From Amazon.com
There's good news and bad news. That's the inside scoop on the state of journalism from Washington Post editors Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser, whose book The News About the News sheds light on the changes wrought on the profession during the late 20th century. Using the clear, sharp prose emblematic of their craft, the authors examine the effects of changing business standards, the merger of news and entertainment, and--of course--the Internet explosion on how reporting is produced and consumed. Their verdict is that thoroughly researched, unbiased stories on vital topics not only provide a public service but also will sell papers and commercials. This is, of course, a welcome call to arms for reporters, editors, readers, and viewers to demand higher-quality work from news providers. It's hard to find flaws in their arguments; though they are mildly print-chauvinistic, they recognize the problems of their own medium just as much as radio, TV, and the Web. Readers of The News About the News will find themselves better able to evaluate journalism and, perhaps, to help create a demand for good news. --Rob Lightner
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Publishers Weekly
For much of the 1980s and '90s, the news media were in a slump. Largely nonconsequential stories on celebrity weddings and car crashes made headlines. But on September 11, according to veteran Washington Post staffers Downie and Kaiser (executive and associate editor, respectively), things abruptly changed. "Hard news was back in the forefront," they say, and in this powerful and timely assessment of the present state of the news, the two present compelling evidence of the shaky ground newspapers and television news stand on today. By describing the profound impact the news can have (e.g., the Salt Lake Tribune's uncovering of the corruption in the bidding process for this winter's Olympic games), Downie and Kaiser prove that even in our celebrity-driven age, news does matter. They mainly focus on newspapers and television news in this succinct, unpreachy treatise, briefly skimming over the Internet and the rise of MSNBC.com and Salon.com, among other Web sites. Not surprisingly, the authors are biased toward newspapers for their unsensational, in-depth coverage of current affairs; they even suggest exercises for readers to compare television with print news. But they're not above admitting print's problems, either, namely, the increasing importance of enhancing shareholder value and the emphasis on the bottom line. Downie and Kaiser give a fairly brief yet meaningful history of newspapers and television news, juxtaposing the history with interviews with today's leading journalists, from NBC icon Tom Brokaw to former New York Times national editor Dean Baquet. This is an important, up-to-date study that should be required reading for journalism students and serious consumers of the news. Agent, Amanda Urban.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Library Journal
Americans and others around the world relied on the news media for coverage of the events of September 11. Downie and Kaiser, both Washington Post executives with extensive reporting experience, contrast this coverage with recent negative trends in journalism, such as a focus on entertainment and celebrities. The result is an insider's perspective on the deterioration of news reporting in all forms of media, from newspapers to the Internet. Drawing on their experiences at the Post, the authors show how excellent journalism, such as reporting on the education of black children in North Carolina, brings attention and action to social problems. They also offer a fascinating account of the decision-making process used to determine whether to publish a story during the 1996 presidential campaign on Bob Dole's infidelity during his first marriage. Further, they discuss how the demand for profits has led to more sensational news coverage to boost ratings, which has reduced the amount of space or time given to international and hard news. Interviews with the three network anchors and analysis of local television news programs reveal problems with news coverage in the electronic media (e.g., if it bleeds it leads). Written in journalistic style, this accessible, elegant, and, most importantly, persuasive account will be of interest to both public and academic libraries. Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ. Lib., Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Booklist
Downie and Kaiser, a former and a current editor with the Washington Post, explore the developments of the past 20 years that have placed journalism at the crossroads--in need of a higher level of accountability and an examination of the values that drive the business of news gathering. They recount how the press developed in the U.S and look at recent trends in competition, ownership, and technology that have resulted in news organizations becoming more profitable businesses but not necessarily better practitioners of journalism. The authors detail the process of investigative reporting from beginning to end and the ultimate impact of a story on the local community and the nation. They explore the triumphs and failures of newspapers and television news operations in their efforts to uncover and deliver the news. Interviews with reporters, editors, producers, managers, and network anchors provide an insightful and penetrating look at how journalism has changed for the better and worse and how principled--and not-so-principled--journalists are responding. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
