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TechnoratiInvestigative Journalism Project Reveals Problem at Core of Mainstream Journalism
Pro Publica, an initiative launched last month in the United States to help revitalize investigative journalism, is a great idea trapped by the worst aspects of the best instincts in contemporary corporate commercial journalism. The project reminds us of important values at the core of the craft of journalism, but also exposes the common political confusions of mainstream journalists that so often undermine their best efforts.
Launched with a multi-million dollar grant from Herbert M. and Marion O. Sandler, who made their fortune with the Golden West Financial Corp. they sold in 2006, Pro Publica's goal is to provide serious investigate work that is increasingly rare in a mass-media system more focused on the bottom line than on higher values. Paul E. Steiger, who stepped down as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal this spring, will be the editor-in-chief.
Pro Publica plans to function as an independent newsroom staffed by some of the country's top journalists, offering stories to a variety of media outlets under various distribution arrangements. There are potential complications in how the project's journalists will work with commercial media -- which will continue, of course, to operate in a competitive environment that tends to discourage cooperative ventures -- but those will likely be worked out if the project produces quality journalism.
So far, so good. There's a problem: Managers of the profit-hungry corporations that produce most of the country's journalism have fewer resources to do their jobs, which predictably leads to less of the investigative journalism that requires time and money. The proposed solution: Committed journalists, backed by well-intentioned benefactors, step in to fill the gap through Pro Publica.
But the more vexing problem -- and what may make the project, in the end, largely irrelevant -- becomes clear in reading the mission statement of the group, which includes these crucial two paragraphs:
This newsroom will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with "moral force." We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them. In so doing, in the best traditions of American journalism in the public service, we will stimulate positive change. We will uncover unsavory practices in order to stimulate reform.
We will do this in an entirely non-partisan and non-ideological manner, adhering to the strictest standards of journalistic impartiality. We won't lobby. We won't ally with politicians or advocacy groups. We will look hard at the critical functions of business and of government, the two biggest centers of power, in areas ranging from product safety to securities fraud, from flaws in our system of criminal justice to practices that undermine fair elections. But we will also focus on such institutions as unions, universities, hospitals, foundations and on the media when they constitute the strong exploiting or oppressing the weak, or when they are abusing the public trust. http://www.propublica.org/whatwelldo.html
This articulation of the "comfort the afflicted/afflict the comfortable" mission of journalism is fine. But the mission statement makes it clear that the focus will be to "uncover unsavory practices" that and can lead to "reform." But what if the crucial questions that the contemporary world faces are not rooted in practices but in systems? What if we should focus not on the unsavory actions of people wor king in institutions, but on the nature of those institutions themselves? What if the goal should be not reform but a radical transformation of the hierarchical systems in which we live? What if, instead of chasing the latest scandal, the real work of investigative journalism should be a sustained critique of First-World imperialism and predatory corporate capitalism in the context of white supremacy and patriarchy? What if that's the analysis that really gets to the core of an unjust and unsustainable world?
Those questions reflect my politics and ideology, my way of understanding how the world works. Maybe I'm right, and maybe I'm not. I don't claim to be non-partisan or non-ideological. But no one else can make such a claim either, and therein lies the failure of Pro Publica and contemporary journalism more generally. Mainstream journalists typically will not understand their work as inherently political and ideological, even though that is the case of any attempt to understand how the world works. This invocation of "journalistic impartiality" is simply a reminder that most of contemporary corporate commercial journalism is trapped within those dominant systems of power.
Some critics have expressed concern that the Sandlers' past support of Democratic Party candidates and liberal causes will skew the coverage of Pro Publica, [see Jack Shafer, "What Do Herbert and Marion Sandler Want? Investigating the funders of ProPublica, the new investigative journalism outfit," Slate, October 15, 2007.] but that misses the point, for two reasons. First, there's no more reason to doubt the group's commitment to an editorial agenda independent of a particular party or politician than there would be for any commercial media outlet, in which journalists are beholden to owners. Second, the assumptions about power behind the liberal politics of people like the Sandlers are well within the conventional wisdom that embraces corporate capitalism and U.S. "leadership in the world" (which really means "domination of") as the natural order; if not the mission statement of Pro Publica would have been quite different.
