'I've got that going for me ...'

The big news around here today is that the Dalai Lama is in town, part of a five-day visit about compassion. Cool. Free Tibet!, "See Yourself as You Really Are," and all that, but me, I'm celebrating by re-enjoying this classic scene from "Caddyshack" and one of the world's truly great spiritual leaders, Bill Murray. (Thanks to Michelle for sending the clip.)

And the Pulitzer goes to ...

Unlike the Oscars, there's no big buildup to the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, with lists of nominees and debates about the most deserving nominees. Not officially anyway.

Traditionally the prizes are awarded at a New York luncheon in the spring, about a month after the early April announcement of the winners but otherwise with no previous disclosure of which pieces or publications are in the running. For the past couple of decades, though, thanks to leaks from Pulitzer jurors, journalists around the country have had a pretty good idea of what has been nominated. That has allowed the familiar newsroom tableau of reporters and editors huddling around computer screens, hitting refresh on a list of wire stories until official word appears. Among other things, I expect such leaks allowed Michelle's bosses to have champagne at the ready when she won her Pulitzer back in the day.

This year's announcement of winners is tomorrow, but this time the buzz is significantly diminished. As Poynter Online describes in an interesting piece by Roy Harris, who has a new book about the Pulitzers, inside sources on the prizes are all drying up. For example, Editor & Publisher magazine has taken pride over the years in breaking the secret list of nominees, but this year, according to Harris, it has cracked only four of the 14 categories.

Dave Boardman, the Seattle Times editor who has been on the judging and receiving ends of the Pulitzer process, figures prominently in the Poynter story, and it turns out Boardman still harbors much bitterness about a 2002 Times investigation that was nominated for a prize but didn't win. That episode, in fact, is said to figure prominently in the clamming up of jurors.

Harris' piece is a good look inside this process.

Precisely

One of the things I liked best about working at the Los Angeles Times was the paper's thoughtful, thorough, and thoroughly enforced ethics policy. I believe that for all the handwringing we do in this industry about declining readership, competition from the Internet, the waning interest of the public, etc., newspapers often are their own worst enemy. At least, they don't do themselves any favors by appearing to be -- or being! -- biased, unfair, on the take, or even imprecise.

Sadly, not everyone I've worked with, especially outside the Times, has shared that concern. In fact, some of my morning news meeting diatribes on this very blog began as newsroom rants about hyperbolic writing, or getting too cozy with sources, or accepting freebies, or winning a writing "award" from an organization being covered.

The LAT has a new online section by its readers' representative, which will include discussions with reporters, editors and other staff members and a place for the readers' rep, Jamie Gold, to answer questions. But what caught my eye today was publication of the paper's full ethics guidelines. It's a terrific document that could be used as a model for other newsrooms.

Among my favorite sections is an entry on precision of writing. This isn't always considered an "ethical" issue, but as it gets to the writer's (and the paper's) credibility, the Times includes it here.

One short excerpt:

Superlatives such as “biggest,” “worst” and “most” should be employed only when the writer has proof. It is the responsibility of assigning editors and copy editors to challenge all questionable claims. The burden of proof rests with the writer; it is not the desk’s responsibility to prove the writer wrong.

It is unacceptable to hedge an unverified or unverifiable assertion with words such as “arguably” or “perhaps.” Our job is to tell readers what is true, not what might be.

That's what I'm talking about. Plenty of good reading throughout.

Journalism, war and high school

A week or so ago one of my mom's neighbors, a high school kid, wrote me an e-mail asking me to answer a few questions for a class project. He was working on something having to do with the media and public perceptions of the war, and because Mom told him that Mich and I are journalists he contacted both of us.

OK, fine, happy to help. But Michele and I both thought the questions were a bit loaded, as in biased against the press. We answered separately and then compared our responses to find that, as on so much else, our takes were nearly identical.

Here's the kid's note. What do you think? How would you have answered?

