“This isn’t some story in a newspaper. This is real.”

Once you get past the irony of one smoothly crafted mirage (Hollywood) commenting on the unreality of the other (newspapers), Jason Bourne’s terse cautionary word to a reporter about to be murdered in The Bourne Ultimatum is a pretty accurate description of journalism today. I want to get some of what bugs me lately into words, so here are just a few general impressions about the news industry:

1. Information pathology. It’s possible to get updates on any developing situation that interests you 24 hours a day. Information and images are vomited in a continuous stream.  The network news has broadcasted the faces and words of killers, and even actual killings, in the interest of keeping us “informed.” But understanding, which to me is part of being informed, only comes with time and reflection. Information inundation – perspective = blunt trauma.
2. Factual inaccuracy. Because my husband has served in a public position locally, over the past 10 years his name has come up in the paper a few times. Never once have the facts been accurate. My personal favorite was the time I read that we made half a million dollars a year. “Honey, is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked at the breakfast table. “If we make half a million, why am I driving a Tercel?” How many other “facts” do they get wrong that I know nothing about?
3. Faulty reasoning. How about when journalists fail to know how to think through what they present? Recently our newspaper reported on an upcoming legal case I know something about. One side’s contention was presented as fact; the other side’s was not presented at all. “It’s in the court documents,” the reporter insisted. Well, sure; so is the other side’s claim. The failure to even discern a fact from an opinion is journalistic ineptitude. Yet this is the brilliant analysis we’re asked to trust as our lens for current events.
4. News vs. stories. I have great respect for journalism, which involves digging up facts and presenting them to an interested public. This is essential for democracy. It takes time and effort. I have no respect at all for the creation of tantalizing and ephemeral stories – a process better accomplished without all the facts, and that results in deception of the populace, rather than informing us.
5. Infiltration of the blogosphere. The online version of our local paper includes a “story chat” after each news story. 24 hours a day, you can vent your issues and opinions anonymously in a public forum. It’s research free. It’s consequence free. It’s 15 minutes of fame at its best. But it’s not journalism, and it doesn’t belong in journalistic space. It does, however, determine what stories we’ll see resurrected in future issues. The more story chat comments, the more sequels are guaranteed.

Are these things the results of the mutation of journalism into “the news industry” and its accompanying shift in production values? As I write this, I’m realizing that I believe true journalism is subversive. It’s supposed to keep us informed, and keep history honest. It can’t do that when it becomes part of the prevailing industrial landscape. What scares me is that the news industry is at once infatuated with its own creative power, and utterly irresponsible with it. It loses none of its power when it loses its integrity.

*Note: I’ve written this post (more or less) twice, and deleted it because it seems like ranting. But I’m leaving it this time – not because I’m convinced it’s any better, but because I don’t want to find myself writing it yet again… Besides, I only rant where no one will challenge me. :-) Which is to say, comments are welcome.

Here’s Emily Dickinson’s take on the news, called “The Only News I Know”:

The only news I know
Is bulletins all day
From immortality: 

Rest is here.