Text of Media & Society Lecture Series, Nov. 15, 2000, at the Eccles Conference Center Auditorium, Utah State University

Penny Byrne: Welcome to the Journalism and Communication Media & Society Lecture Series. I'm Penny Byrne, acting dead of the department, filling in while Dr. Ted Pease is on sabbatical.

As a teacher of journalism, I know that our students, many of you, have big dreams. You imagine yourselves doing everything. They see themselves on the steps of the Capitol, at the launch of the space shuttle, on the edge of a battlefield, and as a teacher, I and my colleagues tell them to be realistic. You won't be able to do it all, we say.

And then, we bring you here to hear Jim Slade. Jim's an outstanding American broadcast journalist, a man whose career has spanned many of the most memorable events of the last half-century. He has witnessed and reported on America's move into space, and on America's involvement in the Middle East. He has been a science correspondent for ABC News with Peter Jennings, he's been recognized by the National Space Club as a journalist of the year. He covered the White House for Mutual Radio, and he is a regular reporter on PBS' Health Week. He was the first journalist ashore in Grenada. In fact, Jim was a finalist for NASA's now abandoned Journalist in Space program. He's extremely proud, and ought to be, of his coverage of the American space program. That program is one of the defining accomplishments of the 20th century -- a century that has been called "The American Century." If it was an American century, then one of the people who brought it to us, who helped us understand it, is with us today. Please welcome an extraordinary journalist, Jim Slade.

Jim Slade: More refined sugar is sold in the southwestern corner of Virginia, than any other state of the union.

I see I have your attention.

Down in that corner of the state there are a lot of little places that people like to stop by. We call them pilgrims. They are tourists, and they usually come in in great big Winnebagos. And they'll stop in. The other day one pulled up, pulled the Winnebago up to the corner right next to the terminal tap, because he wanted to stop in and spend a few minutes with the philosophers inside. Matter of fact, he expected to spend a couple of hours in there, enjoying what they enjoy as they discuss the issues of the day.

Getting out of his Winnebago, he came out with this huge Great Dane. Great big dog. Stood about this high. This marvelous, beautiful Grand Champion.

Of course, he couldn't take it in to the terminal tap, so he tied it to a tree outside right next to his Winnebago, and he goes in to enjoy what's going on. He's in there about 20 minutes, and they are just getting deep in to conversation about something that happened in ancient Greece many years ago as they sampled the local libations. And a local sticks his head in through the door and he says "Anybody in here own a Great Dane?"

"Why yes, that's my Great Dane out there -- Grand National . . ."

"He's dead."

"Dead?! What in the world has happened . . ."

"My dog killed him."

"My God, man . . . what kind of a dog could kill a Great Dane?"

"Chihuahua."

"A Chihuahua? You're sitting there telling me that a Chihuahua has killed a Great Dane? How in the world . . ."

"I think he stuck in his throat."

Perception. Don't forget that word. Perception. Perspective. How you look at things. It differs from person to person. It is never exactly the same. There is always some shade of difference. Now, let me alter some perceptions that some of you may have. Well, not about yourselves of course, as I can tell you're all well-keyed in, but let me do it anyway just in case, just to humor myself.

Objectivity is the ideal. I doubt that any of us will ever achieve it. To be objective, you would have to be totally unaffected by the stories you cover. You would retain no impression of the events, form no opinions, have no feelings one way or another. Now, if you are human, I doubt that is possible since even the most minor happening becomes part of your whole life's experience.

The experiences that shape your life will shadow your writing. What we see and what we feel is influenced by our life's experience. What we have learned, what we've been told, how we see other things happen. We are unique, and each and every one of us writes out of our uniqueness.

That's why Faulker is different from Hemingway, and why Shakespeare is different from Tennyson. Yet you still have to seek objectivity. You still have to seek balance in your reporting. You still have to give your audience facts that they can work with. It's not in your job to lead or think for them. You are their surrogate in places they cannot go. That's what a reporter does. You are their eyes and their ears, but you are not their minds. You are not smart enough to think for anybody else, so don't even try, because unless you understand completely what shapes that audiences' life experience [conform] to, you can't begin to understand how they will react and assimilate the information that you bring to them. So be the messenger, and then go away. That's about as close to the ideal as you can come.

Perception correction number 2: The word media is plural. I do not now, nor have I ever worked for a media. I may have worked for a medium, but never for a media.

Now you say, why's he making all this fuss about? Well, I will tell you. The American public has the greatest choice of information sources as in any time in the history of this world. I got my first job in Washington some 30 years ago. I would go to a news conference, and there would be three, at the outside four cameras, maybe one of the locals would send a team if it had a local angle. Usually it was just ABS, CBS and NBC. Today, it is not unusual to go to a news conference in Washington, the most powerful city in the world, and find as many as 20 cameras at a time. Some of them pumping it out live to satellites that carry it all around the world, each camera representing a different organization.

