Winding Down

Well, the semester is very definitely in the home stretch -- only two more weeks before the alleged winter break. Between now and then, I have to finish my final RWI story (more on that later), meet one more deadline for my master's project, and take the final exam in my Law class. It's a lot to do, but it's good to have the end in sight.

The master's project is still giving me fits -- I'm taking on a huge subject, and whenever I step back to see the forest, I wonder if I'll be able to make sense of it all. I had a hard time pulling together the outline that was due yesterday -- I honestly think it's too early in the reporting process to know what the final piece is going to look like, but perhaps I'm just off track and don't know it. I'm going to meet with my master's advisor next Friday to try to figure it out. Meanwhile, I've got plenty to keep me busy.

Yesterday was also the deadline for my second Critical Issues paper. This is how the professor framed the assignment: "Tell me, in roughly 1,200 words what you see around you, in any medium, that reflects what we have been talking about in class." Here's what I wrote:

Off With Their Talking Heads

In our last class, Professor Wald asked us what Bob Woodward did wrong with respect to the Valerie Wilson leak investigation. One of my colleagues, along with many commentators, suggested that at least one of Woodward’s mistakes was that he went on television and commented on the leak investigation while giving the public the impression that he was a disinterested party. In point of fact, we later discovered, he was very much an interested party, having learned about Ms. Wilson from a government source at least a week before Lewis Libby first spilled the beans about her to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. I agree that Woodward should not have misled the public in this way, but I think the criticism misses the larger point: even if Woodward had had nothing to do with the Wilson affair, he should not have gone on television to comment on it.

I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t a place for commentary in journalism. There certainly is: in newspaper editorials, op-ed pieces, and columns, and in their counterparts in other media. News and opinion journalism are separate entities for a reason—to ensure that readers (and viewers) know which they’re getting and can judge the content accordingly.

We live in a world where the lines between truth and fiction are blurred every day. To some people, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is a comedy show. To many others, it’s a news program—perhaps the only one worth watching. Jeff Gannon was a fake journalist with a real White House press pass. Armstrong Williams was a columnist who just happened to peddle propaganda. And now it appears that the Pentagon has hired a Washington-based public-relations firm to plant favorable articles in Iraqi newspapers. These days, how do we know whom or what to trust?

When a reporter—any reporter—goes on a national television program and proffers opinions about the news, he or she has shape-shifted before our very eyes: one minute a reporter, the next a source. Gone is the dispassionate teller of truth. Instead we have what we couldn’t possibly need less: yet another pundit, pontificating.

In doing this, Woodward is far from alone. Turn on the Sunday-morning talk shows, and you’ll see a parade of journalists, touted as experts, spouting opinions seriatim. Usually they come in panels of three. It’s reminiscent of the old game show The Dating Game. “Bachelor—I mean Journalist—Number One, what do you think about such and such?” Then it’s a quick cut to the host before another version of the same question is pitched to the next contestant. And on it goes.

This blurring of the lines is so common, in fact, that we don’t even notice it anymore. Recently, The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz interviewed his boss, Len Downie, about Kurtz’s colleague, Woodward. Was anyone really expecting hard-hitting questions and illuminating answers? Never mind that the entire exchange took place on CNN, where, when he’s not writing media criticism for the Post, Kurtz moonlights as host of the Sunday-morning (when else?) program Reliable Sources. Isn’t it dangerous that one of the nation’s chief media critics is perpetuating the practice of blurring journalistic lines?

Woodward, of course, does plenty of his own line-blurring. He’s Assistant Managing Editor of the Post, an investigative reporter for the paper, and author of several books, all at the same time. Unlike other journalists, he remains on staff at the Post instead of taking leaves of absence while working on his books. This, of course, means that it’s never entirely clear for whom he is reporting—for readers of his next book or readers of tomorrow’s Post? That’s all the more reason, I think, that he shouldn’t be peddling his views on Larry King or any other program.

At least with regard to its Reliable Sources program, CNN trumpets this blurring of the lines. On its website, the first sentence of the network’s description of the show reads: “Now more than ever, the press is a part of every story it covers.” Why should this be so? And why do we accept it so readily? That such a statement is made unapologetically is a sure sign that American journalism has reached a point of no return.

