Brookings: Topics - Media and Journalism

Press Explosion in Egypt Brewing Trouble?

H.A. Hellyer — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Since President Mohammed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, was elected last summer, there have been increasing concerns around the freedom of the press within Egypt. Those concerns suddenly became more pronounced over the last couple of weeks, raising new questions. Those questions go beyond, however, the freedom of the press in Egypt – they also raise other ones about its integrity, as well as its role in a revolutionary transition within this, the Arab world’s most populous country.

There have been concerns for quite some time around freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Egypt. The new constitution approved last year in an extremely tense vote created a new government press regulator, and reinforced the power of the state to close media outlets. Journalists across the state media have privately, and publicly, called attention to articles they believe were pulled due to being critical of the government. The upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, appointed political allies to the heads of media institutions, and in less than 9 months, the numbers of trials over “insulting the president” has exceeded all those that took place during Mubarak’s entire reign.

Too much to handle?

Generally, however, these have been measures that express more the inability and the ineffectual attempts of the new government in restricting the press, rather than actually being able to restrict it. Since the Jan. 25 revolution began, there has been an explosion of expression in Egypt, and while different institutions may try to limit it, it is simply too much for a government to handle. In the midst of that, the English language press in particular has escaped a great deal of attention – the powers that be were, for obvious reasons, more interested in focusing on the much wider read Arabic press. As such, the English language press was able to push the envelope a lot more.

In recent weeks, however, it has become clear that the English language press may not be the same for long. Some of this may be down to the political pressure – some of it down to the realities of print journalism in Egypt. In terms of the former, Hani Shukrallah, the famed editor of Ahram Online (and highly critical of the Muslim Brotherhood) recently wrote that he had been pushed out of his position. Others have reported that across the board, state media is becoming more and more cautious with regards to running stories that are critical of the government – in a way that was not even the case under the military’s reign. Of course, the government’s combined force against the erstwhile editor took a great deal of time and effort – it remains to be seen if they will be able to overcome the institution at large, which remains composed of some of the most determined journalists in Egypt.

Other English language mediums run the risk of being shut down – not because of editorial restrictions, but because of financial considerations. Egypt Independent, one of the more widely read sources for up to date news on Egypt, is in that category – it’s existence threatened more because of the overall financial situation in Egypt, and the limited, niche market that the English language press caters for. That niche market, however, has become particularly influential in terms of informing foreign governments as to the situation in Egypt, as far more international diplomatic staff can access information in English than in Arabic. That in itself has probably accounted for a lot of the increased attention given to it by the MB government’s supporters – which may cause tensions in the future. Again, nevertheless, the spirit of the Egyptian media remains defiant, even against market forces: the team of the newspaper have taken matters into their own hands, and have raised a subscription campaign to revitalize the financial prospects of the paper.

Neutrality

Beyond these legitimate concerns about the future of English language press in Egypt, however, there is a more core, basic issue that has yet to be discussed. For all of the positive sides of the English language press in Egypt, in one regard it is very similar to the Arabic language press – and that is in the area of neutrality. The worst of articles are often tabloid, bereft of original analysis, relying instead on thinly veiled bias. The best, however, are devoid of even an attempt to account for bias. A balanced view, in Egyptian commentary, is rare.

Many do not find this particularly troubling, arguing that in Egypt’s transitional phase, it is not only natural, but vital, that media be an agitation method for change. That media that considers itself to be supportive of the revolution should, indeed, consider itself be activism of another type. Others draw attention to the idea that media, in a successfully functioning pluralistic society, which the revolution calls for, ought to be responsible journalism that seeks to present all sides of view fairly.

It may be, actually, that everyone is right. Recently, a story broke out that a church in Fayoum, a small town not far out of Cairo, had been attacked due sectarian violence. An Egyptian English-language daily checked out the story – and found that actually, that wasn’t the case. After they reported as such, they were vilified – but they were telling the truth. It was simply that the truth was not convenient in terms of the current ‘battle’ of the revolution – the conflict with the MB. But the strength of the revolutionaries, as they continue to say, is not based on might – but on right. What can be right about upholding a false narrative?

MB and state media

After a successful transition, one might hope that all Egyptian state media would be wound up into a BBC-like institution – both in terms of numbers of mediums, as well as in style and approach. Egypt is a far way off from that, however. In the meantime, genuinely pro-revolutionary media probably should find space, somewhere, to be that equivalent of the BBC. A voice that represents all facets of Egyptian society – because no one else will do it. The MB media is not interested; nor is the state media. That, in itself, is actually a very revolutionary move – because it shows, by example, what ought to be the case. If the state can’t – or won’t – do their duty in this regard, pro-revolutionary mediums should take it up instead.

That is not to say that there should not be other types of independent, private voices in the media arena, that are deeply opinionated – on the contrary, at this stage in Egypt’s transition, perhaps most of all, there is a need for continued agitation. That can only happen with such incisive analysis and commentary, which should indeed be as partisan as the authors are. In such endeavors, nonetheless, an emphasis on truth, rather than political success, needs to be first and foremost.

If one can talk about “revolutionary success” when it comes to the media, it probably has two major elements to it. The first is the pre-eminent emphasis on relying only on the most truthful and trustworthy of sources – regardless of who that benefits or not. The second is fairness – something that probably the most revolutionary of writers, journalists and commentators in Egypt ought to seriously consider themselves as honor bound to uphold, at least until there is serious reform in the state media. Activist media is indeed an integral part of the revolution during its transition – and those two elements are, indeed, deeply embedded within the best kind of activist media.

Authors

H.A. Hellyer

Publication: Al Arabiya

Andrew Glass & Andrew Alexander: The Future of Journalism

Stephen Hess — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:13:00 -0400

This is the tenth (and final) post in a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012.

