Media facing 'epochal transformation'

Sunday, August 29, 2004

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jeannine Guttman

Irwin Gratz, the voice of Maine Public Radio's Morning Edition, takes on a weighty assignment next month when he is named president of the national Society of Professional Journalists.

Gratz, 47, is the first Maine journalist and first public broadcaster to head the prestigious organization. He has worked in Maine broadcasting for almost 26 years. And he's been involved nearly that long with SPJ, a nationwide organization founded in 1909 that today boasts 10,000 members. Gratz was one of the charter members of the first Maine chapter of SPJ, which is open to journalists from print, radio, television and online.

The organization's national mission: To improve and protect journalism. Gratz is taking the helm at a time when the profession is struggling with both those goals.

I talked with Gratz last week about journalism and the major challenges he sees on the horizon. I did this against the backdrop of a report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. In its inaugural review, "The State of the News Media 2004," the group notes that journalism "is in the middle of an epochal transformation, as momentous probably as the invention of the telegraph or television. Journalism, however, is not becoming irrelevant. It is becoming more complex ... While audiences are fragmenting, we have greater capacity than ever to come together as a nation in an instant - for September 11, the Super Bowl or watching soldiers live on the battlefield in Iraq.

"... Quality news and information are more available than ever before. Yet so in greater amounts are the trivial, the one-sided and the false. Some people will likely become better informed than they once could have been as they drill down to original sources. Other consumers may become steeped in the sensational and diverting. Still others may move toward an older form of media consumption - a journalism of affirmation - in which they seek news largely to confirm their preconceived view of the world."

In this era, Gratz said, the role of journalists in society is more critical than ever before, even as the profession is facing serious and formidable concerns.

Chief among them: "The spate in the last few years of ethical lapses in journalism, including plagiarism and newspapers not reporting their proper circulation numbers," he said. "These things have hurt us all by association. It is also a particular concern to us (at SPJ) that people may not be upholding the best standards of journalism. We will try our best to encourage them to do better."

MOVING BEYOND SUPERFICIALITY

Another challenge, he said, is the rise of superficial reporting. There is "a certain lack of comprehensiveness in journalism," Gratz said. "I think that's a result of budget pressures, shrinking resources and increased pressure to perform, to produce, to crank out material. I personally don't see enough investigative journalism.

"To be sure there is more news product available to Americans than 20 years ago, but because we're so fragmented," many news organizations have fewer resources. And one of the casualties, he believes, has been in-depth reporting.

"Really good journalism should, I think, allow for chasing down stories that need to be killed, because they're dead ends, they don't get developed." Too many news organizations are afraid to roll the dice on such stories, he said. "We have all these newsrooms that could be peering into other corners of our world, looking for stories, and they're not."

At the same time, younger Americans are turning a cold shoulder. Studies show that fewer younger people have an interest in news, he said.

"That's something that's hard to understand," Gratz said. "The desire to know what's going on around you hasn't been extinguished yet, so what is it? Is it that we're not covering the right stories, or putting them in the right format, or presenting them the right way? All those things may be going on."

The blurring of the line between punditry and objective news also is troubling. Gratz noted that Mark Jurkowitz, the media writer for The Boston Globe, has said that Americans have fewer and fewer shared truths. This is happening as people increasingly choose news and information from sources that reflect their own political beliefs. As Jurkowitz told me, "People are starting to cherry-pick their news media to match their view of the world."

Historically, Gratz said, "this may actually represent a certain drift back to where journalism began in America. If you go back to Colonial times and even the 1800s, before the great drive for objectivity began," newspapers were boldly and blatantly biased. Readers bought papers that reflected their personal partisan leanings.

"Nevertheless, in this modern society, I'm not sure that that old style of politically tinged news is a good thing. There's reason to worry about that."

CONSUMERS PLAY A ROLE, TOO

Are we witnessing the demise of journalism? Far from it, Gratz said. "Journalism has been around in a zillion forms for as long as you can trace human history. People need news now more than ever. They need to know what's going on, not just around the corner from them but in their city, in the statehouse and across the ocean."

More information sources mean more choices. And that means consumers must be vigilant, too, he said. They need to actively seek out the objective coverage and reliable reports that will enable them to be fully informed citizens.

"An old truth that's still true is that if you're a consumer of news, your best policy is to always seek news from a variety of sources," Gratz said. "That's what Walter Cronkite always said. He said if you want to be a well-rounded citizen, you shouldn't just listen to his broadcast, you should also read the paper and listen to the radio."

Gratz, who will serve as SPJ president for one year, will be sworn in Sept. 11 at the group's national convention in New York City. That's a great location for the native New Yorker who got an undergraduate degree from Lehman College in New York City and a master's degree from New York University. Gratz lives in Falmouth with his wife, Bonny, and son, Eli.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said of his tenure. "I want to spend some time meeting with chapters around the country, and also want to encourage people to find me venues to have some of this same conversation with ordinary folks.

"We need to find more ways to communicate with the public around journalism and journalism issues. I think that's our best defense," he said. "By and large, I still think journalism is done pretty well in most locations," but we need to do a better job explaining our decisions and news judgments to readers, viewers and listeners.

Still, when faced with a crisis, the American press always rises to the occasion, Gratz said, and despite the fragmentation, it will unite to serve the public interest. Example: The extraordinary press coverage of the 9/11 terror attacks. From newspapers to radio to TV to cable to online, journalists came together during that horrific time, working around the clock toward one goal: To provide Americans with the most complete, up-to-date news possible, enabling them to understand and come to grips with that tragedy.

"What that told me was, in times of crisis, it will work. It will work. My concerns are more day-to-day because crises, thank goodness, are not every day. But journalism has to function every day for America to function every day."

Jeannine Guttman is editor and vice president of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. Send e-mail to

jguttman@pressherald.com or write to 390 Congress St., Portland, Maine 04101.

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