THE DREADED J-WORD: JOURNALISM

Melissa Harris-Perry models tampon earrings.  Really.

It was a very embarrassing -one might say “humiliating”- week for journalism. One reporter wore tampons as earrings, live on air. Another tweeted a photo of himself almost nude, and a third reporter asked a highly respected scholarly researcher how he, a Muslim, could justify writing a book about Jesus.

Could it get any worse for the broadcasting business? Well, yes it could. In addition to all of the above, which I’ll detail in a moment, there was beleaguered, way-past-his-expiration-date Rush Limbaugh who said this of Huma Abedin, wife of serial sexter Anthony Weiner: "It's relevant to point out here by the way ... Huma is a Muslim. In that regard, Weiner ought to be able to get away with anything.

“Muslim women don’t have any power, right?” he continued. “Muslim women are beheaded, stoned, whatever, if they drive, have affairs. In certain countries, Muslim women, if they’re raped, are killed -- it’s their fault."

Hmmm..did you know we behead Muslim women in America? I did not know that. Oh, and did someone forget to tell Rush that Huma Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan?

Meanwhile, none other than anti-journalist Glenn Beck rented a series of rooms in a downtown Salt Lake City hotel to display his collection of Nazi memorabilia, including hooded KKK cape, a swastika banner that was used at Nuremberg, a copy of Mein Kampf signed by Adolf Hitler, the love letters of Hermann Göring, a satin handkerchief with Hitler’s blood.

Oy.

If you’re already starting to hyperventilate at all of the above, calm yourself and read on. First, about those earlier-mentioned earrings. Melissa Harris-Perry, a relative newcomer to the cable news circus, hosts a Sunday round table talk show on MSNBC. After state troopers confiscated tampons, maxi pads and other potential projectile items from those entering the Texas state capitol building recently, Perry made light of the civic debacle this way:
                       

Upon seeing Harris-Perry don tampons on her lobes, satirist and cultural commentator Dennis Miller tweeted, “David Brinkley turning over so rapidly in his grave you could make chicken shawarma in it.”

"70 is the new 50"...Not

Oh and about that above-referenced journalist who tweeted an almost-naked shot of himself: That would be Geraldo Rivera, 70, of Fox News. Rivera, whose checkered career spans five decades, tweeted the selfie with the tag line, “70 is the new 50.” No Geraldo, based on what we see in the photo,
70 is 70, and my unsolicited advice goes like this: Get dressed.

Compounding the tasteless episode were Rivera’s own words of attempted justification. He began by explaining he had had a long day at work, and he had a couple of drinks before breaking out the camera. Then he said, "And I never do tequila when I'm alone, but I had this new bottle that someone had given me. That second my fate was sealed. I said, 'Dammit, I like that picture.' I had learned how to use Twitter a couple of weeks ago and there I was."

Yes, Geraldo, there you were, but what about us? Do we really need to know that when you’re alone you like to do tequila shots and take naked self pics?

Then there is the case of Lauren Green, also of Fox News, who conducted an on-air interview with religious scholar Reza Aslan. Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life &; Times of Jesus of Nazareth, thought he was to be interviewed about the research he did and the content of the book. But Green inexplicably decided to interview him about how odd she found it that he, a Muslim would write about Jesus. Watch:
The Twitterverse exploded following Green’s disastrous interview. Tweeted one viewer: “Me: ‘I’m an oceanographer.’ Green: ‘But you live on land.’”

It bears mentioning that all of the broadcasters mentioned herein are experienced adults who were most likely hired in part based of their editorial judgment (except perhaps Harris-Perry, who has no background in media, according to her own bio). Of course one can also be fired for editorial judgment issues – does the name Don Imus ring a bell? Why then, would any of these professionals say or do what I have described here?

In part, this can be explained by a lack of oversight on the part of news directors and the editorial brass. The game today is all about attracting and retaining viewers or listeners. Watch cable news networks often and long enough and you will see a plethora of incidents just as tasteless and unprofessional as the ones I have described here.