The closing of the Washington bureau of the Cox Newspapers in 2009 was one of the sad events in the period covered by the book. The bureau chiefs had been Andrew Glass (1977-1997) and then Andrew Alexander. The two veteran journalists were first interviewed in 1978, and returned in 2008 to answer questions from George Washington University students. “Would you guys have any advice for maybe young journalists entering the field?”

Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters is Hess’ latest book, in which he set out to find the 450 Washington reporters he first surveyed in 1978. He tracks them in France, England, Italy, Australia, and 19 U.S. states in addition to the Washington area, locating 90 percent and interviews 283 of them, producing the first comprehensive study of career patterns in American journalism.

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Andrew Glass & Andrew Alexander: The Future of Journalism

These are wise responses. There always will be journalism and there always will be journalists. Moreover, as I know they would agree, and was so often repeated by the journalists interviewed for this book, doing journalism is fun! In how many jobs do workers talk about having fun? Fun is what you do after work.

“It’s been a blast,” concluded Judlyne Lilly. “Such a blast.”

For James Canan, “If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I hope I come back in my present form. I mean professionally, not necessarily physically! I’d do it all over again. I just love journalism….So there you are.”

Edward Behr was 87 years old when we asked him if he was satisfied with his career. “Yes, I am. Yes. I didn’t get to be rich or famous, but other than that it was OK.”

Video

Andrew Glass & Andrew Alexander: The Future of Journalism

Authors

Stephen Hess

Bernard Kalb: From NBC to the State Department

Stephen Hess — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:43:00 -0400

In the ninth of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Bernard Kalb recounts leaving NBC in 1984 to become the State Department spokesman and then his abrupt resignation after only two years on the job.

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Bernie Kalb would return to journalism as a founding anchor and a panelist on the weekly CNN program "Reliable Sources."

Unlike Kalb’s experience, most of the journalists who subsequently worked for the federal government spoke well of their new employers. Russell Dawson had been covering waste management for a specialized publication when he went to work for the Environmental Protection Agency: “The EPA job was terrific. Working for the administration was challenging. I had a role in every major announcement that was made from 1985 to 1989—Radon, asbestos in schools, reauthorization of the major environmental laws.” Becky Bailey, a radio reporter, got a job as a congressional press secretary. “I loved my time on the Hill, found it fascinating.”

While some might have to confront “disinformation,” or more likely government hype, others would come to agree with NBC correspondent Carl Stern, who had covered the Justice Department for 26 years when he left to become spokesman for the attorney general in 1993. “Every reporter should have to spend a minimum amount of time in government,” he said. “You begin to realize that the things you were so certain of when you were a reporter, you didn’t understand a tenth of what was going on…. It was only when I went inside the department that I realized how little I knew when I was writing these things, simply because of their complexity.”

Video

Bernard Kalb: From Reporting to Working Inside the U.S. State Dept.

Authors

Stephen Hess

Hedrick Smith: Leaving the New York Times

Stephen Hess — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:14:00 -0400

In the eighth of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Hedrick Smith had one of the dream careers that the New York Times can offer its top-tier correspondents, including crisscrossing the South during the civil rights explosions of the early 1960s, a tour in Vietnam, reporting from Cairo and Moscow, and being the Washington bureau chief. Here he tells of his decision to leave the Times.

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Rick Smith went on to become an Emmy Award-winning producer/correspondent for the PBS show Frontline. The Times Washington bureau in 1978 had thirty slots for reporters. Of our seventeen interviews, seven remained with the New York Times until retirement and ten went on to other places, including Rick Burt, who became a diplomat, serving as U.S. ambassador to Germany and then chief negotiator in strategic arms reduction talks; Steve Roberts, the Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University; Marty Tolchin, a congressional specialist, who founded The Hill newspaper in 1994; Tony Marro, eventually the editor of Newsday; and environmental correspondent Phil Shabecoff, who started Greenwire, an online publication.

There was, however, one member of the 1978 bureau, diplomatic correspondent Bernie Gwertzman, who made an immense impact on the future of the company. When in his sixties he became intrigued by the possibilities of computers in newspapering and was the force behind creating NYTimes.com.

Video

Hedrick Smith: Resigning from the New York Times

Authors

Stephen Hess

Barry Sussman: Stories from Watergate

Stephen Hess — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:12:00 -0400

In the seventh of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Barry Sussman talks about being the city news editor at the Washington Post in 1972. Today he looks back on the phone call that connected the Watergate break-in to people in the White House, and led to the downfall of a president.

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For some, as it came to Barry Sussman, there is the possibility of being part of a once-in-a-lifetime event, one that will go down in history. Editor Sussman was detached to direct the Watergate coverage that led to the Post’s being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1973.

Ike Pappas, reporting for CBS, was in Dallas in 1963: “I entered the basement of the Dallas police headquarters…and I didn’t know where I was going to stand to try to report this story of the departure of Oswald, so I found a little spot by the fender of the chase car of the armored truck and I squeezed in, and I didn’t realize it, but I was squeezing in right in front of Jack Ruby…and I saw this man jump in front of me with a black coat on, fedora hat, and suddenly there was a bang and a flash on Oswald’s sweater and a moan and he goes down, and here’s ‘My God what has happened now?’ The things that cross your mind as a reporter: ‘Could this possibly be the assassin of the United States president now being killed?’ Put that in words. And I just said what I saw.”

Still, as James Adams, of Reuters, who covered the “Black Hawk Down” story in Somalia and had been in the Pentagon media pool assigned to the Gulf War, observes of careers in journalism: “No matter what you do, no matter how exciting it is overall, it’s not all exciting…In fact, a lot of it is not exciting at all.”