Review
“Unsettling . . . a valuable and alarming book.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Important. . . . Downie and Kaiser offer valuable firsthand insights.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A strong contribution. . . . Downie and Kaiser write from inside the tent, and they write from experience. Their views are worth our attention.” –The Miami Herald
“Unsettling. . . . The News About the News has a message worth reading.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“We needed something persuasively powerful. Here it is. . . . [This book] makes the case that news is essential, that the quality of news has been in decline and that letting it go on declining is not just bad journalism but bad business. I wish I'd written it.” –James M. Naughton, American Journalism Review
“Downie and Kaiser are not campus alarmists, but serious men who do not kid around. . . . A thorough piece of reporting in the upright plain-but-honest tradition.” –Russell Baker, The New York Review of Books
“A vividly written account of what is indeed American journalism in peril. It will grip anyone who reads a paper regularly and watches television.” –The Times Literary Supplement
“Influential. . . . A fascinating inside look.”–The Boston Phoenix
“An insightful and penetrating look at how journalism has changed for the better and worse.” –Booklist
“Refreshing and educational. . . . Any reader who cares about the quality of information available to the American citizenry is bound to learn something new, and probably unforgettable, from this insiders’ account.” –BookPage
“An insightful and authoritative look at how corporate financial demands have consistently eroded newsroom budgets with a corresponding cutback in the coverage of the news.” –The Sacramento Bee
“Brief yet meaningful. . . . An important, up-to-date study that should be required reading for . . . serious consumers of the news.” –Publishers Weekly
“Important. . . . Downie and Kaiser offer valuable firsthand insights.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A strong contribution. . . . Downie and Kaiser write from inside the tent, and they write from experience. Their views are worth our attention.” –The Miami Herald
“Unsettling. . . . The News About the News has a message worth reading.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“We needed something persuasively powerful. Here it is. . . . [This book] makes the case that news is essential, that the quality of news has been in decline and that letting it go on declining is not just bad journalism but bad business. I wish I'd written it.” –James M. Naughton, American Journalism Review
“Downie and Kaiser are not campus alarmists, but serious men who do not kid around. . . . A thorough piece of reporting in the upright plain-but-honest tradition.” –Russell Baker, The New York Review of Books
“A vividly written account of what is indeed American journalism in peril. It will grip anyone who reads a paper regularly and watches television.” –The Times Literary Supplement
“Influential. . . . A fascinating inside look.”–The Boston Phoenix
“An insightful and penetrating look at how journalism has changed for the better and worse.” –Booklist
“Refreshing and educational. . . . Any reader who cares about the quality of information available to the American citizenry is bound to learn something new, and probably unforgettable, from this insiders’ account.” –BookPage
“An insightful and authoritative look at how corporate financial demands have consistently eroded newsroom budgets with a corresponding cutback in the coverage of the news.” –The Sacramento Bee
“Brief yet meaningful. . . . An important, up-to-date study that should be required reading for . . . serious consumers of the news.” –Publishers Weekly
Product Description
Freedom of the press is a primary American value. Good journalism builds communities, arms citizens with important information, and serves as a public watchdog for civic, national, and global issues. But what happens when the news turns its back on its public role?
Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, and Robert G. Kaiser, associate editor and senior correspondent, report on a growing crisis in American journalism. From the corporatization that leads media moguls to slash content for profit, to newsrooms that ignore global crises to report on personal entertainment, these veteran journalists chronicle an erosion of independent, relevant journalism. In the process, they make clear why incorruptible reporting is crucial to American society. Rooted in interviews and first-hand accounts, the authors take us inside the politically charged world of one of America’s powerful institutions, the media.
Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, and Robert G. Kaiser, associate editor and senior correspondent, report on a growing crisis in American journalism. From the corporatization that leads media moguls to slash content for profit, to newsrooms that ignore global crises to report on personal entertainment, these veteran journalists chronicle an erosion of independent, relevant journalism. In the process, they make clear why incorruptible reporting is crucial to American society. Rooted in interviews and first-hand accounts, the authors take us inside the politically charged world of one of America’s powerful institutions, the media.