CNN’s program description goes on to say that Reliable Sources is “one of television's only regular programs to examine how journalists do their jobs and how the media affect the stories they cover.” But isn’t the whole point that journalists are not supposed to affect the stories they cover?


When Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. appeared before the Senate for his confirmation hearings in September, he gave an opening statement in which he likened the role of a judge to that of an umpire in baseball. “The role of an umpire and a judge is critical,” he said. “They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.” Journalists play an equally critical and equally limited role—to seek and publish the truth while staying very much on the sidelines. As Chief Justice Roberts said, “[I]t’s my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.”

Roberts was speaking figuratively, of course, but recently a sports journalist seemed to take the idea of umpiring much more literally, crossing another line in the process. In October, Sports Illustrated reporter Michael Bamberger made headlines when he reported golfer Michelle Wie to tournament officials after she took what turned out to be an impermissibly favorable penalty drop during the third round of play in the Samsung World Championship. According to the rules, the error—if detected—would have cost her a two-stroke penalty. By the time Bamberger contacted officials the following day, however, Wie had already signed her incorrect scorecard and on that basis was disqualified from the first tournament in which she had played as a professional. She forfeited more than $50,000 in prize money. Washington Post sports columnist Leonard Shapiro took Bamberger to task for inserting himself into the action and altering the outcome of the event. “You want to be a journalist, go get 'em tiger,” he said. “You want to be a referee, quit the profession, go get a striped shirt and buy a whistle.”


Last week, Ted Koppel made his final appearance as anchor of ABC’s Nightline after 25 years at the helm of the show. His farewell would have made headlines no matter the circumstances, but the stories that ran generally focused on his decision to end his tenure without the self-congratulatory kind of hagiography we’ve come to expect. In the media echo chamber we live in these days, it’s remarkable that Koppel remained almost entirely on the sideline of a news story in which he was the central character. The fact that he tried not to make himself the news was in itself news.

In this very mixed-up world, Koppel played it straight. Let his example be a lesson to Woodward and all the rest of the journalists-turned-talking-heads out there.

MIA

If you're wondering why I didn't use the Thanksgiving break to make good on my promise to catch up on my posts, I actually have a legitimate excuse: my laptop died on Thanksgiving morning, and Zach and his laptop were away from about 6AM on Friday until Monday night.

Yes, in theory, I could have dragged my ass up to Columbia over the weekend and done the posting there. In fact, I did drag my ass up there on Sunday, but only because I had to get something done on my master's project before another round of panic set in.

Speaking of which . . . the first of several master's project deadlines -- getting the topic approved and writing a blurb about it to be forwarded to the dean -- was about 10 days ago. I'll have you know that I met the deadline with three days to spare, thank you very much.

If I haven't said so before, the master's project -- for a print "concentrator" like me -- is a 7,000- to 10,000-word magazine-style article. (Translation: about 25-40 double-spaced pages.) The first draft of the project is due on January 17th, the day after our "alleged winter break." And the final draft is due on March 20th, the day after our "alleged spring break." Nice, huh?

Oh, and tomorrow is deadline number two. By 9PM, I have to submit a preliminary outline of the project. Have I started it? Of course not. (But mostly because I have another deadline tomorrow: a 1,200-word essay for my Critical Issues class. Yes, I have started that.)

So anyway, in case you are interested, here's the blurb I submitted about my project:

Is There a Humanist in the House?
New Trends in Medical Education

Buffeted by political battles and unforgiving economics, the nation’s health-care system is in turmoil. While politicians and policy wonks tackle headline-making issues like universal health insurance and the future of Medicare, little public attention has been paid to the ailing institution at the heart of this system: the doctor-patient relationship.

A host of external forces—the strictures of managed care, the rise of medical malpractice claims, and the advent of the Internet, to name a few—have forever altered the dynamic between physician and patient, supplanting trust and respect with frustration and resentment on both sides. Faced with a future of disaffected doctors and dissatisfied patients, the medical profession is trying to bring humanism back to the bedside by altering the way it trains new doctors.

This project will explore recent innovations in medical education that seek to heal the fractured doctor-patient relationship. It will bring together a variety of voices—including those of medical students, medical residents, medical-school professors, residency directors, practicing physicians, patients, and health-care experts—to tell the story of a troubled relationship that may or may not be on the mend.

