“Frontline” on the future of news

I thought last night’s installment of “Frontline”‘s excellent “News War” series was the strongest yet. The first two parts focused on the so-called reporter’s privilege — the rapidly eroding right of journalists not to disclose their confidential sources or turn over their notes, photos, video footage and the like if called before a grand jury or a judge. Important stuff, but a little esoteric. Last night’s 90-minute installment, by contrast, was about the future.

My only complaint is that it rambled. Framing the story as some sort of dual narrative encompassing both the rise of new media and the fate of the Los Angeles Times was awkward, though both tales are worth telling. Especially good was Dean Baquet, who left as editor of the LA Times last November rather than follow orders from his budget-slashing overlords at the Tribune Co. Baquet, recently hired as Washington bureau chief at the New York Times, came across as a real human being — unlike the LA Times’ bloodless new publisher, David Hiller. (Check out Hiller’s attempt at pre-broadcast spin, reported by Kevin Roderick in LA Observed.)

Baquet’s predecessor in Los Angeles, John Carroll, pointed out a crucial fact: Most of the serious reporting in this country is done by newspaper journalists. If the newspaper business is in trouble, who will do the kind of public-service journalism that we need to govern ourselves?

Though it rambled, it rambled at a sprightly pace. Reporter/producer Lowell Bergman isn’t afraid to use silence to his advantage, forcing his interview subjects to fill the empty space. At times, it seems, Bergman is able to squeeze out good stuff simply by raising a reproachful eyebrow.

I do wish the new-media story hadn’t been subsumed by the drama over the LA Times. Bloggerman Jeff Jarvis was his usual pugnacious self in countering Nicholas Lemann‘s dismissal of blogs as “church newsletters,” telling Lemann (through Bergman) that the future will be marked by professional and amateur journalists working together. It’s a crucial point, but Bergman didn’t follow up. I doubt anyone who isn’t already following the rise of “open-source journalism” would have even known what Jarvis was talking about.

The bottom line, according to Bergman and the folks he interviewed, is the bottom line. Though newspapers remain profitable, they are being gutted because of Wall Street’s ever-rising demands for even greater profits. Combined with a belief among financial analysts that the Web will kill off the print side in the not-too-distant future, the newspaper business has become engulfed by a sense of crisis even as it continues to crank out annual profits in the range of 20 percent.

Bergman was unable to suggest much of a solution other than to highlight a few well-known alternatives, such as the St. Petersburg Times (owned by a nonprofit foundation, the Poynter Institute), and National Public Radio (a nonprofit funded mainly through listener contributions, corporate underwriting and the late Joan Kroc).

But he was certainly asking the right questions.

Update: Jeff Jarvis reacts in his usual laid-back manner, writing that Bergman and company “played the themes we have heard again and again, as if on a Top 40 radio station: tsk-tsking the tackiness, fretting about the news that the big guys are sure we need, evil Wall Street, looney citizens. I could sit down and fisk, as we say, all its cheap shots and lazy analysis and incomplete reporting but, frankly, I don’t find it worth the effort.”

Online speech, offline punishment

Over the past year or so, students have become increasingly savvy about the downside of Facebook and MySpace. In talking with my students and in reading their stories for journalism classes, it’s clear that they know if they post photos of themselves drunk and/or in compromising positions, potential employers will somehow find out about it.

What they may not know is that college and university officials themselves may be cruising around Facebook — and going after students who’ve posted content they don’t like. In the current Phoenix, Greg Lukianoff and Will Creeley report that students have been singled out and punished for posting content that is obnoxious and racially insensitive, but that nevertheless is protected by the First Amendment. They write:

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the speech codes, censorship, and double standards of the culture-wars heyday of the ’80s and ’90s are alive and kicking, and they are now colliding with the latest explosion of communication technology. Sites like Facebook and MySpace are becoming the largest battleground yet for student free speech. Whatever campus administrators’ intentions (and they are often mixed), students need to know that online jokes, photos, and comments can get them in hot water, no matter how effusively their schools claim to respect free speech. The long arm of campus officialdom is reaching far beyond the bounds of its buildings and grounds and into the shadowy realm of cyberspace.

Lukianoff is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and Creeley is a top official with FIRE.

Raj makes the Herald

Dan Gillmor coined the oft-quoted citizen-journalism aphorism “My readers know more than I do.”

Casey Ross of the Boston Herald certainly thinks it’s true when it comes to Media Nation. In today’s “Monday Morning briefing,” Ross dips into this blog for some wisdom on Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposal to let cities and towns raise certain local taxes, such as the meals tax:

The blogosphere was busy this weekend assessing the governor’s budget and tax proposals. While legislative leaders have resisted his proposal for local-option meals taxes, others don’t see what the fuss is about. One blogger on Dan Kennedy’s Media Nation wrote: “The stranglehold by the state on local mechanisms for raising revenue is ridiculous. I’m from the midwest, and local-option taxes are the primary means by which they raise revenue, not the property tax.”