By detaching from the need to make a profit, Pro Publica takes the first step of freeing journalists from the constraints that so often limit the craft. But journalists cannot spring the trap unless they abandon the naiveté that leads to the idea that they can hover above politics -- understood not merely as the struggles between competing configurations of elites but more basic questions about the distribution of power.
Yes, it's important for journalists not to become shills for a particular party or cause; independence is at the core of modern journalism. Yes, journalists should always avoid dogmatism; ideological positions can easily calcify and inhibit critical inquiry. But if we understand politics and ideology as a feature of human thought and always present -- everyone works from a set of assumptions about the nature of people and power, and everyone has an ideology whether or not they acknowledge it -- then we can see the limits of this approach. Journalists' claims to be outside politics and ideology simply mean that they will be trapped within conventional politics and captured by the dominant ideology.
I think Pro Publica is correct in focusing on business and government, "the two biggest centers of power." But instead of seeing the problems as ranging from "product safety to securities fraud," what if the group investigated the commodification of everything in a capitalist system and the fundamental illegitimacy of corporate structures? What if instead of pointing at "flaws in our system of criminal justice to practices that undermine fair elections," Pro Publica journalists covered how the law legitimizes the everyday crimes of the powerful and how money-dominated pseudo-elections eliminate meaningful democracy?
Again, maybe my analysis of an appropriate mission for journalism is right, maybe it's wrong. But it's no more or less political and ideological than Pro Publica's.
Some may argue that this critique is unfair. After all, the problems we face in the United States are hardly the fault of journalists, and one can't expect journalists alone to solve them. I agree -- a degraded political culture has to be addressed at many levels. I believe that independent journalism has a role to p lay, but only if journalism as an institution abandons illusions of neutrality, confronts its place in a corporate commercial system, and makes clear its own political commitments.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. His latest book is Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007). Jensen is also the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html.
This piece was originally published in the German magazine Message: internationale Fachzeitschrift für Journalismus, January 2008.
14 Comments so far
Show AllJensen, apparently believing like I do, that the range of problems these newly funded 'Pro Publica' journalists are supposed to be tackling, "from product safety to securities fraud" is laughably narrow, asks wouldn't if be better if instead:
"the group investigated the commodification of everything in a capitalist system and the fundamental illegitimacy of corporate structures? What if instead of pointing at "flaws in our system of criminal justice to practices that undermine fair elections," Pro Publica journalists covered how the law legitimizes the everyday crimes of the powerful and how money-dominated pseudo-elections eliminate meaningful democracy?
My "what if" is much simpler and plainer than that. What if this group of journalists started with the premise that each human life on this planet was equally worthy and so the most important news stories are those stories which concern the greatest number of people in the most serious (life-and-death) ways? To see what this news looks like, see my website: www.WhatNewsShouldBe.org. What if journalists heeded the challenges presented to them 40 years ago by Martin Luther King Jr. just 4 days before he was gunned down - the challenge "to develop a world perspective" and the challenge "to rid our nation and the world of poverty."
Pro publica advises that their "newsroom will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with "moral force."
Please tell me, Pro Publica, on how you can do that if your news stories don't address the needless death each year of 11 million kids? Please tell me how any entity that calls themselves a newsroom or a news publication can claim to provide news when it doesn't address the stories which affect the largest number of human beings in the most serious way? How many left wing alternative news internet & other entities will continue NOT prominently addressing THE MOST PRESSING PROBLEMS FACING HUMANITY TODAY - like the very dismal state of humanity itself, with 41 percent of it without sanitation; 17 percent without clean water; and 25 percent without electricity? That's my litmus test for "TRULY IMPORTANT STORIES, STORIES WITH 'MORAL FORCE', those that address the most pressing problems facing humanity. What's your litmus test?
