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AP’s New ‘Accountability Journalism’ Is a Sham
Amidst charges of bias, the AP decides to put even more opinion in its articles.
Second, Fournier says that accountability journalism means that reporters should commit politicians to the truth. He talks about exposing lies, spin, and distortion. But let’s face it: absolute, out-and-out lies are a rarity. Politics is mostly about putting the best spin on statements to maximize the support of supporters, and minimize opposition among those normally opposed. Just about any statement from a politician can be dissected for spin and distortion, so just about any statement can be condemned for not being the truth. That creates a lot of competition for reporters trying to hold politicians accountable.
Third, Fournier believes accountability journalism is about making broad use of sources to identify government failures and where “the truth” is distorted or hidden. This is less of a principle than a tactic, and one that adds little to the notion of accountability. Since sources are often partisan themselves, we can expect each to provide opposite accounts as to whether politicians’ programs are working and the truth is being told.
So, we’re zero for three so far — three concepts that purportedly are about holding politicians accountable, but really do not and cannot.
Unfortunately, the fourth and final cornerstone is no better than the others — accountability journalism means reporters writing with authority. It is about reporters not being afraid to clearly state who is right and who is wrong. That is, in their own opinion.
Accordingly, we are back to where we started. Accountability journalism is about holding politicians accountable to the personal conclusions of reporters. It is about reporters getting the opportunity to call it as they see it, liberated from the need for equal treatment of all sides, weasel words, and even the pressure to accept politicians’ statements at face value.
Now, it’s one thing if individual newspapers suddenly decided that their reporters could express their opinions. After all, with the Internet, readers can now find a myriad of sites that more closely express their worldviews.
But it’s quite another thing for AP articles to take positions. It is rapidly becoming a monopoly source for the top national and international stories. It is a pooled reporting operation whose membership consists of virtually all the major papers, and has 3,000 of its own journalists and 243 bureaus in 97 countries. As newsrooms shrink, papers are outsourcing more and more of their national and international news to the Associated Press.
Should accountability journalism take hold at the AP, and their reporters provide their own views in their articles, one question remains. Who will be held accountable when we receive only one version of the nation’s top stories, and it is not much more than the opinion of an individual reporter?
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Steve Boriss teaches the class "The Future of News" at Washington University in St. Louis, blogs at at TheFutureofNews.com, and offers services through The Future of News, Inc. to help news organizations, corporations, and agencies succeed in the emerging news environment.
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19 Comments
1. RE:I don’t see this as a remarkable significant change over what AP and much of the media has been doing for some time now. The media jettisoned objectivity (and their credibility along with it) some time ago. Why don’t we just admit that the Left has successfully hijacked the major media outlets> We can also claim that the mainstream media has been exposed as biased advocacy and activism operations. Their divorce from integrity happened long, long ago.
Really, this is beating a dead horse. The AP is beyond salvation. It’s time to move on.
Jul 25, 2008 - 4:46 am 2. TomJW:They changed, are they no longer the ‘Associated with Terrorists Press’?
Jul 25, 2008 - 5:10 am 3. TomP:I cancelled my subscription to the local paper. I won’t pay for the garbage that AP and other newswires pass off as honest reporting.
Jul 25, 2008 - 5:57 am 4. Evil Pundit:Perhaps there is a positive side to this.
The articles have always been biased, but now the bias will be more obvious. This in turn may make more people aware that they are being fed propaganda, not news — and hopefully lead to a further decline in MSM credibility.
Jul 25, 2008 - 8:21 am 5. The Wizard:AP, along with the other MSM, have walked away from Journalistic integrity and unbaised objectivity. The coverage of Obama’s Messiah Will Save The World tour is a prime example. It appears reporters today confuse journalism with blogs. Perhaps that is why MSM newspapers, which are biased to the liberal left, continue to lose money, readership and credibility.
Jul 25, 2008 - 8:22 am 6. Augean Stables » Is New AP Style Good For Journalism?:[...] Boriss, at Pajamas Media, does not like what he sees. In an essay about accountability journalism that Fournier wrote last [...]