Video

Barry Sussman: Stories from Watergate

Authors

Stephen Hess

Kitty Kelley: Becoming an Independent Writer

Stephen Hess — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:00:00 -0400

In the sixth of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Kitty Kelley, whose biographies of celebrities like Oprah, the British Royal Family and Elizabeth Taylor became best sellers, talks about her decision to leave journalism and become an author.

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Kitty Kelley’s success came in crafting investigative biographies of high profile subjects: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Nancy Reagan, the Bush family.

Break free of journalism’s dailiness, of irritating editors, of doing irrelevant stories! The dream of becoming an independent writer! When Lynne Olson left journalism, she was 32 and had been a Moscow correspondent for AP and White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. "I remember when I was a really young journalist reading that David Halberstam had quit the New York Times to write books and [I] thought ‘How could he do that! He’s got the best job in the world as a reporter for the New York Times.’ Well, ten years later I knew why he had left the New York Times to do it, and that’s something I really wanted to do too." Four of Olson’s five critically acclaimed books—all on history—have dealt in some way with London during World War II.

Video

Kitty Kelley: Becoming an Independent Writer

Authors

Stephen Hess

Linda Greenhouse: Difficulties in Journalism for Women

Stephen Hess — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:06:00 -0400

In the fifth of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Linda Greenhouse, whose coverage of the Supreme Court won the Pulitzer Prize, remembers how she couldn’t get a job on a newspaper after she graduated from college in 1968.

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Linda Greenhouse got a job! Leading to a fabled career on the New York Times. But Linda Greenhouse’s tortured job hunting in 1968 was nothing unusual for a woman wanting to be a reporter. Judy Woodruff, who graduated from Duke in that year, also recalls, “My spring break I went to Atlanta. I interviewed with all three affiliated news directors. Two of them barely gave me the time of day. The third, the ABC affiliate’s news director—this was a station that was doing one newscast on the weekend—he said, ‘I could use a gopher, a newsroom secretary. You can answer the phone and pick up some of my mail.’ I worked for them for a year and a half. The last six months they hired me to do the 11:00 Sunday night weather. It was like a Cinderella story. During the week I would come in and be the secretary in the newsroom, and then on Sunday night I would come in at 6:00, and for five hours I would pore over the weather wires, and then I learned how to do the weather reports.”

Ultimately women journalists forced change by suing their employers for gender discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Boylan v. New York Times was settled in 1978: The Times admitted doing no wrong but promised to do better. In another landmark suit, the Associated Press was sued in 1978; five years later, its female employees were awarded more than $800,000 in back pay.

Video

Linda Greenhouse: Difficulties in Journalism for Women

Authors

Stephen Hess

Steven Roberts: On A Legacy of Writers

Stephen Hess — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 12:00:00 -0400

In the fourth of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Steven Roberts, who went from the Harvard Crimson to the New York Times, tells of the influence his family had on his becoming a journalist, starting in the sixth grade.

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Steven Roberts: Coming from a Family of Writers

It’s hardly news that some journalists go into the family business. So too do bakers and coal miners. But the Roberts Family is approaching dynasty status. Steve and his wife Cokie, of National Public Radio and ABC, write a nationally syndicated newspaper column, and their daughter Rebecca Roberts is a host of POTUS ‘O8 on XM Radio.

Among the other journalists in the Hess book, Joe Albright’s senior thesis in college was a study of his grandfather, who founded the New York Daily News, and brothers Knight and Todd Kiplinger followed their father into the publishing company that had been founded by his father. When asked if going into journalism had always been his goal, Jack Fuller, editor of the Chicago Tribune, replied, “Yeah, oh yeah. My father was a newspaper man and so the fact is I had grown up with it.” This doesn’t’ guarantee that journalism is the right choice. Susan Fogg Braaten reflects, “I went into journalism partly because my father was a reporter…In retrospect, I probably was not temperamentally suited to being a reporter in any of the ways I am absolutely suited to being a teacher.”

Indeed, more journalists credit a teacher than a parent for their journalism career, as does Rich Jaroslovsky (Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News): “When I was 12 years old, I signed up for a journalism class at my junior high school. My God, this is fun!”

Video

Steven Roberts: Coming from a Family of Writers

Authors

Stephen Hess

Nina Totenberg: Journalists as Witnesses to History

Stephen Hess — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:17:00 -0400

In the third of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012. Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio's award-winning legal affairs correspondent, talks about how the 1960 presidential election drew her into a journalism career because she said, “I realized I could be a witness to history.”

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Nina Totenberg’s career has been notable for groundbreaking scoops, one of which led a Supreme Court nominee to withdraw his name in 1986. Yet most reporters agree with Totenberg that to be a journalist is to be a “witness,” watching “interesting stuff going on,” rather than a “participant.” As Robert Rankin, a government and political editor at the McClatchy bureau, put it, “I had a seat at the table where Washington’s business was done for most of the last quarter of a century, and it’s been fascinating.”

Only one journalist in our study decided to, as Totenberg puts it, be a "participant” in elective politics: Kathy Patterson, who came to Washington as a reporter for the Kansas City Star and was later voted onto the Washington City Council.

The one person who said “I went into journalism to save the world” didn’t stay long. Still, there were well-meant references to journalism as a “calling,” and most claimed a social utility for what they were doing. “It was hard, demanding work, but it was useful work,” thought Dale Nelson of the AP. “When things go right you feel that you are contributing to something that is worth doing,” said NBC’s Bob Abernethy, “and that’s a good feeling.”

Each Tuesday, we will be releasing a new conversation and blog post by Stephen Hess. Last week, Fox's Brit Hume explained how he became a journalist. Click here for an entire schedule and to hear more about the project.

