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AP Encourages Bias in News Stories
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It hasn't always been easy editing stories in the busy newsroom of the Daily Trojan, my university's student newspaper. As a young reporter, I often fought with my editors over whether a word was hyperbolic, an article's structure unfair, or whether a particular conclusion was misleading or inappropriate.
With that editing came other guidelines: Ask every side for comment. Place the most important content first. Never use anonymous sources, except in the rarest of circumstances. And never, ever, become involved with the story, by expressing opinion or otherwise.
This is why the AP's decline into the annals of New Journalism, a type of "activist journalism," is so disheartening. Recently-appointed Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier is leading a stylistic overhaul of the hallmark institution, once a beacon of fairness and objectivity, to create a more casual, subjective version which tramples over basic journalistic principles. Politico asks if Fournier is saving or destroying the AP, and I would have to say he is destroying it.
The trademark values of journalism, and by extension, the Associated Press, have always been based in an understanding that the power of the pen should be used responsibly. Especially prior to the blogosphere, most news organizations carefully maintained a reputation of objectivity, by bringing both sides of the story and remaining detached throughout.
But today, it's the Wild Wild West of New Journalism. This loose approach permits ledes like, "I miss Hillary," and "Obama is bordering on arrogance."
Also okay: "Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former first lady who hasn't driven a car or pumped gas in many years because of Secret Service restrictions, joined a blue-collar worker at a filling station Wednesday to illustrate how the high price of gasoline is squeezing consumers."
And: "The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast."
I understand the frustration that comes with not being able to write more openly. But when a person becomes a reporter, he or she sets aside the right to editorialize on the topics they're covering, because it's not their place.
It's not the AP's place to imitate Nancy Grace, Lou Dobbs or Keith Olbermann, successful though they may be. The role of a journalist has always been to inform, not opine or persuade, and the rigorous standards set in place by decades of precedent are meant to protect against the very bias advocacy journalism champions. Fournier's mentality lays out the red carpet for this bias.
We already have CNN's Jack Cafferty setting new lows for blending reporting and opinion with barely a blink. We don't need the Associated Press abandoning basic principles, too.
It hasn't always been easy editing stories in the busy newsroom of the Daily Trojan, my university's student newspaper. As a young reporter, I often fought with my editors over whether a word was hyperbolic, an article's structure unfair, or whether a particular conclusion was misleading or inappropriate.
With that editing came other guidelines: Ask every side for comment. Place the most important content first. Never use anonymous sources, except in the rarest of circumstances. And never, ever, become involved with the story, by expressing opinion or otherwise.
This is why the AP's decline into the annals of New Journalism, a type of "activist journalism," is so disheartening. Recently-appointed Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier is leading a stylistic overhaul of the hallmark institution, once a beacon of fairness and objectivity, to create a more casual, subjective version which tramples over basic journalistic principles. Politico asks if Fournier is saving or destroying the AP, and I would have to say he is destroying it.
The trademark values of journalism, and by extension, the Associated Press, have always been based in an understanding that the power of the pen should be used responsibly. Especially prior to the blogosphere, most news organizations carefully maintained a reputation of objectivity, by bringing both sides of the story and remaining detached throughout.
But today, it's the Wild Wild West of New Journalism. This loose approach permits ledes like, "I miss Hillary," and "Obama is bordering on arrogance."
Also okay: "Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former first lady who hasn't driven a car or pumped gas in many years because of Secret Service restrictions, joined a blue-collar worker at a filling station Wednesday to illustrate how the high price of gasoline is squeezing consumers."
And: "The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast."
I understand the frustration that comes with not being able to write more openly. But when a person becomes a reporter, he or she sets aside the right to editorialize on the topics they're covering, because it's not their place.
It's not the AP's place to imitate Nancy Grace, Lou Dobbs or Keith Olbermann, successful though they may be. The role of a journalist has always been to inform, not opine or persuade, and the rigorous standards set in place by decades of precedent are meant to protect against the very bias advocacy journalism champions. Fournier's mentality lays out the red carpet for this bias.
We already have CNN's Jack Cafferty setting new lows for blending reporting and opinion with barely a blink. We don't need the Associated Press abandoning basic principles, too.
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Bettybb
1:05AM 1:05AM Jul 22nd 2008
Excellent article. The new journalism isn't journalism at all, it is propoganda. The media should be rated, RWP or LWP for right / left wing propaganda and only truly objective reporting would get a J for journalism.
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penny95949
11:24AM 11:24AM Jul 22nd 2008
And they wonder why print media is declining in readership?! Maybe all of us "sheep" have caught on to their "new" way of "reporting". I always laugh when I see another newspaper laying off or "reorganizing" - not because of the people loosing their jobs (I feel sorry for them) BUT do the "higher ups" in these organizations learn? NO! They just keep "editorizing" the news to their way of thinking.
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jc
1:55PM 1:55PM Jul 22nd 2008
The Bias in the AP with pictures that are docked and reporters that add their thoughts it over the top.
Seems that we can make up our own mind, why does any
reader want the reporter to tell you what to think.
This has been going on for over 10 years now. I do
get very angry to date when I read anything from the
AP. The New York Times is just as bad and so is the
L. A newspaper. I do not understand why they permit
this in the newspaper. One reason that the papers are
going broke. I want the facts of a story not a reporters thoughts, who cares what they think.
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Barry Summerlin
8:29PM 8:29PM Jul 22nd 2008
The nation survived for a few centuries with partisan publications keeping each other in check; this development at The Associated Press is hardly the abomination you would have your readers believe. As tidy as it would be for AP to be the neck-tied, tucked-in document of record, history has never been so tamed as to be encompassed completely in wire copy. This evolved AP -- and the current state of journalism, Fox News and all -- will stand until the market (not Ron Fournier, not Joshua Sharp) decides that it's run its course. Journalism will inhale again, retreating back toward the contrived ideal of objectivity, before once again exhaling. In and out.
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Barry Summerlin
8:32PM 8:32PM Jul 22nd 2008
The nation survived for a few centuries with partisan publications keeping each other in check; this development at The Associated Press is hardly the abomination you would have your readers believe. As tidy as it would be for AP to be the neck-tied, tucked-in document of record, history has never been so tamed as to be encompassed completely in wire copy. This evolved AP -- and the current state of journalism, Fox News and all -- will stand until the market (not Ron Fournier, not Joshua Sharp) decides that it's run its course. Journalism will inhale again, retreating back toward the contrived ideal of objectivity, before once again exhaling. In and out.
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Barry Summerlin
8:42PM 8:42PM Jul 22nd 2008
The nation survived for a few centuries with partisan publications keeping each other in check; this development at The Associated Press is hardly the abomination you would have your readers believe. As tidy as it would be for AP to be the neck-tied, tucked-in document of record, history has never been so tamed as to be encompassed completely in wire copy. This evolved AP -- and the current state of journalism, Fox News and all -- will stand until the market (not Ron Fournier, not Joshua Sharp) decides that it's run its course. Journalism will inhale again, retreating back toward the contrived ideal of objectivity, before once again exhaling. In and out.
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Reply to this commentReport!