V
E R G E | Student Kane

 

Facing Up 
to the Facts 

by Nicholas Morehead

More than a year in
journalism school and now more than two months into my news internship and I
still have issues with one of the very tenets of the profession - objectivity.

The
other week I’m in San Francisco at the home offices of my slick
online publication and I’m trying to write a story that’s gonna get me a
job. Not as easy as it sounds, believe me. Thankfully, while I’m out there,
the Federal Trade Commission decides to sue bankrupt Toysmart.com over the
selling of its customer list. Like any average Joe, I realize that this is the
beginning of many a confrontation between bankruptcy law and privacy law in the
new economy of failed dot coms and valuable customer lists. Bankruptcy law, so my
lede went, could be facing major changes.

Do
you see the problem there? Neither did I. The story went over well with the
folks in SF and was subjected to minimal changes. But my boss in DC, cut out of
the loop for this story, had his usual list of wrongs that he sought to right.
And despite my customary backstabbing of him in these columns, I’m happy, and
lucky, that he is a perfectionist.

My
point, or should I say his point, was that my lede was faulty because it was
opinionated. Saying that bankruptcy law might be facing an overhaul implies that
the suit by the FTC is just, that Toysmart is in the wrong and that bankruptcy
law is what will have to change. All this on the day the suit was filed. Tsk tsk, Morehead.

But
as my colleagues and I enter the home stretch of our J-school program, it all
came back to something that was told to us on day one: Journalism students are taught, right from the beginning, that perhaps the
ultimate goal for a journalist is to remove yourself completely from the story.
Right after that we are informed of another truth - that this removal is
impossible. In the words of a wise old man, "though they seem opposite,
both are true."

It
seems like a straightforward task - to simply report the facts as they are. But
 merely by reporting something from
your perspective, you insert
yourself in your reporting. It can be argued that objectivity is synonymous with
futility. Is
it just me or is it ironic that as I try to impress my superiors so that
they’ll hire me at summer’s end, my final class is, er, "Opinion
Writing."

It
seems to me that this irony is embraced by journalism in a way. Think about it - you start as a reporter, busting your butt on courts or cops, desperately
trying to be as objective as one can be. Say you succeed and you’re promoted
to a different beat. Maybe you become the legal correspondent, covering the
federal courts. Ten years later the chief legal correspondent quits and you get
the nod, and it’s to the Supreme Court you go. Nice job.

Then,
some years later, if you’re lucky, after all of your objectivity, how are
you rewarded? By becoming a columnist - a pundit who gets to wax philosophic on
the op-ed page. It doesn’t make sense to me - being rewarded for such
faithful objectivity by getting the chance to do the exact opposite.

Now
here is where the opinion writing class comes in. I’ve learned that the
process described earlier is not the way things work all the time. One can
become an editorial writer right from the start - even, gasp, right out of
journalism school. But, for the most part, it’s not the case that young punks
still wet behind the ears are given the green light to articulate the position
of a paper.

I
don’t see this dilemma going anywhere anytime soon. So, for what it’s worth,
I think we should just change the whole order of operations. Why the hell not? I
mean, instead of drawing this big bold line between factual news reporting and
opinion or editorializing, why not embrace it?

I
imagine the future of journalism in terms of the future journalist - one who goes to an event, reports the facts as a true journalist
does, but also inserts his or her opinion. I mean, why not? As we all know,
it’s silly to think that journalists are not doing otherwise. So let’s
combine the two, and be honest with ourselves from the beginning.

You
as the reporter are best suited to report the facts. And I would think, that by
talking to the experts, you are best suited to insert the opinion that, deep
down, everyone knows they want.

Hell,
why not bring a camera and take pictures as well. There’s something to be said
for completeness.

But,
that’s just my opinion.

Nicholas
Morehead is finishing his master’s degree at American University and is
currently reporting for Wired News. Student Kane will appear here every
Wednesday. Click here to read the previous column.

---

Elsewhere on the Web
From the Freedom Forum:
-Journalist and author David Mindich on substituting
“objectivity” with words like ‘detachment, nonpartisanship, factivity
and balance" in his book Just the Facts
- The concept of objectivity
is a myth, says civic journalism advocate Jay Rosen 
 

 

 

 

V E R G E | Student Kane

"Breaking in" the News

by Nicholas Morehead

In the little more than two months I’ve spent working for a sick
online publication, I have bumped shoulders with the likes of Rick
Lazio and Orrin
Hatch, rode the elevator with Joel
Klein, received vehement feedback on articles, been tracked down by a former
classmate who saw my name online, been approached by potential future sources,
and even managed to make friends with a fellow journalist who also covers
technology on the Hill.

