In the summer of 1997, 25 high-profile journalists convened at Harvard University “because they thought something was seriously wrong with their profession,” write Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in “Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.” The book culminates two years of research and interviews conducted by the group, known as the Committee of Concerned Journalists. They organized 21 forums and interviewed more than 300 journalists in what they describe as “the most sustained, systematic and comprehensive examination ever conducted by journalists of news gathering and its responsibilities.” Recently, Kovach, a former Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, spoke by phone about the results of the committee’s research and the current state of journalism.
Q: What was the most surprising thing that came out of your research?
A: Maybe the degree to which journalists have become disoriented by the new competitive atmosphere they are engaged in and almost a sense of lost purpose. I don’t know whether you have ever been knocked over by a big wave in the surf, but when you have tumbled head over heels in a heavy surf, you become totally disoriented. There was that sense of disorientation among journalists that we found all over the country because of the new competitive atmosphere in which news and entertainment have been merged.
There was an almost plaintive cry to help them find footing.
Q: You write that in 1999 only 21 percent of Americans thought the press cared about people. That’s a staggering figure. How has it come to this?
A: It has come to this because of the changing nature of the organization of journalism, the corporatization of journalism. They identify NBC News, for example, with General Electric, and they wonder, well, what’s the difference between NBC News and General Electric. The public used to think that journalists were working for the public interest, but more and more frequently they say, well, they’re just working for the buck. They are in it for the advertising. They are in it for the money.
Q: So, to get specific, would you say that a reporter for NBC News would have a difficult time reporting on corporate malfeasance from General Electric?
A: That’s what the public absolutely believes.
Q: Do you believe that?
A: I think they would be less likely to see a story there. I have no evidence to convince me that they have misreported anything about General Electric. I do have suspicion, not evidence, but plenty of suspicion, that they don’t do as much about protests about nuclear energy or that sort of thing because those are issues that General Electric has a vested interest in.
Q: So when you write, “Unless we grasp and reclaim the theory of a free press, journalists risk allowing their profession to disappear,” that’s not hyperbole.
A: It’s not hyperbole at all. The question is, What will it be replaced by?
Q: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about journalism over the next 10 years?
A: I am always an optimist. I couldn’t have stayed 40 years in the business [and not be one]. I’m overwhelmed by the excitement and the interest of the young journalists we are talking to right now. I think like everything else in a democratic society we renew ourselves from the grass roots, and I think this coming generation of journalists really cares about what they do, they just have not had a chance to talk about it, discuss it, analyze it and think seriously about it. I feel pretty confident that they are going to begin to bring pressure on the system to do the kind of work they were born to do, and the public is going to help them.”
Q: What is the biggest threat to quality journalism?
A: The biggest threat right now is the economic organization, which has put a lot of the most potent press instruments, namely broadcast and cable television, . . . into the hands for the first time in our history of ownership that has no basic interest in journalism. They happened to scoop up these journalistic organizations in acquiring other properties. I worry about their lack of any understanding of why journalism is a different kind of business. Journalism is a business. You have to make money in order to pay reporters and editors and to print newspapers and broadcast the news, but it is a business that has a personal and direct obligation to the citizen first and the stockholder second. We need an ownership that understands that. Democracy can’t work without it.
Q: What is the biggest impact the Internet has had on journalism?
A: The biggest impact has been to create a whole new audience for information. There is a hunger for information out there and this new system provides instant information from all over the world. And that’s an extraordinary thing. But it’s in this atmosphere of confusion about what’s news, what’s gossip, what’s real and what’s not, what’s verified and what’s not, that journalism becomes vitally more important. The brand names haven’t been made clear yet. Where can I go to get something that I can rely on? Is this reliable? Is this good or not? I don’t know.
Q: So the brands will establish themselves online and it will become less fuzzy?
A: I think it has to, and I think it will. We are going through that period of change now, almost like a jet plane breaking through the sound barrier. There’s that time of great stress and vibration and disorientation and that’s what we’re going through now. But when we come out the other side I feel confident that quality journalism will have branded itself clearly enough that the public will begin to recognize where they need to go online for the information that allows them to effectively take part in making decisions.
Q: Would you be in favor of professional accreditation for journalists?
A: No, because that gives someone outside the power to say you’re a journalist and you’re not. I think the public has to recognize information that is processed through what we call journalism and go to it when they need to make decisions. I think it is important in this world to have people like Matt Drudge, who distributes gossip, and Chris Matthews, who argues opinion. Sometimes even a blind hog will find an acorn. Even Matt Drudge will find a fact, and Chris Matthews may strike an opinion that helps create a legitimate political debate and argument. Those people are important in a democratic society.
I am saying that there has to be a space in which journalism is practiced that people can identify and go to when they are looking for the kind of information on which they are going to make a decision about whether or not to support a piece of legislation or how to vote. When they make fundamental decisions they need hard facts, because making a decision on the basis of faulty information guarantees you will make a faulty decision.
Q: What can citizens do to demand better journalism?
A: They can make it known to the people who produce their information that they are not interested in gossip, celebrity profiles or infotainment, and they can call them into account to let them know when they are frustrated and upset about it. I think they have an obligation to make themselves more aware of where the good information is so they can hold up models to news organizations that they think are not living up to their expectations. They are already beginning to do that. Broadcast television news has been losing audience steadily for over a decade as the news broadcasts have been dumbed down. And it’s now beginning to happen to local news. Local television news, which has held steady or grown over the last decade as broadcast journalism declined, local news is beginning to lose audience. When that starts happening, here and there a news organization is going to say: “Wait a minute. Maybe what they’re telling us is that they don’t want this entertainment. They don’t want this infotainment. They’re interested in real news.” If the public begins to support that kind of presentation, then it will change.
Q: What should the goal of newsroom diversity be?
A: When we are talking about the journalist’s obligation to provide news that is in the proper proportion and representation of the community, then you need a diverse newsroom. But you’re not just looking for racial and ethnic diversity. That’s important and you need that because what you are looking for is a diversity of intellect, a diversity of insight, a diversity of experience . . . The purpose of diversity is not just to have numbers of various identifiable groups of people, but to have as wide as possible the range of the experience that comes with different lifestyles and ethnic backgrounds, that intellectual diversity that informs the reporting and the organization of the news for the community.
Q: How important is it for the American press to serve as a role model for the world?
A: To the extent that the world is moving toward self-governing societies, I think it’s vitally important that the journalism that has the greatest history and the greatest experience help those countries and those societies understand how to organize a journalism. I don’t think we do everything better than anybody else, but I do think that we recognize the value and the purpose of journalism and the way in which journalism helps build democratic institutions. And I think it’s our experience in the way journalism relates to the building of social institutions that we provide a model. I have done work in a number of the Eastern and Central European countries and some in South Africa and in Latin America, helping independent press get started. I’m constantly impressed by the fundamental almost human instinct that people in all of those cultures and countries have for the kind of journalism we practice here.
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An edited transcript.