You are observing the pioneer days of the 24-hour news cycle. It may not seem that way, but consider that even the granddaddy of all round-the clock news, CNN is only 33 years old. Others, like Fox and MSNBC didn’t arrive on the screen until 1996. By then, the average household in America was either wired for cable or just about to be, which meant the American viewer was on the threshold of remote control roulette. After decades of having just three or four stations from which to choose, suddenly we were in the TV driver’s seat with up to 200 channels. Heady stuff.

From there, cable news stations went into what we could term a “cultural decline.” And now, this many years later, a host is wearing tampon earrings, another is naked on Twitter and a third evidently hasn’t read her interviewee’s book, so she decided to try to discredit the author instead of discussing his work. Ugh.

According the a new Gallup poll, Americans’ confidence in TV news is down to 23 percent of those who responded. That matches our lack of confidence in newspapers. To give you an idea of how bad the numbers look, in 1996 our confidence in TV news was at 46 percent. In 1980 our confidence in newspapers was at 51 percent. (These figures area based on responses when asked if consumers have “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence” in these entities.)

Jon Stewart -- The New Cronkite?

If that doesn’t disturb you, you should also know that among young people, high profile news broadcasters are not trustworthy. Who will ever forget the TIME Magazine poll in 2009 that found Jon Stewart of The Daily Show the most trusted newscaster in America. Huh?

Therein is the danger of cable news networks putting people like Harris-Perry, Rivera and Green front and center. As if the journalism profession were not sullied enough by its own historical missteps, by promoting individuals who value entertainment over substantive content, the viewing public comes to equate their broadcasts with any other white noise that comes from our increasingly technologically- sophisticated televisions. The technology is at an all-time high while the content of what it projects is in the gutter.

I remember about a zillion years ago when I was in journalism school, NBC anchorman John Chancellor came to speak to us. He said, “You are about to enter the most noble profession there is. Keeping the citizenry informed about the issues that directly touch their lives is as important as any job can be. It’s a big responsibility that carries with it a rich history to which you will now contribute.”

Those were some wise words. Compare that with a quote from Geraldo Rivera: “I’m old, but I’m still cute and strong…and very butch.”

Fellow TV viewers..we’re doomed.

BAD BOYS IN ANYTOWN, USA

Edgar Gonzalez, 18 (left) and John Toribio, 18

At first glance, Torrington, CT could be anytown USA. It’s so “anytownish” that a drive through town reveals a mix of neatly manicured lawns, nicely rehabbed old buildings mixed with environmentally-correct newer architecture. With a population of under 40,000 people, (over 90 percent white), the town is reminiscent of Thornton Wilder’s enduring drama, “Our Town,” except a century later. The big difference? In Torrington, two high school football players are currently charged with forcibly raping a 13-year-old girl. That did not happen in Wilder’s Grovers Corner.

Trent Mays, 16 (l) and Ma'Lik Richmond, 17

Coming on the heels of the highly-publicized case of two footballers being convicted of rape in Steubenville, OH, the case seems eerily similar. According to published reports, Edgar Gonzalez and John Toribio were charged with felony second-degree sexual assault and other crimes last month in cases involving different 13-year-old girls. Toribio also was charged two weeks ago in another second-degree sexual assault. Not guilty pleas have been entered on behalf of both. Similarly, in Steubenville, Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond answered charges of raping a drunk 16-year-old girl. Since they were minors at the time of the crime, they were sentenced as juveniles. It is likely one of them will spend a year in juvenile jail, while the other may spend two years.

There are two issues that jump off the page in both of these cases. First, via these two cases we are witnessing the extreme downside of social media. In both towns, other teens have taken to Twitter to express their anger at the victims of these assaults. The unidentified 13-year-old girl in Torrington has been called all the predictable names – snitch, bitch, slut, whore, hoe, etc. Very few Tweets have been reported that are directed at the alleged attackers. The same thing happened in Ohio. Such is the duplicitous nature of our collective morality. Some Tweets asked why a 13-year-old girl was hanging out with 18-year-old boys. One Tweet admonished the victim for “ruining two people’s lives.” Another Tweeted, “young girls acting like whores there’s no punishment, young men acting like boys that’s a sentence.” Have we not yet moved past or evolved up from the “boys will be boys” argument?