Video

Nina Totenberg: Journalists as Witnesses to History

Authors

Stephen Hess

Bad News for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

Mirette F. Mabrouk — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

You would never know there had been a revolution. Within the slightly grimy walls of Egypt's state-owned media buildings, it's business as usual. Observers would be forgiven for thinking the state television and papers are there largely as a public address system for whoever actually has their hands on the country's steering wheel.

Over the 30 years leading up to the 2011 popular uprising, state media took its cue from Hosni Mubarak's gatekeeper, the diminutive but terrifying Safwat el-Sherif, former minister of information. Post January 25, state media and papers backed the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), the country's ruling military council. Last week, in a nod to the democratic process, it was the turn of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Egypt's upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, announced the appointments of the new editors, setting off a storm of angry protest among journalists, led by the Journalists' Syndicate, who insisted that the Islamist-dominated council had essentially rigged the selection process and assigned their own men to do its bidding.

There are 55 state-owned publications in Egypt under eight publishing institutions. Since 1979, they've been the responsibility of the Higher Press Council, majority-owned by the Shura Council (51 percent Council to 49 percent employees). Previously, editors-in-chief had been selected by the minister of information who presented the names to the Shura Council which ratified them in session. The arrangement guaranteed a lack of any press freedom since the Shura Council, like the People's Assembly, was overwhelmingly dominated by the National Democratic Party (NDP). The editors were political appointees and expected not so much to toe the party line, as to carve it into the ground for all to note. In March 2011, there was a shake-up, which saw most of these editors unceremoniously replaced by those who were perceived as supportive of the revolution. The appointments were understood to be temporary until the new ones, scheduled for this year, would be chosen from a list of candidates fulfilling preset criteria. Since the new Shura Council is as overwhelmingly dominated by Islamists -- mostly the MB's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) -- as the old one was by the NDP, the new appointments have been awaited with trepidation.

Read the full article at foreignpolicy.com »

Authors

Mirette F. Mabrouk

Publication: Foreign Policy

Image Source: Asmaa Waguih / Reuters

Brit Hume: The First Day in the Newsroom

Stephen Hess — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 12:00:00 -0400

In the first of a series of blogs offering video snippets from Stephen Hess’ numerous interviews with the prominent journalists featured in Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Brit Hume, the founding anchor of Special Report on the Fox News Channel, talks about the unexpected turn in 1965 that propelled him into journalism as a cub reporter on the Hartford Times.

Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012 is Hess’ latest book, in which he set out to find the 450 Washington reporters he first surveyed in 1978. He tracks them in France, England, Italy, Australia, and 19 U.S. states in addition to the Washington area, locating 90 percent and interviews 283 of them, producing the first comprehensive study of career patterns in American journalism.

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The reporters who came to Washington after World War II, the so-called “Greatest Generation,” tended to spend their entire careers working for one news organization. But Brit Hume was at the beginning of a new generation whose careers spanned employers. As in Hume’s case, this was especially true in TV after the arrival of cable news programming in 1981 suddenly increased job options.

As a correspondent at ABC Hume had covered Capitol Hill for 11 years and the White House for 8 years. Yet as he explained in an interview with me, leaving ABC was “the easiest decision I ever made….If you don’t want to leave Washington, you can kind of work your way through the available beats and then you’ve done them all and then where do you go?....ABC News had nothing to offer me….and along comes Fox News. [Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News in 1996, with Roger Ailes as the CEO.]"

In late 1997 [Ailes] said to Hume, "‘I want to do a political show at six every night.… I want to put it on the air in March.’ We were just getting started around January—we didn’t have a studio, we didn’t have a director, we didn’t have squat….The Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. My wife Kim—who was a veteran producer from ABC who was hired by Fox ahead of me…and she was the bureau chief—walked up to me and said, ‘This is the time to start your show, right now.’ I called Roger Ailes. He said, ‘We’ll start it tonight.’…and we put the show on the air. It was called Special Report, which was a dumb name…and still is a dumb name….Well, it’s been a bigger rating success than we ever imagined.”

Each Tuesday, we will be releasing a new conversation and blog post by Stephen Hess. Click here for an entire schedule and to hear more about the project.

Video

Brit Hume: At Home in the Newsroom

Authors

Stephen Hess

A Retrospect of Journalism: What Happened to the Washington Reporters?

Stephen Hess — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 10:00:00 -0400

In his latest book, Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012, Stephen Hess set out to find the 450 Washington reporters he first surveyed in 1978. He tracks them in France, England, Italy, Australia, and 19 U.S. states in addition to the Washington area, locating 90 percent and interviews 283 of them, producing the first comprehensive study of career patterns in American journalism.

This blog series offers video snippets from Hess’ numerous interviews with these journalists and features Hess’ recollections, which offer context and anecdotes to their stories. Each Tuesday, we will be releasing a new conversation and blog post.

Here, Hess explains his project in greater detail and why he is hopeful for journalism’s future:

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Follow along for a new blog post about a different journalist each week:

August 7
Brit Hume: The First Day in the Newsroom

August 14
Nina Totenberg: Journalists as Witnesses of History

August 21
Steven V. Roberts: Coming from a Family of Writers

August 28
Linda Greenhouse: Breaking into Journalism as a Woman

September 11
Kitty Kelley: Becoming an Independent Writer

September 18
Barry Sussman: Stories from Watergate

September 25
Hedrick Smith: Resigning from the New York Times to Film Documentaries

October 2
Bernard Kalb: From Covering the U.S. State Department, to Working Inside It

October 9
Andrew Glass & Andrew Alexander: The Future of Journalism

Video

Stephen Hess: On Journalism’s Recent Past

Authors

Stephen Hess

Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012

Stephen Hess — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2012 216pp.

