In January, we noted that the day after The New York Times broke the story of the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless wiretapping scheme (which has now been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge), the Times and The Washington Post combined to devote 6,303 words to the story, in articles attributed to a total of 12 reporters. By comparison, we pointed out that the day after the Monica Lewinsky story broke in 1998, the two papers combined to run 19 articles totaling more than 20,000 words and reflecting the work of 28 named reporters, in addition to both papers' editorial boards -- in just one day.
In the weeks and months after the Lewinsky story broke, the Times and Post (and the rest of the media) continued to devote an enormous amount of resources to their coverage. For example, on February 25, 1998, 35 days after the story broke, the two papers combined to run more than 10,000 words on the Lewinsky story, reflecting the work of at least 17 reporters and columnists. Thirty-five days after the NSA story broke, the Times and Post combined to run roughly 2,200 words on the story, with only three reporters credited for the articles.
We concluded by posing some questions to leading news organizations:
1. How many reporters, editors, and researchers did you assign to the Lewinsky story when it broke? How many remained assigned to that story one month later?
2. How many reporters, editors, and researchers did you assign to the NSA story when it broke? How many remained assigned to that story one month later?
3. How do you explain the disparity?
We were reminded of those questions -- and, more broadly, of the stunning lack of attention paid by many news organizations to the most important issues of the day -- by recent coverage of the ruling that the NSA program is illegal.
Last week, the weblog Think Progress noted that on the day of the ruling, the three major television news broadcasts -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- combined to run stories about the ruling that totaled only 2 minutes, 52 seconds. By comparison, the three network news broadcasts spent more than 15 minutes that same night on the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation -- a story of, to put it bluntly, no national significance whatsoever. NBC's coverage was the most egregious: more than seven and a half minutes on Ramsey and only 27 seconds on the NSA ruling.
Meanwhile, a contributor to the popular blog Talking Points Memo pointed out that the morning after the ruling, the Times ran front-page articles on both the NSA case and the Ramsey case -- but listed 13 reporters as contributing to the Ramsey story and only two contributing to the article about the NSA ruling.
The Times' Ramsey article checked in at more than 2,400 words, while the paper found space for only 1,500 words of reporting about the NSA ruling (plus a 550-word editorial.)
Put simply, this is an appalling failure by the nation's leading news organizations -- and it isn't the fault of reporters like the Times' Eric Lichtblau and Adam Liptak, who wrote the article about the NSA ruling. It's the fault of the people who decided to devote only two reporters to covering the ruling, while putting 13 on the Ramsey story. It's the fault of the people who decided that JonBenet Ramsey deserved more coverage than a federal judge's ruling that the Bush administration had violated the law and the Constitution. It's the fault of people who continually make decisions to devote resources, column inches, and airtime to stories like the Ramsey case and the so-called "Runaway Bride" instead of stories that matter.
And that's the important part. We don't have any interest in stories like the Runaway Bride, but if news organizations think they can pay some bills by appealing to the public's inner voyeurs, that's their business. Literally. But when they leave stories of actual national significance uncovered, or poorly covered, while devoting massive resources to lurid local crime stories, that's something we should all care about. That's something we should reject.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200608260001#1
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