Jul 25, 2008 - 9:09 am 7. ancientart:It seems to me too that the appointment of Fournier as head of the AP Washington bureau is an indication that AP is casting off the last vestiges of objective news reporting. Readers here might be interested in my column in today’s Aberdeen American News, “What’s black and white and yellow all over?”
http://www.aberdeennews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080725/OPINION02/807250360/-1/OPINION
Jul 25, 2008 - 1:34 pm 8. anonymous:What is happening to Greenland families:
Jul 25, 2008 - 4:13 pm 9. DonK:http://sioe.wordpress.com/
I left the AP in the mid-1990s after more than a decade and a half (lifestyle reasons). The wire service of today is nothing like the one I took pride in working for. The AP began to change in the mid-1990s, when many of the older hands began leaving for other jobs as the Internet began opening up opportunities. It started to fall off the cliff after Tom Curley, formerly of USA Today, took over as publisher.
The AP is no longer interested in telling readers/listeners merely what happened — its purpose in life for more than a century. Now, like many other media, it wants to tell readers what to think as well. However, like most mainstream media, the editorial staff is tilted well to the left, meaning that, whether consciously or unconsciously, more and more stories are politically biased. This would be anathema to me and the people I worked with; it seems to be the goal of the “new” AP.
I still have friends there (at least until the AP can find a way to get rid of them to save money; it’s trying to run out the older staffers and replace them with cheaper, less experienced people). My heart grieves for them — and for the readers who think they’re getting unbiased coverage when they are emphatically not.
Jul 25, 2008 - 7:46 pm 10. John Moore:This is really nothing than another ideology to allow journalists to do what they’ve been doing for a few decades. They now constitute a self-serving elite and this gives them the excuse to use their opinions openly in the news pages. In a way, it may be better, because it makes the biases of the reporters more obvious.
In 2004, when I was involved in the veterans movement against Kerry, I found how how biased the media really was. And to my surprise, in communications with journalistic opinion makers, I discovered that they had not problem with that. The term “citizen journalism” is another misnomer they use – it means journalists user their positions to “improve society” – i.e. propagandize for their causes.
Like so many institutions in America, journalism has been corrupted by a combination of elitist attitudes and left-wing ideologues.
We really need a system more like England’s. Tabloids on all sides, with the biases up front and part of the brand.
In a way, the tabloid parts of Fox News and CNN Headline now operate that way.
Jul 25, 2008 - 9:24 pm 11. ACLU Hates Boy Scouts, Love Hypocrisy : Stop The ACLU:[...] is speculation on my part. Instead of speculation we’ll call it Accountability journalism, like the AP, that way the ACLU can be held accountable to [...]
Jul 26, 2008 - 5:52 pm 12. If partisanship doesn’t kill the AP, it will just make them stronger « The Future of News:[...] make them stronger 7/27/08 Posted by Steve Boriss in AP. trackback My most recent article on PajamasMedia is a cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for — you just might get it. For all [...]
Jul 27, 2008 - 3:46 pm 13. Advocacy Journalism :: New MediaTheory:[...] others in positions of power accountable to what the journalist ‘knows to be true’. Here is Stoss’ summation. Accountability journalism is about holding politicians accountable to [...]
Jul 27, 2008 - 11:38 pm 14. Bugs:DonK: In my earlier years as a writer, I thought filing stories with the AP from remote parts of the world sounded pretty romantic. Now it seems a bit sleazy. I know I’ve changed since then; guess the AP has, too.
Jul 28, 2008 - 9:26 am 15. bill:http://news.iafrica.com/worldnews/1047240.htm
where’s the good old media?
Jul 29, 2008 - 4:10 am 16. BizzyBlog » Things I’d Like to Post About Today ….. (073008, Morning):[...] fully implements the sham known as accountability journalism. Steve Boriss’s subheadline at his Pajamas Media’s op-ed: “Amidst charges of bias, the AP decides to put even more opinion in its [...]
Jul 30, 2008 - 6:06 am 17. BizzyBlog » Speaking of AP: Looking at the Subscriber Mini-Revolt:[...] read about the wire service’s news brainstorm, “Accountability Journalism,” at this Pajamas Media column by Steve Boriss (”AP’s New ‘Accountability Journalism’ Is a Sham”). Yikes; you [...]
Aug 2, 2008 - 8:36 am 18. deguello:Excrement wrapped in fancy gift paper, is still excrement.Accountable to whom? Move on .Org? The left always
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:54 am 19. deguello:Accountable to whom? Move On.Org?
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:55 am