Video

Stephen Hess: On Journalism’s Recent Past

Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978–2012, is the first book to comprehensively examine career patterns in American journalism.

In 1978 Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen Hess surveyed 450 journalists who were covering national government for U.S. commercial news organizations. His study became the award-winning The Washington Reporters (Brookings, 1981), the first volume in his Newswork series. Now, a generation later, Hess and his team from Brookings and the George Washington University have tracked down 90 percent of the original group, interviewing 283, some as far afield as France, England, Italy, and Australia.

What happened to the reporters within their organizations? Did they change jobs? Move from reporter to editor or producer? Jump from one type of medium to another—from print to TV? Did they remain in Washington or go somewhere else? Which ones left journalism? Why? Where did they go?

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Stephen Hess: On Journalism’s Recent Past

A few of them have become quite famous, including television correspondents Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson, Brit Hume, Carole Simpson, Judy Woodruff, and Marvin Kalb; some have become editors or publishers of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, or Baltimore Sun; some have had substantial careers outside of journalism. Most, however, did not become household names.

The book is designed as a series of self-contained essays, each concentrating on one characteristic, such as age, gender, or place of employment, including newspapers, television networks, wire services, and niche publications. The reporters speak for themselves. When all of these lively portraits are analyzed—one by one—the results are surprisingly different from what journalists and sociologists in 1978 had predicted.

Learn more about our blog series featuring video snippets of Hess' interviews with journalists over the years »

Praise for other books in the Newswork series:

International News and Foreign Correspondents

“It is not much in vogue to speak of things like the public trust, but thankfully Stephen Hess is old fashioned. He reminds us in this valuable and provocative book that journalism is a public trust, providing the basic information on which citizens in a democracy vote, or tune out.”—Ken Auletta, The New Yorker

“Regardless of one’s view of American news media, one cannot help but be influenced by the information Stephen Hess puts forth in International News and Foreign Correspondents. After reading this book, it is not likely one will scan the newspaper or watch television news in the same way again.”—International Affairs Review

“Readers of all backgrounds will find this a provocative text.”—The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics

Live from Capitol Hill

“Hess is a treasure—a Washington insider with a sharp sense of the important, the interesting, and the mythological. This book is essential reading for Hill practitioners, journalists, and scholars of Congress and the media.”—Steven S. Smith, Washington University

The Washington Reporters

“A meticulously researched piece of anthropology that represents the first major look at the men and women who cover the government since Leo C. Rosten’s classic 1937 book.”—Newsweek

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Hess

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Does Journalistic "Balance" Hurt America?: A Q&A with Thomas Mann

Trudy Lieberman and Thomas E. Mann — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, are savvy political scientists who know Washington politics well. And they have been regarded as middle-of-the-road guys, centrists, for a number of years in DC. That is why their book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, published by Basic Books in May, has startled some media types with its thesis, which argues, in a nutshell, that the core of Washington’s political dysfunction lies with the Republican Party. As they put it in The Washington Post:

"The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."

Along with their criticism of the GOP, Orenstein and Mann had some harsh words for the press. As they wrote in their book:

"Because of the partisan nature of much of the media and the reflexive tendency of many in the mainstream press to use false equivalence to explain outcomes, it becomes much easier for a minority, in this case the Republicans, to use filibusters, holds, and other techniques to obstruct."

CJR’s Trudy Lieberman sat down with Mann to explore where he and his co-author think the media have gone awry. First the politics, then the press:

The Politics

Why is the GOP to blame for political stalemate you describe in your book?
They are now the primary source of the stalemate. At the very beginning of the Obama administration, they made an explicit decision—now well documented—to eschew any policy negotiations with the newly elected president and Democrats in Congress. It’s a strategy of total political opposition—to avoid sharing any responsibility for the performance of the economy and to do nothing that might improve its performance, because that would boost the electoral prospects of President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Their motivation goes beyond differences on the issues. It’s an aggressive, non-negotiable stance, illustrated by the no-new-tax pledge of Grover Norquist, that makes any real constructive policy making impossible.

What’s in it for Republicans?
The worse the economy is, the better their chances of gaining control of the White House and both Houses of Congress and putting in place a radical view of policy that goes well beyond anything Republicans have proposed in the past.

As you see it, is this driven by ideology or the goal to control government?
It’s both. The ultimate objective is ideological, but the means to achieve that objective are very strategic.

Explain a little more about the strategy.
It involves abandoning and denigrating policy proposals you once supported as soon as the other party embraces them; denying the efficacy of governmental actions to deal with the economic crisis; threatening a public default, by holding the need to raise the debt ceiling hostage to non-negotiable demands to cut domestic spending, in the midst of a weak economy; using the Senate filibuster routinely and ruthlessly to deny sizeable majorities an opportunity to put its program into place; delaying or denying the confirmation of presidential nominations even when you approve of the nominee. The list goes on. You do everything you can to inflict political damage on your political adversary.

Are you saying the Republican Party has changed?
The result of all this is the transformation of the Republican Party into a radical party—not really a conservative party—that no Republican president in the modern era would have felt comfortable being a part of.

It’s a democracy—Isn’t it okay for one party to do this?
Of course, it is perfectly legitimate for a party to propose a radical change of policy course. But it is essential that the public have some grasp of what that party is proposing and what its likely consequences would be. Public opinion research suggests that citizens have little knowledge or understanding of either the source of our dysfunctional politics or the nature of the Republican policy ambitions.