From the Back Cover
“Unsettling . . . a valuable and alarming book.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Important. . . . Downie and Kaiser offer valuable firsthand insights.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A strong contribution. . . . Downie and Kaiser write from inside the tent, and they write from experience. Their views are worth our attention.” –The Miami Herald
“Unsettling. . . . The News About the News has a message worth reading.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“We needed something persuasively powerful. Here it is. . . . [This book] makes the case that news is essential, that the quality of news has been in decline and that letting it go on declining is not just bad journalism but bad business. I wish I'd written it.” –James M. Naughton, American Journalism Review
“Downie and Kaiser are not campus alarmists, but serious men who do not kid around. . . . A thorough piece of reporting in the upright plain-but-honest tradition.” –Russell Baker, The New York Review of Books
“A vividly written account of what is indeed American journalism in peril. It will grip anyone who reads a paper regularly and watches television.” –The Times Literary Supplement
“Influential. . . . A fascinating inside look.”–The Boston Phoenix
“An insightful and penetrating look at how journalism has changed for the better and worse.” –Booklist
“Refreshing and educational. . . . Any reader who cares about the quality of information available to the American citizenry is bound to learn something new, and probably unforgettable, from this insiders’ account.” –BookPage
“An insightful and authoritative look at how corporate financial demands have consistently eroded newsroom budgets with a corresponding cutback in the coverage of the news.” –The Sacramento Bee
“Brief yet meaningful. . . . An important, up-to-date study that should be required reading for . . . serious consumers of the news.” –Publishers Weekly
“Important. . . . Downie and Kaiser offer valuable firsthand insights.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A strong contribution. . . . Downie and Kaiser write from inside the tent, and they write from experience. Their views are worth our attention.” –The Miami Herald
“Unsettling. . . . The News About the News has a message worth reading.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“We needed something persuasively powerful. Here it is. . . . [This book] makes the case that news is essential, that the quality of news has been in decline and that letting it go on declining is not just bad journalism but bad business. I wish I'd written it.” –James M. Naughton, American Journalism Review
“Downie and Kaiser are not campus alarmists, but serious men who do not kid around. . . . A thorough piece of reporting in the upright plain-but-honest tradition.” –Russell Baker, The New York Review of Books
“A vividly written account of what is indeed American journalism in peril. It will grip anyone who reads a paper regularly and watches television.” –The Times Literary Supplement
“Influential. . . . A fascinating inside look.”–The Boston Phoenix
“An insightful and penetrating look at how journalism has changed for the better and worse.” –Booklist
“Refreshing and educational. . . . Any reader who cares about the quality of information available to the American citizenry is bound to learn something new, and probably unforgettable, from this insiders’ account.” –BookPage
“An insightful and authoritative look at how corporate financial demands have consistently eroded newsroom budgets with a corresponding cutback in the coverage of the news.” –The Sacramento Bee
“Brief yet meaningful. . . . An important, up-to-date study that should be required reading for . . . serious consumers of the news.” –Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Leonard Downie Jr. has worked since 1964 at the Washington Post, where he has been an investigative reporter, a principal editor in the paper’s Watergate coverage, a foreign correspondent, national editor, managing editor and, since 1991, executive editor, succeeding Ben Bradlee. This is his fourth book. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Robert G. Kaiser, who joined the Post in 1963, has been a local, national and foreign correspondent, assistant managing editor for national news and managing editor. He is now associate editor and senior correspondent. This is his sixth book. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Robert G. Kaiser, who joined the Post in 1963, has been a local, national and foreign correspondent, assistant managing editor for national news and managing editor. He is now associate editor and senior correspondent. This is his sixth book. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
News Matters
The story is a legend now, but it really did happen. Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, inside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington's Watergate office building, police arrested five men wearing business suits and rubber surgical gloves and carrying cameras and sophisticated bugging devices. The Washington Post assigned a longhaired newsroom roustabout named Carl Bernstein and one of the paper's newest reporters, Bob Woodward, to report the story. Over the next two years they unraveled a tangled conspiracy of political spying and dirty tricks, wiretaps, break-ins, secret funds and a criminal cover-up–all orchestrated by President Richard Nixon's White House.
For a long time the Post was the only news organization to take Watergate seriously. The Washington establishment brushed the story off, and Nixon's allies put pressure on the Post to drop it. But after months of Woodward and Bernstein's revelatory stories, government investigators and then the Congress joined the pursuit. Impeachment proceedings began, and on August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first president of the United States ever to resign his office. Watergate became an example for the ages, a classic case when journalism made a difference.
Good journalism does not often topple a president, but it frequently changes the lives of citizens, both grand and ordinary.
When Robert Hopkins telephoned Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, he was sixty-five years old, a diabetic on kidney dialysis three times a week and the desperate father of three young children, ages four, five and six. Their mother had abandoned the family soon after the birth of the youngest child and shortly before Hopkins's illnesses had been discovered. When Milloy met the Hopkins family, they were squatters in an abandoned apartment complex in a run-down Washington neighborhood. The children charmed Milloy, as did Hopkins's determination to hold his family together, get his kids off to school and find them something to eat. They were surviving on $566 a month in social security benefits.
