Letters to the Editor
George Sears
Published Letters: 30 Editor's Choice: 15
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Journalism Looks Bad
[Read the article: Unveiling Woodward]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It was Salon, more or less, that laid out the 'case' against Judith Miller. The Times has reached a conclusion on the episode. Miller is not with the Times. Having a journalist wrapped around a story, a story as big as the genesis of the Iraq war, is not a good situation. Reporters aren't supposed to become the story. Miller was, well, a little too imbedded in the Iraq story.
Now Woodward joins this group. I have a huge problem with what Woodward does as a writer. He claims to have incredible numbers of inside sources, so he writes intimate political books that seem to convey information that no one would normally piece together. It doesn't always seem completely credible. On balance, should we have media superstars who get some kind of monopoly grant? Isn't that what Bush gave Woodward? Woodward got a lot of access to write a book about Clinton. What's left, crumbs for some guy from the Mid America Time Picayune?
Maybe journos should band together and insist that access should be relatively equal. OK, if nothing can be done to prevent some journos from cutting deals with the powerful, at least point out how this clouds the judgments. Access comes at a price. If access is equal, there's no advantage, no bargaining. It's hard to say why journos don't have more of an attitude, after all this. Clearly there is a lot of corporate pressure.
The model to me is someone who goes to press conferences, likes the press, engages with the press. Powerful people have little contact with ordinary folks. Journos are connected to that world. With Bush, journos are in some kind of compartment. Bush seems to act like his policies have almost a divine inspiration. None of this explains why there is so little serious reporting, from Iraq to the last campaign. Read Jack Germond's books, I guess.
Newspapers are in trouble because of technology. Their ad revenues are shrinking. But newspapers have content. When ads shift to Google, they are shifting, in essence, to a 'shopper', an online yellow pages. There isn't any content, except links say, back to newspapers. Google gets the content, and steals the ad revenues, if you want to take the cynical view.
I don't know if Salon rises to the level of disciplined journalism on an onging basis. I don't know if the top newspapers can transfer to an internet strategy, make money, and have great reporting.
A lot of 'models', financial and journalistic, seem to be breaking down. There should be a way to make some money (not a lot) with very incisive reporting, distributed over the web. Hopefully this will include local news reporting. The problem is that so much of news is basically a 'pool' story. Congress debated X and Y. No one will likely find an insight others missed. If that is true, how many reporters need to cover it? But, when you look at how the total process works, from rigged districts to where the money comes from, that big story is very complex and hard to explain. But unless people understand the 'big' stories, nothing changes.
That's the other problem with Woodward. He's too inside. You'll never get the reform point of view from a guy like Woodward.
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The Year of the Pig
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I recently watched a movie I had seen in my teens, "The Year of the Pig". Vietnam. It's interesting, because after I saw that movie, I never believed anything that government said could be taken at face value. That was like '69. Movies can be very influencing. But that was the message I wanted to hear.
Even if there is an AQ, it's probably a spent force. Most Muslims do not want to live in caves, or with fundamentalists. There's no reason to take the idea that Bush's policies are completely wrongheaded, to extremes.
Ultimately Carter could have rejected the Shah, talked about democracy in Iran. The Dems could have undone the notion that our interests in the MIddle East were 1) Oil 2) .... ummm, nothing.
Why did we get Reagan? Of course he was an illusion. On some level, Bush is make-up democracy for people we never felt deserved any self-determination. But look at the Egyptian elections. Democracy in the Muslim Middle East is not likely to match the pseudo-Christian, semi-Western model Bush proposes.
I guess the problem with this documentary is that it won't change any minds. On the other hand, there are some films that successfully carry the message "See, you were right, you are right, so continue". I hope that's what this is. Really. But I love the BBC, even when I disagree with them.