Blaming women for being raped is nothing new, but here in the early 21st century one might believe we’d be a bit more enlightened than to perpetuate such ignorant admonishments. By now, you have no doubt heard the intense criticism leveled at CNN’s anchor Candy Crowley and correspondent Poppy Harlow for their post-Steubenville sentencing coverage. More than 200,000 people have signed a petition criticizing the two reporters for allegedly sympathizing on-air with the convicted rapists rather than the young victim. Both have publicly denied that their reporting was skewed toward the boys, but the proof is in the video. Watch: A tip of the socially-conscious hat to those 200,000 plus people who signed the petition asking why the reporters never saw fit to even mention the plight of the young woman who was raped. The petition demands an on-air apology from CNN. Oh, and it gets worse: Shame, shame on CNN for airing a courtroom clip in which the name of the 16-year-old victim was said out loud. Come on CNN. What the hell is going on?

Beyond the clear sexism in the public’s and the media’s response to these types of cases is the issue of obvious negligence on the part of adults. Is no one teaching teens the necessity of social consciousness, respect for fellow human beings and the importance of behavioral boundaries? We all know that left to their own devices, some young teenage girls will recklessly flirt with older boys, and those older boys will most often be ruled by their own raging testosterone levels. Put those two combustible agents together and poof – teen rape in Anytown, USA. Don’t misinterpret this: I place the blame for these sexual assaults directly on the boys who perpetrated the crimes. But I have to wonder why we adults are not working a bit harder to properly socialize kids.

As mentioned above, there is nothing new about any of this. When I was in high school in what seems about 100 years ago, a young male teacher told one of my horny male classmates this, when pointing out a particularly big-breasted teenage girl: “See? That’s the kind of shit you go after and you don’t stop until you get it.” I never forgot that moment. How many other teachers and coaches are counseling their randy young male students or athletes to pursue that “kind of shit” even today? I daresay it’s pretty widespread. As usual, the numbers tell the story: 10.5 percent of all American high school-age girls have been forced into sexual intercourse, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure is conservative, based on the CDC’s further finding that up to 50 percent of sexual assaults against women are never reported. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice reports that in 2007 that one in two rape victims was under age 18; one in six was under age twelve.

Often the perpetrators simply continue their daily lives, uninterrupted. Why weren’t any of these boys suspended from their football teams when the formal accusations were made? In Steubenville, Gonzalez had already been charged in a March 2012 alleged felony robbery after he and three others allegedly jumped three 14-year-olds in search of money, yet he was allowed to play in the 2012 football season anyway.

These incidents are hard reminders that we are still a paternalistic society; that we still give our young athletes a pass when it comes to their blatantly bad – and sometimes felonious – behavior; that victims of sexual crimes are often further victimized by onlookers and even Tweeters; and most importantly, that the grownups have fallen way down on the job of teaching kids right from wrong. When two grown, educated, successful women broadcast their extreme compassion for two rapists on national television, something is way, way off. When high school football coaches attempt to cover up the criminal actions of their players, the entire community suffers. It all serves only to perpetuate the myth that “it’s just sex.” It’s not just sex. It’s about power and violence and every time we protect or sympathize with a boy who rapes a girl we put another ethical dent in an already damaged culture.

RICK SANCHEZ: The Newsman Who Became the Story

Rick Sanchez is one of those new age broadcasters who undervalue the concept of journalistic neutrality. During his tenure on television he often pulled inane stunts like having himself tasered (below,left) to demonstrate how powerful the device is. He often spoke before his brain caught up with his mouth: One time he said he couldn’t understand how there could be a volcano eruption in Iceland because it’s so cold there. Remember Will Ferrell’s fictional anchorman, Ron Burgundy? In a way, Rick Sanchez is the real life Ron Burgundy. Bumbling, sometimes ill-prepared, seemingly disorganized and unafraid to look like a fool on television, Sanchez somehow inched his way up from a small TV station in Alexandria, MN to a two-hour anchor slot on CNN. Industry insiders never quite understood it. He morphed from a self-described poor immigrant kid named Ricardo León Sánchez de Reinaldo to a handsome, glib network news guy named Rick Sanchez. With his inexplicably anglo good looks and his self-imposed name change, one might not even know of his Cuban ethnicity.

