Holier-than-thou journalism

Jim Romenesko's superlative Media News blog has long been one of the first sites I visit every morning. It's interesting not only for the stories it links to but also as a measure of what's considered important in the US media. Judging by the number of stories written and the number of letters which make it to Romenesko's lively letters page, media ethics is right at the top of the list.

Recently, much of the debate has centred on the St Petersburg Times buying naming rights to a sports stadium in Tampa. There's an obvious conflict of interest there: any damaging news report about the stadium could damage the newspaper itself, both financially and by association.

Such conflicts don't really bother me. For one thing, I'm sure the rival Tampa Tribune is more than capable of digging dirt on the new St Pete Times Forum; for another, we've long since grown used to the fact that media outlets have business interests. You're not going to see an ABC special on dismal working conditions at Disney World, or a New York Post exposé of dodgy accounting at News Corporation. (Hell, you're unlikely to see the New York Post write the Disney story either, if allegations about cosiness between Messrs Eisner and Murdoch are true.)

But I never object to serious-minded US journalists discussing questions of media ethics: its something I'm sure the UK media world could benefit from. At least, I never objected until today, when I saw a headline on Romenekso's site reading "Critic: TV reporter showed awful judgment by delivering eulogy". It linked to an LA Times story by Howard Rosenberg titled "A Journalist Breaks the Golden Rule".

I'm sure that journalists break the Golden Rule the whole time, but if anybody was doing unto others as they themselves would not like to be done to, it was Howard Rosenberg, and not the subject of the story, Anna Song. Song's big mistake was to deliver a eulogy at the funeral of two girls who were kidnapped and murdered in Oregon City. She was not the only one to do so: many others delivered eulogies as well, including the city police chief. But she was singled out for criticism because, in Rosenberg's words, her eulogy "transformed her into an activist, and would fit nicely into the 'Conflicts of Interest' chapter of any book on journalism ethics." He goes on to explain: "However well meaning, in other words, Song crossed a line, violating a basic tenet of journalism by participating in a story she was supposed to be observing as a reporter, as an outsider."

I cannot for the life of me work out what Rosenberg could have been thinking when he wrote those words. How on earth could a eulogy which even Rosenberg says was "earnest, dignified and moving" have transformed Song into an activist? Rosenberg never deigns to tell us what Song is now an activist for, of course. That minority group of people who are opposed to kidnapping and murder, perhaps? Maybe it was that cultish sect characterised by sadness and sympathy when two sets of parents lose their young daughters.

As for the idea that reporters can and should only report on stories to which they have no personal connection, well, maybe that works if you're a columnist on the LA Times. It doesn't work if you're a beat reporter in a city of 26,200 people. If you know your beat, you know your community, and if you know your community, by definition you're going to be personally connected to many of the stories you're reporting on. If you're not, you're not doing your job.

Rosenberg is himself not exactly clean and above-board, either. He uses a sly rhetorical device in his piece: first he mentions that Song "became Miss American Teen in 1993 and represented her high school as a Portland Rose Festival princess two years later"; a bit further down, he refers to her as "little more than a callow youngster". These pieces of deprecation-posing-as-reportage are designed to make us feel that Song is probably just eye-candy hired by her television station more for her looks than for her journalistic abilities.

I hope that Song and her boss, Mike Rausch, will have the strength to refuse to be the slightest bit intimidated by the LA Times' heavy-handed and misdirected criticism. What Song did was both moral and admirable; what Rosenberg did was slimy and wrong.

Posted by Felix at 11:25 EST