Getting It First vs. Getting It Right

---

---

The pursuit of the Boston Marathon bombers has been a great opportunity for journalism professors like myself to explore the emphasis in today's media on being first with a story — regardless of whether it is right.

When I was in journalism school, the emphasis was reversed. Getting it right was more important than reporting it first.

I don't mean to suggest that being first wasn't important. It certainly was. Always has been. But the difference is that we were told repeatedly that accuracy took priority. Publishing rumor, hearsay or something that was not independently verifiable was unacceptable.

That was something aspiring journalists learned from reading "All the President's Men." Woodward and Bernstein inspired a generation of young journalists with their coverage of an imploding presidency, but they insisted on having at least two sources for anything they wrote.

As a result, they were rarely wrong about anything. They were often impugned by their adversaries in the White House, but they were seldom wrong.

Far fewer sources apparently were required by CNN when it reported — erroneously — that a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was in custody. This was more than 24 hours before the release of the photographs of the suspects by the FBI led to the death of one and the eventual apprehension of the other.

---

---

The audience bears a certain amount of responsibility for this atmosphere.

We live in a culture that not only desires but expects instant gratification. Nothing demands discipline anymore. We have hundreds of TV stations from which to choose — and the ability to record multiple programs for viewing at our convenience. We have numerous options for quick, filling (and mostly absent any nutritional value) food to eat and pills to take to fall asleep at night.

If we experience pain, we can get pain relievers over the counter that promise instant relief. Landline phones are disappearing; everyone has his or her own personal phone now — along with his or her personal water bottle in case of a sudden attack of thirst.

And people in the 21st century know that they can go to multiple web sites — in addition to the traditional stand–bys, the broadcast and print media — for news and information. There is no shortage of sources, and each one seems eager to go with any story it has — even if that story is wrong.

Being first is what counts with the audience.

And the pressure to be first guides the often ill–advised actions of media outlets.

Being right is what should matter to all journalists

When I was a journalism student — and then a young journalist — I knew I was up against competition for the readers' time and attention. Competition is part of the business, just like it is part of any other business. And scooping the competition is definitely not a new concept. If I could scoop my competition, that was great. But my professors and editors insisted on accuracy.

I believed in it then, and I still believe in it. Double checking isn't just a good idea for insurance companies eager to attract customers with discounts, you know. It's a good idea for journalists, too, and it used to be underscored with the words Libel Manual emblazoned on the cover of the AP Stylebook — the journalist's bible.

Now, libel is treated almost like an afterthought by the AP — but I know it isn't. It couldn't be. Libel is still a significant portion of media law, and any media outlet that acts as if it isn't is playing with fire. At the very least, it is tempting fate.

E.J. Dionne laments, in the Washington Post, this rush to judgment in the media. And that judgment usually supports whatever the journalist is predisposed to believe.

There is every bit as much partisan rushing to judgment on the left as there is on the right.

In Boston, Dionne observes, "there was an immediate divide between those who were sure the attack was a form of Islamic terrorism and those just as convinced that it was organized by domestic, right–wing extremists. ... [A]bsolutely no one imagined what turned out to be the case: that two young immigrants with Chechen backgrounds would be held responsible for unleashing the violence."

This is not what I believe journalism is about. Journalists report the news. They are not cheerleaders for one side or the other. They report the facts, even if the facts contradict their personal beliefs, and allow the readers to reach their own conclusions.

OK, a few journalists are cheerleaders. They write opinion columns — and, in most cases, those columns are labeled as opinion.

If it isn't clear whether an article in a newspaper is a news report or an opinion column, I would not recommend that you continue reading that publication.

---

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

---

There was a time when I would recommend to people that they turn to CNN for reliable news coverage.

I would have made that recommendation as recently as four years ago, when CNN was the only news outlet (as far as I know) that didn't jump to conclusions based on the observations of unauthorized personnel — and waited until someone who was authorized to do so confirmed that Michael Jackson had died.

That decision prevented CNN from being first; CNN, however, retained its integrity.

But, as the attached clips so clearly show, CNN yielded to the dark side in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings and joined (nay, led) the rush to judgment. There were lesser news outlets that did what CNN should have been doing, what CNN used to do — what all media outlets should have done — the responsible thing.

Next time, undoubtedly, it will be someone else who does the right thing. And, rest assured, there will be a next time.

Responsible journalists do not report rumor, innuendo and hearsay. They do not take their lead from "canine dogs" barking in the darkness or what other outlets may be doing.

They do their job. They report the news.

When Jon Stewart makes you the recipient of his razor–sharp witticisms twice in a week's time, your credibility is pretty much shot.

The Task at Hand

---

"After 10 days off the grid on vacation in Hawaii, President Obama returned to Washington on Tuesday morning and is scheduled to dive right into the prime order of business for 2012: his re–election effort."

David Nakamura
Washington Post

---

In a matter of hours, Iowa Republicans will hold their caucuses.

The mettle of the candidates' campaign organizations will be put to the test as they attempt to mobilize their people and get them out to their caucus locations, whatever they may be — churches, schools, libraries, living rooms — and make sure that all the people who are slated to give speeches on their behalf are accounted for and ready to go.

That's the task at hand. Fortunately, the weather is pretty decent — by Iowa standards — so that should help.

It's the first official movement in the grueling process of choosing a candidate to run for president, but it's a grind that usually only one party must face. Typically, one of the two parties has an incumbent — or the incumbent's vice president — running, and that incumbent (or his surrogate) ordinarily does not have a challenger.

That's not always true. Sometimes, incumbents have drawn significant opposition, and it is possible that neither party's nominee In 2008, no incumbent president was in the race, and no incumbent vice president was running. Consequently, both nominations were up for grabs.

But that is quite rare. Usually, all the fun is on one side. This year, all the fun is on the Republican side.

