The Mind of A Journalist

Last week in class, we got to listen to Don Meyers of the Salt Lake Tribune talk about the Mind of a Journalist. We learned more about the coal mine collapse in South Central Utah a few years and the fun of a press conference with the now-AWOL Bob Murray.

I never would have guessed that there were still mining towns where the mine owners still ran things and the miners and families were under their thumb. But the town Mr. Meyers described sounded like the town out of October Sky (I'm sure many of you have seen the Jake Gyllenhaal movie) or The Price Of Coal (a terribly sad play Box Elder High wrote for their one-act at State 4A Drama competition my junior year which did little more than depress its audience, fill the room with the smell of Kerosene, and provide inside joke fodder for my friends and I). I didn't think what Mr. Meyers described "could really happen here" (as Elphaba sings in "Bad" from Wicked).

The journalists down there, including Don Meyers, eventually found out that Bob Murray, the mine owner, basically ran the town, had in fact been lying to the press at what is possibly the most bizarre press conference ever, as they suspected, and had basically threatened the families of the trapped miners with a pension cut or erasure if they talked to the press.

That's not cool. That is just plain not cool.

People died in search of miners who were probably already dead because of Mr. Murray. He has disappeared from the media since.

In a way, this doesn't surprise me, because, hey, would YOU stick around after something like that? But, on the other hand, how has the media NOT found Bob Murray? This guy should have been found by now and been subjected to a crucifixion of his reputation--it has been done to men for lesser offences than his. Ok, that actually didn't come out like I wanted it to--when I say "should have" I mean in other such cases, at this relative point in time, it would already have happened. But then, maybe it's a good thing for Utah's mining industry that "Crazy Uncle Bob" has disappeared. They were calling for criminal action because he lied to federal authorities, saying that an earthquake caused the collapse rather than the company's own less-than-safe mining practices http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/us/09mine.html?_r=1&ref=robert_e_murray.

But I honestly never expected that this sort of thing--a massive coverup/PR disaster--could happen here. Maybe it's because I'm on the younger side and fairly optimistic. But the thing about journalism is that we're supposed to have an internal bullcrap detector because we are paid to call bullcrap on people when it needs to be called. This is a problem because I am naturally inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I'll gain more experience as time goes by. Part of the issue is the fact that I worked for the feature section all of my time at the Standard-Examiner, so writing hard news is, well, new and hard.

But it helps that I absolutely believe in calling bullcrap when it should be called. There was a situation when the Standard didn't call bullcrap on Roy City police and prosecution after no evidence was found to justify the hasty arrest and subsequent trial of my high school drama teacher. I was so mad--half of Roy doesn't know the truth!! He was innocent!

I don't want that to happen to people if I can help it; for them to be innocent with nobody knowing, because a newspaper that should have said something said nothing.

Another Brick in The Wall

Another Brick in The Wall

I like the fact that, as a journalist, my first loyalty is to the citizen. I intend to write with this principle always before me and see myself as a seeker of truth.

Call me an idealist, but I like the idea of a "wall" between the journalists and the guys in marketing.

Back at the Standard-Examiner, we were on separate floors. At first, I thought "Why do that when so many people like the idea of one-levelers these days?" Now I realize that this separation is as it should be. We never had any problems with advertisers at the Standard-Examiner, so I never thought of all the problems that could arise, the possible conflicts between business interests and journalists' ethics.

Now, to go over the requirements discussed in class:

1. The owner must be committed to the citizen first. I would hope I could work for someone like this, that my boss was an ethical sort of person who's not just in it for the money--such people really scare me. Besides, if you put your audience first, your product will be better quality and sell well, so you needn't rely as much on advertising revenue.

2. Hire business managers who also put citizens first. This seems tricky, but it can be done. My father did it when he ran his radio station. He organized the news and weather casts, the sportscasting and commentary, the program of what oldies songs KSOS would play. He also ran the financial side, negotiating with advertisers, writing and recording the radio commercials, and handling the accounting and other financial procedures. He did so ethically, never putting his own interests above those of listeners. It is therefore possible to find good, ethical business managers.

3.Set and communicate clear standards with the company. This goes for the journalists having set clear standards for the business manager to follow, but it can also be applied to the company you sell advertising to. Let them know up front that they have no influence on your integrity. If you explain to them that their product will sell better if they buy advertising in a paper the public knows to be credible, they will understand. If they pull funding because you caught them doing something bad, then the public will still buy your newspaper because they'll want to read about it!

4.Journalists have final say over the news. Yes! This is a newspaper (or newscast), not a business paper (or cast)! Journalists, the people who write the news, should have a final say over its content, and the businesspeople need to realize that we won't make money anyway if the product sucks or the public knows they can't trust us.

5.Communicate clear standards to the public. It's nice to know what you can expect from people, especially in these uncertain, and as a citizen who reads newspapers I would like to know what I may reasonably expect. I liked how, in Citizen Kane, which I watched as a part of this class and fell completely in love with, Kane writes a declaration of Principles, which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oav-tDznRq0

So those are my thoughts on the balance between business and journalism--also I would like to point out that this same post is on Michelle Paulsen's blog because she is my roomie and I somehow posted it to hers first--Weird sauce!