Politics falter in light of Haiti earthquake

At least two big stories drew a lot of national and international attention last week: The continued struggle of the Haitian people to recover from a devastating earthquake and the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Massachusetts senatorial seat held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy for almost half a century.

Some version of the Haiti story was on the front page of The Enterprise several days. Brown’s election to the senate made page 6B on Wednesday, the day after his election.

A few of our readers accused us of everything from poor news judgment to outright political bias.

We think neither is the case, for a number of reasons.

We recognize that Scott Brown’s election to the Kennedy seat was a shock in a heavily Democratic state and that the new Republican senator will sway the balance of power in the Senate. We realize how important that is. That’s why the headline on the story said, “Republican wins Kennedy seat.” That’s also why it was more than a paragraph on that page, as any other senate election in an East Coast state would have been.

Do we think it’s a mandate on the Obama administration? Maybe, maybe not.

Do we think it’s a mandate on the proposed health care legislation? Maybe, maybe not.

Do we think that in the 2010 elections that the Republicans will take over both the Senate and the House? Maybe, maybe not.

We’re journalists. That means it’s our job to report, not speculate, though we’re certainly not above quoting speculators as long as we represent as many points of view as possible.

But for the most part, those kinds of speculations represent opinions, which belong on our opinions page rather than on our news pages.

So we reported Scott Brown’s election to the senate in a more than 15-inch story on page 6B with the other state, national and world news.

It wasn’t earth-shattering. It wasn’t world changing. It was worth reporting, but it didn’t belong on the front page.

Complaining readers already were very clearly informed on the outcome of the election and had very clear opinions of its significance, which is why they said they thought it was underplayed.

Obviously they, and other like-minded readers, were already thoroughly versed on the outcome and already had formed opinions.

That just makes us more sure that we shouldn’t use front-page space to tell readers what they already know or ratify their opinions of what’s important.

Results of presidential elections are front page news because they have a greater likelihood of actually having an effect on people who live in Southeast Texas.
Other than those presidential elections, for the most part, only local elections make our front page. We are a local newspaper.

So what about Haiti?

I dare to venture a guess that more individuals in Southeast Texas watched reports on the earthquakes in Haiti, made a donation to relief efforts, helped their church package and ship supplies to the devastated country, or read stories and viewed photos of that event than read the entire Scott Brown story on page 6B Wednesday.

Haiti is about people, and Southeast Texans in general cares much more about people than they do politics.

We plan to continue covering both, but not every story can be on the front page.

It’s our job to make those news judgments and we continue to stand by the ones we made in these situations.
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Turning the focus to Haiti, I came across some interesting stories last week about journalists in Haiti.

Just as journalists cover wars and weather events, they are called upon to report on disasters such as the Haiti earthquake.

Generally, journalists are mandated to be observers, not participants. The thought is that we cannot legitimately report on something with which we have any personal involvement.

That sounds like a good plan, until you consider journalists who are also doctors who are then dispatched to Haiti to cover the story.

Their role as doctors requires them to assist with medical issues. Their role as journalists requires them to be observers. As human beings, they can’t step away and not help people in need.

Yes, it is a violation of traditional journalistic standards, but there’s nothing traditional or standard about the situation in Haiti.

Most stories trace origins to newspapers

Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010

This column has many times emphasized the importance of knowing the source of your news.

Information overload is a consequence of exploding technological developments.

Whether it’s a Web site, a blog, a Facebook posting or a tweet, today’s technologically savvy consumers have the opportunity for a constant bombardment of what might or might not be “news.”

Those who want to read the latest info about the Leno vs. O’Brien television saga; Tiger Woods’ indiscretions; or which actress had the most plunging neckline at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards ceremonies, might seek specialized coverage of those events.

The majority of people who want to read real news stories, particularly local news stories, get that information from newspapers.

That fact was reinforced by a Pew Research Center study for the Project for Excellence in Journalism released last week.

The study considered news reporting using Baltimore, a substantially more populated area than Southeast Texas, as a case study.

It closely examined news from all local outlets in that city — a total of 53 — for a week and determined that much of the news people get “contains no original reporting.”

According to the study, “fully eight out of ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information.”

The study further found that those stories containing original information were, 95 percent of the time, produced by traditional media outlets, primarily newspapers, which produced more than 60 percent of the original content.

Television stations or their Web sites were responsible for about 28 percent; radio for about 7 percent; and other media accounted for about 4 percent of original reporting.

“Eight out of ten newspaper stories (80 percent) were straight news accounts written by local staffers.”

Government entities, primarily law enforcement offices, triggered more than 60 percent of the news coverage.

Television news was found to devote more resources to local news with 64 percent of the stories categorized as local, as compared to 53 percent of newspaper stories.

The survey also emphasized concerns about accuracy on developing stories as new media outlets fail to follow up stories they gather from other sources.

“Sometimes old stories that were already obsolete were posted or linked to after events had changed and the original news site has updated them.”

Reduced staffing at most newspapers has had a major impact on reporting, according to the study.

The Baltimore Sun, the major newspaper analyzed, produced 32 percent fewer stories on any subject in 2009 than it did in 1999.

Expanding sources of news unfortunately don’t necessarily mean better, more complete or more accurate news, according to the study.

“As news is posted faster, often with little enterprise reporting added, the official version of events is becoming more important. We found official press releases often appear word for word in first accounts of events, though often not noted as such ... formal procedures for citing and crediting can get lost. We found numerous examples of Web sites carrying sections of other people’s work without attribution and often suggesting original reporting was added when none was.”

When I went to journalism school several decades ago, we called that plagiarism.

Today, unfortunately, many sources simply call it repackaging.

The good news from this study is that much of the news consumers are getting is coming from credible newspaper journalists reporting firsthand.