And, typically, the incumbent, the one who faces no challenge or (pardon the expression) token opposition within his own party, sits back and lets the other party have the attention. But one should never underestimate Barack Obama's narcissistic craving for the spotlight.

David Nakamura of the Washington Post reports that, although "White House aides insist that the president is focused on 'task at hand,' " the president will address his supporters in Iowa tonight via the internet.

His remarks are scheduled for the middle of the evening, during the — wait for it — Democratic caucuses.

Huh? Democratic caucuses? Really? Who's challenging Obama for the Iowa delegates? Uncommitted?

The "task at hand," since the president constantly needs to be reminded of it, is putting this country back to work. There is still much work to be done in that regard. It's work Obama was elected to do but has mostly ignored since taking office — until winning votes again became important to him.

Neither Obama nor his supporters should be deceived by the 8.6% unemployment rate the Department of Labor reported last month. It will be a couple of months before the unemployment rate tells us whether that decline in joblessness was as permanent as anything is anymore or merely the seasonal hiring that is typical of the Christmas season.

It's good that the president is back in Washington. That's where this heavy lifting needs to be done.

Not on the internet chatting with folks in a nonexistent caucus in Iowa.

There Must Be a Better Way

To this point, I have avoided jumping in to the Shirley Sherrod business.

But an issue has been raised that I simply must address.

Let me start by saying that, for 30 years, ever since its debut when I was a journalism student at the University of Arkansas, I have admired what Ted Turner wanted to do and sought to do when he created Cable News Network.

It isn't an easy task, providing people with up–to–the–second information about news as it develops, but CNN has done an admirable job of trying to tell people about the events that have shaped their world and altered their lives in the last three decades.

I realize that CNN has many competitors today — not just on cable but on the internet as well — and the pressure to be the first to report something is intense. CNN, it seems to me, has made a valiant effort to maintain high journalistic standards, and that isn't always an easy thing to do.

Sometimes CNN has had to sacrifice speed for accuracy, which is a difficult but often necessary choice to make.

A year ago, in fact, in the media frenzy surrounding Michael Jackson's death, nearly every cable and online media outlet — except for CNN — reported by mid–afternoon that Jackson had died. Why didn't CNN go ahead and report what we know now to be true? Because CNN, unlike all the other outlets, was waiting for someone in authority at the hospital to confirm the news.

All the other outlets were going with the opinions of people who may have been in a position to observe Jackson or to report an absence of vital signs — like, for example, the emergency response folks who responded to the 9–1–1 call and took Jackson to the hospital — but they did not have the legal authority to pronounce someone dead.

Once CNN had that confirmation, it joined the chorus.

As the Shirley Sherrod saga has unfolded in recent days, though, it seems that CNN — which recently announced that it was scrapping the Associated Press as a content provider, in part as a money–saving strategy and in part because of CNN's desire to establish its own brand in the newsgathering business — has yielded to the pressure, and the standards I always admired in CNN seem to have taken a back seat to expediency and scapegoating.

Yesterday, as Alana Goodman of the Business & Media Institute writes, CNN's Kyra Phillips and John Roberts ranted about those who "blog anonymously" and use that anonymity to write things that, to put it mildly, probably would be considered libelous in what used to be called the "Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual."

The implication was that anonymity on the internet makes it possible for people to be smeared and their lives and careers to be destroyed — even though it was clear to everyone long before Phillips and Roberts engaged in their witch hunt (which glossed over the fact that the credible and responsible journalists, including those at CNN, took the blogger's word at face value, as did the administration) that the blogger in this case was not anonymous at all.

There are many legitimate issues that have been raised by this unpleasant chapter, but internet anonymity is not one of them.

I do believe that internet anonymity is an issue that needs to be addressed — and probably will be addressed as communications law evolves, through legislation and court rulings, to include technology that didn't exist when the original laws were written — but not in the context of this particular issue.

Managing editors in newsrooms all over the country need to talk to their reporters and editors about journalistic standards, double–checking the facts, things like that. Barack Obama — or someone authorized to speak for him — needs to talk to his administrators about how to handle allegations against subordinates, especially in this highly charged, polarized atmosphere.

And we all need to talk about scapegoating, to revisit constitutional guarantees that a person is entitled to know the charge(s) against him/her and to face his/her accuser(s). A person who is charged with a crime that might cost him/her liberty and possibly life is entitled to a lot of things that Sherrod apparently was denied, by both the media and her employer.

In the context of this matter, internet anonymity raises entirely separate issues — primarily freedom of speech, which, for a legitimate journalist, means freedom of the press.

Freedom of the press, I was told in journalism school, was guaranteed to those who owned a printing press. In the 21st century, I suppose that could be amended to freedom of the computer, which really has been around since the late 20th century. And, like the belief that access to just about everything on the internet should be free — once one has paid the monthly admission price, in the form of an internet account — freedom of the computer is considered a given.

If you have a computer, so the thinking goes, you are free to post what you want. There are consequences, it is believed, that await those who carelessly post revealing pictures or objectionable comments. Nothing, after all, is truly anonymous on the internet — not with all the ways there are to track a person's electronic fingerprints.

In spite of their obvious applications in more practical fields, like business and banking, computers have long been billed as the best all–purpose tool for self–expression, whether one is a writer, an artist, a photographer, a filmmaker, a musician, whatever.

And a lot of people use blogs to share what they write or sing or sculpt or paint or photograph with others.

It truly has been freeing for the creatively inclined — but, having said that, I feel compelled to note that, with some of the things that are being posted, I have been sure for quite awhile that it was only a matter of time before something would have to be done to demand accountability and prevent bloggers from posting irresponsible rumors and gossip.

Such restrictions have existed in print journalism for a long time, and they have evolved as the term "media" expanded to include radio and television — and will have to expand further to include the same issues as they apply to the internet.