CNN started that trend, of course. But we all laughed at them when they started, and pretty soon we were having to race to catch up with them because they were putting live cameras all over Washington, and that was not something that we wanted to do because it cost a lot of money. But they were doing it on what we thought were trivial events, and so we were doing exactly the same thing.

Does all of this impact the political process? Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on the citizen. Many of us among the media, however, are concerned, or even fearful.

But in spite of these riches, this American public could become one of the most ill-informed electorates in the history of this country, simply because there is so much information. It is feared that, overwhelmed, they may choose to tune us out, or simply choose the part they like and forget about the rest. Think about that. One of these days, you might not be able to discuss anything with anybody else because they'll all know a lot about some small thing, and nothing about the rest. We getting extreme here? Maybe. Could be.

Citizens of this country have an obligation -- more than a right, an obligation to be informed. It's their greatest defense, really, given the spin that comes from many of these directions. In the end it is still the news-consuming citizen who makes the choice that affects our collective destiny. Now, you study the important issues, you speak out, and then when you vote it counts for something, as we have just seen, haven't we. It really does count. If you doubt that, well then you are not as well informed as I thought you were.

A wash of information. We are also up to our eyeballs today in disinformation. An astounding blather of political rhetoric, tailored to singular points of view rather than bare facts. You have to know enough of both sides to be able to filter out the spinmeisters, and find the truth somewhere in the middle.

So where does the reporter fit in to all of this? The basics of journalism (at least for me), the basics of journalism can be stated very simply. "I don't tell you what to think; I try to give you something to think about." Then it's up to you. That's what we do. All of you in here want to be journalists? That's what we do.

When I say journalists, I'm talking about working with filters. I'm not talking about editorialists, columnists, opinion spinners. That comes later. That's something some people as reporters grow into because of the vast amount of experience they have collected. Something like I'm doing today, as a matter of fact.

"He told me that to my face.
'WE DO NOT EDUCATE.'
Well, that's baloney.
All we do is educate."

For a few minutes, let me impose on you by looking at my old specialty field: Space and its sciences, as the field is treated in today's journalism. It is a microcosm of what you can expect to find once you get out among the heavy hitters of this business. This is how it works. What puzzles me is the inability of most news organizations up to, and sometimes including, the august New York Times, to get the yaw on the space program's spectacular facade. Most media cover it the same way they covered it when Alan Shepard and John Glenn were first gunned into orbit. It has become a formulaic ritual, and the mindless repetition serves to mask the deeper issues involved.

Beyond the operational side with its wonderful hardwiring, the fascinating side of how it works, the space endeavor combines, now get this, the space endeavor combines religion and philosophy, economics, politics including foreign policy at a very high level, medicine, human behavior, engineering that crosses known boundaries.

Amazing things are being done in the labs at NASA and here. However, if you dare to broach those subjects [with] the most mainstream editorial boards in Washington or New York, you would be greeted with blank stares and politely excluded from further discussions because obviously, you are not a serious person.

Now, let's set it on some easy-to-comprehend breakthrough or scandal. The daily pursuit of science is not front-line stuff like most editorial boards, who are more attuned to politics, economics and crime. They need to change that attitude, because people benefit from science. They use it unthinkingly, and they pay for it. The modern space enterprise will become a part of society so long as humans exist on this planet. Far beyond the temporal activities that get most of the coverage today. You are seeing the forest planted. We aren't even at the point where we can look at the trees yet. You are privileged to live at a time when you are seeing the forest start to grow. You can look at the trees, you've got to see the forest. You've got to reverse the process and see the trees again.

So what is the journalist's responsibility? Well, we have a long way to go. The media are anchored in the past. So is the public. The public has no choice, and doesn't know it is being neglected. I was once told by an important news executive at ABC Television that we do not educate. He told me that to my face. WE DO NOT EDUCATE. Well, that's baloney. All we do is educate. Every time you print something, or open up a microphone, you will tell people something they didn't know previously. Material they can use to make up their minds in a more informed manner. I did not say that you make up their minds or take a position for them. You give them that material to do that on their own. That's education.

Just goes to prove that you can work for Disney [which owns ABC] and not know what you are talking about.

That's our responsibility. It's what we do. It is the public trust which we journalists have ignored in the interest of entertaining an audience. We are afraid to bore them. So we make the stories fun. I'm sorry.

Journalism is public service. Let me repeat that. Journalism is public service. Always has been, always will be. We have a responsibility, and we had let the public down in great degree, in the process creating a lazy electorate. It's our fault. It's absolutely our fault. This stuff -- all news -- is hard. Some of it is boring. No question. However, it is what shapes our lives, our world, and the public has a responsibility too -- to participate in democracy the public has to know what is going on. Apparently, they've been reading the papers a lot when you look at the vote in the last election, and I think that's wonderful.