A few months ago, recently-ousted CNN President Jonathan Klein offered Sanchez a juicy two-hour daytime slot that the anchor decided to call “Rick’s List.” It was a new-wave technology combo of traditional broadcasting paired with social media that allowed viewers to actually drive the content. It was a rather groundbreaking concept. But a concept is only that, unless somebody follows through on it. Sanchez’s follow through was often inept and anything but groundbreaking. Comedian Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” often used short clips of Sanchez’s gaffes for his signature “Moment of Zen” segments.

Sanchez evidently didn’t take the ribbing well. His final meltdown took place on Pete Dominick’s Sirius XM radio show, when he described his childhood this way: “"I grew up not speaking English, dealing with real prejudice every day as a kid; watching my dad work in a factory, wash dishes, drive a truck, get spit on. I’ve been told that I can’t do certain things in life simply because I was a Hispanic." He then went on to lump Stewart with what he termed “elite Northeast establishment liberals.” (For the three of you who don’t know this, that’s code talk for Jews). He went on to say, “I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they — the people in this country who are Jewish — are an oppressed minority? Yeah.” If you haven’t heard the interview, listen:

Two hours later he was fired.

Sanchez is apparently by nature a reckless man. In 1990 it was widely reported that he was driving his father home from a Miami Dolphins game, when he hit a man who was running between two cars in the stadium parking lot. Reportedly, Sanchez was drunk, as was the victim. Sanchez left the scene of the accident and did not return for two hours. The story that is told in Miami is that Sanchez had buddies on the police force, and he was able to get off with a simple DUI charge. His victim, one Jeffrey Smuzinick was not so lucky. He was paralyzed, ended up in a nursing home, and died in 1995 at the age of 36.

So, let’s review: Here’s what we have so far on Rick Sanchez – Unprofessional, anti-Semitic, bitter and cowardly. To this day, the married father of four has never addressed the hit and run incident. It is as if he pretends it simply didn’t happen. Personally, Sanchez never learned about accountability. Occupationally, despite all of his missteps and misstatements, he never quite got the message that he needed to become more professional and work a little harder. Watch this behind the scenes clip of Sanchez and his staff hours before his fateful radio interview, “preparing” for that day’s “Rick’s List.”

His was a laissez-faire, free-flowing style of journalism. It lacked the main ingredients of good reporting: solid research, meticulous preparation, and well-thought-out words. It opted for off-the-cuff, under-informed and sometimes arrogant banter. Sanchez wanted to come off as the “every man” of journalism. But there was something vaguely discomforting about his delivery. It was too nice, too folksy and not authentic.

Sanchez’s firing from CNN is not so much about a denial of free speech, as it is an example of irresponsibility. To call Jon Stewart a “bigot,” with nothing concrete to back that up was disingenuous. In all of Stewart’s making fun of Sanchez, he never once referred to his ethnicity. To fall back on the old “Jews own everything” argument is an insult to the masses of middle-class Jewish Americans, many of whom were Sanchez’s viewers. Further, blaming the Jews – or any other ethnic group, for that matter – is a copout from a guy who simply did not do the work required to become an Anderson Cooper or Diane Sawyer. One has to wonder if all of this doesn't just come back to professional jealousy on Sanchez's part. There is indeed a disconnect on how the public perceives Stewart as opposed to Sanchez. For example, Sanchez's oddly titled book, "Conventional Idiocy," sold just 802 copies in its first week of release. Stewart's book, "Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race" had a first printing of 1.1 million copies and sold almost 54,000 copies in its first week or release.