Hello my name is ---- ----. I live across the street from Rita, I am a senior at sheldon high school and i am in the International Studies Program.
I am writing a paper for graduation on the subject of the relationship
betweeen the media and the military during wartime.
Since you work for a newspaper i was wondering if you could help me by
answering some questions. If these questions do not apply to you
please leave blank. I f you know of anybody who has reported on
stories on iraq or has actually been to iraq, and would like to
contribute to my
paper i would appreciate a email address or contact. If you have time
i would appreciate your help. If possible a response by the 15th
would be appreciated.



Questions

1. Well written interesting storeis bring in more readers. Do you
know of any instance where a
reporter has embelished a story (published or unpublished) for a
competitive edge or for ratings?
Was it in general news or during a conflict?

2. During invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the war was fast, the
urgency to be first with a story,
has a reporter ever misinterpreted the facts?

3. What is the percentage of reports coming from Iraq that are
positive reports concerning the
good that is taking place there? What about the negative reports? Do
you hear more form
the negative or positive reports? Why do you think that?

4. Do you think the public's right to know the information on the
Iraq War overrides the military
objectives for winning the war?

5. What do you think the positives and the negatives are for having
embedded reporters during war?

6. Has a reporter or editor ever been ordered to cover up information
in order to sway the public's
opinion in a certain way?

7. Do you think media reporting during the war affects military startegy?

8. Have you ever seen different stories or accounts of the same event
by the military reports and the media reports?

9. To your knowledge, has a reporter ever recievedmisinformation from
the military to sway the public in another way?

10. Do you feel that the public has the right to know EVERYTHING?

11. Is it hard to not be the least bit biased when you are writing an article?

12. How did you feel about the continuous 24 hour coverage of the war
when it was on TV?

13. Do you or your colleagues have any short stories from the
reporters in Iraq?

14. Do you know any war correspondants that i could interview for my paper?


Thank You for your help!

No mercy rule

In a lot of Little League or rec-softball games there's a "mercy rule": Get ahead by 10 runs and they call the game. Stop embarrassing the other kids; let's go get a beer.

No such luck in the World Series, where it was already 11-1 in the fifth inning last night when I turned off the game with the Red Sox still batting and the Rockies still walking in runs. Final was 13-1. Will Leitch, a great sportswriter who keeps a good blog for the New York Times, Fair and Foul, is having none of it. The tuning out early part, that is. In fact, based on his own upbringing, he turns sticking out a baseball game into a moral imperative:

It’s my father’s signature maxim and has been the founding principle, perhaps the organizing tenet, of the Leitch family structure. It doesn’t matter how well things are going — or how much they’re falling apart — you always follow everything through to the end. If you’re succeeding, you can never let up until you are certain the job is done. If you’re failing (particularly when you’re failing in a dramatic, definitive fashion), you pay attention to what you’re doing wrong so it won’t happen again.

It's a good piece.

In other baseball coverage, I liked Rob Neyer's lineup for ESPN of the all-time best World Series players. As Neyer casts it, these aren't necessarily the best players ever (though some are), but his picks for the top performers in the history of the Series, by position. No shock that four Yankees make the list, but he's got a couple of nice surprise picks too, like Lou Brock in left field and Alan Trammell at short. Worth reading for baseball nuts.

Elsewhere, as long as we're showing no mercy let's turn to the news.

Today's the first day in a while that the LA fires haven't dominated the local newspapers -- more on the fires in a minute -- so I want to begin with the morning's big web-only news around these parts: the maiden voyage of Singapore Airlines' Airbus A380. That's a big deal here in Seattle because the A380 is the world's largest jetliner, it's made by the local Boeing Company's sole competitor and it beat Boeing's now-delayed new 787 Dreamliner jumbo-jet to market.

OK. What draws my attention is the P-I's decision to send its aerospace reporter James Wallace on a junket to cover this kickoff flight. As Wallace notes, he was part of a select group of media folks invited to join the "historic flight," with most of the rest of the passengers bidding online for tickets and one rich nerd reportedly paying $100,000.