"Robert Hopkins says he hopes I can help," Milloy wrote in the Post. "With his health deteriorating and his children's needs skyrocketing, he reluctantly places his case before the court of last resort."
After Milloy's column appeared, Hopkins received $10,000 in donations from readers. A widow with a comfortable house invited Hopkins and his children to move in with her. Other readers offered to take the Hopkins children to restaurants and amusement parks, to mentor and tutor them, to buy them clothes. In a second column, Milloy described Hopkins opening letters containing checks and offers of help: "'Who are these people?" [Hopkins] asked, tears of amazement in his eyes. 'Are they real?'"
Good journalism holds communities together in times of crisis, providing the information and the images that constitute shared experience. When disaster strikes, the news media give readers and viewers something to hold onto–facts, but also explanation and discussion that can help people deal with the unexpected. So on September 11, 2001, and for some time after, Americans remained glued to their televisions, turned in record numbers to online news sites and bought millions of extra copies of their newspapers to help absorb and cope with the horrors of a shocking terrorist attack on the United States. In the weeks that followed, good reporting allowed Americans to participate vicariously in the investigations of the terrorists and the government's planning for retaliation. Journalists could educate Americans about Islamic extremists, the history of Afghanistan, the difficulty of defending the United States against resourceful and suicidal terrorists and much more. Journalism defined the events of September 11 and their aftermath. In those circumstances the importance of journalism was obvious, and much discussed. Whether widely noticed or not, good journalism makes a difference somewhere every day.
Communities are improved by aggressive, thorough coverage of important, if everyday, subjects like education, transportation, housing, work and recreation, government services and public safety. Exposure of incompetence and corruption in government can change misbegotten policies, save taxpayers money and end the careers of misbehaving public officials. Revelations of unethical business practices can save consumers money or their health. Exploration of the growing reach of computer databases can protect privacy. Disclosure of environmental, health, food and product dangers can save lives. Examination of the ways society cares for the poor, homeless, imprisoned, abused, mentally ill and retarded can give voice to the voiceless. News matters.
In 1999 the Chicago Tribune documented the experiences of scores of men sentenced to death in Illinois who had been beaten by police into confessing crimes, had been represented at trial by incompetent attorneys or had been convicted on questionable evidence. Soon after the newspaper published its findings, the governor of Illinois suspended all executions.
Houston television station KHOU began reporting in February 2000 that Ford Explorers equipped with certain kinds of Firestone tires had been involved in dozens of fatal highway accidents. Its reports led to nationwide news coverage, federal investigations and the recall of millions of tires, undoubtedly saving many lives.
The Star-Ledger in Newark, investigating the 1998 shooting of four men by New Jersey state police, used the newspaper's lawyers to force the state to disclose records that showed state police had targeted black motorists by using racial profiling. The paper's stories drew national attention to the police practice of drawing up the profiles of "typical" criminals based on race and stopping random suspects based on such profiles. This reporting helped create a national political issue and led to action by both the state and federal governments to reduce the use of profiling.
Salt Lake City television station KIVX and the city's two daily newspapers, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News, uncovered corruption in the bidding process that had won the 2002 winter Olympic games for Salt Lake City. The city's Olympics promoters had showered gifts and financial favors on members of the International Olympic Committee and their relatives. This news mushroomed into the biggest scandal in the history of the Olympics and led to changes in bidding for future games. It also shook the pillars of the Salt Lake City community.
The Oregonian newspaper in Portland found that many of the 140,954 holders of disabled parking permits in Oregon were not disabled at all but had obtained their permits fraudulently. By using a computer to compare the state's permit records with Social Security Administration data, the newspaper discovered that holders of 13,412 disabled parking permits were dead; able-bodied relatives were renewing and using the dead people's permits to park free at meters. State officials promised a crackdown on abusers and changes in procedures for issuing and renewing permits.
The Miami Herald exposed pervasive voter fraud in the 1997 Miami mayoral election. Campaign workers for the mayor and other candidates registered nonresidents at phony addresses in the city, validated absentee ballots for people living outside Miami, punched other voters' absentee ballots without their permission and paid $10 each to poor and homeless people to persuade them to vote. The election result was subsequently overturned in court.
The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed in 1998 that police had manipulated their crime records to make the city appear safer than it was in widely publicized FBI statistics. The police erased some crimes from their records entirely, and downgraded robberies, burglaries, car break-ins, stabbings and assaults to minor offenses like "threats," "lost property," "vandalism," "hospital cases" and "disturbances," which are not included in the FBI's accounting of serious crimes. The Inquirer reported later that Philadelphia police had also failed to investigate thousands of sexual-assault complaints, rejecting many of them as "unfounded" and hiding others in file drawers. Official investigations and reforms of police procedures followed.
