Howie does a long article on the Media's truth problem. I still think most stories I see and hear on TV are "Rip and Read" from the Wire reports.
TV Wary of Problems That Keep Popping Up in Print
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 14, 2003; Page C01
When a newspaper columnist seized on the scandal at the New York Times to denounce "the shady little sham of TV news," David Westin was miffed.
The ABC News president fired off a memo to the staff, declaring that behind-the-scenes people shouldn't feel slighted by their invisible role because networks are not like newspapers:
"There is a great deal of credit to go around. Our audiences understand this. They don't need us to tell them that one of our anchors didn't actually shoot all the video, record all the sound, do all the editing, and do all of the individual reporting for a piece that appears on the program they anchor. . . . Some of the parallels being drawn at the moment between print and broadcast news reporting simply don't hold up."
Westin was reacting to a column last month by Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg, writing about Rick Bragg's resignation at the New York Times for failing to properly credit an intern who did much of the reporting on a story about oystermen.
"What Bragg did has long been common practice on newscasts, where credit for stories, either explicit or implied, often goes to the news stars who least earn it," he wrote. "No one resigns or gets fired over this because it's the bricks and mortar of a system that shores up and puts a shine on personalities as a way of attracting viewers."
That sent Westin to the computer. "I was worried that people would start to believe what they were reading about us," he says in an interview. "It's important to make sure the organization knows this is what we stand for."
To be sure, there are occasional embarrassments along these lines, such as when Peter Arnett said he had contributed "not one comma" to a now-discredited CNN story he narrated on the Vietnam War. Some stations, particularly in local television, take a rip-and-read approach to newspaper scoops (and papers are sometimes guilty of failing to credit television reports as well).
The Jayson Blair fabrication scandal prompted a period of soul-searching at many newspapers, where editors tightened policies on attribution and the crediting of stringers. The introspection has spread to TV land as well. In his June 2 memo, Westin reminded his staff about the importance of journalistic credit:
"In the wake of recent developments at the New York Times, some in print have speculated whether those of us in television news rely on others' reporting without attributing it properly. . . . Whenever we rely upon 'facts' reported by others, we independently verify their truth before we report them." And if that is not possible, "we must always attribute them to their source."
"Nightline" also examined the issue, with correspondent John Donvan concluding: "My report this evening was also assembled with the help of several producers, senior producers, camera crews, editors, a researcher and others."
Westin first addressed these questions in May, when "every news organization was talking about what was going on at the New York Times," he says. He felt "we shouldn't be smug" and that he should examine "how it might apply to us and what we could learn from it."
In a May 16 note to the staff, Westin said the Blair saga underscores the fact that "we all benefit from checks and balances." Referring to the debate over affirmative action at the Times, he said he remains committed to the goal "that we roughly reflect the population that we serve," but that "we cannot and will not seek to grow or to grow more diverse at the expense of our standards."
In an implicit comparison to Howell Raines, the Times editor forced to resign over his imperious management style, Westin wrote: "All of us -- no matter how senior -- must remain open to criticism and to show that openness to those under us on the organizational chart."
At CBS News, says Senior Vice President Marcy McGinnis, the topic in staff meetings was "Could it happen here? That's the scariest part."
It would be hard, says McGinnis, because TV crews have three to five people, and "if one of those people were doing something wrong, chances are the others wouldn't be in cahoots."
McGinnis adds that "there are a lot of stories that TV people pick up that were in a newspaper, where someone says, 'This was on the front page of the New York Times.' I don't think it's necessary that in every story you do, you have to say we saw it first in USA Today."
David McCormick, NBC's executive producer for broadcast standards, says that in chasing newspaper stories, "what's also important is that we get on the phone and try to verify it ourselves." He says the question of sourcing, recently updated in an NBC ethics manual, "is an issue we've been talking about for a long time, even before the Blair-Times problem. The viewer deserves to know the source of the information he or she is getting."
Same Sheet of Music
Another plagiarism case has belatedly come to light.
Kansas City Star reporter Glenn Rice reviewed a jazz concert by Dianne Reeves in the spring of 2002, writing: "She has an incredible vocal range that is layered with depth, texture and a free-flowing sense of innovation that most singers can only envy."
But as the Kansas City newspaper the Pitch noted, Matt Schudel had written of Reeves two weeks earlier in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel: "She has a vocal range, depth, color and free-flowing sense of invention that other singers can only envy." There were many other similarities.
Star Editor Mark Zieman says that "we found out last year and dealt with it." Rice was reassigned from county government to a suburban bureau. While Zieman says there were "serious problems" with Rice's music coverage, he would not say whether other stories were plagiarized. The Star ran a story about the incident last week when Rice, who did not return a reporter's call, resigned as treasurer of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Shouldn't the paper have disclosed the plagiarism when it was uncovered? "Times change," Zieman says, adding that it would be a mistake "to look at past cases at this newspaper and others through the filter of what's happened recently."
Taking Sides
Baltimore Sun reporter Jonathan Pitts was in Columbia, Mo., where he once lived, to report on a dispute between a local artist and the U.S. Mint. Pitts felt so strongly about it that he took the artist's side in an impassioned letter to the Columbia Daily Tribune.
The Sun responded by suspending the former English teacher for two days. "If you're going to report on news objectively," says Editor William Marimow, "you can't also opine about the news in print, especially when you haven't written your story. I just think it's wrong for reporters who have to be objective and perceived as neutral to take a position."
Pitts calls the punishment "fair," saying: "I'm ready to move on."
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