(AP photo, from seattlepi.com)

To me this is a borderline ethical issue that warrants discussion and would benefit from a comprehensive journalism ethics policy, which I know firsthand the paper doesn't have. The problem, in general terms, is that when reporters take something of value from a source or potential source their integrity is compromised. At the very least, the appearance of conflict would be raised. Although reporters are trained to strive for objectivity (and most I've worked with are stand-up, good people) they're also human; it's easy to imagine the tone of a story being swayed, if only subconsciously, by cool gifts. That's why fashion reporters aren't wearing free Armani and even small-town City Hall reporters pay their own way at lunch.

So back to Wallace. I don't think he's in Airbus' pocket -- far from it -- and at this point in his very long career he's not on the make for a free flight between Singapore and Sydney, even on a luxury airliner. But does the reader know that? Check out this excerpt from James' blog entry on the flight:

I thought I would be sitting in economy class with the other 70 or so media representatives -- only a handful from the U.S. But a few of us, including my pal Geoff Thomas of ATW, were upgraded to business class and I was seated next to the chief executive of Singapore Airlines. We had some interesting talks on the plane about the future of the 747 as well as what's happening with the 787.

Not only special consideration but special access to the top source too! Even knowing James personally -- as well as his fine and exceptionally ethical editor, Margaret Santjer, whom I hired for the gig -- I momentarily lost control of my eyebrow.

All of which is not to say, though, that this trip would be a slam-dunk "no" for me as a newsroom manager. I've nixed several similar junkets but also let some through, including by Wallace. The reason I described this initially as a "borderline" ethics call is that good papers with good ethics policies leave some discretion for cases when news considerations outweigh concern about accepting some "gift," especially if the gift is something routine or not of great value. That's why, for example, sports reporters don't buy a ticket to sit in the press box -- they're there only to report the game, not as a spectator -- and why film critics normally watch free preview screenings of the movies they review.

In this case, there's certainly great news value, especially for the P-I's readership. And while the gift was of significant value, the courtesy invite was likely the only way to participate. I don't see Margaret on eBay with a hundred grand transferred into her PayPal account. On the other hand, there are subtle hidden gifts in a deal like this that go beyond the paper. What if Wallace decides he wants to write a book about the jumbo-jet competition? Surely this trip would be a big reporting and selling advantage. Should the paper be abetting that?

I don't know. After talking it all through I might have been persuaded to let James go. And maybe they did have such conversations; if so, good for them.

But here's what really gets me (and I'm sorry for the very long digression): After all that, the P-I's first stories about the flight, both last night and this morning, were by the Associated Press, the exact same accounts that appeared in the Seattle Times!

The best Wallace could manage, at 5:28 a.m. local time, was this blog entry: "I'll be filing my story of the first commercial A380 flight in a while. It was an incredible adventure."

He has since filed a full story, and it's fine, I guess. Still. What a waste of a good ethical dilemma.

For coverage (on another beat) that inspires total trust despite tricky ethical considerations, watch David Pogue's column in the New York Times Circuits section, which is always my favorite part of the Thursday papers. Today Pogue reviews Apple's new Leopard operating system, which drops tomorrow.

In Southern California, the fires are still burning and still devastating, of course, but it looks like they're turning the corner. The Santa Ana winds are subsiding and the temperature is dropping, so that will help. I like how the LA Times/Google map, which we embedded in a previous post, updates automatically and shows the progress in one glance.


View Larger Map

The Times, which has done such a spectacular job reporting the fires, turns attention today to the claims, including in its own pages, that the disaster has displaced a million people. Probably a bogus number, we now learn. Excellent reporting, including by a couple of friends and former colleagues, Sharon Bernstein and Megan Garvey. They rock.

Old News Dept.: Gene Stout finally got around to posting his Neil Young review -- "a stirring, entertaining journey" -- at about 5:15 last night, almost 24 hours after the concert began. M&M review here.

OK, with all that serious stuff out of the way, a parting mention of the feature that will probably generate more traffic than all those other boring stories combined: the P-I's photo gallery of the Fredericks of Hollywood fashion show.