Little Rock's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette brought to light beatings, sexual assaults and other mistreatment of delinquent children in a state detention center and wilderness camps in 1998. A year later, the Baltimore Sun reported that guards were brutally beating teenagers in Maryland's state boot camps for delinquents. Investigations, resignations and camp closings followed in both states.
Good journalism–in a newspaper or magazine, on television, radio or the Internet–enriches Americans by giving them both useful information for their daily lives and a sense of participation in the wider world. Good journalism makes possible the cooperation among citizens that is critical to a civilized society. Citizens cannot function together as a community unless they share a common body of information about their surroundings, their neighbors, their governing bodies, their sports teams, even their weather. Those are all the stuff of the news. The best journalism digs into it, makes sense of it and makes it accessible to everyone.
Bad journalism–failing to report important news, or reporting news shallowly, inaccurately or unfairly–can leave people dangerously uninformed. The news media failed to report adequately on the overextended and corrupt savings and loan industry before it collapsed and cost depositors and taxpayers billions of dollars during the 1980s. The press failed to discover and expose the tobacco industry's cover-up of evidence of the addictive and cancer-causing effects of smoking and its clandest...
News Matters
The story is a legend now, but it really did happen. Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, inside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington's Watergate office building, police arrested five men wearing business suits and rubber surgical gloves and carrying cameras and sophisticated bugging devices. The Washington Post assigned a longhaired newsroom roustabout named Carl Bernstein and one of the paper's newest reporters, Bob Woodward, to report the story. Over the next two years they unraveled a tangled conspiracy of political spying and dirty tricks, wiretaps, break-ins, secret funds and a criminal cover-up–all orchestrated by President Richard Nixon's White House.
For a long time the Post was the only news organization to take Watergate seriously. The Washington establishment brushed the story off, and Nixon's allies put pressure on the Post to drop it. But after months of Woodward and Bernstein's revelatory stories, government investigators and then the Congress joined the pursuit. Impeachment proceedings began, and on August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first president of the United States ever to resign his office. Watergate became an example for the ages, a classic case when journalism made a difference.
Good journalism does not often topple a president, but it frequently changes the lives of citizens, both grand and ordinary.
When Robert Hopkins telephoned Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, he was sixty-five years old, a diabetic on kidney dialysis three times a week and the desperate father of three young children, ages four, five and six. Their mother had abandoned the family soon after the birth of the youngest child and shortly before Hopkins's illnesses had been discovered. When Milloy met the Hopkins family, they were squatters in an abandoned apartment complex in a run-down Washington neighborhood. The children charmed Milloy, as did Hopkins's determination to hold his family together, get his kids off to school and find them something to eat. They were surviving on $566 a month in social security benefits.
"Robert Hopkins says he hopes I can help," Milloy wrote in the Post. "With his health deteriorating and his children's needs skyrocketing, he reluctantly places his case before the court of last resort."
After Milloy's column appeared, Hopkins received $10,000 in donations from readers. A widow with a comfortable house invited Hopkins and his children to move in with her. Other readers offered to take the Hopkins children to restaurants and amusement parks, to mentor and tutor them, to buy them clothes. In a second column, Milloy described Hopkins opening letters containing checks and offers of help: "'Who are these people?" [Hopkins] asked, tears of amazement in his eyes. 'Are they real?'"
Good journalism holds communities together in times of crisis, providing the information and the images that constitute shared experience. When disaster strikes, the news media give readers and viewers something to hold onto–facts, but also explanation and discussion that can help people deal with the unexpected. So on September 11, 2001, and for some time after, Americans remained glued to their televisions, turned in record numbers to online news sites and bought millions of extra copies of their newspapers to help absorb and cope with the horrors of a shocking terrorist attack on the United States. In the weeks that followed, good reporting allowed Americans to participate vicariously in the investigations of the terrorists and the government's planning for retaliation. Journalists could educate Americans about Islamic extremists, the history of Afghanistan, the difficulty of defending the United States against resourceful and suicidal terrorists and much more. Journalism defined the events of September 11 and their aftermath. In those circumstances the importance of journalism was obvious, and much discussed. Whether widely noticed or not, good journalism makes a difference somewhere every day.
