Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

About 40 J-School students stayed in school to watch the vice presidential nominee debate last Thursday. From the cheers that accompanied Biden’s responses to the jeers that accompanied Palin’s, it was rather apparent that most students there were Obama/Biden supporters. Some students were even handing out and playing Palin BINGO (check it out at www.palinbingo.com). This was rather unsettling, because for a roomful of journalists who pride themselves on fairness and lack of bias, there was a notable lack of fairness and a fair amount of bias.

I know Lee Hernandez recently addressed the issue of a Republican in journalism school, and now we can put some numbers to his complaints. For the purposes of the mini-experiment, I emailed all of the students in the 2008 class.

First, we’ll calculate the responses, viewing them as a microcosm of the field of journalism as a whole  (I know this isn’t totally scientific, but let’s just accept it as such for now). Then we can address the issue of media bias. Just for the record, a 2005 study by UCLA (scientific and all!) concluded that media bias exists and is a pervasive issue. Duh, but it’s always good to have some support.

57 students responded to my questions. Of those 57, a whopping 47 – that’s 82 percent – of those support Obama/Biden over McCain/Palin. Of the others, five are unsure, 2 are leaning towards McCain/Palin, and 1 is a definite McCain/Palin supporter.

Admittedly, this poll of mine is not totally (to underexaggerate) scientific – it reflects only some students in one graduating class, in one school, in one location in the US (NY, to be exact). So maybe it’s just the J-School that’s overwhelmingly liberal. Or maybe it’s just our class.  Or maybe it’s just these 57 students.

Or maybe – and this is my inclination – it’s reflective of a larger problem within journalism.

Steve Boriss addressed media bias in a post about Tim Russert’s opinion of media bias in his blog, The Future of News. Boriss quoted Russert, who said, “If someone suggested there was an anti-black bias, an anti-gay bias, an anti-American bias, we’d sit up and say, ‘Let’s talk about this, let’s tackle it.’ Well, if there’s a liberal bias or a cultural bias we have to sit up and tackle it and discuss it. We have got to be open to these things.’”

While I appreciate the sentiment of tackling and discussing, I’m not sure it’s an effective way to end media bias on a political scale. In classes and lectures in the J-School, students and professors have pointed to specific news organizations that are known to be politically biased liberally or conservatively. So far, nothing reporters have done has significantly increased public trust in the media’s unbiasdness in the political arena.

In his blog Buzz Machine, Jeff Jarvis addressed this issue, concluding that bias is real, and journalists just need to practice transparency. Basically, let your audience know what your bias is, because everyone has biases and opinions of some sort, and those biases will affect your reporting. And even if you truly believe that you are the rare journalist who can totally and completely separate your personal opinions from your reporting, your audience doesn’t believe that. So you’re already missing some of their trust.

This, I believe, is the best way to go. All of us come from different political, economical, and sociological backgrounds. By saying up front what we are and what we believe – reporting with our biases, and not trying to report in spite of them or without admitting that they exist – maybe we can regain public trust.

I’ll start: I’m a Republican. I’m an Orthodox Jew. I support Israel’s right to exist. I don’t support gay marriage or gun control or government interference.

Who’s next?

photo credit: Global Market Insite

     More than ever now, we have to concentrate on consumer journalism, says a recent article by CJR -because readers are consumers and reporters should hear them out as such, especially when they have the World Wide Web as their podium.

     A lot of stories seem more concerned with the businesses and sources they cover, perhaps even their advertisers, says Johnston, writer of “Attitude Adjustment.”

     “One of the most powerful and enduring raps on mainstream media is that it identifies too much with the people and institutions it covers and too little with the readers who pay good money for subscriptions. Readers (and listeners and viewers) expect and deserve information that serves their interests, information that ever larger legions of publicity agents are paid to direct reporters away from, and toward what the business or government agency prefers.”

     Johnston focuses on an idea that’s nothing new, but becoming more prominent as the field of journalism enters the digital age.  The internet, not as overtly concerned with advertising issues as the paper edition, include blogs, where citizen journalists, or consumers, pitch in and voice out their opinions and reactions.

     Because of the nature of the internet, news is spread more quickly to a wider audience- journalists of all types of tracks need to use this technology to their advantage.

     Johnston cites many examples, including Jeff Jarvis’s post back in 2005 about his experience with Dell service, and how that brought about sufficient reaction by other Dell consumers to the point where Dell did something about it!

     Though Jarvis was referring to the comp company here, it clearly resonates the lesson journalists need to learn:

     “One of the great lessons of the cluetrain era is that your customers are your best customer support agents and marketers if only you allow them … and respect them enough to listen to them.”

 As George W. and Henry Paulson Jr. pressure Congress to “act quickly” and pass the $700 billion bailout, Stephen Colbert reminds us tonight that it took Congress nearly 10 years to agree to raise the federal minimum wage. 

Speaking of wages…in 2007, Forbes put together this nice little chart listing the salaries of bank CEOs. Bank of America’s Kenneth Lewis raked in $99.8 mil in ‘06.  I don’t know about you guys, but I was making $6.90 an hour that year.  Maybe while us taxpayers save the financial markets, Ken could pay off a few of my student loans.

Or, perhaps the $700 billion could be used in one of the scenarios Jeff Jarvis proposes, such as sending 23 million Americans to public universities.