{"id":200,"date":"2006-06-22T11:13:33","date_gmt":"2006-06-22T16:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2006\/06\/22\/hard-of-hearing-all-sides\/"},"modified":"2006-06-19T02:22:19","modified_gmt":"2006-06-19T07:22:19","slug":"hard-of-hearing-all-sides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/06\/hard-of-hearing-all-sides\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard of Hearing All Sides"},"content":{"rendered":"

An acquaintance the other day had a complaint about local journalism. He noted that my newspaper’s competition covered a speech he saw at the local Political Animals Club (in Fayetteville it is open to the press). He disagreed with the speaker, a military official who defended U.S. Iraqi strategies, and wondered why the reporter did not seek out and run contrary opinions, if not facts. (My paper it turns out had not covered the talk.)<\/p>\n

He understands daily journalism so he discounted my initial comments on deadlines etc. Aren’t we supposed to present both sides? Why couldn’t the reporter call someone else, quote from a book, even find out via the Internet what Noam Chomsky says, he said. I did not try to refute this suggestion that a daily newspaper reporter go find a solidly researched book by an established reporter and quote from it just to provide balance, but I could have said, which book? No issue has only two sides. So what exactly do you go looking for? If the reporter does choose one rival viewpoint, wouldn’t he or she then be making assumptions about each position, first that he could choose them correctly? To select a few of a prominent speaker’s points and quote their refutations risks the out-of-context argument. I can attend a lecture with another person, even another reporter, and come away with a different perception of which were the main points and what exactly the main points were.<\/p>\n

Good magazine journalism has the luxury of a bit more time and that’s where you see well-researched, contrasting viewpoints. Trite magazines and television news (local and cable) strain to get any opposing viewpoint, often rendering serious issues into drivel.<\/p>\n

I did say that in covering spot news, as this was, the general thought is that over the course of time opposing speakers will get covered and thus the newspaper’s coverage evens out. I told him that this was an official of the U.S. government, and deserved some credence even if he or I chose not to believe his employer. A news reporter covers news, what is new. Next time out, the reporter covers that. Editorial writers and commentators sift through the reports and with luck also witness firsthand news and news makers and analyzes the issues.<\/p>\n

The way to suggest to reporters to do this, I should have noted, is for them to write out a question or two from the audience and the speaker’s response. Also, the reporter can approach the speaker afterward and ask a question and report opposing viewpoints that way.<\/p>\n

Then I read the article in The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas<\/a> (Note: this site tends to crash Explorer and Safari browsers.) Longtime reporter Doug Thompson did quote audience questions and the officer’s response. This article was reasonably well-rounded; the acquaintance had not read it thoroughly.<\/p>\n

Further, on the same morning, commentator Brenda Blagg<\/a> tackled the speaker’s free ride, due to his position, the exact point of my acquaintance. If only he had turned the page.<\/p>\n

Yet perhaps it is moot. How many commentators missed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaking at the Southern Baptist Convention convention the other day? My Democrat-Gazette reported<\/a> that the biggest applause she got was when she mentioned the slaying of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It may not have been that hot of an applause line: When President Bush has discussed this, he has been wisely cautious because this longheld Pentagon goal of taking him out solves one little blip. The audience acted like we whacked Mussolini … or Saddam.<\/p>\n

A reporter covering this speech cannot convey, except by citing “a lengthy standing ovation” for Rice, what is the grassroots feeling about this war, and by extension the Democrats’ chances this year or in 2008.<\/p>\n

Interpretation ultimately is up to the news audience. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An acquaintance the other day had a complaint about local journalism. He noted that my newspaper’s competition covered a speech he saw at the local Political Animals Club (in Fayetteville it is open to the press). He disagreed with the speaker, a military official who defended U.S. Iraqi strategies, and wondered why the reporter did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":88,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/07\/nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-palahniuk\/","url_meta":{"origin":200,"position":0},"title":"Nyuk nyuk nyuk Palahniuk","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 6, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock July 5-6, 2004 July 6, 2004. Addendum to the 7\/5 Brick below: I downloaded the Palahniuk interview and listened to it twice. The NPR reporter did open her piece with a warning that the writer spoke provocatively and that some comments were edited out. Sorry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5106,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2015\/06\/ethics-panel-columnists\/","url_meta":{"origin":200,"position":1},"title":"A Panel on Ethics for Columnists, Other Writers","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here are links, annotated, mentioned in my portion of a Panel on Ethics at the 39th annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, in Indianapolis. These were prepared with the assumption the room would have a projector etc. Wrong. I had a Plan B -- always have a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education, Coarsely"","block_context":{"text":"Education, Coarsely","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/education-coarsely\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ben Pollock (left) and Steve Keys, executive director of Indiana's Hoosier State Press Association, discuss ethical issues for columnists and others Friday, June 26, 2015, at the 39th annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. It met at The Alexander in Indianapolis. Photo by Dan St. Yves.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Ben-Steve-Key-nsnc-indy-960x724-styves-062615-300x226.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4990,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2014\/12\/bill-cosby-full-press-court\/","url_meta":{"origin":200,"position":2},"title":"Bill Cosby: Full Press Court","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This week, comedian Bill Cosby resigned as a trustee of Temple University in Philadelphia, on whose board he sat 32 years. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the decision came after a petition drive and other pressure on the performer's alma mater, which followed a flurry of news this fall on years'-old\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bill Cosby, 2010. Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bill-Cosby-2010-public-domain-361x496-218x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5200,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2015\/08\/revisiting-postal-katrina-mae-west\/","url_meta":{"origin":200,"position":3},"title":"Revisiting ‘Postal,’ Katrina, Mae West","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Shy of a Load Let's not go postal, it's not a trend, according to the Poynter Institute on Aug. 26-27 in \"Before Today, 8 Journalists Have Been Murdered While on Assignment, at Work or for Their Work in the U.S. Since 1992.\" Writer Kristen Hare states: \"The on-air shooting deaths\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Shy of a Load"","block_context":{"text":"Shy of a Load","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/items\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"0512 brick logo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Solebrick-logo-2-300x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2217,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/09\/the-future-showed-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":200,"position":4},"title":"The Future Just Showed Up: Like","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is my column for the September 2010 edition of monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Last year I asked my Facebook friends on my \"Wall,\" where conversations are texted (Is this English?), \"Why are people so upbeat on Facebook?\" I'd been on Facebook a few\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/11\/food-shelter-and-story\/","url_meta":{"origin":200,"position":5},"title":"Food, shelter and story?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 24, 2005. Old School by Tobias Wolff provoked this riff. (I checked out the audio book from the library perhaps a year ago and returned it after hearing only most of the first disc, going by that's when its familiarity ended. Having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}