Smack Dab in the Middle

Trey Smith

In a post from Thursday morning, I shared David Sirota's lament about the dearth of real journalism in today's mainstream media (MSM). I wanted to add a thing or two to the discussion this morning.

Most reporting these days is highly partisan. Fox News leans far to the right. MSNBC and Current TV lean about as far to the liberal side. The other chief news organizations in the MSM tilt to one side or the other, just not as dramatically as the three listed above.

You can usually tell which direction a particular reporter or new organization leans by who their primary critics are. If conservatives are the ones consistently lodging complaints, then you know that the reporter or news outfit leans just a smidge to the left of center. If liberals are the ones consistently lodging complaints, then you know that the reporter or news outfit leans to the right of center, sometimes by just a smidge and sometimes by a lot.

In our routine lines, we tend to grant a wide berth to those reporters and news organizations that, generally speaking, agree with our own sociopolitical perspective. We grant almost no berth whatsoever to those reporters and news organizations that, generally speaking, disagree with our own sociopolitical perspective.

With these notions in mind, what would be the measure of a news reporter or organization that engages in real journalism, one that covers stories thoroughly and provides readers/viewers/listeners with a multiplicity of perspectives so that the readers/viewers/listeners can make up their own minds.

Back in the 90s - 2004, I served as the Assistant Editor of a publication called The Oregon PeaceWorker. This was a publication that leaned decidedly to the left. Those of us who worked and wrote for this newspaper were all peace, environmental and human rights activists.

One of the duties I volunteered for was, from time-to-time, to write investigative feature stories. One such story involved a local Farmworker Rights group that had initiated a boycott of a particular brand of non-meat products. I both supported and participated in the boycott, but, in my role as a journalist, I put my own perspective aside.

If I had been a member of the MSM, I would have approached the topic far differently than I did. I would have started from my own perspective and spent most of my time interviewing and gathering research that supported my own position. I would have made a few cursory inquiries of those on the opposite sides, but the lion's share of the article series (it was presented in three parts) would have focused on the side I wished to promote.

But that's not how I went about it at all. I spent several days interviewing ALL the parties concerned. I researched the issue from a multiplicity of angles. When I wrote the series, each of the three sides involved was the focus of one of the installments.

When the series made it into print, I was lambasted by ALL sides. The people who supported the boycott contended that I gave way too many column inches to those they were boycotting. The people who were against the boycott argued that I gave far too much space to the group calling for the boycott and the group that was caught between the boycotters and the company being boycotted felt that I emphasized the position of both of these groups, but not enough of theirs.

In essence, I ticked off everybody. That's how I knew I did a good job! That's how I knew I performed as a good journalist is supposed to.