Future News: It’s More than Just the Facts

Chris Peck is editor of Spokane’s Spokesman-Review, which CJR recently listed as one of the country’s 25 best papers and one of the five papers to watch for new ideas and innovations. As president of APME, Peck released the results of a new poll, “Journalism Interactive,” co-sponsored by the Pew Center, APME and the National Conference of Editorial Writers at a National Press Club Luncheon on July 26, 2001.

It is a pleasure to share with you some of the results of this remarkable poll done with the help of the Pew Center. The results will tell you that many newspaper editors have embraced many of the ideas of civic journalism as something that will be a defining principle for the success of newspapers in the 21st century.

A lot of editors are very concerned about the future of journalism. The First Amendment gives us the right to a free press, but there is nothing in the Constitution that says journalism itself will survive … The public is skeptical of what they read and see these days, and the competitors for the time and money of our readers and advertisers rise with each new day.

But I come today with a message of optimism. In this poll, we get a glimpse of what the future of journalism will be.

Why did APME and the Pew Center do this poll? Because of the tumult and uncertainty that rocks newsrooms today. In an era of 24-hour talk shows, Internet headlines, non-stop speculation about the fate of Chandra Levy, there is no certainty the everyday work of journalists trying to report local news in support of an informed public will survive.

Last night, I skimmed through the cable TV channels and was reminded again about what an incredibly small sliver of the media spectrum news actually occupies. Infomercials – we got a lot of those. Speculators and talking heads – their future is bright. Music videos with a message – no problem. But journalism? The telling of truths about events and ideas that affect public life? Well, the jury is out and, unfortunately, that jury is carrying a cell phone that surfs the Internet.

Editors are very concerned about the ability of the media, particularly newspapers, to hold the attention and regain the trust of everyday citizens … The irony is there is probably more journalism being done today than at any time in the last 30 years. But this great work is not getting out to the public as it once did. More people are skimmers and streakers, as the poll confirms, than deep readers of the news.

Let me give you just one example. I was talking to a friend who teaches journalism at Northwestern University. He did a poll in his class of journalism students. Only 10 percent spent any time at all focusing on national/international news.

Public vs. Newsroom Values

Now, I grew up in Wyoming in a newspaper family. This year marks my father’s fifty-second year as the publisher of the Riverton Ranger. I remember very distinctly election night in 1960. I went down to the newspaper – I was 10 years old – and heard the AP Teletype coming in with the results of the Kennedy-Nixon race. When Wyoming put Kennedy over the top, there was a great round of cheers and boos inside that little newsroom. The reason was that the public had filled that newsroom, Republicans and Democrats alike, who had come to the newspaper to be part of an historic event. Well, the public doesn’t come into newspapers much anymore. The public doesn’t think the newsroom is populated by people who share their values and beliefs.

Just before I came here I was in Seattle to talk about a poll of the way people in Washington thought about the media. That research showed that only 52 percent of the people where I live felt the local media shared the same beliefs and values as the rest of the community. That same research showed that no news outlet in the state of Washington – no television station, no radio station, no newspaper – received even a 50 percent rating for being balanced and fair in presenting the news.

Now, editors around the country know this. What the Pew-APME poll wanted to find out is whether editors are actually doing something about this disconnection with the public.

Interaction is Critical

The good news is that editors are trying to do something. The first compelling result to emerge from this poll on the changing landscape of journalism is that nine out of 10 editors of all of the nation’s newspapers over 20,000 circulation say: “The future health of the newspaper industry depends upon more interaction with readers.”

Now, this finding is a crucial and potentially industry-saving realization and it is a realization that is markedly different from the newsroom culture of the last 30 years.

Since Watergate right here in Washington, DC, and since the rise of professional journalism schools … most editors have focused most of their creative work on the craft of journalism. They have emphasized better writing, better design, increasing their staff education and better printing. But today, as the poll points out, editors have shifted their focus and are paying far more attention to the relationship they have with their readers.

Now, this was not a cherry-picked poll just of newspapers who were advocates of civic journalism. The APME/Pew survey went to every newspaper, 512 in the country, with circulations over 20,000. An astonishingly 70 percent of those editors responded.

What this survey underscores is that editors … know that the relationship they have with their readers is strained … There is a certain paradox here because, since the Watergate era of journalism, there has been more brilliant investigative and enterprising journalism done than at any other time.

The irony is that model in many ways sowed the seeds of dissatisfaction that we have today because, through the 70s, 80s and even into the 90s, the dominant newsroom culture bred a generation of journalists detached from the very communities they serve. The successful journalist was often portrayed as a hired gun who rode into town, cleaned up its scoundrels and then rode off into the sunset – or maybe more aptly drove off in a Volvo into the suburbs.

Let me be clear, the problem facing journalism today is not investigative reporting. Far from it. As the poll found, this core value ranks in the top three things that editors still think that their newspapers need to do.

But what the proponents of civic journalism came to understand early is that the greatest writing in the world won’t make a whit of difference if nobody is there to read it – if the readers have fled to TV or if they have simply gone into their cocoons.

The tools of civic journalism can play a tremendously positive role in keeping the connection with readers so they can access the greater enterprising investigative reporting of the watchdog press.

So I want to go back just to a little history of civic journalism to clear up something that I think plagued this experiment for a long time. Civic journalism has never been about getting away from investigative or enterprise reporting. Rather, civic journalism arose from a concern over this growing disconnection between readers and newspapers and community life. It was an academic argument that simply said this: That if you can strengthen the connections between the media, the public and civic life, then all three of these disparate interests will benefit.

