Internet Only One Factor in Journalism's Slide Into the Superficial

Five Politics Daily staffers -- Carl Cannon, Melinda Henneberger, Walter Shapiro, David Wood and James Grady -- are joining in an online discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg about politics and the press as seen through the prism of his new book, "Beyond The Killing Fields."

In today's essay, Schanberg talks about the struggles of the mainstream media in the age of the Internet.

In this running dialogue with the impressive staff of Politics Daily, the specific subject has been war, owing to my just-published book, "Beyond The Killing Fields." But in a larger sense it's a discussion about the decline of mainstream American journalism -- its descent into all things superficial.

A new technology arrived, and out of it emerged the electronic, digital delivery of words and images to homes and offices without chopping down any trees to make paper. OK, the Model T replaced the horse and buggy, so what's the problem?

Internet companies began taking away the customers and advertisers of newspapers and magazines (such as Newsweek, Harper's and the Atlantic Monthly) but didn't know anything about how to report and write serious news stories. They admitted that.

So the technology guys tried to start a new American tradition -- they would take the stories produced by the shrunken-staffed newspapers for their websites. They said they didn't have to pay any fee for these stories because they were just linking to them electronically. They insist it's all legal and deny they are pickpockets. That's the way things stand now.

Here's the problem: the gathering of news costs money. The more complex and important stories can take months to put together. Salaries had to be paid and newspapers began losing advertisers, their lifeblood, to the Internet where the advertising fees are lower.

Why is the reporting of stories costly? Because it requires professional, trained reporters and editors who have acquired a detailed understanding of the subjects and the people they are assigned to cover. They must also possess the writing skills to explain complex ideas and situations so that the average reader does not have to struggle to understand the story.

In traditional newsrooms, young reporters are mentored by seasoned colleagues on issues of history, judgment, fairness and context. Their early assignments are usually the police beat, government agencies, city halls and state legislatures -- venues that a beginning middle-class reporter often has little experience with. Reporters are also taught about the need for distance from one's sources -- it's hard to write credible stories about people with whom you've become drinking buddies.

However, the decline in journalism was not caused by the Internet alone. The print press and television news had already been lowering their standards before the new technology became the giant in the room.

Sex scandals had begun to proliferate in the country's major papers, often finding their way to the front page. Gossip stories also found their way there. Now they're everyday fare, mixed in with hard news.

"Celebrity" journalists didn't exist when I started out as a copy boy in 1959 at The New York Times. They were bred later -- showing up on Sunday gasbag television shows. Now they're underfoot everywhere. One such newspaper specimen was exposed not long ago for giving lectures at $70,000 a pop to the moneyed gentry.

The "news" landscape is crowded with chaff and chatter. Financial news shows on cable TV have become rooting sections, urging stock prices up for Wall Street gamblers. Their "reporters" sound just like the cheerleaders they were before the burst of the last corrupt financial bubble two years ago, which caused this Great Recession. Little of it bears any relationship to responsible journalism.

For some time now, the evening news shows have contributed little to original reporting and are sad to watch. One anchor, NBC's Brian Williams, has taken it a step further. By the standards I was raised on, he has defined himself as a failed reporter. He goes on late-night interview shows and talks about how close he is to major political figures, once describing Sen. John McCain as "a great hang-out buddy."

I don't have any quick formula for halting journalism's slide. What I do know is that we have to regard ourselves as professionals, which means living by strict ethical standards. Otherwise, we lose our credibility and turn into irrelevant members of the blabbering class.