumber men
about 3 to 1. Bill Lord, Green's counterpart at WJLA, sees much the same
ratio, and he says the percentage of women has increased year by year. .
.

Outside of a few traditionally male bastions -- the sports guy, the
weathercaster, the boss -- men are disappearing from TV newsrooms.

Perhaps the most visible symbol of the ascendancy of women is Katie
Couric, who in September will become the lead anchor of CBS News -- the
first woman to hold such a job without a male co-anchor at a traditional
broadcast network. But the trend is apparent across the country, in
cities large and small. . .

Women reached statistical parity with men on the anchor desk in the
early 1990s, and their ranks have been climbing since. The number of
female anchors reached a record high last year, accounting for 57
percent of the positions in a nationwide survey conducted by the Radio
and Television News Directors Association. Just as impressive are the
gains in the rest of the newsroom. Women account for more than half of
TV reporters (58 percent) and such middle managers as executive
producers (55 percent), news producers (66 percent) and news writers (56
percent). . .

"Young men are just not interested," says Allen, who runs the broadcast
news program at ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. "There's
been almost an evacuation of men from this field."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/
AR2006072100295.html