Now, all that sounds kind of high-falutin’ and that explains why about half the editors polled still dislike the label.

Widespread Use of Civic Tools

It’s important to remember, however, that civic journalism no longer is simply an academic exercise. About 20 percent of American editors now say they both embrace the label and actively exercise the tools and practices of civic journalism. But it is the action of the other 80 percent that I find most revealing. Many of these editors said they were uncomfortable with the “civic journalism” label but they are, very quietly and very earnestly, employing the tools of civic journalism in their newsrooms every day.

These tools and practices in the last decade have been adopted by most newspapers in America. For example, the poll found that 51 percent of newspapers today include e-mail addresses of reporters with their stories to make it far easier for readers to interact with reporters about their work.

Now, among papers who embrace the civic journalism concept, 63 percent publish e-mail addresses. The poll also found that seven in 10 newspapers now offer readers one or more avenues, other than letters to the editor, for publishing their own ideas and views. This is a far cry from a decade ago when editorial page editors were limiting their reader involvement.

When you think back to the beginning when civic journalism was a very incendiary idea, one of its most controversial propositions was that newspapers should not remain on the sidelines of public discourse but should take a far more active role in convening conversations about key community issues and inspiring civic involvement. The purpose, again, was to make public life more vibrant.

Times have changed in the newspaper industry and its opinion of civic journalism. The poll found that 97 percent of editors now think a newspaper should have a broader community role besides just printing the news. More remarkably, about 40 percent of the non-civic journalism oriented papers, and 71 percent of the papers who embrace civic journalism, believe newspapers should help convene local discussions about key community issues.

How significant is this change? Well, let me put it this way. The poll shows that the dual roles of community stewardship and serving as a catalyst for community conversation now outrank investigative reporting as one of the top two roles that newspapers should play in a community. That, I submit, is a sea change from the Watergate era of journalism.

Framing Shifts News Focus

The expectations of what reporters do and how they will do their work also are changing, according to the poll … Significant were the indications that editors today are asking reporters to organize or frame their stories far differently than before. More than half of all editors, 51 percent, say they have made a conscious effort to move their reporting away from story outlines that pose every issue as a conflict – not as much “us vs. them,” much more of “we’re in this together.”

And 47 percent make a conscious effort to include all potential stakeholders in a story, not just the men in suits in those big edifices. And 78 percent said their reporters are being instructed to develop new source lists away from the traditional nameplates of elected officials.

And, 52 percent of the editors now often make a deliberate effort to have reporters write their stories in ways that focus not just on problems but also on ways that the community might address their problems.

All of these indicators suggest a transformation underway in the newsroom.

Now, one result of this shift in emphasis is that most newspapers are now covering significantly fewer routine government stories than a decade ago … [but] editors say the coverage of stories impacted by government has increased. Newspapers are doing more reporting on government-supported public education, more reporting on transportation, more reporting on urban sprawl and development.

I find this shift very positive for the future of journalism because in kind of an awkward and halting and tentative way, journalists are stepping forward from the sidelines and saying we have to find ways to engage our readers and communities again. Indeed, editors offered a stunning chorus of agreement that newspapering today is not about “just getting the facts.” Only seven percent of the editors defined this as the most important role for their newspaper. By contrast, 32 percent described their most important role as news explainer. Another 30 percent said the primary role was news breaker.

The headline I would write over this poll? In big 60-point type it would say: “The Future of Newspapers Linked to Better Interaction and Connection With Readers.”

I would hope that headline would capture some attention on Wall Street. In the July-August issue of American Journalism Review, newspaper analyst Laura Rich Fine talked about why Wall Street is going to continue to push newspapers toward higher profits … Fine had this to say about the whole idea of quality journalism: “Until you can show me that your subscribers are willing to pay more money because of the quality, I feel like the average reader isn’t that sensitive to the quality at a certain level.”

Now, all of our poll findings suggest to me that a different definition of quality needs to be found. I think this is a profoundly important point in this current bottom-line-driven newspaper environment.

The public may not be clamoring for better writing, better design, better photographs. But the public is, I feel, saying many times, in many ways, that the quality of the relationship that they have with their local media matters. They have and they will pay for publications, television stations, and increasingly Web sites that match up with their own values and expectations for the media …

The results of the APME/Pew poll suggest to me that a strong or perhaps even stronger link between quality journalism and the bottom line can be forged by strengthening the connections to and interactions with readers.

At some future date, I think we’re going to look back on this day as kind of the beginning of a new era. I think we might call it the era of Interactive Journalism. It is the kind of journalism where the reporters and editors are not standing on the sidelines, detached and observing society, holding the keys to the newsroom. Instead, it is a kind of journalism where reporters and editors are interacting with readers and communities all around the country, inviting them inside to play a role in the work of journalists and explaining the valuable position that journalism plays in civic life.

We no longer can think of journalism simply within the context of the Watergate generation. We must clearly and resolutely recognize that we have entered the interactive generation.

Nowhere is this more obvious than when we look at the next generation of newspaper readers. They are those young people born since 1977, known as Generation Y. They are the future, not only of journalism but of all our democratic institutions. Those young people grew up with cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging. They want a voice. They want to be heard. They want to utilize their media and their sense of global connection. In short, they want their world and their journalism to be interactive.