Outside Voices: Bertrand Pecquerie Looks At American Journalism From A European Perspective

(Bertrand Pecquerie)

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we asked Bertrand Pecquerie, director of the World Editors Forum, which publishes Editors Weblog, to contribute. Here, he contends that from a European perspective, American journalism is "in a profound crisis." As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in "Outside Voices" are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Here's Bertrand:

Is American Journalism Self-Destructing?

What difficult times American journalism has been having since 2003!

That year, Jayson Blair rocked the foundations of The New York Times and a collective hallucination caused the American press to search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

In 2005, Dan Rather resigned as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" after an offensive from conservative bloggers. They were correct in exposing a controversial document as fake but did not serve the public by shelving questions about the questionable military service of the president.

Also in 2005, there was yet another attack on a journalist -- this time, the head of news at CNN, Eason Jordan. He dared to denounce the American army in Iraq for its "muscled approach" in relations with the American and foreign press.

And how can we forget the latest assault on American press credibility with the imprisonment and ensuing scandal around Judith Miller?

So far, 2006 has been free of a scandal of equal proportions. But American media in Iraq have still invented "Green Zone Journalism," a form of bunkered and blind journalism that ex-hostages Jill Carroll of the Christian Science Monitor and Florence Aubenas of Lib?ration refused to partake in.

Excuse me if this summary seems exaggerated, but seen from Europe, American journalism, once a model, now seems to be in a profound crisis.

What was this model? First, it included heavily populated newsrooms, often twice as large as European newsrooms, which permitted real investigative journalism defined by weeks or months of intense digging and questioning. Second, there was a clear concept of a Fourth Estate -- the role of journalists was to question the power of the three others and big business. Finally, the education of journalists was very different -- real journalists were experts in their fields, capable of anticipating technological and economic evolutions.

Why does this model seem to be dying today? First, I cannot help but emphasize the collateral victim of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: American "mainstream" journalism. Everything that was positive – prosperity, diversity, credibility, the struggle for power – quickly turned negative simply because American media, and not just Fox News, transformed itself into a war machine alongside the Bush administration. From one day to the next, a "media nationalism" made them lose their critical spirit. In comparable circumstances, the European press had succeeded in maintaining its role as platform of debate, for example, in France during the Algerian War in the 60s and in Germany and Italy with the Rote Armee Fraktion and the Brigate Rosse in the 70s. In these countries, the press clearly questioned the strategies of their governments and denounced certain methods of repression.

In the U.S., nothing comparable has emerged in "mainstream" television or print and only a few organizations, Project Censored or Media Channel for instance, have dared to criticize the nationalist steamroller. In facing this failure of the critical spirit, progressively realized in 2004 and 2005, the American media will take numerous years to reset itself and question its actions. There is no doubt that it will be a fruitful self-examination.

What worries me most is the process of self-destruction into which American journalism seems to be falling since the wave of grassroots or "citizen journalism." It is very difficult to understand how theories such as "news is no longer a lecture but a conversation" and "breaking news is the beginning, not the end of the news process" have imposed themselves on the media scene.

News becoming a conversation is a positive step if it means commencing a dialogue with readers, a dialogue incredibly simplified thanks to the Internet. But in the context of the present crisis, this also acts as a way of minimizing the role of journalists. It seems to have been forgotten that breaking news and investigation into scandals and corruption performed by professionals is necessary before this conversation can start.

Take the case of Eason Jordan -- most of the pressure in the blogosphere was placed on Jordan to resign, completely overshadowing the real issue -- whether journalists were being targeted in Iraq. A small number of bloggers were able to turn the attention of the public and the media from major issues to secondary details.

At first glance, the intuitions of citizen journalists such as Dan Gillmor were full of good intentions, but in the end they could be threatening the basic principal of journalism: investigation.

Another consequence is that journalists are perceived as more conservative in the face of these new theorists who see a journalist hidden behind every citizen. And this is happening without the slightest foundation: currently, citizen journalism is but a small minority. There are very, very few that participate in something resembling journalism. The confusing mixture of information/entertainment/communication is causing an incurable harm to the notion of information as a pillar of democracy.

What surprises me the most is the ease with which the American journalistic community has accepted this process of self-weakening and, in the long term, self-destruction. Why doesn't anybody dispute Dan Gillmor and Jeff Jarvis? Who will contest these theories, which could very well be just another "Internet bubble?" Who doesn't see that under the new cover of "virtual democracy," real democracy is being weakened?

In the U.S., people blog but they don't vote. Virtual democracy doesn't seem to have any affect on real democracy. In Europe, we vote (last week's elections in Italy, for instance, had an 83% voter turnout), but we blog in the political sense very little. Which democracy is the most vibrant?

[jongarfunkel]

Now, if news *were* a conversation, why isn't the Public Eye troubling to respond to this? There's a mixed bag of points he's making, but "Green Zone Journalism" goes at your war reporting. Even better, wouldn't have been more effective to portray an online dialogue between Pecquerie and an American journalist who he wishes to engage in debate?

[innov8ion]

This Bertrand fella does have one point, however: American journalism is weakening and it is self-induced. It's weakening because our media has a left-leaning bias and spins the news. If you don't believe me, please read the UCLA study here: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664 The public deserves to hear balanced news on issues important to us but the media have failed us time and time again. News is supposed to be objective and unemotional. So when people like Meredith Viera and Katie Couric spout off their liberal leanings in the public, how are we supposed to take them seriously as news anchors? Put simply, we can't. This is why Americans have stood up and made the blogosphere the fervent ground of intelligent discussion that it can be. Discussion both from the left and the right on issues helps make democracy stronger. Not weaker, as Bertrand suggests.

[innov8ion]

Bertrand's arguments are fallacious at best. At worst, he looks quite foolish. Let's make his article more succinct, shall we? "America bad. Europe good." There, feel better Bertrand? I mean, where to start? Maybe he ate a bad batch of American cheval. (##%?? meat, for those that aren't aware of the French love for Trigger) Jayson Blair: The New York Times has an integrity problem it needs to deal with. The Jayson Blair issue highlighted this. Eason Jordan: The man accused the American military of targeting journalists and hid Iraqi atrocities so that CNN could get better access. He should have been fired, not allowed to simply resign. The American media transformed itself into a war machine alongside the Bush administration? Were those dreams I had of the press drilling the government about Iraqi WMD, Dan Rathergate, etc. "No one questions the "Nationalist Steamroller?" Is this guy on crack? I can turn on the news anytime and see plenty of news critical to our government. Does Bertrand even know who Helen Thomas is? Journalists are now perceived as more conservative? Is he referring to Meredith Viera? Katie Couric? Is this clear, logical thinking by Bertrand? In a word, no. His rhetoric is classically liberal: utilize a large vocabulary to seem intelligent and alter the truth to spin your position. If this is an example of objective, mainstream, European thinking, then thank goodness I'm not a diplomat.

[garet6]

Is this the same Eason Jordan who didn't dare denounce Sadam Hussain for many years of terror and torture that he inflicted on his country for fear that CNN would suffer his wrath in pre-war Iraq?