The sense of anonymity that many bloggers use as a shield behind which they can say what they please — as well as the mistaken belief that the concept of "fair comment" will defend them against all lawsuits (it won't) — must be addressed at some point. I believe these and other issues will — and should — be addressed.

But the Sherrod case does not provide the appropriate stage for that discussion. For Phillips and Roberts to speak of internet anonymity in connection with this matter whitewashes their own culpability, as well as that of CNN, the other all–news networks and the administration.

The Quest for the Bottom Line

I guess it is no secret that newspapers are struggling financially these days.

The reasons are complex, but one reason seems clear to me. As I wrote a couple of months ago, most newspapers failed to recognize the internet for the threat it posed back in the days when the internet was still emerging and was not yet a fixture in American homes.

In fact, I recall a day back in the 1990s. Newspapers still seemed to be healthy, although circulation, as always, was down. I never worked in advertising, either classified or display, so I don't know if a downward trend was noticeable in that department. As far as I knew at the time, there was no warning sign that the horizon was not sunny for newspapers.

I was teaching journalism to undergraduates, and one of my students came to me with a question that seems positively prophetic in hindsight. He wanted to know what I thought would happen to newspapers in the digital age (which hadn't even begun to blossom yet).

I'm almost ashamed to admit now that my answer must have revealed a certain naivete on my part. It certainly must have shown a lack of vision.

Sometimes I wonder if that young man remembers that exchange. With some newspapers going under and others slashing their staffs dramatically to remain afloat a little while longer, I can't see how he wouldn't think back on it. If he does, I wish I could assure him that I'm not as naive now as I must seem when I am seen in one's rearview mirror.

Admittedly, peering into the future is not an easy thing for anyone to do. That doesn't prevent many people from trying to anticipate future events, anyway, though, and, by the time this student asked me that particular question, I had heard plenty of gloom–and–doom predictions from others that never came to pass.

And my inclination at that time was to dismiss the idea that the existence of newspapers was, in any way, threatened. So I told my student that I believed newspapers and the internet would find a way to co–exist.

I still believe that will happen eventually, but many newspapers have already paid the price for management's failings and many more almost certainly will in the next few years. The number of newspapers that will survive these turbulent times and establish a mutually profitable relationship with the internet will be far smaller than I — or, I dare say, anyone else — ever dreamed.

Let me ask you a personal question here.

At one time or another, everyone loses something or temporarily misplaces something. On those occasions, have you ever found yourself searching the same locations over and over?

You might search new locations as well, but did you gravitate back to the same locations, too?

Perhaps you did that because you genuinely forgot that you searched a location before (and, if that is the case, you may have a different set of issues to resolve).

But perhaps you did that because you just knew that what you were looking for had to be in that location, and each time you searched it, you did so believing you had overlooked something that was obvious.

I'm getting the impression that newspaper management operates by the latter approach. I make specific reference to the New York Times.

And it sort of proves what Albert Einstein said. He said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Well, the Times is about to do something that it tried to do before, but it didn't work.

MarketWatch reports that the Times will start charging for online content in January.

Doug Mataconis mirrors my own thoughts at Outside the Beltway when he points out that the Times tried something like this a few years ago and failed.

The Times introduced something it called Times Select, in which users were charged for access to Times content, but it was dropped after awhile. I've never been privy to Times business strategy sessions, but I assumed that they discovered what I predicted at the time:

With all the free sources for news and information on the internet, most non–New Yorkers simply weren't interested in paying to read the Times four or five years ago. I suspect that even fewer will be willing to do so in today's economy.

Consequently, I predict that this pay–per–view strategy also will fail.

I understand the impatience of Times management to try to recoup its losses. I understand how frustrating it must be for the Times' publishers — not to mention its writers and editors — to think of all those people out there in Internetland who read their articles for free.

But the time to get in on the ground floor of the internet — and collect some of that seemingly endlessly easy money that was circulating in the so–called "dot–com" period — was 14 or 15 years ago. That ship has sailed. Some would say it sank.

Anyway, this is a different era. Newspapers — well, not all of them, but some of them — still can prosper in the digital age. But they're going to have to dedicate themselves to long–term goals. There are no get–rich–quick scenarios for newspapers, even if they resolve their business model issues — which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been in the business for awhile.

After all, unless a publisher already has a fortune that was made elsewhere, he can't reasonably expect to make his fortune from newspaper ownership. There are too many expenses and too little revenue from a product that typically sells for 25 cents or 50 cents an issue.

But the next best thing, it seems to me, is to make the publication indispensable — and achieving that may require some publishers and their publications to take even more of a loss for awhile than they've had to absorb recently.

If they are wise, they will look at it as an investment in the future.

There is no shortage these days of online news organizations that are willing to sacrifice everything else, including accuracy, to be the first to report something. Often, it turns out that what is reported is little more than gossip and speculation, and much of the time, it is wrong, but it is followed — often, at best — by a terse article acknowledging an error.

Some of these organizations ignore their mistakes entirely — in those cases, I guess it goes without saying that the errors go without saying. Sometimes, the readers are never told that they were given false information. The organizations don't acknowledge their own complicity in its perpetuation — and, if their deception is revealed, it is hard to regain the readers' trust.

Trust. Now, that is what I'm talking about.

In these days of be first even if you're wrong journalism, I believe the news organizations that build reputations on providing reliable information, even if it isn't first, will make themselves indispensable.

And it is when a news organization is seen as indispensable that its users will pay to continue receiving it.

Generations ago, the New York Times was known as the "newspaper of record." If you saw it in the New York Times, you knew it was true.

I don't live in New York. I read the Times online. I don't know if it still advertises itself as the newspaper of record, but, if it does, that is just one more mistake the modern Times makes. I often see errors in the Times — some are small, some are not so small. It may have a cracker–jack copy desk, but if the Times calls itself the newspaper of record, it is living on its past glories — while it is being pigeonholed by modern readers as little more than a mouthpiece for leftist columnists.