The bad news is, as more and more of those journalists fail to be recognized for their work, both by declining subscribers and the public at large, credible journalism becomes more and more endangered.

Bloggers, commentators, tweeters and would-be journalists who don’t understand the basics of original reporting, attribution and follow-up should scare people who care about truth in reporting.

They certainly scare me.

Internet stretches freedom of speech

A high school government class is about all anyone needs to recognize that freedom of speech is among our fundamental rights as Americans.

Historically, the illustration to explain the freedom involved yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. If there was a fire, you were a hero. If there wasn’t and it created mass chaos, that freedom offered no protection.

Similarly, the freedom doesn’t protect you if you knowingly perpetrate lies about someone — though opinions are perfectly acceptable. You can call someone a scoundrel, and it’s fine. If you call him a thieving, wife-beating scoundrel, you might be called upon to prove that or face civil charges of slander.

Though laws vary from state to state, slander is generally thought of as the spoken defamation, whereas libel refers to written statements.

In both cases, truth is a defense. In some cases, such as libel of a public figure, the absence of malicious intent, which basically means someone misrepresented the truth, also is a defense.

Though this might sound like a twisted interpretation, freedom of speech is the reason we have pornography and hate groups. Our country is such that we believe everyone has a right to their opinions, regardless of how we, as individuals, might feel about it.

Ask cities or communities that have tried to prevent marches or protests by groups that represented less popular causes. Unless those cities want to decimate their municipal budgets through legal fees and damage payouts, they must allow such activities to take place regardless of public opinion.

Free speech means free speech even if nobody wants to listen.

Though all those rules remain in place, and continue to be upheld by court decisions, defining what constitutes free speech has become much more difficult in the Internet age.

The Internet has become an open forum of not only bloggers and Internet-only “news” sites, but comments about everything from anybody who has access to a computer.

Readers, who can create IDs that can be anything from their actual names to nicknames to “anonymous” can pretty much say anything they want to say. We have, unfortunately, even had people post comments under the names of other people.

Comments go through an approval process, but because of the timeliness of the medium and its comments, it’s not always possible to read every comment on every story carefully before allowing posting.

When a reader calls a potentially inappropriate comment to our attention, we take a closer look and sometimes, though rarely, remove it from our Web site. Those instances would be when it uses foul language, accuses someone of a crime or attacks someone based on their race, religion or gender.

Beyond that, we generally do allow comments, regardless of how mean they might seem, to stand as they are submitted.

But we also encourage those who object to them to include their comments on the same site.

After all, freedom of speech isn’t limited to those who want to focus on the negative.

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This past Friday The Enterprise contained an unusual Money and Markets page.
To everyone’s embarrassment, a note explaining how to create the page was published in the middle of the page on top of the stock report.

Nobody was more concerned and apologetic than the very new copy editor who made that error or the other members of the copy desk who didn’t catch the mistake before it printed.

We apologize to all our readers, but especially to the one caller who asked, in complete seriousness, if that was a one-time occurrence, or something we intended to start doing every day.

We certainly hope not.

Change is new year's one constant

As we move into the year 2010, we all hope that the predictions we hear from economists and politicians will come true, that this will be a better year than 2009 for many people.

A Los Angeles Times story last week that offered predictions for the media in the coming year soberly reported that “the presses literally stopped at almost 150 newspapers in 2009.”

The story predicts that by this time next year most people reading this information will view it on a computer, a smart phone, an e-reader or a tablet rather than in paper form.
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Possibly forestalling that changeover, or at least bringing positive reinforcement to the newspaper business, is The (London) Times story that says print advertising is twice as effective as television ads for large retailers.

The story was based on a Microsoft advertising survey of “large clothing stores, big grocery retailers, fashion retailers and department stores,” 24 of which were in the top 100 companies in the United Kingdom in terms of advertising dollars spent.

According to the study, every 1 pound spent on print advertisements yields 5 pounds in revenue, as compared to 2.15 pounds for television and 3.44 pounds for online advertising.

Experts quoted in the article dispute the findings and said the results of the Microsoft survey conflict with larger studies of advertising value.
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Among the changes Beaumont Enterprise readers have experienced in the last year is a greater emphasis on local news instead of reports of national news stories, which are available through many different outlets. Some readers have objected to that, but we still strive to focus on our strongest product, which is local reporting.

So consider this: The Washington Times, in announcing a 40 percent staff reduction, also has chosen to focus on its strengths rather than trying to be all things to all people. According to a December article in the better-known Washington Post, “That means the Times will end its run as a full-service newspaper, slashing its coverage of local news, sports and features.”

Instead, the paper, which also will shift to free distribution, will focus on its “core strengths,” which include politics and national security.

I recognize that we’re talking about Washington, but I can say with pretty firm assurance that neither The Enterprise nor any other Texas newspaper will consider the concept of ending sports coverage a good idea in 2010.
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One thing BeaumontEnterprise.com readers have most likely noticed as a growing trend is the use of more videos on our Web site, whether they are stand-alone features or additions to written stories.

This too, is a growing trend among newspapers and now, according to another Washington Post report, is moving into the book publishing industry.

Along with eventually reading newspapers, magazine and books on an electronic reader of some type, consumers also will have more access to something called a “Vook,” a video/book hybrid being produced in part by Simon & Schuster’s Atria books.

Links and embedded videos enhance the reading experience and are, unquestionably, going to become part of our future.

The Post story quotes Bob Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book, as saying, “As discourse moves from printed pages to network screens, the dominant mode will be things that are multimodal and multilayered ... The age of pure linear content is going to pass with the rise of digital network connect.”

Or, as we in the newspaper business might say, readers will have extra features to enhance the reading experience.
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As we move into 2010, we ask you to come along for the ride. It sounds as though it might get a bit bumpy, but it’s sure to be interesting.