TCU pundit forum: A trip to bummerville

by Steve Smith of West and Clear

About 30 minutes into Wednesday night’s symposium at TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism, “Obama and The Press: Is the media doing its job,” I had a concrete answer. I really don’t care.

Not only had the question not been addressed, the panel of The New York Times' David Brooks, PBS’ Gwen Ifill, CNBC’s Trish Regan, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Fort Worth’s own Bob Schieffer were throwing out one-liners and droning on about whether Obama had bitten off more than he could chew with the economy, Afghanistan and so forth. It was so much like a Sunday morning talk show that the only thing I needed was a plate of waffles to complete the scene.

It was great infotainment, but it never got close very close to topic, which I was actually interested in and disappointed that it was barely addressed. But in the end, the event devolved into what happens whenever two or more newspaper people get together — hand wringing and navel-gazing about how terrible it is what’s happening to newspapers. “It’s like being in the whaling industry,” Brooks said. Then, before I knew it, the blogger-sitting-around-in-the-pajamas metaphor had been deployed. That’s when the wheels came off. To quote another great Fort Worth luminary, Bill Paxton, game over, man.

Oddly enough, I’m OK with bashing bloggers, but the whole blogger-in-pajamas trope is so tired. Please … something else. I can accept that bloggers will be scapegoats for a crashing industry. I get it that we are not journalists, we’re nothing without newspapers, all we do is link to YouTube videos of poop-flinging monkeys. Fine. I understand that real journalism happens when people who make their money digging in to what government and business are doing report back to their audience. I don’t believe that 99 percent of bloggers can do that.

When Brooks goes to Afghanistan, as he recently did, and tours the country, talks to the generals, soldiers, NGOs and citizens, he’s doing a job, but he’s also providing a service. Democracy needs journalism? Got it. But there’s more to it than that. When he comes back and says he believes that U.S. efforts there are moving in the right direction, I respect that opinion, but I base that opinion on his previous work. Listen, Toby Keith could go to Afghanistan and tell me things are cool, and I’m not going to take his opinion at face value based simply on his Ford truck commercials. I use this same rubric when I read blogs — I decide whether or not I believe them based on their past performance. And some bloggers are actually pretty good at what they do.

If your media diet is anything like mine, it’s a mix of newspapers, blogs, magazines, websites and other sources. Some of it is packed with vitamins and minerals, some of it is the informational equivalent of junk food. I’ll bet your media diet has changed in the last 20 years, and I’ll bet you know what’s broccoli and what’s a Twinkie — and there’s room for both.

No one on last night’s panel wanted to acknowledge this reality. I know I’m sensitive to it because I’m one of those pajama-wearing bloggers who wouldn’t have ended up with a press credential in the Old Media world. I for one appreciate the fact that TCU chooses to engage at least this one blogger. I think more organizations should consider that kind of engagement.

But the whole evening was kind of a trip to Bummerville, because it’s clear that no one on that stage — as impressive as their resumes are — will be the one to lead journalism out of the wilderness. And that’s kind of the industry in a nutshell right now. No vision. Lots of handwringing. You want a Captain Sully to take it in for a landing, and instead you get Leslie Nielsen. Entertaining, yes, but he can’t fly a plane.

I’d like to see the industry stand up, dust itself off, snap its panties back into place, and embrace the challenge. Gwen Ifill was partly right when when she pointed out that most bloggers don’t have any professional standards. Actually, most bloggers have none. At West and Clear, we certainly try to shoot a little higher than that, but this blog still doesn’t adhere to any two-source rules or idea of objectivity. We try to be straightforward about our biases and tell the truth. You decide if you believe us. Not many of our regular readers were in the slow reading group. We trust you to figure it out.

When Ifill pooh-poohed Jon Stewart’s takedown of Jim Cramer, she missed this point. Sure, Stewart has never filed a Freedom of Information Act request, but there was more truth in that 20 minutes of television than in years of “objective” Wall Street reporting from many reputable news organizations. Maybe it’s time for some new standards, because I’m not sure the ones that exist right now are working.

The days are over when the local newspaper was your main filter on the news. No longer does an editor decide what is important enough for you to read. Today, you are your own filter, and you must decide for yourself whether you believe what your are reading or not.

The vision of journalism that last night’s panel believes in is broken, and I submit to you that it is actually a positive development. Something else will take its place, and I’m a believer that will be better than what we have now.