24 September 2004.
New York Times, September 24, 2004
NYC
By CLYDE HABERMAN
THANK goodness for the uproar over Dan Rather and his ill-starred "60 Minutes" report. Finally, attention has shifted from distractions like the war and the economy to where it should be in a presidential election: on us in the news media.
What could be more thrilling for voters than to watch newspeople talking endlessly about themselves, speculating about information sources, challenging one another's professionalism and impugning the other guys' integrity (the sneer raised almost to an art form by those tilting rightward)?
"We have to remember that we in the media think everything is about us," said Geneva Overholser, a news business veteran who teaches at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Face it, she said, "we are fascinated with ourselves." The same thought came from Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, based in Washington. "Journalists," he said, "are fascinated with themselves."
Hang on. Can both these respected people possibly be implying that we in the news game are too self-infatuated? Is Ms. Overholser suggesting that everything in life isn't about us?
How can that be, especially in New York, home to so many news organizations and thus the navel-gazing capital of the world?
You remember what happened when the fighting in Iraq started 18 months ago. Sure, the war was interesting enough, if you care about that sort of thing. But what really got the juices flowing in this self-absorbed town were the debates over whether Peter Arnett, formerly of CNN, was a quisling and whether Geraldo Rivera of Fox News had put American lives in jeopardy by revealing troop positions.
Who is not fascinated by such bloviating, and even more so when it involves something like Mr. Rather's flawed CBS report on President Bush's service record? What could be more mesmerizing than a kerfuffle over who blundered on a news story whose essential outlines have been apparent for years?
Breathes the person who did not know long ago that the young George W. Bush, though supporting the Vietnam War, did his best to avoid it? That someone somehow arranged for him to join the Texas Air National Guard? That he then hotfooted it to Alabama, to dabble in politics when he was supposed to be defending against a possible air attack by Mexico? (Actually, a friend notes, Mr. Bush did a splendid job. Mexico did not dare think about attacking.)
Given how obvious it has long been that Mr. Bush ducked Vietnam duty, much as Dick Cheney ducked the Vietnam-era draft, you can't help but wonder why Mr. Rather and CBS even bothered chasing this nonblockbuster scoop. "Now they're going to pay dearly for it," Mr. Rosenstiel said.
Now, too, Ms. Overholser said, "the story is about us. Part of that is the Bush administration's skill in feeding it. If the story is about us, then it's not about his National Guard service. And we in the media are willing lackeys because" - you got it - "we are fascinated with ourselves."
That we are. Best of all, there are many more of us around these days, many more navels ripe for the gazing.
ONE reason is the Rise of the Bloggers. Sounds almost like the title of a horror movie. Some of them first called attention to problems with the "60 Minutes" report. "We got a sense here of how much of a difference bloggers make," Ms. Overholser said.
For the uninitiated, blog is short for Web log, a site on the Internet where one can become an instant publisher, filling the ether with musings and facts. They are similar to, yet different from, those of us who do much the same thing for newspapers but lack a modern cachet. "Newspaper" is so Gutenberg. Perhaps we should take a cue from the blogs, and join the 21st century by calling ourselves spapers.
That way, all of us - bloggers, spaperers and our television cousins - can invigorate our mutual dissection, merrily convinced that the rest of the country finds us as entrancing as we ourselves do.
Besides, Mr. Rosenstiel said, "it's a lot easier to talk about Dan Rather than it is to go out and investigate someone's public record, or try to probe what the impact of their ideas would be if they actually enacted them, or to figure out what the effect of the two health care plans would be."
Even easier may be simply to flick on "The Daily Show" on the Comedy Channel. Its creators probably had no idea how close to the mark they would be when they jokingly dubbed it "the most trusted name in fake news."