Nice going, Raj.

Readership exodus

Not that we didn’t all know this, but check out the latest from the General Social Survey, reported in today’s New York Times.

In the accompanying slide show, you’ll see that only two measurements have changed drastically since the early 1970s: attitudes toward women in politics (for the better) and daily newspaper readership (for the worse).

The percentage of Americans who say they read a newspaper every day has dropped from nearly 70 percent to just over 30 percent.

The taxman cometh (II)

A few facts about Gov. Deval Patrick’s property-tax relief package, which he unveiled yesterday. (Globe coverage here and here; Herald coverage here.)

1. The plan would reportedly provide property-tax relief for as many as 100,000 Massachusetts homeowners. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 2.45 million households in Massachusetts, and 64 percent are owner-occupied. I’ll take that as a rough approximation that there are 1.57 million homeowners in Massachusetts. (I’ll concede that there may be an apples-and-oranges problem in here somewhere. Among other things, the 100,000 figure apparently includes “families and individuals,” so it’s really more than 100,000.)

Anyway — using my admittedly imperfect methodology, fewer than 7 percent of homeowners would benefit under the Patrick plan. In other words, something like 94 percent would not benefit. This from a guy who made property-tax relief a major part of his gubernatorial campaign.

The people who’d benefit are obviously those who need it the most. But Patrick would do nothing to prevent the flight of middle-class families to lower-tax states — at least not with this plan.

2. Patrick would pay for the $75 million annual cost of this proposal with business-tax increases that would eventually total some $500 million a year. Now that doesn’t add up, does it? Indeed. He would use the leftover money to pay down a budget deficit that, as Joan Vennochi has pointed out, he knew about as early as last September — back when he kept insisting he had “no plans” to raise taxes.

3. Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation president Michael Widmer, a pro-business moderate who regularly skewered Patrick’s Republican predecessor, Mitt Romney, is outraged. “This adds significantly to the competitiveness disadvantage facing Massachusetts businesses,” Widmer told the Globe.

4. State Rep. Daniel Bosley, D-North Adams, a liberal who nearly joined Patrick’s cabinet, is dubious, telling the Globe, “I applaud the fact that he wants to standardize our corporate tax policy and have everyone pay their fair share, but you can’t entice businesses here if they don’t know what our tax policy is going to be next year. Every year we’re closing loopholes, and good, bad, or indifferent, those loopholes are part of the business balance sheet.”

5. Article 44 of the Massachusetts Constitution prohibits a graduated income tax. The most recent effort to change that went down to defeat in 1994. Could Patrick’s proposal be construed as a backdoor effort to establish a grad tax? Maybe not. The constitution does allow for exemptions and credits that benefit low- and moderate-income taxpayers. But at what point does such tinkering begin to run afoul of the flat-rate constitutional mandate?

It’s going to be interesting to watch this play out, that’s for sure.

Unfair use

Not only is hospital executive Paul Levy’s blog raising hackles among his colleagues, but he apparently doesn’t understand copyright law, either.

The Boston Globe’s Liz Kowalczyk reports that Levy’s blog, Running a Hospital, has put some noses out of joint not just at the institution he heads, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, but at some rival institutions, too. (The Globe doesn’t bother to link to Running a Hospital, but it’s not hard to find.)

This morning, Levy begins thusly: “Story in the Boston Globe today. I reprint it in its entirety.” And he does.

Under the fair use exception to copyright, Levy can quote a brief passage or two from the story for the purpose of commenting on it. In no way, however, can he reproduce the entire article, even if it is about him, and even if he does link back to the original.

Levy deserves credit for his outspokenness, which is rare among health-care executives. But he’s got a few things to learn about copyright.

Update: Well, that didn’t take long.

Update II: I don’t want to turn into a full-time copyright cop, but here’s another one, from Health Care for All.

Patrick and the press

I’ve been holding my fire on Gov. Deval Patrick’s personal spending spree (with our money) because I’m not sure exactly what to think. I thought the story about his helicopter rides to official events was genuinely stupid, but my ears perked up over his state-funded Cadillac. Since then, we’ve learned that he spent a fortune redecorating his office, and — most egregious, IMHO — has approved a $72,000-a-year chief of staff for his wife, a downtown lawyer.

And it’s not as though all this is obscuring the great news Patrick is making on other fronts. Indeed, as this was unfolding last week, he was quietly floating two ideas to raise taxes. This from a guy who said during his gubernatorial campaign that he had “no plans” for a tax increase. Well, not then, anyway.