But the other day I came across a particular op-ed
piece by The Washington Post writer David Ignatius, and, in so doing,
couldn’t help but feel as though a rite of passage was now behind me. I had
seen a story materialize from a mere phone call and followed it first hand, all
the way to the op-ed page of the Post.

Ignatius is an award-winning columnist who covers business and
technology issues, so he’s pretty smart. And now I can say, in my humble
opinion, the man has impeccable taste. His column touched on the recent
semi-scandal dubbed by many as "Microsoftgate." In short, it involved
late-night sleuths creeping around a pro-Microsoft lobbying organization and
attempting to bribe several office cleaners for remnants of the trash. Shady
with a capital S to say the least.

The story unfolds from there connecting such players as Investigative
Group International, Inc., a private investigative firm Dick Morris
once dubbed "President Clinton’s secret police force;" a fictitious
company called Upstream Technologies; a fringe employee of the United
States Energy Association; and even the resignation of the president of Oracle,
a chief Microsoft
competitor in the software industry. Big time players in the technology industry
combined with an age-old twist of intrigue and deception, crime and punishment.
Good stuff.

I liked Ignatius’ angle because he wrote in praise of the
office cleaners who refused to hand over the trash - turning down what was
likely almost a months salary because they knew accepting the payout was wrong.
He brought to light a side of the story that would normally be cast aside, if
you’ll pardon the pun, with the trash. But the reason I really liked
the piece was because … WE BROKE THAT
STORY BABY!

You see, the company where it all started is called the Association
for Competitive Technology, and the founder and president of that company
is, thank the sweet lord, a friend of my boss. ACT called my boss, who called
me, and the two of us went over to ACT’s headquarters for a briefing. It was,
as they say, on. I listened to him tell the story and my boss ask
questions. I scribbled down notes frantically and tried not to look stupid. All
the while visions of Deep
Throat danced in my head. What followed was an adventure that was 100%
investigative journalism — the stuff that I dreamed of doing.

Many battles lay ahead, the first being who got to be Woodward
and who got to be Bernstein.

There was much research to do, and I did it with a work ethic
that I didn’t even know I was capable of. Records had to be found - corporate,
private, phone-related, tax-related. Background checks had to be completed.
Names and numbers had to be cross-referenced. Phone calls had to be made, and
then made again, and again. Charts had to be drafted to keep track of an
increasingly complicated web of players. Coffee had to be made - again.

Then came the on-site visits. Awesome. My boss and I in my “91
Geo Storm hatchback driving to obscure locations. Slow, sketchy drive-bys with
cameras. All in the name of files that were getting fatter by the snapshot.
Little by little, it was coming to fruition. We were starting to get the picture
of what was transpiring. But so too, we learned, was The
Wall Street Journal (the bastards).

Then, when we had enough to go on, I left that house in Adams
Morgan, which had practically become a second home, and let my boss craft the story
that was posted on the night of June 15. The WSJ could only manage to get it
up for the morning of the 16th. Score a victory for the kids online.

To be honest, the rush has all but died down since then. Such
is the essence of daily journalism. New day, new story to get - and get first.
Here and there I felt the aftermath of Microsoftgate, and gloated when it would
come up in conversation, quietly telling some and loudly telling others that I
had helped break that wild horse. Here and there it would appear in papers,
maybe a mention on NPR, all of
which made me proud. The resignation of Oracle’s president provided me, in
some sick way, with a strange sense of satisfaction - but that’s between you
and me.

But opening The Washington Post and seeing Ignatius’ column
there was the topper. A piece of news had reached the apex of its life, and I
felt somewhat responsible for seeing it through from a tip on the down-low, to
an op-ed piece above the fold.

Now if only I can get reimbursed for those background checks.
They ain’t cheap, you know.

Nicholas
Morehead is finishing his master’s degree at American University and is
currently reporting for Wired News. Student Kane will appear here every
Wednesday. Click here to read the previous column.

Sites Mentioned
In case you missed it, check out Wired News’ coverage
of "Microsoftgate" and David Ignatius’ column
The players:
Association for Competitive
Technology
Investigative Group
International, Inc.
United States Energy Association
Oracle

V E R G E | Student Kane

The Politics of Gun Laws

by Nicholas Morehead

My boss wanted to experiment the other
day with filing a story that he sent me to cover. No argument from this guinea
pig. And so after a Senate
Judiciary Committee hearing on the federal system of background checks on
prospective gun buyers, he had me come to his house where we sat at his computer
and more or less wrote the story together. It was fun and I learned a lot
watching my boss in action. But it was something I said off the cuff that taught
me the greatest lesson that day.

