I come from a newspaper family. Back in the day, there were 6 daily newspapers in L.A. and we got all of them. It was also a time when journalism was going through a change from "yellow" journalism into a principled occupation. With 6 kids, we scrambled to read as much as possible before dinner at 6, which none of us ever missed. You better know what was going on.
My dad would tell us about all the behind the scenes stories of how they got the stories and criticized those reporters who used "tricks" to get stories and reactions.
One story I remember was how mad he was at one reporter who went up and knocked on a woman's house (before the police had gotten there) and announced that her 16-year-old son had been murdered and had a photographer there to catch the moment. My dad refused to run the picture and fired the reporter - then and there.
In his later years, he lamented how journalism was changing; how the goal of being an excellent reporter had morphed into reporters putting the focus on themselves, the byline, and making themselves part of the story - saying it all started with Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate.
Print journalists can't compete with tele-jounalists, really just glorified talking heads now, when it comes to name recognition.
Ever notice how the news is divided into segments? A couple of "news" stories, traffic, weather, helicopter shots, some soft feel-good stories, return to "news" (usually picked up from other outlets, traffic, weather, helicopter shots, rinse, repeat. |
