Category: media

The Fall of American Journalism

Can you guess how the CNN piece went?

I don’t see any value in sensationalism, and that’s what the program I was on was all about. I hung up after the first 15 minutes. Someone from the show called to say they’d lost the connection, and I explained I wasn’t familiar with the show beforehand, but having heard it I couldn’t take part in it. She said she understood, and asked me to explain it to the producer who had asked me on. So I did.

I am a 29-year-old reporter with global aspirations. CNN should be my endgoal. But giving up my commitment to quality reporting isn’t worth it; I would never go work for a program like the one that just had me on (however briefly).

This story is big news. It was on ABC’s Good Morning, and there were eight or 10 television cameras at the press conference this afternoon at the Conway Police Department. But it doesn’t need to be hyped. When one of the biggest names in news is doing the hyping you have to know something is wrong.

I work for a small community paper and contribute to New Hampshire Public Radio — both venues that don’t feel like the news has to be stretched to be valuable to the audience. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to compromise on that. Journalism isn’t just about making money. It’s also about keeping people informed. Scared is not informed. It is a disservice. I have no interest in trumpeting unknowns in order to attract an audience.

If that relegates me to the small-town paper, so be it, but if that is the case it’s a shame. If it takes sensationalism to make it mainstream than journalism is indeed doomed.

But that isn’t the case at all. The New York Times, Washington Post and NPR are consistently excellent news outlets. They play it straight, reporting the news as best they can. There is value in that. It is, in fact, one of the most valuable ingredients in democracy. It scares me what damage is done by the sensationalization of valuable information.

I really only have two things to say after this experience:

  1. Thank you New Hampshire Public Radio, which, when I asked if they were interested in the story said they don’t really cover crime in that way because it comes off as sensational. What a classy response!
  2. Thank you Lt. Chris Perley of the Conway Police Department. He handled repeated attempts to prod him into sensationalism with the utmost professionalism. Bravo.

It’s hard to see your profession let you down. I don’t intend to return the favor.

News, and paying for it.

The New York Times is charging. The world’s greatest newspaper (regardless of how The Chicago Tribune bills itself as) has gone behind a paywall. NYTimes.com has always been my go-to source for almost any story bigger than New Hampshire. It is the paper of record, as far as I am concerned. It’s homepage is bookmarked on every browser and every computer I use, and I’ve been going there for years.

And to think all that time I’ve been paying nothing.

I know, journalism is everywhere. We’ve come to think of it like water—it just comes out of the tap. For free. We seldom think of the infrastructure that makes it possible, of the value it contains.

Until someone starts bottling it.

My job and my future rest on the Times experiment working. Journalism jobs are hard to come by, and they aren’t paying quite what they used to. People can advertise online for less than they can in print, and many times the results are the same if not better. Papers (like mine in particular—a free daily) count on advertisers to fund reporting far more than the subscription price. As ad sales have dropped so has investment in journalism, which hurts readership, which further hampers ad sales.

And all I want to do is get out there and find out the facts…

The Times is trying to capture some of that online revenue that is otherwise evaporating. Who can blame them? They can’t give away something for nothing.

Several weeks ago New Hampshire Public Radio was holding their pledge drive, and I was reexamining my spending. I had subscribed to Netflix a few months before. I was paying $8 a month for access to streaming movies I generally didn’t care about. That’s $100 a year.

If access to crappy movies is worth $100 a year, what is excellent journalism worth?

I donated $150 to NHPR. I figure I’ll get some of it back in the end anyway…

The Times is charging between $15 and $35 a month for access to their website, depending on how you access it. That’s between $180 and $420 a year. Is The Times worth that? I would say it is, or at least that it’s worth $180 a year. I wouldn’t be interested in paying $420 a year, but I am living on a reporter’s pay.

The question, however, is whether everyone will pay, and whether the model can support Times-quality journalism in the future.

