This morning I read this article by the Ombudsman at the Washington Post. The article is entitled “When Bad Apples Fall, Examine the Tree,” and leans a little bit more heavily upon the publications and the industry “push” rather than the individuals who become “bad apples”.
Now I don’t believe this is to say that the Jayson Blairs, the Jack Kelleys, and the Stephen Glass-types aren’t responsible for their own actions. But I think that there is probably something to the “environment” aspect that we’ve heard about. Namely, that if you’re in a place where a system is in place where writers decide it’s their time to become “famous”, rather than the task at hand - then there is the potential for the situations mentioned above.
“Or is a star system within newsrooms, tacitly endorsed by management, driving more practitioners than we want to believe to seek fame and fortune in the expanding multimedia spotlight by embellishing?”
It’s not that any writer/editor shouldn’t have the ability to reach whatever level of fame they deserve, but it’s kind of like blogging for money. If you really go into it on day one thinking that’s what you’re going to do, then it’s not necessarily a good thing - focus on the task at hand - getting good content out there and show your skills. If it’s in your head as a “goal”, then keep it there. If it happens, it happens. But do your “job” first and go from there.
On Thursday I had tried to briefly touch on the “environment” subject, namely that if anything that Howell Raines was saying about “not hearing” about Mr. Blair’s actions for some time was true, then the world around the staffers at the times wasn’t conducive to “fixing” problems. I fail to believe that as a whole - perhaps things didn’t reach him, but I can’t believe no one heard anything about the writer in question in advance of the public hearing about it.
VH1’s “Best Week Ever” would give journalism a “downgrade” this week, and that’s unfortunate. I think the Times, USA Today, and other publications out ther e realize this is an issue and aren’t sitting on their hands. We might not hear about things going on in the inner sanctum of these places, but in speaking with various people over the last couple weeks, I know this is the case. Perhaps two years from now we’ll talk about the “upgrade” in journalism as a whole and won’t be wrangling over who made up quotes about what.