Building a reputation for reliability takes time, and it takes the efforts of talented copy editors to make it happen. I hear people complain all the time about the declining quality of print journalism, yet newspaper management continues to respond to tough economies in a time–honored way — cut the copy desk first.

These days, it is fashionable to talk of how efficient online journalism can be, allowing the reporter in the field to write his/her article on the spot and post it directly to the internet.

And it certainly would be an efficient method — if writers performed all the functions of the copy desk (and copy editors do a lot more than simply make sure a writer didn't write y–o–u–r when he/she should have written y–o–u–'–r–e).

But most of them don't. Most reporters don't worry about the details.

If the New York Times — and other news organizations, both online and offline — builds a reputation for worrying about the details, I think it will enhance its value to a public that wants to know it can rely on what it is being told.

But it can't be achieved overnight.

News You Can Use

Byron Acohido reports in USA Today that internet scammers — also known as "phishers" — are setting their sights on "Web mail, social networking and online gaming accounts."

I recommend reading the article because there is a lot of useful information, but let me just summarize for you — USA Today's headline urges readers to change their passwords. "[A] recent Sophos survey found 33% of the respondents used just one password online, while 48% used just a few different ones," Acohido writes.

"With possession of your Web mail user name and password, cybercrooks can carry out a matrix of lucrative online capers, made all the easier if you use just one or a handful of the same passwords."

His article includes a rundown on how and why scammers are trying to get the information to access your e–mail account.

Read it. And then routinely change your passwords. I know it can be a pain to try to keep track of them all. But it beats having your identity stolen.

Breaking News

The dire situation facing newspapers in America these days is every bit as severe as the unemployment problem.

In many ways, it is worse, I think, because a free press is so important in a democracy. Without it, I see no way for a free nation to remain free because there is no one to fill the watchdog role that literally keeps an eye on what elected officials do — or do not do.

Newspapers have been tumbling like dominoes in the last year or two, and, regardless of where one stands on the political spectrum, that should be a cause of concern for all of us.

A friend of mine sent me an e–mail this week. He observed that the New York Times Co. has decided not to sell the Boston Globe because its financial prospects had "significantly improved."

My friend concluded that this was a sign that the economy is getting better. From a business perspective, I suppose that isn't an unreasonable conclusion.

Unfortunately, his e–mail arrived in my inbox the same day that reports were circulating that the New York Times plans to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs by the end of the year.

So what is one to make of this?

I've heard many theories about the decline of newspapers. As someone who studied journalism in college and worked for newspapers for many years, I suppose I am naturally drawn to this subject. I have written about it in the past, in part to help me understand what is happening, and I see a certain amount of logic in each point that is raised.

I've heard it said, for example, that newspapers are struggling because the quality of writing has fallen. In turn, that has led to a drop in paid circulation.

There's no doubt in my mind that there is a relationship between writing that is weaker (or perceived to be weaker) than it used to be and decreased demand for the product.

But the thing that newspaper people understand that people outside the industry do not is that a drop in paid circulation is like a symptom of a disease. The disease that is killing daily newspapers is the decline in advertising revenue.

It never has been possible to pay all the expenses involved in running a daily newspaper with the revenue of a product that sells for 25¢ or 50¢ a copy. Even if a newspaper could sell its product at the Sunday rate seven days a week, it wouldn't be possible.

But the income from advertising is a different story. When advertising dollars begin to dry up, that's when the writing is on the wall for a newspaper, no matter how good (or bad) its writing is.

I was reminded of this today when I read the latest installment at a blog called The Arkansas Newspaper War. It is devoted to a topic with which I am familiar — the newspaper war between the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat that raged when I worked for the Gazette in the 1980s.

Today, the blog gives grades to the different departments at the Gazette, and the one in which I worked — news — gets an A+. If any of my former Gazette colleagues read this blog — and I know that at least one does — I'm sure that is a source of pride for them, as it is for me.

But then the author of the blog makes an important observation: "The Gazette ... was both weak and strong. Unfortunately, her weakness was in an area vital to success. If the well of ad dollars dries up, a daily newspaper cannot survive."

As the crisis in the newspaper industry has worsened, I've seen and heard a lot of talk about the rise of citizen journalists and internet news coverage taking their toll on daily newspapers. But, like declining paid circulation, they are only symptoms of a much larger problem for daily newspapers.

The real problem is the loss of advertising revenue. Unless newspapers can find someone with really deep pockets to pick up the slack — and it is worth noting that, in its final years, the Gazette's ownership, the Gannett Co., had pretty deep pockets — they cannot continue to exist.

And that is the kind of news that breaks a journalist's heart.

Ain't No Way to Hide From Pryin' Eyes

Earlier this year, an old friend of mine recommended that I sign up with Facebook. Actually, I have written about my experience, and you're welcome to read about it if you wish.

But I want to write about a different kind of experience I've been having with Facebook.

Some people have asked me about Facebook recently. If you are not familiar with Facebook, you can see limited information on just about everyone who has a Facebook account. To see more detailed information, either you or the other person must extend an invitation to be a friend on Facebook, and the other one must accept it.

You can connect with people in several different ways on Facebook, but the point is, once you have accepted each other as a friend, you then see everything the other person posts — and he/she sees everything that you post.

It's the privilege that comes with membership on Facebook.

It is possible to be friends on Facebook with people you do not know in real life. Once you become a member and you reconnect with genuine friends, Facebook will start telling you of the names of people who are friends on Facebook with people you know. Then it will be up to you whether to invite any of those people to be your friend on Facebook as well.

I assume this happens a lot because I've seen some people who have more than 1,000 friends. In fact, I have been told that there was a time when there was quite a heated competition going on among some members who were trying to accumulate these friends. Apparently, because of such competitions, Facebook established limits on how many friends one could acquire in a specific time frame.