Even with the clear Shakespearean nature of this situation, with the antagonist falling on his own sword, I cannot work up much sympathy for Rick Sanchez. In the end, we are all responsible for our own words, and the respect – or lack thereof – we afford other human beings.

THE HIGH PRICE OF A GOOD STORY

By now, even the most apathetic media consumer among you knows that journalism is in a transitional period. Traditional media is not faring so well – newspaper circulation is at record lows, magazines have folded, network TV is constantly trying to find new ways to keep you tuned it as you gain more and more cable options. The most valuable capital to trade today is information, and the juicier the better. But with the intense competition among news and information outlets, how can anybody be sure to get the juice fastest and first? Well, to paraphrase an old adage – money talks and ethics walks.

It’s called “checkbook journalism,” and it seems to be more and more prevalent, even with old-line networks. As a journalist and a guy who teaches media ethics, I’ve been keeping a close eye on this for a few years now, but last week my eye almost got poked out (figuratively), when I heard that David Goldman and his son Sean were flown back to the states from Brazil on a jet chartered by NBC. If you are not familiar with the Goldman story, click here.

It is no coincidence that David Goldman (below left, pictured on the NBC plane with his son) sat down for a heart-to-heart with the Today Show’s Meredith Vierra just days after his return from Brazil. NBC paved the way with the free plane trip, and whatever other financial arrangements may have been made.
NBC denies it. The network claims its actions have been misinterpreted. The network spin goes like this: Goldman was booked for the Today Show interview before arrangements were made to fly father and son back to the U.S. It so happens NBC already had a jet chartered to bring it employees home for Christmas. A spokesperson for the network told Associated Press that the Goldmans were “invited on [the plane] as guests,” and the gesture had nothing to do with “booking strategy.”

Here’s my professional response to that: Uh-huh. Right.

Just days later, after man-child terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up Detroit-bound flight 253, the American public was introduced to Jasper Schuringa, the Dutch airline passenger who reportedly threw himself on Abdulmutallab and averted the disaster. Schuringa appeared on CNN (right) to detail his ordeal. CNN reportedly paid a handsome sum to obtain cell phone photos of the scuffle, and denies that the payment had anything to do with booking Schuringa for his appearance on the network. Uh-huh. Right.

Why does it matter, you might ask? So what if a news organization pays for information? After all, the National Enquirer has been doing it for decades and has never tried to hide it. And do not write the Enquirer off so fast, as many are prone to do. The Enquirer is the publication that broke the whole John Edwards baby-daddy scandal. More recently, the Tiger Woods adultery story first appeared in the Enquirer days before any other news organization picked up the story. Still, is there something inherently sleazy about paying for interviews or information?

In a word – yes. Like anything else, when you grease somebody’s palm for whatever product, service or information they can offer, you have leverage on how they offer it. What you media consumers need is truth. That’s the real business of journalism. But when the source of that truth is paid for information, some media organizations may be prone to persuade the source to tell the story in a way that will garner the greatest readership, viewership of online hits. Then the truth is no longer the truth. It becomes a product that can be shaped, twisted or distorted to suit the media organization’s purpose.

News organizations will tell you they don’t pay for stories or interviews. They will tell you that they do indeed sometimes pay “licensing fees” for the use of photos or videos. Anyone who works in the media industries knows those fees actually buy the story. And the public is now savvy enough to know there is some worth to what they have to offer. After the CNN interview Schuringa made it clear that he would not appear on any other broadcast without being paid. And, as you may have noticed, Schuringa has all but disappeared from view. That is because it came out that CNN had paid a “licensing fee” for the use of the cell phone photo. Then Schuringa became too sticky to reasonably touch, so other media organizations took a pass on using him.

The bottom line: Here is who loses the most when the highly questionable practice of checkbook journalism is employed – YOU. The real truth about the events that happen in your world is harder and harder to decipher, and once seemingly reputable journalists or media organizations start paying for information, that information is instantly sullied, and the truth you need exceeds your grasp.