The halls of professional journalism rang out with schadenfreude-fueled howls of derision this week at the Washington Post’s ludicrously misbegotten “salon” scheme. (Catch up with the story here if you’re out of the loop.) That the Post’s publisher would have even considered trying to turn her living room into a sort of influence-peddling bazaar has shocked, shocked everyone in its newsroom and most journalists outside.
Of course it was a bad idea. Arguably the Post did even more damage to its credibility in trying to explain itself than it did with the original concept — as for instance with the declaration that a beautifully designed and widely distributed flyer was a “draft.” (Surely the paper of Watergate record understands the old adage about the coverup being worse than the crime? Maybe not.)
But before the critiques gets too self-righteous, let’s recall that the blurring of editorial and business lines is happening everywhere. Magazine journalism is full of it. We will see even more of it as the business of print publishing continues to decay and publishers scramble for revenue. The Post’s “salons” aren’t the first instance of this kind of aggressive monetization of a journalistic reputation, and they won’t be the last. Because, alas, integrity doesn’t pay for health insurance. I say that with no glee, but rather as someone who fought countless similar battles over the years at Salon — mostly, I’m happy to say, winning ones — to keep the lines from blurring too far.
The Post’s hamfisted exercise in influence-peddling was a sitting duck the moment it became public. It’s the more obscure and fuzzy integrity questions that can be more dangerous to a publication’s credibility over time. I’m thinking of the questions that popped into my head as I read a recent New York Times profile of a society wife named Lisa Marie Falcone. About halfway into the piece, the writer informs us that Falcone is married to a man named Philip Falcone whose hedge fund “owns about 20 percent of The New York Times Company.” Whoa! (The story also tells us that Falcone became a billionaire by betting against subprime mortgages. So while the government was busy bailing out the financial firms that had made the stupid bets in the mortgage market, the cash went right into the pockets of the people who’d made the smart bets — presumably, the Falcones of the world.)
Is there any direct connection between Falcone’s stake in the Times and the article I read? Probably not — but who really knows? The piece’s problematic scent is unmistakable; you can’t help thinking that every word it uses to describe its subject — “wide-eyed idealism,” “quirky, independent” — had to have been agonized over. And that awareness on the reader’s part that something is off about the piece makes it unsatisfying and opaque. Whatever the story behind the story is, we’re not getting it.
The dance of awkward partial disclosure performed by journalists given the unenviable job of writing about their owners is even more painful to watch than the ritual self-lashings of an institution caught, as the Post was, in straightforward acts of corruption. I can’t help thinking that one remedy for both species of trust-eroding behavior is for newsrooms to get way more serious about transparency — which is a fancy way of saying they should be honest, forthright and open. Journalists have the opportunity to model for the rest of the world the behavior their work demands of others: tell the truth; don’t hide from questions; reveal your practices and processes; and if you screw up, tell all, fast.
The Times profile of Falcone concludes with this quote from her: ““I speak from my heart… I know that sometimes can get me in trouble. But that’s the only way I know how to be.” On the basis of the Times piece I actually think Falcone is hardly a paragon of “speaking from the heart.” But it would be nice if more journalists, editors and publishers understood how valuable “speaking from the heart” can be today. And if they did, we might pile on them a little less mercilessly on those occasions when they screw up.
Post Revisions:
- July 3, 2009 @ 10:18:13 [Current Revision] by Scott Rosenberg
- July 3, 2009 @ 10:16:21 by Scott Rosenberg
If journalists actually “spoke from the heart”, we’d know for sure (rather than simply surmising) that 90% or more have been actively producing propaganda to advance the interests of the Democratic Party. I doubt that would cause at least half of the public to pile on a little less mercilessly.
Journalism’s problem is that it’s practitioners have been corrupt for so long that there’s no virtue left to sell.
Of course getting access in return for favorable coverage – see Saddam Hussein and CNN – is par for the course. It’s also true for the US media.
Why do we think that NBC-ABC-CBS have been given such wonderful access while FOX is slagged by The Won in his staged interviews and staged town hall meetings-?
It’s just the first time anyone put a specific price tag on their corruption. Like a hooker who advertises her price on her skirt, no need to guess at the price of the Washington Post’s virtue.
I have to agree with Stan. It reminds me of an old joke.
A man walks up to a beautiful lady in a bar and strikes up a coversation with her. Soon he asks, “Would you sleep with me for $1 million?”
The lady looks at the gentleman closely. He isn’t too hard on the eyes, so she replies, “Sure. Why not?”
He then asks, “Okay, how about for $20?”
With righteous indignation she raises her voice and says, “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
To which he replies, “Madam, we’ve already established what you are. Now we are just haggling over the price.”
Indeed, journalism has sold out long ago. Now is just haggling over the price.
What I thought most interesting about the exposed WaPo deal was that it sold access not only to Post editors and publishers, but also to unnamed Administration bigs.
If I recall correctly, the politicians dropped the hot potato even faster than the paper did, although (as is the norm these days) anything embarrassing to the Administration wasn’t much covered.
The only people who think the news media aren’t corrupt are in the media. Just like the only ones who think that Congress isn’t corrupt are in Congress. The difference is that politicians have the capacity as well as desire to live like Louis XVI, and papers are just trying to hang on, on the crumbs dropped from Louis’s table.
Exercise for the reader: drop some crumbs and see what sort of creatures they attract.
For a sliding scale of $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post was caught recently offering access to off the record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials and members of Congress. This is clearly professional lobbying.
Such activity would ordinarily be perfectly legal, except that the Washington Post has not registered as a federal lobbyist, as required by law.
In addition the Washington Post must now prominently and clearly identify itself as a for-profit lobbying firm, with a disclaimer at the top of its front page. Such a disclaimer must notify Post readers to the fact that the Post is in the business of selling access to the Obama Administration.
The lapdog media sold its soul long ago. Like the other two subsidiaries of the Liberal Intellectual Elite, academia and the Democratic Party, the media currently exist only to inform the hoi polloi of the will of our betters. The Post scandal didn’t happen for the right reason, bias and self righteous denial. It happened because they tried to profit directly.
The elite media in this country are about as reliable as Pravda or Volkische Beobacter. That’s okay, it’s their right to publish anything they want. It’s the demand on their part that I accept them as impartial observers that irritates me. They are not, and they never have been. The press was rabidly partisan for most of the country’s history and they admitted it. The myth that the are less partisan now can only provoke laughter.
Journalists are not a kind of saints that can lay aside their experiences and prejudices. They, like all of us, color everything they write or say with who they are. It’s time we stopped pretending that a degree in journalism has any value other than practice in writing grammatically correct articles.
What’s the problem, exactly?
The Post decided to monetize its business model, nothing more nor less.
The shock, I guess was the decision to go public with what was known to be an open lie, right?
As Moneyrunner observes, the much bigger deal is the way mainstream journalism is dominated by the access-for-sympathy trade. Witness the appalling NYT Sunday Mag article on CA’s upcoming gubernatorial race: 7,500 words of what-it’s-like-to-schooze-with-Arnie-and-Gavin, and 500 on the underlying issues.