My understanding is that these limits are really quite generous — several hundred, I think, maybe 1,000 in a month or two. I really don't know because it has been a non–issue for me. As I write this, I have 60 friends on Facebook, and only one would truly fall under the heading of "friend of a friend I have never met." I have had invitations from other people I have never met, but I decided not to respond to any more. I want my friends to be actual friends, people who were known to me before Facebook came along.

And they are. Truthfully, though, many of them might as well be strangers. Some I haven't seen since high school or college. One was a good friend in graduate school, but we probably haven't seen each other in more than 15 years.

It's a good way to get caught up with old friends, and, in some cases, it has given me the chance to become better acquainted with some of my friends' children — the next generation, which is coming of age much quicker than I would prefer.

Two are the children from my best friend's second marriage, one of whom is my goddaughter. Another is their half–brother. All three were quite young the last time I saw them, but they quickly accepted my invitation to be friends. Their mother (who has remarried) and my old friend are both my friends on Facebook, too. It is a good way to stay in touch.

However, when any of my friends posts something, I see it. Then I see the responses they receive, which tend to be from people I have never met before — and all the rest of the dialogue that ensues.

And that, essentially, is the experience I am addressing today.

Being a member of Facebook has given me the opportunity to observe all kinds of virtual exchanges. There is a strange, almost prurient fascination in this. Sometimes I sit and watch it play out. It reminds me, in an odd way, of when I was a child, and the older ladies in my world wouldn't do anything at certain times of each weekday because they didn't want to miss their "stories," as they called soap operas.

(This story thing doesn't seem to be generational. A friend of mine told me that she remembers watching soap operas with her mother and her grandmother, and they all called their soaps "my stories." Apparently, they each started doing so independently.

(I grew up in the South and, for awhile, I thought it might be a Southern thing. But many years ago, George Carlin referred to it in a routine on one of his comedy albums. Carlin grew up in New York so I figured it must not be a regional thing.)

I've never really understood why soap opera fans seemed to slip into an inconsolable depression if they missed one installment. I know it was a brand–new episode every single day, but nothing much ever seemed to happen. The most a soap opera fan might miss would be some dialogue.

I remember watching one soap opera while I was home with the flu for a few days. The show was set in a hospital, and one character was about to go in for surgery. Anyway, I got better and resumed my daily routine — and completely forgot about the soap opera for several months, until, for some reason, I found myself at home one afternoon. I switched on that soap opera — and the patient was still being prepped for surgery!

Things happen a lot faster in the Facebook world. It's like a weird parade going by. Sometimes it's like watching a car accident happen. I'm powerless to stop it, but I am compelled to watch it, anyway.

It can be kind of embarrassing. I've seen arguments being typed out on the computer screen between people I have never met. But, by the time the fight breaks out, I feel I know a lot about them. And I didn't want to know most of it.

Some of these posts — personal status updates in the Facebook world — really just seem to be silly. For example, one young man — the son of a friend — is going through the awkward pain of young love. He pines away on lonely nights when he had expected to see his lady fair but, at the last minute, the rendezvous falls through. The lovesick swain act does start to wear a bit thin, especially when I know that, the next day, the object of his affections will cook him a big meal and dote on him to make up for the previous night.

But, while she's cooking his steak, he can triumphantly post a new status update (via his cell phone) proclaiming his conquest.

Sometimes I wonder when the AMA is going to classify young love as a bipolar disorder.

As I pointed out when I wrote about "sexting," you may think that something is deleted because you delete it from your computer. But things are never really deleted in the digital world.

So my advice to my friends on Facebook — or any other social networking site — is simple. Some messages are best delivered in person. It may not be the most comfortable way to do it, but it's better than getting into virtual shouting matches that anyone can see.

If you wouldn't feel comfortable letting your mother see it, don't post it.

The Tip of the Iceberg

As a trained journalist and veteran copy editor, I've been expecting this.

I've been hearing the praises sung for online journalism, for so–called "citizen journalists" who can post their reports directly to their employers' websites from remote locations, no copy editors needed.

Speed is the desired virtue. It is prized over accuracy. The old–fashioned copy desk slows things down. And many online news sites have dramatically reduced — or eliminated altogether — that tedious copy desk that seemed to gum up the works at a morning newspaper when it was late at night and everybody wanted to go home.

Maybe so, but that old–fashioned copy desk tended to be populated by people who had studied libel in school and were trained to double–check facts. Sometimes, they merely saved their employers a little embarrassment. Other times, they saved them considerably more than that.

There was a time when both print publications and broadcast news outlets placed as much emphasis on accuracy as they did speed. But the priorities seemed to change when personal computers were introduced into the mix.

When did news outlets decide that copy desks couldn't help them avoid pitfalls in communications law — and thus were expendable? Has communications law changed because the method of delivery has changed?

I don't know the specifics of this particular case, but I think we're seeing the start of content chaos on the internet.

Noam Cohen of the New York Times reports that Wikipedia "will begin imposing a layer of editorial review on articles about living people" in the coming weeks.

"The change is part of a growing realization on the part of Wikipedia's leaders that as the site grows more influential, they must transform its embrace–the–chaos culture into something more mature and predictable," Cohen writes.

I can't help wondering, though, if this lesson might have more meaning if something of perceived value was on the line. Apparently, Wikipedia's seemingly open policy allowing anyone to edit its articles (a policy that has been limited, Cohen reports) hasn't led to any court challenges of which I am aware.

Instead, Cohen writes, "The new system comes as some recent studies have found Wikipedia is no longer as attractive to first–time or infrequent contributors as it once was."

If this decision is being spearheaded by unfavorable survey results, that suggests to me that no one is suing Wikipedia over anything that has been posted by its "citizen journalists" so far. Whatever has occurred may only be regarded as a mild embarrassment — something akin to a prank.