In your book, you say that democracy’s ultimate weapon—the ability to throw the bums out—has proved wholly inadequate. Why?
The public can certainly get upset with the status quo and throw incumbent officeholders and parties out of power. Obama was the beneficiary of that in ‘08. The trick is figuring out whom to hold responsible for unsatisfactory conditions in the country. The most common target is the president and his party in Congress. But what if that president’s program has been weakened or subverted by the minority party in Congress? And who does one blame under divided party government, as we have in the 112th Congress?

In other words, Who are the bums?
Some voters think any politician in office is worthy of being punished and any new candidate who claims not to be a politician is seen to have virtues—for example, Tea Party candidates who denounce the system and promise never to compromise have an appeal. But this often leads to less genuine deliberation, bargaining, and compromise, thereby reinforcing the public’s unhappiness with the system.

The Press

Where do the media go wrong, in this scenario?
There is a strong tendency on the part of the mainstream media to avoid taking sides—in other words, to avoid reaching conclusions that put the onus of our dysfunctional politics on one party or another or on one candidate or another. This can be strength in an era in which the partisan and ideological media have grown in size and importance. But it can also be a trap that does a disservice to the citizenry.

Can you explain a bit more?
Reporters admirably embody professional norms favoring fairness and nonpartisanship. But too often even the most talented and dedicated reporters, especially in these partisan times with media watchdogs on the constant lookout for bias, retreat to a formulaic “he says/she says” or “both parties are to blame” that imposes a false equivalence on the underlying reality. Reporters don’t want to be charged with partisan bias, and their editors and producers have strong professional and economic incentives to avoid such charges. The safe response is to insist on “balance,” even if the phenomenon is clearly unbalanced. In their quest to be fair and balanced, they misinform and disarm a public trying to fix our dysfunctional politics.

Can you give a concrete example of this political asymmetry?
Our book contains many such examples. One is the widespread belief that both parties are equally to blame for budget deficits and debt. As the story goes, Republicans won’t raise taxes and Democrats won’t cut spending, especially on so-called entitlements. The reality is different. Almost all Republican candidates and officeholders have signed Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge and impose fealty to it with political committees, threatening primary challenges. As far as they are concerned, tax increases are off the table. Democrats are willing to deal with everything as long as everything is on the table, and deficit reduction is not used as a cover to achieve broader ideological objectives.

How do reporters and columnists write about this?
They mainly say both parties are equally implicated in the failure to tame deficits—even though recent fiscal policy history and current negotiating positions suggest otherwise.

How have the media, in their drive for balance, prevented the breakthrough discussion you think needs to happen?
To be sure, all of the blame cannot fairly be placed on the media. President Obama has fallen short of a clear and forceful explication of this difference. The silence of the business community on the fantastical nature of the Republican position has been deafening. Most of the nonpartisan/bipartisan groups working on fiscal policy challengers have avoided speaking this truth. But the press has largely mirrored rather than corrected and supplemented the others.

Did this dynamic of media balance play out in the healthcare debate?
Obama’s healthcare proposals were designed to avoid the pitfalls of past failures by negotiating with many of the healthcare stakeholders and embracing ideas that had been the centerpiece of past Republican proposals. These included state exchanges to foster competition in private insurance, subsidies for low income households, significant insurance reforms including guaranteed issue and affordability for those with pre-existing conditions, and an individual mandate to encourage universal coverage. But once Obama was for them, Republicans turned against them. They refused to negotiate on the contents of a health reform plan, and characterized their old plans as socialistic. Whatever Obama’s messaging failures, the press itself failed to inform the public of the disingenuousness of the Republican opposition and the inaccuracy of much of the rhetoric leveled against the Affordable Care Act. It was safer to cover the politics of health reform and avoid making judgments that were tougher on one party than the other.

Does this apply in other situations?
It applies in many situations. You see it in healthcare and on taxes. Reporters should be examining it is plausible to hold to a no new taxes pledge and be responsible to the issues of the deficit and the debt? What the no new tax pledge has done to the Republican Party is to limit its ability to deal with the problem. Instead they say let’s talk around it. What are the implications in the Ryan budget? Do you ever see that laid out in a television show or a major print piece? Once in awhile the Times or The Wall Street Journal will have something. But most of the time you don’t get this.

So how should reporters cover this?
Help audiences understand asymmetrical polarization. Document, and report on it. Who’s telling the truth? Who’s taking hostages?

Can we really expect this to happen?
That was one of the reasons we wrote the book. We have learned our book has led to heated discussions in some newsrooms. We know there are enormous challenges. Our goal is get into the discussion within media organizations.

Is the press innately defensive?
Yes. It’s getting harder and harder to take risks. That’s part of the argument we’re making. In the face of these partisan wars, the press has become even more defensive and looks for safe harbors. One of these is to treat both sides as equally implicated. It was probably easier to cover things when both parties were operating in the mainstream of American politics. When one party has moved off track in such a breathtaking fashion, he said/she said serves to obscure the underlying reality rather than expose it.

What would be ideal for the press right now?
The key thing is not to try to return to some imagined golden age. It’s to try to make sure there is a mix of reporting and writing that is a description of the political and economic reality—and get that to the electorate. It means going beyond the fact checks, whose results seldom make it to the front page and are routinely ignored by candidates, and get to a point in which telling lies is punished and not rewarded in the political arena.

Can the media alone help change the discourse?
The media has to have help from other leaders in society speaking the truth. There once were voices in the business community. You need voices that support the commonweal. The press can’t do it alone.

What are the consequences for democracy if this does not change?
They are enormous. It’s concern for the wellbeing of our democracy that motivated us to write this book. The war between the parties is being waged in a way that does serious damage to the country. It’s not the reporters’ fault but it’s their job to clarify for the public what is happening in our public life—who is responsible, and how we might overcome these problems. They are constrained by professional norms and by the expectations and demands of their supervisors. I want to be clear we’re not attacking reporters.