Finally

Just a quick post to say two things:

1) I've been in some kind of depressive funk for the last few weeks, induced (I think) by a series of tough cops-and-courts assignments in RWI, several far-from-uplifting reading assignments (also in RWI), abject panic about my master's project, and an unsuccessful and demoralizing effort to get into Prof. Sam Freedman's book-writing seminar. (Those keeping tabs will note that I am now 0 for 2 where Prof. Freedman is concerned.)

I'm sure it would have been therapeutic to write about the downward spiral as I was traveling through it, but I just couldn't get my act together enough to do it. (On the bright side, at least you didn't have to read post after whiny post about my trials and tribulations. Zach took one for the team on this -- he got to hear the whining in real time.) In any event, I hope that I am through this particular bad patch. Perhaps I will even use the upcoming Thanksgiving break to make good on my perpetual promise to catch up on my posts. . . .

2) Remember weeks and weeks ago when I said that I had finished my website for the New Media Skills class I had taken, and that I'd post the link ASAP? Well, at long last, here it is: Click here to check it out.

On Second Thought

I just pulled the various RWI stories I posted last weekend. Even if nobody ever reads this blog, I realized that I should have gotten permission from my sources before posting the stories here. I'm leaving the one from earlier in the semester -- it has only one source saying one non-controversial thing -- but at least for now, the rest are going back in the metaphoric drawer.

I think I just proved the point I was trying to make in the essay posted below. . . .

Fair Warning

There are lots of new -- and long -- posts to read below, all dated today. Nearly all are edited versions of the neighborhood stories I've done so far in RWI. I'm still hoping to catch up on regular blog entries, but I figured I'd post these first. . . .

Catching Up

I'm not on deadline this weekend (hooray!). Between that and the fact that we got to turn the clocks back an hour, I finally had a chance to go back through my RWI neighborhood stories and incorporate at least some of the edits suggested by Prof. Padwe and our adjunct instructor, Brent ("The Terminator") Cunningham. I spent the morning sending revised versions to a bunch of my sources, nerve-racking though it was.

I'll post them here, too, shortly, but first I thought I'd give you a sense of why it was anxiety-provoking to send my stories out into the world (or, at least, into a few random people's e-mailboxes). I'm 12 weeks into this life- and mind-altering experience known as j-school, and I'm still struggling to assimilate everything I'm learning and doing. The pace is so relentless that the opportunities to reflect on and process the experience are exceedingly rare, and that means I am nearly always somewhat off-kilter.

Some of it is just the challenge of juggling multiple deadlines, but mostly it's the challenge of trying to do a job that is so much harder than I possibly could have imagined. Truth-seeking (reporting) and truth-telling (writing) are two very different crafts -- maybe even arts -- and mastering them, if that's even possible, will be a career-long endeavor. At this point, the learning curve still feels nearly vertical, despite the occasional small victories.

I wrote about this feeling -- that I'm not yet a journalist -- in a paper for Critical Issues in Journalism that I turned in about 10 days ago. Here it is:

Am I a Journalist?

In our very first Critical Issues class, we tackled the existential question of whether those of us in the master’s program at Columbia are in fact journalists. We talked about the fact that journalists aren’t licensed or regulated and that, therefore, they are a population that defines themselves. Then Professor Wald gave us his definition of a journalist: one who does regular work intended for publication for a general audience. And even though our current work is unedited, and therefore not “core journalism,” Professor Wald included us in his definition. “You are journalists because you attempt the truth,” he said. “If you achieve it, you’re good journalists.”

As much as I like the elegance of Professor Wald’s reasoning, and as much as I would like to call myself a journalist, somehow I just can’t. I couldn’t then, just six weeks into the semester, and I can’t now, with another month of the program under my belt. Perhaps that’s because I’ve come to journalism relatively late, at 38. (The reasons for the midlife shift would require an entirely different existential inquiry.) I had another career before I arrived at Columbia, and I know what it means to have achieved some mastery in one’s profession. I can say with great certainty that I have not yet done that in journalism.