I’m still not sure how big a deal any of this is. Faux-populist stories like these are a dime a dozen, and if Patrick’s tastes are more expensive than those of his predecessors, such is life. But his news conference yesterday is another matter. Patrick demonstrated such a just-doesn’t-get-it streak — and not for the first time — that it makes you wonder whether he has the basic political instincts needed to be an effective governor.

Essentially, Patrick apologized, even going so far to say he’d “screwed up”; announced that he would return some of the money; and then undid all the good he might have done by blaming it on the media. (Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here.) By all means, take a look at Jon Keller’s report on WBZ-TV (Channel 4). I also recommend Adrian Walker’s column in today’s Globe, which includes this:

I’m on record as not giving a hoot what the governor gets driven around in. I still think people place too much emphasis on symbols over substance. At the end of the day, a leased Cadillac is a ridiculous barometer to measure Patrick by.

What is troubling, though, is Patrick’s inability to think any problem of his has anything to do with him. If everyone could just be as high-minded, as substantive as he is, everything would be fine.

Over at Patrick headquarters, a.k.a. Blue Mass Group, Charley Blandy wags his finger at the media:

All of the local media geniuses who have smelled blood on the caddy stuff need to get a clue, and start focusing on things that matter. This is page B3 stuff at best. Media outlets aren’t struggling just because of their business model; they’re struggling because they’ve abdicated their vitality and relevance, and become just as focused on gossipy crap like the DeVille, or whether Scott Brown has a potty-mouth, or whatever. [Blandy’s emphasis.]

Blandy also denounces “the obvious racial subtext to all of this: Deval as Pimp.” Well, you know what? I’m not going to say there’s no racial subtext. There always is when you’re talking about an African-American in a position of power. But let’s not get carried away here.

Patrick needs to understand that, yes, he ran a mistake-free campaign for governor, but he also had plenty of luck, beating two extremely weak candidates in the Democratic primary and running virtually unopposed in the general election. For all his smarts and knowledge, he’s still got a lot to learn about politics.

Are the media pushing all this too hard? Probably. Yesterday, though, Patrick had a chance to put this string of stories behind him. He only partly succeeded — at best.

Elsewhere: The Massachusetts Liberal is more impressed with Patrick’s apology than I am. Jay Fitzgerald: “Individually, the various stories don’t push my outrage buttons. Collectively, well, they add up.” And the Herald’s Inside Track has a hilarious account of a dust-up between two reporters for WHDH-TV (Channel 7), Andy Hiller and Sean Hennessey, as they were jockeying for position at Patrick’s news conference.

More: Emily Rooney comes to Patrick’s defense.

I saw the lite

I was at that Los Angeles breakfast meeting in 2000, sitting next to Seth Gitell, when John Edwards was making the non-impression on Massachusetts Democrats that Seth so accurately describes. Based on that encounter, I never would have thought Edwards had much of a future. Actually, I still don’t.

A few days ago, Rick Klein, writing in the Boston Globe, reported that veterans of John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign dispute Edwards’ recent claims that he wanted to get tough on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but that the Kerry people wouldn’t let him. It’s a classic he said/he said, but I believe the Kerry folks. Edwards was a terrible running mate. Even an unexciting choice like Dick Gephardt might have enabled Kerry to win Missouri and, thus, the presidency.

Mind you, I’m not getting into what Edwards said or didn’t say about Israel. I’m just unimpressed with the guy, that’s all.

Merger musings

Satellite radio is transitional technology, which is why I’m not all that concerned about yesterday’s announcement by XM and Sirius that they intend to merge.

In a few years, if federal regulators don’t mess it up, the wireless, ubiquitous, high-speed Internet will be a reality, which means that we’ll no longer be dependent on the likes of Mel Karmazin to bring us audio programming that’s more daring than commercial broadcast radio. It will be like podcasting, except that you’ll be able to get it when you want, where you want — in your car, on your cell phone, whatever.

Besides, news reports of the proposed merger, including this one in the New York Times, make it clear that FCC approval for the XM-Sirius merger is no sure thing.

Still, there’s one aspect to this that bugs me. The reason that an XM-Sirius merger sounds at least mildly attractive is that the two services are technologically incompatible. If you want to listen to Howard Stern on Sirius and Bob Dylan on XM, you don’t just have to pay two bills a month — you also need two separate radios. That’s ridiculous, and I’m sure it explains why there are still only 14 million satellite radio subscribers. (Media Nation subscribes to neither service, choosing instead to scour the Internet for MP3s of Dylan’s “Theme Time Radio Hour.”)

FCC officials can’t know whether satellite competition would work because no one has ever tried it. If XM and Sirius had to go head to head using the same technology, rather than existing in their own separate universes, consumers might benefit even as the two services save costs. That ought to be the direction in which the FCC encourages them to move.