What’s the fallout for you of this book?
We built some capital over four decades, based on straight shooting, nonpartisan political analysis and commentary. The new reality of American politics compelled us to spend some of that capital. Neither of us has any regrets. Nor do we believe we’ve become partisan in any way. We reached a conclusion we believe is accurate.

This piece originally appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Authors

Trudy Lieberman
Thomas E. Mann

Publication: Columbia Journalism Review

Image Source: Kevin Lamarque

@ Brookings Podcast: The Changing Balance of Power in Presidential Campaign Reporting

Stephen Hess — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The increasing diversification of news media—from online versions of major newspapers to political bloggers, to 24-hour cable news to social media—plus the profession’s changing economics have caused the balance of power between political reporters and presidential candidates to change. Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus, says our very good, well-trained reporters are “almost dangerous” to presidential candidates who are trying to stay on message. Thus, says Hess, the way the press covers campaigns has changed as well, and not for the better.

Video

Stephen Hess: The Changing Balance of Power in Presidential Campaign Reporting

Authors

Stephen Hess

Remembering Mike Wallace

Stephen Hess and Marvin Kalb — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Ten years ago, Stephen Hess interviewed Mike Wallace at an event organized with Marvin Kalb at Brookings. In light of Wallace's death, both scholars reflect on interviewing and working with the legendary journalist.

On Interviewing Mike Wallace
Stephen Hess, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Governance Studies

When he died on Saturday he was 93, and his obituary was right in the middle of Monday’s page one, the New York Times. That’s fame. And it doesn’t happen to many journalists.

Mike Wallace had just turned 84 when Marvin Kalb and I interviewed him at Brookings on May 22, 2002. (Click here to read the transcript or watch the interview on CSPAN.) The vigor of his responses is obvious. What Marvin and I also learned was how much Wallace was still in the arena, making sure that there was no diminution of his 60 Minutes persona.

Marvin had been his colleague at CBS. My only connection with Wallace was almost a half century of watching him dissect those brave enough to face him on camera, starting in New York in the 1950s on the long-forgotten DuMont television network.

Wallace was a bully. Fortunately most of the time he was a bully for us. We were to learn a lot of things about public people and public events that we deserved to know and wouldn’t have known otherwise. “Forgive me” was how Wallace often started a question that you knew the interviewee was not likely to forgive.

Our interview with Wallace was billed as “The State of Broadcast Journalism” in the year of terror following 9/11. Marvin put some very serious questions to Wallace about what the media did and did not do. They were old friends. But as you watch the interview, you might image Marvin prefacing his questions, “Forgive me, Mike."

Recalling Mike Wallace
Marvin Kalb, Guest Scholar, Foreign Policy

Mike’s interview with Iran’s revolutionary hero, the Ayatollah Khomeini, is, in my judgment, the best example of classic Mike: he had an undeniable scoop (a “get,” as we put it in tv jargon), it was dramatic television, and it was a glorious opportunity for Mike to perform, to demonstrate his skill as an interviewer. There was the controversial and feared Ayatollah himself, surrounded by his secretive henchmen, and there was the fearless, indomitable Mike, surrounded by cameramen, soundmen, light men, producers—his henchmen. Both men sat crosslegged on rugs.

Mike, always armed with more questions than he could possibly ask, had just learned that Egypt’s President Sadat had called the Ayatollah a “lunatic,” and Mike wanted somehow to arouse the Ayatollah’s wrath and in the process get a response powerful enough to provide the yeast for a good news story—one that would feature the Ayatollah, Mike and CBS’s 60 Minutes. Gangbang television news!

Mike, playing it as if he were reluctant to proceed but his job demanded it, quoted Sadat as saying the Ayatollah was a (and here Mike paused, looked down at his page, as if reading from it, and said the word) “lunatic.” The Ayatollah bristled with anger. He was on a close-up shot, which always makes for terrific TV. Mike quickly stressed that it was not he—Mike—saying the Ayatollah was a lunatic, heavens no!; Mike was simply quoting Sadat. Khomeini was no fool. He had been led into a Mike Wallace moment. He cooled his temper, answered a few more questions and left the scene, a leader made more sophisticated by one of the best interviewers in the business. When Mike left the scene, he had a great interview, 60 Minutes had skyrocketing ratings and CBS got quoted endlessly, a dream for any PR operation.

Mike’s secret weapon was that his inquisitorial style worked so well because it was being employed in the aftermath of the Watergate and Vietnam debacles in recent American history. People were suspicious of government officials—any government officials—and they wanted their ace reporter to go get them, to nail them, to come up with the “truth.” And Mike did that better than just about anybody in the world of TV news, in part because of his interviewing skills, but in larger part because the country wanted and perhaps needed a Mike Wallace. Today it might be an entirely different story. Mike was special, and he is memorable.

Authors

The Role of New Media in the Arab Awakening

Michael Doran — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:19:00 -0500

At a recent event, Michael Doran discussed the role new media has played in the Arab awakening, examining the impact the ability of opposition groups to quickly get information to followers has had on the uprisings, as well as the limitations of the available tools.

