A few months ago, a magazine called Brill's Content ceased publication without much fanfare — understandable, since it was never as wonderful as it should have been. The premise was, I believe, sound: An independent forum that would watchdog and critique the press. That has always been a void that needs filling in this country but only moreso in an era where so many sources of info are subsidiaries of Time-Warner, Rupert Murdoch or the Reverend Moon. I subscribed, hoping that Mr. Brill and his staff would catalog and skewer shoddy reporting in every corner. God knows no one seems to deny there's plenty of it. And in a few issues, they did this…but I have a feeling that if they'd done more of it, they'd still be operational.
On this page, I've noted several examples of sloppy journalism…and none of these even seem to encroach on the areas of bias and deliberate misrepresentation. Wouldn't it be a valuable service if some entity — a magazine, a website run with some funding and credibility, something — would take up this task? In the era of the Internet, Nexis and online databases, one would think it would be easy to, at the very least, notate the batting average of some publications. Last May, The New York Post ran a gigantic headline that proclaimed, "TORCH IS TOAST" and quoted a source within the Justice Department source as saying, of New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli, "We're going to indict him soon." A few minor voices faulted this story for being based on a single, unattributed quote and being surprisingly bald on supporting details. And, sure enough, it has recently been announced that the Senator will not be indicted. (Makes you wonder if even the source believed it at the time or if the Post was planted to ratchet up the pressure on the target.)
Shouldn't more attention be called to the Post giving so much importance to what was apparently a pretty bad source? Some jumped on The New York Times for its off-base reportage on Wen Ho Lee, but most of that was a case of publications that were eager to slam the almighty Times seizing a chance to rub it in. (Significantly — and this ties in with the thought I posted earlier today — few have held the Times accountable for its equally-flawed Whitewater reporting. This is because — gross generalization alert! — liberals think of the Times as their house organ, and conservatives don't like to admit that anything negative that has been published about the Clintons might not be true.)
But there hasn't been much of this and you'd think that — in this era when you can read outta-town newspapers with two clicks and access many of their libraries from your own home — the press would become more accountable. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened. The Internet and the rise of 24-hour news networks have changed reporting: It's no longer about getting the news ready to go to press at 1 AM for the morning edition. Now, for competitive reasons, it has to get to the public a.s.a.p.. And it doesn't have to be accurate…just more accurate than Matt Drudge. That is not a high standard.
Someplace, somewhere, an institution will emerge that will be what Brill's wasn't: An authoritative, non-academic, non-partisan voice that holds newsfolks accountable for their failings. We have a lot of little ones but no one whose condemnation would make a bad reporter the least bit uncomfy. Before I buy a new microwave oven, I can go to Consumer Reports and get a pretty good feel for the integrity of that product and the track record of its maker. I'd love to see something truly comparable for reading the newspaper.
More on comics and cartoons tomorrow. I seem to be in a political mood today.