But that also suggests to me that many allegedly information–oriented websites really are being run by marketers and public relations specialists. That isn't really new in the Fourth Estate, but it seems to have more influence in the digital world. These are people who are driven by profit margins and spin. In their eyes, content is a necessary evil that can be produced by anyone, and accuracy is nice to have — but not essential.

Cohen writes that the shift in editorial policy is a result of Wikipedia's acknowledgement that it has grown and wields greater influence in the world than it did. But copy editors have always known that the value of accuracy has never depended on the size of the audience.

Wikipedia is only the first high–profile battleground.

I believe the battle between communications law and the internet is merely beginning.

You Know Things Are Getting Bad ...

... when retailers expect slower sales during the back–to–school shopping season — and, as a consequence, another dismal holiday shopping season.

But that is what Stephanie Rosenbloom is reporting in the New York Times. Rosenbloom says stock analysts expect same–store sales to drop 3-4%. And the National Retail Federation predicts that the "average family with school–age children" will spend 8% less than last year.

The article points out that much of the savings may be from coupons so not all of the decline is due to fewer transactions in stores. But, thanks to internet sales, that will certainly be part of it. And the decline in business could lead to job cuts in some places.

I don't know if the recession is about to end, but I do know that if American parents aren't sacrificing everything necessary to make sure their children are fashionably dressed for the start of the school year, consumer confidence has taken — and continues to take — quite a beating.

It is, as Rosenbloom observes, "yet another sign that consumers are clinging to every dollar."

The Evolution of News Coverage

I guess you could say that I have some experience in journalism.

I have bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism. I've worked for newspapers and a trade magazine. I've taught reporting and editing to undergrads. I even did some freelance writing for the local paper when I was in high school.

When I was growing up, it seemed to me that newspapers would always be around. But already this year I've seen some newspapers go out of business entirely (e.g., Rocky Mountain News) and others stop printing and go online exclusively (e.g., Seattle Post–Intelligencer). And the ones that are still standing are cutting jobs or hours to try to survive.

In a democracy, it seems to me, there will always be a need for journalists, for people who will cover the news. What is less certain, at this stage, is what form that will take.

The other day, The Editor's Desk blog asked if blogs count as news coverage.

The question was inspired when the author of the blog, Andy Bechtel, did some investigating about allegations of anti–Sarah Palin bias at the New York Times and Los Angeles Times that came up on a segment of "The O'Reilly Factor" — which had been inspired by perceived absence of coverage of David Letterman's remarks about the former vice presidential nominee.

Bechtel reported finding that "each newspaper has covered the Letterman–Palin flap — in blog form, with several posts on several blogs." Thus, Bechtel was prompted to ask his question.

Then he gave his answer. "I think that as journalism expands online and shrinks in print, blogs should be considered a significant piece of a newspaper's coverage plan," Bechtel writes.

I'm inclined to agree. But I guess a lot of things haven't really been clarified yet. A profitable business model for new–age journalism has not emerged yet. Until it does, the future of news coverage will be uncertain.

One thing that does seem to be clear is that blogs are gaining more of a presence with traditional publications. A blog for Time.com, for example, recently asked who will pay for journalism if the journalism business fails. I thought that was a particularly poignant place to ponder that prospect (how's that for alliteration?).

Writing these blogs seems to be a role that is taken on by veteran writers as extensions of their traditional duties at some publications, by young recent college graduates as unique duties at others.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the idea that electronic "citizen journalist/bloggers" can fill the void that is being left by the elimination of daily newspapers, especially those bloggers who will be free to post their writings directly to the publication's website, bypassing the copy desk entirely. That seems to be inviting libel suits and other legal actions aimed at re–defining and re–interpreting communications laws.

But perhaps that is inescapable. Just like the recent transition to digital television, big changes are coming in the news industry. Some news sources — particularly those that provide national and international news — may remain free indefinitely because so many competitors will continue to offer their content at no charge. Those outlets will have to find other sources of revenue.

But, to have access to local news, internet consumers may have to subscribe to an online service. They may not like it, but they may have no choice. If your hometown newspaper is the only news organization providing coverage of your commmunity's school board or city council meetings, charging readers for access to those reports may be the smart thing to do.

That's just a sample of the many issues that will have to be resolved. And the resolutions may be different from one market to the next.

One thing seems clear to me. A democracy will always need a free press, even if that press no longer exists through ink and newsprint.

And even if its online presence is not entirely free.

Accountability

---

"The duty of journalists is to tell the truth. Journalism means you go back to the actual facts, you look at the documents, you discover what the record is, and you report it that way."

Noam Chomsky
(1928- )

---

It is ironic, I think, that Barack Obama will be holding a primetime press conference the day after it was reported that one newspaper in Michigan will fold in July, three more will reduce their publishing operations to three days a week, the Charlotte Observer will cut its staff by nearly 15% and will reduce the pay of the staffers who remain, and other newspapers, most notably the oldest newspaper in Arizona, may go under if a buyer is not found.

Mind you, I think it is a good thing that Obama apparently intends to communicate regularly with the people in this way. It wasn't exactly habitual in the Bush White House. And presidential press conferences are one way to promote the "filter–free news" environment of which Jonathan Martin writes at Politico.com.

But the downside of "filter–free news" is the alarmingly rapid decline of daily newspapers. They have played an important role in maintaining freedom and democracy in America for more than two centuries, and their demise is not to be taken lightly, even among those who like to complain about the press.

There are many angles to this. One is the decline in advertising revenue, which is the lifeblood of a newspaper. In a weak economy, advertisers are always more reluctant to pay for the display ads that keep newspapers in business — and that problem is more pronounced today since this recession is more severe than any that most people who are alive today have ever encountered.

Some have suggested that a drop in the quality of writing has played a role, which is probably true at some newspapers but not necessarily across the board.

