EVALUATING F.C.C. DECISION

By Chris Daly

In the wake of the FCC ruling on media cross-ownership, here's one way to think about how to evaluate the decision:

Will it lead to the hiring (or retention) of a single journalist? Can it be shown that it strengthens a single newsroom? Is there any reporter, editor, photographer, columnist, or other news person who gets a job or keeps a job as a demonstrable result of this ruling?

If so, then I would consider the ruling a good thing. Until then, I'm skeptical.

NOT TO BE MISSED

A FINE ESSAY ABOUT DIARIES



Luis Menand, writing in the Dec. 10 New Yorker, has an incisive essay about the writing of diaries. The first half of the piece, which could stand alone, also serves as a frame for Menand’s thoughts on two recently published diaries: those of Arthur Schlesinger and Leo Lerman.

Menand’s essay has much to enjoy, including his “three theories of diaries”; a tour of diary styles and modes, from Virginia Woolf to Samuel Pepys to Ronald Reagan; and his usual wit. Menand takes pains to distinguish the diary as a literary form, noting that it is distinct from the journal or writer’s notebook. This is a point that comes up in my writing classes, and I only wish Menand had elaborated on the distinction.

I encourage my students to keep a journal (and even require it for a week or so), the kind that can be a useful tool for a writer. Some my students are already veteran diarists, and I have to point out that I do not want them to hand in their diaries. What I am trying to steer them toward is something closer in spirit to a kind of journalism – a notebook filled with close observation and regular writing.

Here’s one of my favorite ways of thinking about it, from Ron Powers’s wonder-ful 2005 biography of Mark Twain. On page 69, Powers tells how in 1855, Sam Clemens, then almost 20 years old, made his first venture into journal-keeping about the time he made his first attempt to get a job piloting boats on the Mississippi:

“Probably on that downriver trip, he began a practice that would prove incalculably useful to his literary career: he started keeping a notebook, the first of fifty that survive; others, probably dozens, have been lost. Into these, over four decades, he poured “found data”: wisps of experience and anecdotes; bursts of indignation, opinion, regret; newly minted aphorisms; maps real and imagined; German vocabulary; timetables and laundry lists; notes on the works of Shakespeare and Matthew Arnold; the listing of facts of all kinds; and, as always, the stunning harvest of intense noticing (“Sailors walk with hands somewhat spread & palms turned backward”) that made his writing burn truer and more mimetic of life-as-lived than anyone else’s in America or Europe.”

FOR THE RECORD

By Chris Daly

In reply to a deluge of comments, let me state a few points:

--In my commentary on the Post's story about Barack Obama's religion, I intended to focus on what I consider an institutional shortcoming. I did not mean to suggest that there is some minimum age requirement for writing about national politics. As a professor of journalism, I work with dozens of talented young people every year, and I know just how capable they are. I also know that they often need guidance, backgrounding, and careful editing. I regret leaving the impression that people in their 20s are somehow inherently unqualified to cover presidential politics or anything else.

--Like many blogs, mine is a venue for criticism, analysis and commentary. It is not an outlet for reporting or research. I googled Mr. Bacon to begin to address the question, Could experience have been a factor?

--I have learned today that many people have a high regard for Mr. Bacon, and I meant no disrespect to Mr. Bacon personally. In my view, this is not about him.

--I received quite a few comments, and I intend to publish the ones that I think thoughtfully engage the main issue.

--Mr. Obama's first name is indeed spelled Barack.

THE WORST POLITICAL REPORTING OF 2007

WAS PUBLISHED IN THE WASHINGTON POST.

By Chris Daly

I have been holding off writing about this, but I can't avoid it any more. It pains me to see such horrendous reporting, writing, and editing in a paper I used to work for. Now, the paper's "ombudsman," Deborah Howell, who seems like a nice person, has weighed in. As so often happens, the ombud is pulling punches and not doing the kind of reporting that would satisfy a moderately curious person.
Where to begin?
The front-page story by Perry Bacon Jr. connected Barack Obama and Islam so tightly and so frequently that it really doesn't matter what else is in there. The message was: Obama=Muslim. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. And not that religion even belongs in politics.)

Here's a little thought exercise: What if the Post ran a front-page story saying that Perry Bacon is not a child molester. Not only has Perry Bacon never been convicted of child molesting, he has never even been indicted for child molesting. So those rumors about Perry Bacon and child molestation are just not true, folks.
Now, in such a story has Perry Bacon been
1. harmed by the story?
2. helped by the story?
3. held harmless by the story?
Obviously, he has been ruined by it, in a way that can probably never be undone. Most readers would retain only the association between the name and the allegation, and certainly computerized searches are going to link the two in perpetuity.

How could this have happened?

I don't know. All I have is questions:

1. Who is Perry Bacon Jr.? I don't really know, but in two minutes of Googling him, I learned that he graduated from Yale in 2002, so he is approximately 27 years old. Since when does the Post assign 27-year-olds to write Page 1 presidential campaign pieces? (Of course, a partial explanation may arise from the fact that Bacon won a coveted 2001 internship at the Post while still at Yale. At that point, he was the features editor for the Yale Daily News, and he had already had an internship at the National Journal and was described as having been "a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal." This is fast-tracking with a vengeance -- a problem that I thought the Post had gotten past.)

2. Who edited this story? This is an important question when things go wrong, and one that is rarely answered. In this case, the Post is offering some lame statements by two editors. In a column by the paper's ombuds-person, M.E. Phil Bennett is quoted saying that the topic was "a legitimate subject for journalism" (What is? Untrue rumors?) and that it had been tackled by "one of our most sophisticated political reporters." (Please. If he's so damn sophisticated, how did he ever drive this train off the tracks?) Bill Hamilton, the paper's AME for politics, also had to talk to the ombud. He said he was "sorry it was misunderstood," when actually the problem is that it was understood. The problem was that it was a mistake.

3. Where is everyone else? At the Post, as at most papers, Page 1 stories are read by many, many editors, including most of the top people. Where are their comments? Who is taking any real lumps for this? Is the Post going to change anything?

I am pleased to think that the Post would not accept this kind of "investigation" and "explanation" of a similar screw-up from any institution that it really covers. It's too bad that it covers itself this way.

Praise for a great new book

By Chris Daly

The best book I have read lately is Backcast, by Lou Ureneck. Don't just take my word for it (in fact, you shouldn't take my word at all. Full disclosure: Lou is the chairman of my department at BU, and he's a good friend of mine). You can see for yourself in a review, written by Chuck Leddy, in The Boston Globe.

An excerpt:

"Backcast" ... is difficult to categorize and impossible to forget. It might be described as a stunning memoir, a marvelous outdoor adventure, or a breathtaking travelogue that explores the wilds of Alaska and the intricacies of the human heart. Whatever it is, it's wonderful....
....It would be unfair to reveal whether Ureneck finds what he's looking for in Alaska, but his readers will find more than enough beauty and humanity within these pages. Lou Ureneck is a master craftsman, and in "Backcast" he has meticulously constructed a story that's lasting and splendid to behold. You need not love fishing or the outdoors to enjoy this redemptive and intensely observed journey of self-discovery."

Backcast is a gem of narrative nonfiction -- brave, honest, and beautiful. The book is a triple-braided story that combines memories of Lou's childhood, nature-writing about his trip down a river in Alaska with his son, and a tough look at his relationship with that son. It's charming, funny, disarming, and occasionally hair-raising.

Lou has landed the big one.