I submit to you that when a large majority of the public vote for whoever in the past, simply because the public liked the person's personality, and they didn't care what he stands for, then we as journalists have failed our responsibility given though the hard, boring facts, and the public has failed its responsibility to find them out.

I still hear the old refrain, "Why are we spending so much money to go to space when we have such needs on earth?" Or, even, "If we can send a man to the moon. . ." or "Look what they did with Challenger . . ." Such aphorisms are facile; they are a knee jerk, and they are obsolete. However, they are the kinds of questions that both the public and the media, the general media, still ask, which means they haven't paid attention.

Just for the record on those questions: We humans are building a beyond-the-start-of-the-art research facility in orbit right now; are learning more about the sun and surrounding universe than has ever been written before in the history of mankind; are doing medical research impossible to do in any other environment; and we've sent 12 men to the moon in a project that absorbed, created and returned technology at a rate usually found only during a world war. Challenger? Bad day, but certainly within the statistical bounds of probability -- frankly it amazes me that there haven't been more when you read the history of aviation and how it developed.

But in case your mind is stuck with Challenger, let me remind all of you that that took place in 1986. Who in here can tell me how many flights we've had done safely since Challenger? Anyone in this room besides John Taylor? Didn't think so. There have been 75 safe flights since Challenger. So, they are doing a few things right. But I'm not here to sell the space program, much as I'd like to. I've watched it from the very beginning, and those are all the facts. What you as journalists and news consumers make of them are entirely up to you. But that's how it works, or how it should work.

And finally, a word or two about editorializing. To be well informed, the news consumer has to go to more than one source. You have to read newspapers and news magazines. You have to listen to the radio. You have to watch events on television. You have to distill it all, and think independently.

But the consumer should recognize the difference between reporting and editorializing, and the line in today's journalism has become a very thin, gray one. The temptation to do analysis when you're doing general street reporting is very much there and in some newsrooms is encouraged, and sometimes it's not a very wise thing. There is nothing wrong with informed commentary, provided the news consumer knows and understands that that is what it is. Reporters do get close to events, and they do see trends before anyone else, and when they see that, background commentary can be a good thing providing the consumer is told in advance that this is exactly what it is.

Beyond that, beyond reporters, there are commentators who make their living from a point of view that they have developed over years of their own experience. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the consumer knows that what they are now hearing is opinion.

And you know what an opinion is worth? Perspective. A certain angle or approach to an issue. Something to be taken in with all the rest for your consideration. But in the end, opinion is worth exactly one vote. One vote. The vote of the person who gave you the opinion. I know you listen to Rush Limbaugh, and you see George Will on television, and so forth -- that represents one vote. That's that person's personal experience coming to you, and it's up to you to think independently about what they are telling you. These guys are spinmeisters, and they are coming from a personal point of view that they want you to adopt.

Did the news media affect the political process? Yes they do. Those who take part in the process think so, given the millions of dollars they spend every day to influence what the news media report, and how they report it. In Washington, public relations is a major industry -- both inside the government and outside. Reporters and editors struggle every day to separate the wheat from the chaff and the mountains of news releases, phone calls, staged news events that are blown their way. The truth is, most of the real news you report will not be found in that blizzard, but beyond and behind the scenes talking to the people who really make the systems work.

Can the news media be effective, given all of that? Yes, indeed, provided the news consumer takes full advantage of the resources available to them. If a news consumer refuses to think independently, there is absolutely nothing even the best reporter can do for them, and when we have an electorate that refuses to think, it is a simple matter for the government to simply do as it pleases.

Journalism is, always has been, in spite of the profit line, what drives the evening news and the other things that you see every day. It has always been public service. For all the reasons I've listed and more, you, as a journalist, will have to be totally dedicated to that. You will have to immerse yourself. You will have to read every day.

It's not uncommon for reporters in Washington, D.C., to read three newspapers a day, see as many as three news broadcasts on television a day, because they tape them at home before they go home from the days work. They live, eat, breathe, sleep news. That's all they talk about when they get together, and they are constantly seen carrying around a copy of the New York Times under their arm. That's what it takes, because the day you come into a newsroom not informed about what's going on in the world, and you can't carry on a discussion with your boss about any and everything that's on the news budget that day, well, let me tell you, McDonald's is just down the street. You'd better go apply.

You have wonderful opportunities before you. New windows are opening up for your work everywhere. But you have the same old responsibility. Meeting that will be the hardest thing you ever do. Thank you very much.

MS
MS

September 1998
October 1998

January 1999
February 1999
March 1999
April 1999
September 1999
October 1999
November 1999
December 1999

January 2000
February 2000
March 2000
April 2000
May 2000
June 2000
July 2000
August 2000
September 2000
October 2000
November 2000