Newspaper readership has been declining, which makes advertisers more skittish because they don't believe they will get as much bang for their bucks. Now, that raises an interesting point for me because total readership is somewhat hard to calculate.

There have always been people who read newspapers that were purchased by others, whether you're talking about newspapers that were placed with the other periodicals for general consumption in a library or a newspaper that was discarded in an eatery and picked up by someone else. It's hard for me — or anyone, really — to tell if a lot of readers have been irretrievably lost or if just as many people are reading the paper but fewer are paying for it.

Is total readership declining that dramatically? Or is the real decline in actual sales? That doesn't seem to matter to advertisers. As far as they are concerned, paid circulation is the key — and that has been dropping in many places.

Which leads to a downward spiral.

The assumption these days seems to be that the internet, relying on "citizen journalists" who have no training as journalists and often cannot distinguish — or do not even attempt to distinguish — between news coverage and opinion, can fill the gap.

I'd like to think it is true that ordinary citizens can perform this vital role in the life of a republic. But, as I see it, turning these "citizen journalists" loose to write whatever they please and then post it directly to the internet — with no middleman to check their facts or their spelling or their grammar — is a recipe for chaos.

Not to mention libel.

The fact that it hastens the day when illiteracy reigns concerns me, although I see signs of that on the internet every day. I fully expect, one day soon, to see "news" reports at the online-only publications that are primarily internet slang (i.e., abbreviations like LOL), emoticons and smileys — and whose authors cannot be bothered to capitalize proper nouns or write grammatically correct sentences.

But what concerns me more is this — it begs the question, "Who will be held accountable?" when these citizen journalists don't take the time to dot their I's and cross their T's — or when there is no one to do it for them.

As I say, I'm glad the president will endeavor to hold these press conferences in an attempt to make the actions of his administration transparent.

But who will hold Obama — or his successors — accountable when the Fourth Estate exists no more?

Happy Birthday, Facebook

Every year brings new milestones. Next week, for example, America will observe the 200th anniversary of the birth of the man who is widely believed to be the greatest American president, Abraham Lincoln. As fate would have it, another man whose name lives on — Charles Darwin — was born on the very same day in the very same year.

There will be similar anniversaries all year — and not just the anniversaries of the births of famous people but also the anniversaries of deaths of famous people. In my family, this year will be the 20th anniversary of the death of my grandmother, who lived a long life before dying in her 90s. She wasn't famous, but she was loved by all and is missed by those friends and relatives who are still living.

This year will also bring milestone anniversaries of significant events — one noteworthy example is the anniversary that will come this July, when it will be 40 years since man first walked on the moon.

This is kind of a roundabout way of leading up to what I want to say, which is that today is the fifth anniversary of the founding of Facebook. I have only been a part of Facebook's online community for a few weeks, really, but it has re-connected me with so many old friends with whom I thought I had lost touch forever.

In fact, I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. But I didn't realize at the time — in fact, I didn't realize until today — that Facebook was founded five years ago, on Feb. 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, who was a 19-year-old college student at Harvard. He is 24 now, and he is the CEO and president of Facebook, which, according to Wikipedia, has a net worth of $1.5 billion.

Wikipedia describes Facebook as an "online social network," which is probably a significant part of the reason why I resisted it. As I've said before, I tended to dismiss it as a dating and social site. One of my disappointments has been my failure to find someone to share my life with, and, when I was younger, a dating site would have had tremendous appeal for me. But, by the time Facebook came along, I had pretty much reconciled myself to the idea that I wasn't likely to find someone, and I didn't give it much thought. It seemed like something that was aimed at younger participants.

After being prodded by a friend from my college days, I decided to join last month — and I was pleasantly surprised to discover the diversity of the site. As I say, I've been re-connected with many old friends through Facebook — including a woman who, 40 years ago, used to babysit for my brother and me!

I'm not trying to shill for Facebook. I have a good friend who knows a lot about the ins and outs of computers and the internet. And, based on his experiences and his knowledge, he is suspicious — and perhaps justifiably so — of any site where personal information is gathered — even the most innocent-appearing information. He continues to resist Facebook. I respect his opinion, and I know that privacy is a genuine concern in the virtual world.

But I want to make it clear that membership in Facebook is free. It earns its income from advertising, and, to be honest, I've seen complaints about some of the ads on Facebook expressed by some of my friends who are members there.

So, like everything else in life, Facebook is not without its drawbacks. Users will have to balance any concerns they have with the potential benefits.

By the way, in the spirit of the occasion, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that Facebook shares its birthday with many famous people who were born on this date — Charles Lindbergh (in 1902), golfer Byron Nelson (in 1912), civil rights activist Rosa Parks (in 1913), feminist Betty Friedan (in 1921), former Vice President Dan Quayle (in 1947), former pro football player Lawrence Taylor (in 1959) and Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Carly Patterson (in 1988).

Likewise, there were famous people who died on this date. Singer Karen Carpenter died on Feb. 4, 1983. Another famous musician, Liberace, died on this date in 1987. Former House Speaker Carl Albert died on this date in 2000. And Friedan died of congestive heart failure on her 85th birthday, in 2006.

And, as a lifelong Beatles fan, I feel compelled to observe that it was one year ago today that NASA transmitted "Across the Universe" in the direction of the star Polaris, which is 431 light years from earth. It was done to mark the 40th anniversary of the recording of that song, the 45th anniversary of the Deep Space Network and the 50th anniversary of NASA.

Modern Marvels

Today, I want to express a few personal thoughts about modern technology.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything I should about today's technology. I have friends who do, and when I have questions I turn to them for answers. Sometimes they have them. And sometimes they don't.

