All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Media watcher Brian Stelter (fresh off this nice profile in the USA Today) devotes part of his TVNewser blog today to discussing some on-air changes happening at MSNBC. Stelter points to part of this Michele Greppi article, where new MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams talks about giving viewers a glimpse behind the scenes. That’s right – transparency. Part of that is taking a camera into the control room and airing some of the talk between producers and on-air anchors:

Mr. Abrams plans to use shots of the control room during broadcasts and make viewers privy to the conversations between anchors and producers, he said.

"It's urgent. It's not fake. It's real," Mr. Abrams said. "In the control room, there is often some degree of chaos. The viewer should see more of the process."

MSBNC will debut Mr. Abrams' experiment with transparency as soon as the network is comfortable with the presentation, he said.

"We're trying it out a little bit here and a little bit there," Mr. Abrams said. "Expect to see more of it in the days and weeks to come."

Stelter then passes on some advice from a “veteran e-mailer” to his site:

"I think transparency is critical," a veteran e-mailer writes. "But real transparency will take a new way of telling stories. Instead of showing us producers pushing buttons in a control room, Abrams should have his reporters write into their scripts more about the challenges and process of covering a story. Tell us what it's like to be there, how you got there, what it smells like etc. Make it a journey (when appropriate) and leave in some outtakes that show a larger truth (someone closing a door on the reporter, or saying no comment, etc).”[Emphasis by TVNewser]

It’s an interesting take. Most commonly, efforts at transparency (like Public eye) are separate from the news stories themselves. Should there be more built into the actual news as the e-mailer suggests?

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We’ve noted recently that more news outlets are taking their audiences behind the scenes for a closer look at how news is produced -- a feat obviously very close to our hearts. And it appears BBC News is hopping on the transparency bandwagon, offering a new blog called “The Editors.” According to The Beeb, “Each day, ‘The Editors’ will include a round-up of where the BBC has been in the news, what members of the audience have told us in the previous 24 hours, our responses to that feedback, and the resulting discussion.”

Since its launch, the blog has already started logging some of the complaints the BBC has been hearing from its audience about programming.

Among the audience response to the BBC in the past 24 hours were calls complaining that BBC Two's Daily Politics was biased against the Conservative party, and others claiming it was biased against the Labour party. Some callers thought generally BBC News had given Michael Owen's injury too high a priority. Several complained at the degree of football coverage on radio and TV. One complaint said it was wrong to refer to 21 June as "the longest day", since all days are 24 hours long.

And they’re keeping track of what the BBC audience really likes:

So far, it’s confirmed some things we already knew - that stories about sex, space, technology, showbiz, the environment or animals (or, better, a combination of any of the above) somehow always gets a lot of attention from our readers and viewers. There are also the perennially popular sub-categories, like animals doing human things.

(Not to mention the other ever-popular animal category, the death of the world's ugliest dog, one of CBSNews.com's more popular stories last year.) Well, cheers to transparency, BBC. We'll be tuning in.

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We’re all about the idea of “transparency” here at Public Eye and are more than eager to recognize similar efforts all over the world of journalism, so we’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to NBC’s “Daily Nightly” blog which marks its one-year anniversary today. Editor Rob Merrill marks the occasion, writing:

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this blog. More than 815 posts and 10,000+ comments later, we're very proud to have been the first network evening newscast to wade into the blogosphere.

The “Daily Nightly” takes a bit of a different approach to transparency that we do here at PE. For one thing, theirs is a direct extension of the “Nightly News” and most blog posts are written by correspondents, producers and Anchor Brian Williams and are concentrated on the stories they are covering. We operate separately from the news division, acting more as curious observers and a conduit to address questions and concerns about CBS News products.

In today’s media environment, however, it’s less important how transparency is practiced than the simple fact that it is being attempted at all. So, happy birthday to the “Daily Nightly,” and many more returns. (P.S. – In nine months, Public Eye has posted 902 separate items … but who’s counting!)

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I’ll have much more on this later, but Jeff Jarvis gives a preview to a discussion he and I will be taking part of this morning at the Museum of Television and Radio centered on objectivity and opinion in the news:

The question isn’t whether opinion should be injected into news. The issue is about revealing the perspective, opinion, and bias that already exist. It’s about transparency — into a journalist’s viewpoint and also into the process of news judgment. It’s time to unlock the sausage factory.