Communities are improved by aggressive, thorough coverage of important, if everyday, subjects like education, transportation, housing, work and recreation, government services and public safety. Exposure of incompetence and corruption in government can change misbegotten policies, save taxpayers money and end the careers of misbehaving public officials. Revelations of unethical business practices can save consumers money or their health. Exploration of the growing reach of computer databases can protect privacy. Disclosure of environmental, health, food and product dangers can save lives. Examination of the ways society cares for the poor, homeless, imprisoned, abused, mentally ill and retarded can give voice to the voiceless. News matters.
In 1999 the Chicago Tribune documented the experiences of scores of men sentenced to death in Illinois who had been beaten by police into confessing crimes, had been represented at trial by incompetent attorneys or had been convicted on questionable evidence. Soon after the newspaper published its findings, the governor of Illinois suspended all executions.
Houston television station KHOU began reporting in February 2000 that Ford Explorers equipped with certain kinds of Firestone tires had been involved in dozens of fatal highway accidents. Its reports led to nationwide news coverage, federal investigations and the recall of millions of tires, undoubtedly saving many lives.
The Star-Ledger in Newark, investigating the 1998 shooting of four men by New Jersey state police, used the newspaper's lawyers to force the state to disclose records that showed state police had targeted black motorists by using racial profiling. The paper's stories drew national attention to the police practice of drawing up the profiles of "typical" criminals based on race and stopping random suspects based on such profiles. This reporting helped create a national political issue and led to action by both the state and federal governments to reduce the use of profiling.
Salt Lake City television station KIVX and the city's two daily newspapers, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News, uncovered corruption in the bidding process that had won the 2002 winter Olympic games for Salt Lake City. The city's Olympics promoters had showered gifts and financial favors on members of the International Olympic Committee and their relatives. This news mushroomed into the biggest scandal in the history of the Olympics and led to changes in bidding for future games. It also shook the pillars of the Salt Lake City community.
The Oregonian newspaper in Portland found that many of the 140,954 holders of disabled parking permits in Oregon were not disabled at all but had obtained their permits fraudulently. By using a computer to compare the state's permit records with Social Security Administration data, the newspaper discovered that holders of 13,412 disabled parking permits were dead; able-bodied relatives were renewing and using the dead people's permits to park free at meters. State officials promised a crackdown on abusers and changes in procedures for issuing and renewing permits.
The Miami Herald exposed pervasive voter fraud in the 1997 Miami mayoral election. Campaign workers for the mayor and other candidates registered nonresidents at phony addresses in the city, validated absentee ballots for people living outside Miami, punched other voters' absentee ballots without their permission and paid $10 each to poor and homeless people to persuade them to vote. The election result was subsequently overturned in court.
The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed in 1998 that police had manipulated their crime records to make the city appear safer than it was in widely publicized FBI statistics. The police erased some crimes from their records entirely, and downgraded robberies, burglaries, car break-ins, stabbings and assaults to minor offenses like "threats," "lost property," "vandalism," "hospital cases" and "disturbances," which are not included in the FBI's accounting of serious crimes. The Inquirer reported later that Philadelphia police had also failed to investigate thousands of sexual-assault complaints, rejecting many of them as "unfounded" and hiding others in file drawers. Official investigations and reforms of police procedures followed.
Little Rock's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette brought to light beatings, sexual assaults and other mistreatment of delinquent children in a state detention center and wilderness camps in 1998. A year later, the Baltimore Sun reported that guards were brutally beating teenagers in Maryland's state boot camps for delinquents. Investigations, resignations and camp closings followed in both states.
Good journalism–in a newspaper or magazine, on television, radio or the Internet–enriches Americans by giving them both useful information for their daily lives and a sense of participation in the wider world. Good journalism makes possible the cooperation among citizens that is critical to a civilized society. Citizens cannot function together as a community unless they share a common body of information about their surroundings, their neighbors, their governing bodies, their sports teams, even their weather. Those are all the stuff of the news. The best journalism digs into it, makes sense of it and makes it accessible to everyone.
Bad journalism–failing to report important news, or reporting news shallowly, inaccurately or unfairly–can leave people dangerously uninformed. The news media failed to report adequately on the overextended and corrupt savings and loan industry before it collapsed and cost depositors and taxpayers billions of dollars during the 1980s. The press failed to discover and expose the tobacco industry's cover-up of evidence of the addictive and cancer-causing effects of smoking and its clandest...