Yesterday, I experienced some problems accessing some of the websites that I like to access. And I kept trying to post a comment on a friend's blog, but he never received it. I spoke, via e-mail, with one of my friends who frequently has the answers I need. He told me that web servers have been under a lot of stress lately. Perhaps (and this is my speculation, not his) it has something to do with all the internet traffic that surrounded the inauguration on Tuesday.

Today those problems seem to have cleared up. But it underscores a point I want to make.

Modern technology is not perfect. But it makes so many things possible today that weren't possible even a few years ago.

For example, my father, my brother and I were all devastated when my mother died in a flash flood in 1995. At that time, the internet was still in its infancy — if one were to go back in time and look at what was available then and compare it to what is available today, I think the word "primitive" would come to mind.

And, when the year 2022 rolls around, what is available today will seem just as primitive to people of that time.

My mother never had personal e-mail to use to contact faraway friends. She did have a fax machine, and she used it all the time to send messages to local friends — and she sometimes faxed messages to me. I lived about 200 miles away from her and, at the time, I also had a fax machine.

I know she would have loved e-mail. She liked to compare faxing to "passing notes in school." Today, I suppose the paperless approach has entered the classroom and, instead of passing notes, today's students "text" one another.

But I digress.

As I say, when my mother died, it was a devastating experience for my family. I didn't have an internet connection at the time and, while I did have a computer that I used for some word processing tasks, I still prepared most of my personal documents on an electric typewriter. I couldn't send e-mails to distant friends or search the internet to locate friends with whom I had lost touch. And I certainly couldn't use the internet as an outlet for my grief.

I think I went online the following year, and I found something of an outlet for my lingering grief in chatrooms, conversing with strangers. That helped, but it left a residue of grief that never had an outlet — until recently, when I began to explore the possibility of creating a memorial website to my mother.

I found a host that provides free webspace for such a memorial. It allows me to post pictures and write my thoughts. I can share the link with friends and family members, and it gives them a place to go to see my mother's pictures and reflect on their own memories of how she influenced their lives. They can sign a guestbook. They can even contribute their own pictures.

It was an emotional experience for me, but I know that creating that website has had a cleansing influence on me. And, from the feedback I've received from others, it has had the same influence on them. One of my dear friends, Liebe, looked upon my mother as a mother figure of her own. When she had seen the site, she remarked, "It feels like she just died yesterday." And she said she was glad I had done it because she's been thinking of doing something similar in memory of her father, who died last summer.

That's a way that the internet helps people — beyond giving them a convenient place to shop or look for jobs or a place to live (or, in its less admirable mode, as a provider of pornography).

Another recent discovery is the Facebook website. An old friend of mine recommended it to me by e-mail, so I signed up for it and was amazed at how many people saw my name and contacted me. It has re-connected me with many old friends in just a few days. I had heard of Facebook before, but I tended to dismiss it as a social and dating site. I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that it is much more than that.

I'm not a particularly religious person, but I have to say that I feel richly blessed to have these friends back in my life. And it is something that probably never would have been possible if not for the internet.

When my father (who is 79 now) first decided to go online a dozen years ago, I told him that the internet's websites were like a bookstore. You will find shelves and shelves of books in a bookstore, I told him, and, although much of it is not worth your time or money, there are a few nuggets that are worth finding if you look hard enough.

My recent experiences confirm that I was right.

Comings and Goings From The Campaign Trail

The Iowa caucuses are two weeks away and ...

* Tom Tancredo dropped out of the Republican race today.

The congressman from Colorado was a longshot from the beginning, much like Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who dropped out of the race a couple of months ago.

Tancredo credited himself with making illegal immigration a key element of the debate and said he was supporting Mitt Romney. With the latest polls showing Tancredo getting less than 1% of Republicans' support, one has to wonder how much his endorsement is worth.

But, as Romney falls farther behind Mike Huckabee among Iowa Republicans, I'm sure he welcomes any support he can get.

* An interesting side note ...

Historically speaking, it's not too surprising that Tancredo never caught on with the voting public. Although they've had other opportunities (such as Kerry, Gore, Dole, Mondale, Humphrey, etc.), Americans haven't elected a president whose surname ended in a vowel (unless you count the y at the end of Kennedy's name) since Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Before that? You'd have to either go back to 1900, when William McKinley was re-elected, or go back even farther to 1852, when Franklin Pierce was elected.

I guess that doesn't bode too well for Messrs. Giuliani, Huckabee and Obama. Or Romney -- if you count the y at the end of his name!

And no one with a surname exceeding two syllables has been elected president since Kennedy in 1960. But multi-syllable surnames have been a little more common in the Oval Office than surnames ending in vowels. Before Kennedy, Eisenhower was elected to two terms. Franklin Roosevelt was elected four times, and Theodore Roosevelt was elected once.

Before that, McKinley was elected twice, Benjamin Harrison was elected once, James Buchanan was elected once and William Henry Harrison had the shortest administration -- one month -- after falling ill on Inaugural Day and dying a month later.

And, of course, the very first president, George Washington, had more than two syllables in his surname. And so did another president whose face adorns Mount Rushmore -- Thomas Jefferson.

In fact, three of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore had surnames with more than two syllables. The exception? Abraham Lincoln.

* According to the Associated Press' David Espo, Ron Paul, who is virtually the last "longshot" remaining on the Republican side, is shaping up to be the Republicans' "spoiler."

Oh, that's right. Duncan Hunter is still in the race, isn't he?

* Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani returned to the campaign trail today after he was released from a St. Louis hospital following an overnight stay for "flu-like symptoms."

Giuliani, who was treated for prostate cancer in 2000, returned to New York after receiving a "clean bill of health" in St. Louis.

* Former Democratic congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia has decided to enter the presidential race as a Green Party candidate.

McKinney says the Green Party is "my new political home."

* A good friend of mine passes along a web address that will provide you with obscure information about methods used in the nominating processes in each state.

It's called The Green Papers.

Thanks, Doug.