Authors

Michael Doran

Who Makes the News? Cabinet Visibility from 1897 to 2006

Christopher J. Deering and Lee Sigelman — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:12:00 -0500

Executive Summary

When Barack Obama selected Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, he not only chose an individual with “star” status, he placed her in the preeminent cabinet post. The Secretary of State is a veritable press magnet and this very fact sparked a surge of speculation that tensions and rivalries would likely follow. [i] But early in her tenure, one close observer of the Washington political scene opined: “She has about as low a news-making profile as is possible for someone who is arguably the most famous woman on the planet.”[ii]

Underlying that judgment are certain assumptions, e.g., that someone who had already achieved celebrity status before joining the cabinet would naturally continue to receive extensive coverage, and that, irrespective of his or her previous renown, the occupant of such a high-profile position would command greater coverage than the holder of a less prominent office. For the most part, though, presidents have little to fear in terms of being upstaged. A Midwestern farmer may know that Tom Vilsack is the Secretary of Agriculture, but precious few other Americans will even have heard of him.

What determines the amount of press coverage that cabinet officers receive? Do they labor in obscurity? Does a particular cabinet position affect the coverage they receive? Do cataclysmic events shine a brighter light on some positions? This paper examines the extent to which the visibility of cabinet members reflects an array of such influences by analyzing New York Times coverage of 357 cabinet officers from 1897 to 2006. The analysis shows that news coverage has been sharply differentiated between members of the Inner and Outer Cabinets; that political circumstances, personal attributes, and service characteristics matter; and that today’s cabinet members are far less likely to dominate the coverage they do receive.

[i] During the 2008 transition, it became widely known that President-elect Obama was impressed by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s (2005) Team of Rivals. Thus, keeping Republican Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense and nominating Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State provided ample fodder for pundits and beat reporters alike.

[ii] Ben Smith, “Hillary Clinton Toils in the Shadows,” Politico. June 23, 2009.

Downloads

Download the Paper

Authors

Christopher J. Deering
Lee Sigelman

Getting Afghanistan's Security Story Right

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:10:00 -0400

Newspaper readers on Sept. 14 awoke to sobering headlines about Afghanistan. For some, they probably conjured up memories of Vietnam and the Tet offensive — as they were undoubtedly intended to.

An attack in inner-city Kabul by insurgents armed with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades killed several — but no Westerners or Afghan leaders — and resulted in the death of all the attackers within hours, primarily at the hands of Afghan security forces.

Yet headlines cited the attack as reason to doubt the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-U.S. plan for handing over more security responsibility to Afghans in coming years, and question how the attackers could have planned this without collusion from insiders within the government or Afghan security forces.

Nonsense. Rarely during this, admittedly, endless war have news outlets gotten the story so wrong. But they owe better analysis to their readers, as the nation confronts hard choices in the months ahead about its Afghanistan strategy, and as many Americans already have a pessimistic sense of the conflict’s current trajectory.

I am not suggesting that the media is systematically biased for or against U.S. military operations abroad. To be sure, journalists have reported bravely and insightfully from both Iraq and Afghanistan, living in tough conditions and showing great staying power themselves.

Yet the U.S. media does have tendencies to reach a certain level of malaise about the wars — and a certain distrust of government. This can make some collectively tend toward a more negative bent than the facts warrant.

It happened in Iraq in 2007. It could happen again if journalists and editors are not careful.

Indeed, the previous big story in The Washington Post about Afghanistan in recent days underscored the high desertion rates in the Afghan army and police. True, they are high—but they are lower than before, and they have not been so high as to prevent a continued growth and improvement in the caliber of the Afghan security forces. Again, balance and analytical perspective are necessary.

Consider the facts about what happened in Kabul on Sept. 13. Less than a dozen insurgents willing to fight to the death — and supported by infrastructure a few hundred kilometers away that was near and across the Pakistan border — moved weapons into a metropolis of five to six million people. The capital has multiple access points tough to control.

The weapons were all small enough to fit in the trunk of a car — AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades for the most part. Remember that many thousands of cars and trucks move in and out of Kabul every day. Even U.S. law enforcement and border patrol forces would be hard-pressed to stop such movement — as we prove every day in our inability to stop similar flows of U.S. weapons into Mexico and drugs into the U.S.. Car bombs, too, are hard to find absent painstaking vehicle-by-vehicle inspections.

Yes, those insurgents penetrated inner security barriers within Kabul — and one would, of course, hope that they would have been stopped earlier.

Undoubtedly, lessons can be learned about how to improve the Afghan — and sometimes NATO-run — checkpoints throughout the inner city. But even here, it is no small task to find small arms in a trunk or hidden within innocuous cargo.

The insurgents with their weapons, however, were not able to get truly close to their targets. They fired at the U.S. Embassy compound from almost a kilometer away, from a building under construction — the site where they met their demise just a few hours later.

Yes, they tragically killed brave, lightly armed Afghan police in the process. But there is an encouraging story here too—yet again, the Afghan forces stood and fought for their country.

Why didn’t that message come out of the stories? Indeed, Afghan security forces continue to suffer high casualties in this war. Still, they also continue to keep serving, and keep fighting in defense of their fellow citizens and their nation.

This was true as well in the springtime attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. That could have been handled better, to be sure. But, on balance, it was handled reasonably effectively — and largely by Afghan forces.

On balance, Kabul is hardly safe. But it is also not particularly dangerous by the standards of strife-torn lands. In my experience, it is probably safer than Baghdad — and not notably worse than Islamabad or Mexico City or Cape Town.

It has been primarily the security responsibility of Afghan forces for years now — to the credit of those forces. Experiencing semi-spectacular attacks like Tuesday’s, at the rate of two to three a year, is hardly a failure for a country that remains at war.

There are plenty of things to worry about in Afghanistan. There are plenty of problems for enterprising journalists to dig up — and these correspondents continue to do us a collective service when they report accordingly, as is the norm.

But their power of the pen is so enormous, that when they get it wrong, it is important to hold them to account. That goes for all of us — including people in think tanks of course. The stakes are too high to allow otherwise.

As such my critique is specific and grounded in respect. But it is still important to voice.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: POLITICO