Mercy!

(AP photo, from seattlepi.com)

You're under no obligation to read this

To begin this morning's news meeting, I'd like to call attention to Roy Peter Clark's ridiculous essay at Poynter Online, "Your Duty to Read the Paper."

As Michelle would say, puh-leez.

Clark, who always struck me as a pompous windbag, begins by confessing that he hasn't read the newspaper much lately (on paper) and vowing to renew his morning paper habit. Okeydoke, good for him. But then he elevates his own decision to a moral imperative:

I'm making a promise to myself, and now to you, to reverse this trend. The future of journalism, not just newspapers, depends upon such loyalty. And now I pose this challenge to you: It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper -- emphasis on paper, not pixels.

Clark's argument is that while online journalism shows some promise financially, for now all the money to be made in this business -- and therefore to pay reporters, editors and, presumably, washed-up "senior scholars" at a "teaching foundation for journalists" -- is in the print edition of the daily newspaper. Someone's got to buy the damn things! And if we're not going to do it, he says, addressing himself to working news types, how can we expect the public to?

Well, give me a break. Did early commuters have a "duty" to buy buggy whips? Were music producers compelled by duty to keep purchasing 8-tracks? If so, a lot of good it did 'em.

Says the indispensable (and digital only) Wikipedia: "When someone recognizes a duty, they commit themselves to the cause involved without considering the self-interested courses of actions that may have been relevant previously."

Zactly.

I love the news business as much as anybody, and until the last few months I've read an actual newspaper, the paper kind, almost every day of my life. Most days more than one of them. I literally learned to read with the Oakland Tribune. But turn it into a duty, a religious requirement, and you're going to lose me faster than you can say "Hail Mary."

Next, somebody will tell me I have to play poker and ruin that too.

If "we" (and I use the term loosely now, being semi-retired) have a duty, it's to find and report the news, to tell people something they don't know and probably can't find out otherwise, and to do it with writing that's as sharp, concise and entertaining as we can make it.

Markets clear, is what I say. If people, including reporters and editors, would rather get their information from their computers, their cell phones or their Tivo'd Jon Stewart shows, that's the breaks. Figure out a better way to deliver the news or shut up and get out of the way. Go join the senior VHS scholars in dead-delivery-system nirvana.

In other news today ... I have no idea. I don't get a newspaper.

All the news that fits ... in my backpack!

Thirty years in this stupid business and I've never been accused of stealing a story. Today I stole dozens of them.

Not on purpose, but still.

After my doctor's appointment at the UW Medical Center I drove up to University Village, the nearby kinda coolio shopping center, to get a cup of coffee and look around at the Apple store. In line at the Starbucks, waiting for my tall drip and cinnamon swirl coffee cake, I picked up a New York Times and began to skim the headlines. When I got to the register I paid for my food but forgot to mention the paper.

It didn't occur to me until I was settled in at a table and reading a really lame review of "Halo 3" in the Circuits section. By then, though, the line was really long and I started rationalizing.

What about all those times the paperdude forgot to deliver my Times and I called but they still didn't come across? We could count this against my credit. But wait, this wouldn't cost the NYT company, it would cost Starbucks. Oh well, what about all those times they've rounded up by a penny or two when Mich and I or Michelle and I bought coffee together? They owe me too! And besides, I've only spent about 12 kajillion dollars in these places over the years; they could comp me one paper.

And then I thought of last week's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Sometimes you get something from the cleaners, and sometimes you lose your vintage Joe Pepitone jersey, Yankees No. 25, and build a whole show around it. Maybe this is kinda like that. Today I received.

Even so I was still feeling guilty about all this tonight when I ran out to buy a pound of French -- we'd be out in the morning otherwise. I almost offered the Morgan Junction Starbucks guy a buck and quarter for the paper I ripped off from the U Village Starbucks, but then I thought, screw it.

Thoughts, dear readers? Am I a bad person?