Angie
www.WhatNewsShouldBe.org
P.S. - For a link to King's complete sermon, and for footnotes for all the above statistics, as well as information on the accuracy of such statistics generally, see my website, www.WhatNewsShouldBe.org , and more particularly, to read a discussion on how those in power don't even see fit to accurately count humanity or quantify its needless death & suffering even though everyone knows that to solve a problem you first have to know its scope, see http://mysite.verizon.net/vze25x9n/wnsb/id15.html That story alone would make for incredibly important investigative journalism that still needs to be done. Is there anything more important than the daily UNNECESSARY death and suffering that takes place in this world today on an unimaginable scale? If not, then there's no more important news story. It's that simple.
Journalism and the American mainstream media could hardly be MORE responsible for the Iraqistan Debacle and the whole dead-end we have come to in our truly hysterical and foolish responses to 9/11. My friends and I knew BushCo was lying just by looking at the arguments/non-evidence: what is their excuse? There can be none except the combination of their laziness, mediocrity, lack of training or standards or self-criticism, and sheer will to exploit it all for "good TV." And tens of thousands of lives have been destroyed as a direct result and the shock waves will continue for years to come. Just look at the "journalists" BRISTLE when anybody criticizes them---That is the sure mark of a guilty liar who knows his/her slip is showing....What was the old motto of American journalism? To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? DEAD IN THE WATER.
Public television also has some real news programs. Bill Moyers Journal does report real news. When Kucinich and Ron Paul were being pretty well ignored by MSM (except for the amount of money raised by Paul), they were on Bill Moyers show and allowed time to discuss their views.
PBS also has Frontline, BBC news, and other programs that report different aspects of the news.
If this initiative simply refrains from using news to the advantage of commercial interests, it will tend to uncover truth, and truth will expose the corruption and inutility of the system.
His problem is journalists are being given a mission to uncover unsavory practices, when it may be the system which allows or legalizes these unsavory practices that is at fault?
Before you can convince people to change the system, dont you have to show why it needs to be changed?
The fact that unsavory practices being allowed is due to collusion between government and business who are conspiring against the working class. The MSM, which is part of the collusive business/ government conspiracy is covering it up.
Some know the system is broke, but until 70% of people know it, and they have to be shocked enough to figure it out, then sensational exposes seem the right way to go. Even then, will anyone listen.
Journalism is not the problem, there is some good stuff out there. It is the lack of journalism in MSM that is the problem. Unfortunately, people think if it is not covered by MSM it is not true. They shut out reality for government/business propaganda and the mythology that is presented as history.
As an avid newspaper and news media reader, I find that mainstream media is incredibly biased, focusses on issues that are not "news" but sensationalism, and leans towards corporate interests--the "corporate commercial journalism" Mr. Jensen wrote about. I applaud the author's observation of the need to have a "radical transformation of the hierarchical systems" and the critique of "predatory corporate capitalism" that dominates our nation. If only we could have 1 or 2 newspapers or 1 news media outlet that truly engages in journalism in the way journalism could really benefit our people. Thank God for the Internet to allow us to have a way to explore issues not yet dominated by corporate greed and power-driven motives.
Just what we need, more talking heads to tell us how bad things are with no power to change things. It's just another hyped up whine broadcasting our demise. Attention please, we are on a steep downhill slide, there are no seat belts and there is no oxygen. After the crash there will be no food, water, and medicine. Community is dead and no one cares about you. If you are too stubborn to die find the nearest cave.
"What if instead........ Pro Publica journalists covered how the law legitimizes the everyday crimes of the powerful and how money-dominated pseudo-elections eliminate meaningful democracy?"
From a personal point of view, uncovering the congressional legislation as well as judicial interpretations of "Constitutional Law", which in reality are largely responsible for legitimizing "everyday" crimes, would undoubtedly contribute to creating a more expansive and more knowledgable citizenry; in effect, it would give people information they've always been denied by the Mass Media.
Knowledge is power; and it's about time it gets shared among the many!