Connected

So anyone following this has figured out the obvious — soldiers in Iraq are remarkably connected. I don’t have wireless so my MacBook Air isn’t much help with the internet, but the tiny base I’m on has its own computer lab. In the housing units there are Ethernet cables you can plug into if you pay for a plan. At Baghdad airport I bought a day’s worth of wireless for $9. I got to choose the speed I wanted. All over there are opportunities to stay in touch.

It’s a bit crazy, especially when you talk to people who were here when the invasion first occurred. They got a couple phone calls a month; I’ve Skyped with my wife almost daily. I’m working on a story about it, along with about what soldiers do in there downtime. I’m not sure I mentioned this yet, but Call of Duty is wildly popular over here. I was in the Green Zone, and I saw two soldiers shooting people in front of a television screen. Does that seem strange to anyone? Kicking it in a war zone shooting digital people. What a concept!

The Violence Continues…

Just in case anyone thought it was safe here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70E0TS20110115

Three dead Americans and roughly 50 dead Iraqis in the three days since I got here. Combat operations may have ceased for U.S. soldiers, but it’s still dangerous out there, if not a war.

Update:

One more example: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?_r=1&hp

Bag, CHECK, and Bag Check

I got my bar of soap everything else I need, and I’m in Logan’s international terminal waiting to get on British Airways flight 238. It’s 7 a.m., and as you can see the sunrise is spectacular.

I picked up a new backpack last night that fits all my reporting equipment perfectly, and my checked bag was 45 lbs., well under the limit.

It was -2 degrees outside at 4 a.m. when I got in the car to drive here. When I came through security I got to go around the full body scanner that’s caused such a commotion in recent weeks, but they did have to pull apart my backpack. It was carefully packed so all three of my microphones, both my cameras and both my audio recorders fit. When they saw that on the screen they let me know they were going to have to pull it apart (as I knew they would). Luckily it was 6 a.m., so the security checkpoint wasn’t crazy.

There’s nothing like an airport on a Saturday morning. Aside from the occasional threat level announcement (currently orange) the mellow pop music combines with the constant stream of CNN, conspiring to lull me to sleep.

I figured out that while I’m landing in Kuwait at 6 a.m. tomorrow, to me it’s going to feel like 10 p.m. tonight. I’m interested to see how my body deals with that. I’m going to be on an “overnight” flight from London to Kuwait at what should feel like the late afternoon. Yum.

OK, I’m even more on my way. The next three days will be more of the same, because it won’t be until 5:30 p.m. Monday that I get to Baghdad, and then the following day when I get to FOB Kalsu. But I have a friend in Kuwait and a reserve unit in Baghdad to visit with, so none of it should be too bad. I even have friends in the U.K. I’d love to see, but I don’t have 24 hours there. So we’ll see what I come across in the next 72 hours.

Back On Track

I posted on here a month or so ago that my contract with the New Hampshire Grand Initiative had hit a snag because they were worried about liability issues after watching my ice climbing video. Well, the good news is we were able to sort that out and I’ll be getting back to work. I’m already scheming new videos. I’ve had people send me a couple of their ideas via email, but I’d love to hear what other people would like to see.

I’m thinking about cross country skiing at the Balsams, or maybe Milan Hill State Park, and of course climbing Mount Washington. January is going to be light, because I’m going to be gone for three of the weekends in Iraq, but I’m hoping to squeeze out one or two pieces before I go. I’ve never been dog sledding, so I’d obviously love to do that, but figuring it in is a little more challenging than doing something autonomously.

But either way, I’m excited to be back to Grand Adventuring. It’s good fun for me, and hopefully if we can get it ramped up it will generate buzz for the North Country. See you out on the slopes (or cliff, or whatever else).

A Bit More…

A quick addendum to that last post: it was this image that got me thinking more about photography lately and really jazzed up about its storytelling power. Look at it for a moment. Click on it, and read the full caption. It comes from a photo essay titled Jim Comes Home, shot by Todd Heisler when he worked for The Rocky Mountain News.

(The Rocky Mountain News shut down in early 2009, when the newspaper industry seemed to be imploding alongside the banking sector. The industry has since revived a bit, but the News was never resurrected.)