I’m with Jeff up to a point, transparency being what we’re all about here at PE. But I’m not sure we need a litany of every “perspective, opinion and bias” that could conceivably affect a journalist or report. Most often this discussion is cast in terms of politics, the war in Iraq or other hotly debated topics. Jarvis adds this thought:

Sometimes it’s easier to discuss this in arenas other than politics. At yet another seminar on news and opinion, an editor raised the example of a reporter covering a smoking ban. If the reporter smokes, don’t we have a right to know that? If we catch the reporter outside the office catching a puff and we say, “gotcha,” isn’t that a problem? Should journalists ever be on the other end of a “gotcha”?

But none of this means that just because you have a relevant perspective on a topic in the news, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t cover it. Nor does it mean you should. A good reporter must be intellectually honest and report the facts no matter whose perspective they may bolster.

Intellectual honesty is imperative for a good reporter but that is something proven only over time. Does knowing in individual journalist’s personal opinions or biases really matter or does it actually make being honest harder because everyone is aware of them? Could it result in over-compensation on the part of the reporter? If a journalist is reporting on a smoking ban, does it really make one bit of difference whether that individual smokes? Why?

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There’s an interesting story on the trend of “transparency” over at the American Journalism Review that examines the various efforts being made by news organizations (including us here at PE) to open up their doors to news consumers. Rachel Smolkin writes:

Have the news media gone New Age? You can almost hear the hot air seeping from our bloated egos, replaced by groveling apologies and overwrought explanations to our fleeing readers: Let me tell you why I ran that story, made that decision, chose that lead, buried that other story that you, our readers (and bloggers and ideologues and cranks), thought was more important. You can almost see the self-assured cigar smoke dissipating, the Wild Turkey neglected in favor of...healing crystals?

Or, as the healing crystals are known in our business, "transparency." A chorus of media critics, AJR among them, has seized on openness as the panacea to our sullied reputations, the antidote to those cheaters Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley, the tonic to our arrogance that cyberspace loves to hate.

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We’ve all seen the picture, the one of a hooded figure balanced atop a box, electrical wires running from its hands which became a symbol of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Now, meet the controversy over the identity of the man in the picture. On Saturday’s front page, the New York Times reported this:

Almost two years later, Ali Shalal Qaissi's wounds are still raw. There is the mangled hand, an old injury that became infected by the shackles chafing his skin. There is the slight limp, made worse by days tied in uncomfortable positions. And most of all, there are the nightmares of his nearly six-month ordeal at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004.

Mr. Qaissi, 43, was prisoner 151716 of Cellblock 1A. The picture of him standing hooded atop a cardboard box, attached to electrical wires with his arms stretched wide in an eerily prophetic pose, became the indelible symbol of the torture at Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.

Mr. Qaissi claims to be the man in that photograph, even to the extent of including the image on his business cards and the story presents some evidence that supports his claim even while the U.S. military in Iraq refused to comment on the subject. But questions about the story have been raised by Salon, which reports:

Army documents obtained by Salon contradict the Times' account. An official report by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) concluded that the photo the Times said showed Qaissi actually showed another detainee, named Saad, whose full name is being withheld by Salon to protect his identity. According to the official report, this second detainee was nicknamed "Gilligan" by military police at Abu Ghraib.

In the past, this is where the story itself may have become overshadowed by yet another journalistic misstep, where The Times may have failed to address the criticism or stubbornly stood by its reporting. But in an encouraging sign, the paper reports today that it will “carefully investigate” the issue.

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Last week we noted an effort toward transparency by the Wisconsin State Journal which is letting readers vote for a story to run in the next day’s paper. Readers can choose from an online menu of five stories and the story with the most votes gets a spot on the front page. Now, CBS News is getting into the act as well.



Starting tonight, viewers of the CBS “Evening News” and readers of CBSNews.com will be offered a chance to weigh on some stories they would like to see. Correspondent Steve Hartman will present “three feature stories that under consideration for the next week’s broadcast” (you can read more about the “Assignment America” feature here).