But there are all kinds of excellent investigative reporters already doing great work.
I watch their great work every day on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.
I read them on the net at thenation.com and many other fine sites.
I read them weekly in The Nation, In These Times, and many other publications.
I read them monthly in The Progressive, Harper's and many other publications.
Allan Nairn has a great blog. Robert Parry has a great site.
And there's the superb Greg Palast who is all over the world.
There are so many more reporting in psychology, health, farming, media, culture, business, etc.
You just have to know where to find them. It's still a free country.
Get on the net outside the corporate sites and get on down to your library, too.
I've found Robert Jensen's writings to stimulate new ways of looking at the subjects he chooses. I do not share his view on putting a political emphasis into investigative journalism.
Jenson writes:
"the mission statement makes it clear that the focus will be to "uncover unsavory practices" that and can lead to "reform." But what if the crucial questions that the contemporary world faces are not rooted in practices but in systems?"
Comment:
The study of political systems belongs to political science, not journalism. It belongs to columnists, not investigative news reporters. It belongs to political theoreticians like Marx and Smith, and perhaps the rantings of a Buckley or even, god forbid, a Limbaugh, but not to the Jack Andersons. Not to reporters of any kind, investigative or not.
Anderson was a columnist, of course, but he was an investigative journalist. That is, he was an investigative journalist who had a column. Anderson's stories did "uncover unsavory practices" that could have lead to systemic changes, but he didn't critique the systems, that wasn't his job - that's the job of people like Korten, Parenti, Zinn.
There a plenty of people on the left and right mixing their ideology with facts. With the former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal as editor in chief of Pro Publica, I'm delighted to see they do intend to be politically neutral.
Jack Anderson, by any measure one of the finest of investigative journalists, didn't push his ideology into his work: he was an antidote to the right-wing Buckley only because most of the "unsavory practices" Anderson uncovered were committed by the conservative establishment and most often by Republicans.
Give me the facts, I'll develop my own ideology.
talk of neutral journalism gives me the creeps. far better for publications to be clear about their unavoidable biases, and let the readers deal with the problem of what is a balanced view of things.
it's like saying: 'something went wrong in air crash' experts say.......
While I think the author of this article has a good point, I think that there lies the potential for Pro Publica to be a force for change that does recognize the influence and power of the systems that rule our planet. I will add that this group is poised to be able to do this more than any corporate newsroom in the world.
The bigger problem (as I see it) is that there are already many independent journalists who are reporting on these issues. They are thorough, well-researched, and do their homework. Yet when they publish their findings, the articles are buried in the blogosphere. Or even worse, the articles are ridiculed as being biased, leftist, or politically charged.
While I'll probably get a collective groan for bringing this up (which is a sad commentary in it's own right), research done in regards to 9/11 is one excellent example. Many, many credible journalists, scientists, engineers, and others have published excellent and thoroughly referenced studies that conclude that 9/11, (at the very least) had many, many elements that were either not reported by the official commission and/or completely ignored by the MSM. Yet, these investigative reports go right on by, with no MSM coverage at all. What is worse is that they also get labelled as "conspiracy theory" when they are actually the opposite - they expose conspiratorial elements which are based in fact, fact that is not given the proper acknoledgement by the MSM. To do so would cause too many problems with their political lifeblood. The MSM would lose critical political inside access by promoting these investigations and giving them the MSM "stamp of legitimacy".
It is a sad but true statement that a large contingent of people in this country simply won't believe any news unless they see it on Fox, CNN, or ABCNBCCBS. Mainly this is because they don't READ.
Regardless, I hope that Pro Publica is successful, and that they can bring a better source of news to the public than the corporate-controlled propoganda machines that pose as news today.
This piece reminds me yet again that Professor Jensen is one of today's most lively and original writers.
Let's hope that investigative journalists signing up with Pro Publica take his critique to heart; if they do, and are allowed to investigate anything without fear or favor, we may be in for a long-overdue revolution in journalism -- which might have amazingly far-reaching consequences for our political system.