This is just one in a series of photographs Heisler shot that took my breath away. Even now, as I write this post, I have to avoid processing the image to keep writing. It makes me cry. That’s what a photograph is supposed to do.

Heisler took second place in the Pictures of the Year International competition in 2006. It’s no wonder why. I look at these photos and I think about the profession I’ve chosen, the task I’ve been entrusted with, every time I try to tell someone’s story. That’s what he did so eloquently, and it shaped people’s views on events a world away. That’s what reporters, photographers, the media are entrusted to do. When they do it well, like Heisler did, it gives all the rest of us something to aspire to.

U-Turns

I heard an illustrative measurement about what it takes to be a great photographer today. U-turns. How many U-turns someones makes will tell you how great a photographer they are. If you’ve ever seen a great shot as you’ve driven past, you’ll understand.

I’ve got a shot I’ve always wanted to take. I’ve seen it twice now, once today, with a camera in the car but not stopped. The first time I saw it was earlier this fall, on the side of Interstate 93. There was a dead moose laying on the side of the road. It was early, and late fall, so the light was pale blue, not warm. After I shot passed on my way south I realized the photo I wanted: from on the ground, laying next to the moose, with his (or her, I didn’t notice) body filling most the frame, but with cars zooming past in the background.

Yesterday, on my way to a meeting, on U.S. Route 3, I saw another moose. I had my Lumix next to me on the seat, but I was running late and in professional clothes that would have shown I had been laying in the dirt. This time I knew what I wanted, and I thought of it first, but again I didn’t stop to make it happen.

I didn’t make the U-turn. Shots don’t wait around for photographers to get them. They disappear. The moose gets cleaned up, the ball flies through the net, the soldier’s body hits the ground. And it is up to the photographer to be there, and to be ready.

The classic phrase is the decisive moment. Ever try to capture that? Ever try to be in the right place at the right time, just when the action happens? I’m not talking about landscapes, which are challenging enough by themselves. I mean action, when people are there and doing something. Those moments are hell to capture, but that’s what a great photographer does.

I’m not a great photographer, but I love the medium. I can produce good shots when I need to, but the real professionals blow me a way.

But that idea — U-turn, turn around, make the shot the priority — that has power. It is enough to turn a mediocre photographer into a good photographer, and maybe a good one into an excellent one. I’m not sure, but it’s something I’m going to try to carry with me as I embark on 14 days of exploration, where my camera should never leave my hand (except when I’ve got a microphone in it).

The photo up top, by the way, I did turn around for, and I can prove it: that’s my wife and her sister walking away on the left side of the frame. It’s not a great photo, but it illustrates my point. A few more U-turns are in order.

New Class

I took a couple classes over at Plymouth State this past semester to beef up my transcript in case I ever decide to go to graduate school. I have a minor in economics, but I needed to fulfill a few prerequisites to be eligible for some of the schools I am interested in.

I’ve got a ton going on, of course, so I don’t foresee myself going anywhere anytime soon, but I figured as long as I’m somewhat near a school and have the time and the money I should just get it done. I’d love to study journalism, to really dig into it, but going into debt for journalism and then coming out to a sour job market doesn’t sound like a great plan. Who knows where journalism is headed, but having $50,000 in baggage isn’t going to speed me on the journey.

But then I found this. It’s a graduate-level journalism class aimed at 21st century media, without the classroom. I follow the professor, Mindy McAdams, on Twitter, and I was psyched when she posted the course material. The questions about privacy, activism and the online world that she poses are just the sort of discussions I love to engage in, but they only come up once in a while in the day to day of the newsroom. It’s a chance to check back into those questions, which may not make up the forefront of a reporter’s day, but they are pervasive in the background.

So I’m going to try to tackle as much of it as I can over the coming weeks, although I’ll have to integrate it into an otherwise pretty busy schedule. Oh well, it’s not like I’m afraid of a little work. I am taking a vacation to Iraq, after all…