Viewers can then visit the Web site and register their vote – or add a story idea of their own. This feature runs on Friday nights, starting tonight. The first winning story will air next Friday. As explained in the Web story, “you can still count on CBS News to bring you all the day’s major stories told by the best reporters in the business. This segment is just a way for us to make sure we’re giving you a say — and a newscast you want to see.”



More and more, news organizations are seeking ways to include their audience in the process, and Pubic Eye in many ways is a part of that trend. While something like “Assignment America” can make viewers feel like they have a voice, it’s important to point out that the network is not relying on viewers to create an entire show lineup. It is unlikely news organizations will give up their editorial judgment anytime soon. Still, you shouldn’t dismiss such attempts as gimmicks, you should see them as a start. As BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis wrote about the Wisconsin State Journal’s feature:

That’s a nice start, good symbolism. The real win will be when papers get their publics to vote on what stories they’re not covering that they should be.

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Temperatures reached the boiling point today in the battle between The Washington Post and news consumers outraged by last Sunday’s column by the paper’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell. PE readers will remember that the flap, which we’ve addressed previously, stems from Howell’s statement that members of both political parties “have gotten” campaign money from Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The indicted Abramoff personally donated money only to Republicans, but the real scandal lies in who his clients gave to – members of both parties – and what they may have gotten in return. Democrats and their supporters have fiercely argued that only Republicans are involved in this mess.



Following the fury unleashed on the post.blog, many comments were deleted by the paper – something that made those outraged by her column, well, even more outraged. After a couple days of quiet (Howell did have a small dust-up with Media Matters about it, after which she reportedly vowed, “from now on, I don’t reply”), the ombudsman popped back up on post.blog to offer a clarification of her wording:



Update: Comments on post.blog did appear to cross the line; executive editor says many were removed, pondering what's next.

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While openness and interaction are becoming standard elements of news organizations across the spectrum, “transparency” has its downsides, too. That’s something NBC News has recently learned in trying to provide exactly the type of service that many critics have called for from the MSM.



Here’s the rough overview: NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell recently interviewed James Risen, The New York Times reporter who helped uncover the administration’s use of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on conversations between people inside the U.S. and abroad. That story set off a storm of debate over the legality of the program, one that was flamed even more when buzz that the government had listened in on a U.S. reporter was introduced.



In her interview, Mitchell asked Risen if he knew whether or not reporters had been spied on and singled out CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Risen said no. While the footage of that exchange never appeared on air, it was included when the network posted a full transcript of the interview online. Here’s how Lisa Green, Senior Producer for Broadcast Standards at NBC explains the incident on the “Daily Nightly”:

“Nightly News obviously did not report on this because it was an unsubstantiated tip, though we continued to follow other leads on the NSA story. Unfortunately, without Andrea’s approval, the entire transcript was posted on the web, including the brief exchange about Ms. Amanpour. When questions started surfacing in the blogosphere, it became clear that the publication of the transcript had inadvertently called attention to an allegation that had not been verified. We quickly decided to edit out that portion of the Risen transcript while we continued to check out the story. It's no surprise that readers were curious if not suspicious about the whole thing.

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One might not think the fact that a guy answers his email would make for much of a story in the highest circulation newspaper in America. But when that guy is America's only permanent anchorman, well, people take notice.



That's why USA Today devoted some space today to the news that, yes, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams will sometimes hit the reply button when he gets an email.

Chances are good that at any given time, some viewer has something to say to him. And the Internet is their courier of choice.



"They fire it off, wanting to blow off steam," says Williams, 46. "They think maybe you read it, but they are not thinking that they are going to engage in a dialogue with you."



So when Williams hits the "reply" button, taking exception when it is suggested — as it often is — that he hates America for one reason or another, most writers are stunned that he has responded. "They'll respond, 'Dear Mr. Williams, I couldn't believe it was you. I didn't mean any offense.'"

Williams also contributes to a blog, The Daily Nightly, and has become one of the media's most outspoken voices on the need for transparency in the news business.



Speaking of transparency and give and take, let me throw out a post-Thanksgiving reminder: Keep sending us your tips and thoughts on what we should be writing about here at Public Eye. We get some of our best ideas from readers, after all. So don't forget to drop us a line and post your thoughts in comments. And good luck working off all that turkey.

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