In explaining some of the minutiae of
the hearings to him, I referred to the commonly cited "gun show
loophole," the area of law that allows people to purchase firearms at gun
shows without undergoing a background check. My boss, politely but sternly,
corrected me. "That’s a misnomer," he said. "It’s not a
loophole."

"Sure it is," I said, smiling
at the chance to look like a smart ass in front of one of the smartest asses I
have ever met. "Legislation bans the purchasing of guns without background
checks, and so the ability to purchase one at a gun show - bypassing a
background check - makes it a loophole."

It was too easy; I should have known
better. A loophole, he told me, implies a negative connotation. Loopholes are
underhanded ways to work quasi-illegally around an existing law. In fact, he
explained to me that the law, as it was written, deliberately left gun shows
open to gun sales without background checks. It was not the case where a law was
written and a way to submarine it was later discovered. Rather, the "gun
show loophole" was, more or less, a political compromise brokered by the
Clinton administration, Congress and a powerful gun lobby. It is the press which
has taken the phrase "gun show loophole" and made it a common
household saying, to the point where millions of Americans think of it as a
problem that needs a political solution, and not a political solution to an
American problem. 

Political views aside, you had to
respect his point. If nothing more, he raised a thought-provoking argument that
gave me pause, and caused me to reflect on all that I had taken for
granted. 

The brass told us early on in
journalism school that journalists were about as popular in the American public
eye as lawyers and electronics salesmen. Sweet. We’re up there with the likes
of the late Lionel Hutz and Crazy Eddie. Maybe that’s why those who were
telling us this retreated to academia. But I digress. Journalists, as one
argument goes, are elitist - running in incestuous circles convinced that they
know everything about everything because of the very nature of their profession.
(Yeah, so?)

The statistics and arguments
surrounding the issue of background checks on gun buyers are too numerous to
mention. Emerging from that Senate hearing, I was strapped with pages of
testimony, pies full of charts and quotes that could fill pages backing up the
argument that background checks are a decent solution to the problem of guns in
the hands of whackos. It’s not a perfect system, "but we’re working on
it," said a representative from the FBI who is in charge of the whole
shebang.

But it was learning that I was an
unwilling victim of the very media bias from which I claimed to be immune to
(let alone used to challenge the existence of) that made me realize that there
are powerful forces at work out there. In a June
28 column in the Washington Post, (a publication labeled by many, if
not most, as a bastion of the liberal press), National Journal editor
Michael Kelly illustrated the same point by discussing the media’s recent
coverage of the death penalty. One problem, writes Kelly, is that "as
surveys show, the media are far more homogenous than the general population in
their views, and these views are far more liberal." Another problem,
according to Kelly, is the media’s choice of issues deemed worthy of coverage.
By choosing which issues to cover, the media - as logic would dictate - goes on
to inform the public a certain way on certain issues.

I think there is little argument that
the issue of guns in America is worthy of the media coverage it has received.
Whether it is the latest school shooting of the day, or a lesson on governmental
infringements on constitutional rights, guns are at the center of national
debate. Yet you will very seldom, if at all, hear of the "gun show
law;" instead it is the "gun show loophole." The NRA
and their allies end up being portrayed as sneaky, law-breaking gun nuts. They
might be gun nuts, but they are not breaking the law.

I don’t own a gun, nor do I plan to
buy one any time soon. But the requirement of background checks on those who
wish to own guns raises Constitutional questions - a subject that did not arise
in that Senate hearing (to my surprise), and is seldom discussed in the
mainstream press. To be honest, I’m not sure where I side on the matter. The
point is that I had been programmed to believe something by the very institution
which I am becoming a part of. I am more liberal than conservative, but I am
also actively seeking to rid myself of subjectivity (another task that the brass
tells you is impossible).

So, I can only ask that you come along
with me as I continue this exercise in futility. Tomorrow it’s Internet porn
and content filtering. God I love this job.

Nicholas
Morehead is finishing his master’s degree at American University and is
currently reporting for Wired News. His column will appear here every Wednesday.
Click here to read previous Student
Kane.

Sites Mentioned 
Read some of the testimony
from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Congressional
Hearing on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System or follow
this link to C-SPAN  to watch the
hearing 
Visit the National Rifle
Association

Elsewhere on the Web
Handgun
Control maintains a daily list of news
stories that involve guns or gun-related violence
Washington
Post gun coverage is discussed by ombudsman E.R. Shipp 
Outgunned:
How the Network News Media Are Spinning the Gun Control Debate published by
the conservative Media Research Center 

Guns in America CBS reports that 10
percent of Americans - made up mostly of white, rural, middle class men - own
about 80 percent of the guns. And these single-issue people are likely to
vote their passion at the polls
Driving
Gun Control: It’s About the Elections, Stupid reports The New York Times
Gun
control stories and legislation presented by the Washington Post