I have the business cards that say “Reporter,” the press pass (which I’ve never flashed), and a stockpile of spiral-bound reporter’s notebooks, but I don’t have the instincts or the skills of a journalist. Every day, I struggle to synthesize and assimilate all that I’m learning, in the classroom and on my beat. I am a neophyte, and this, it seems, is my probationary period. I am grateful for it.

I’m still figuring out how to write a lede and a nut graph, how to invert the pyramid, how to take notes without crippling my writing hand or missing great quotes, and how to meet a deadline and get a full night’s sleep in the same 24-hour period. I’m still developing my eye and my ear, and I’m still deconstructing AP style.

Calling myself a journalist today would be like putting on a white lab coat and calling myself a doctor. It might fool other people, but I know the truth: I’m a student. A good student, perhaps. A diligent student for sure. A promising student, I hope. But a student nonetheless. I may not need a license to practice journalism, but I do need a solid grounding in journalistic principles and practices, and I don’t have that yet. I’m working on it, very assiduously, and I know that I am making progress, but the finish line is not yet in sight.

This is why, when I talk to sources, I always identify myself as a student right away. I’m not ready to hold myself out as anything more at this point, and I don’t think it would be honest to do so. I have a readership of one at the moment (two if you count my adjunct professor in RWI), and while I hope that number will grow considerably, it’s probably about right for the time being. With every story I file and every one I read in the newspaper, I wonder at how I will bridge the divide between the two. How do professional journalists build their stories so quickly, so thoroughly? How do they write them so compellingly? How do they chase down, and then confirm, every last fact with a deadline staring them down? These are all lessons I have yet to learn.

In class, Professor Wald said that the health of our democracy is guaranteed by the fact that anyone can be a journalist. I am heartened by the notion that I can be a journalist, that waiting until I was 38 to start down this path didn’t disqualify me at the gate. Still, I know that I am not yet a journalist. I haven’t earned the title. And knowing that means that once I do, I will value and respect it all the more.

In the meantime, I am focused on finding my way in this world. I read, I write, I report, and I think. I file my stories week after week. I pitch ideas, I track down sources, I cut words, and I polish sentences. And slowly, over time, I learn what it means, and what it takes, to be a journalist.

Good Night, and Good Luck Staying Awake

I was all proud of myself for making all three deadlines this week without having to pull a single all-nighter.

Then I got cocky.

I thought that I could go to my classes today, then visit some pals at my old job, and -- drumroll, please -- actually see a movie with Zach. Which would be the first movie I'd been out to see since school began 11 WEEKS AGO.

So I went and visited my pals in midtown and then hustled down to Union Square to meet Zach at the movie theater to see "Good Night, and Good Luck" -- George Clooney's film about Edward R. Murrow. (I'd have seen it anyway, but the journalism connection made it that much more compelling.)

Somehow the combination of the black-and-white film, the unhurried pace, and the many shots of smoke swirling from the tips of cigarettes just lulled me right to sleep.

More than once.

I cannot TELL you how frustrated and disappointed I was to miss key sections of what I'm pretty sure is a fine film, which, I hasten to add, started at, um, 6:30PM. I think most toddlers would be able to make it through a fairly short film at that hour, but I, the aforementioned thirty-EIGHT-year-old, was completely unable to manage it. <sigh>

Two Down, One to Go

Finished my teacher profile with time to spare and with a full night's sleep behind me. (Where "full night" has been redefined since classes started to mean at least five consecutive hours. In this case, it was about six.) Of course, I can tell you all the things that are wrong with it -- mainly a lack of obvious sources and physical descriptions (of the teacher and her classroom) -- but overall, I think it's halfway decent as a narrative. We'll see what the master has to say next week.

That's two deadlines down for the week, with one to go. I have to write a paper (basically a column on pretty much any subject) for my Critical Issues class. It's due tomorrow.

On the boards for the rest of the day:

• head up to school and hand in hard copies of my story (I sent them via e-mail for deadline-beating purposes);


• finish the interminable case I have to read for tomorrow's Law class;


• do the reading for tomorrow's Critical Issues class;


• write the Critical Issues paper;


• start reporing on my next story, which is a housing piece (I'm supposed to find a dilapidated building to write about);


• talk to my alumni mentor for the first time; and


• possibly have dinner with my folks, if the stars align.

No problem.