Journalism still kicking despite some black eyes

WASHINGTON -- It's not hard to find a journalist to tell you how horrible this year has been for the profession and the news biz.

The media, as we have come to be called in modern times, have lost ground longitudinally and latitudinally. We have failed not only to interest readers and viewers in our products, we have neglected our duties as protector of the weak and watchdog on the powerful. Or so some critics say.

The numbers aren't very good either -- anemic circulation, bad demographics on the evening news and so on.

Oh, have a rum punch.

Those of us who have written for newspapers for a long time have grown cautious about expressing our opinions. We want to say we have seen some of this before. This is a cyclical business. And it can be harsh in between great profits.

Not too long ago we were shuttering evening newspapers right and left. And before that the Golden Era of multiple metropolitan American newspapers, broadsheets and tabloids ended.

It's hard to talk about just another dip in the cycle when you watch your colleagues at Knight-Ridder, including some of this city's best correspondents, waiting for the news of a sell-off.

I also don't dare tell younger colleagues anymore that what they might be witnessing isn't entirely new. They don't want to hear about the old days, pops. And they don't want to hear about kids shouting "Wuxtra, wuxtra" on the street corner.

Nevertheless, I will persevere in 2006. In my opinion, journalists mainly did their job pretty well in 2005, except for a week ago Tuesday night. That's when all the networks went ape over the New York transit strike, treating it as the end of the world lead story on the evening news, even though the rest of the country was not affected at all.

It was 10 minutes before any of the networks got to any news from elsewhere, including the big story of the day from Dover, Pa., on the rejection of Intelligent Design teachings.

Hopes that this Gotham-centric approach might end with the new wave of anchors, led by ABC's shiny-faced young team of Vargas and Woodruff, were dashed when they all treated the transit story like a natural disaster. Not a single life was threatened. They do this because the anchors are located in New York, because the networks are headquartered there and because they always have done it this way. So much for change.

It isn't networks, but newspapers, that are ending the year with a black eye.

The New York Times has taken it on the chin both for sitting on the government wiretapping story for a year and for breaking the story. The whole thing might be overblown. In comparison to the Nixon administration wiretapping story, the National Security Agency wiretapping scandal may turn out to be more serious than malicious. For one thing, the element of retribution against enemies isn't there -- at least not yet.

As for war coverage, the media get raked about once an hour by some television talking head for failing to stop the invasion of Iraq. But there were plenty of doubts raised in newspapers, magazines and broadcasts about the validity of U.S. intelligence that led to the war.

The use of harsh interrogation methods against detainees was not raised in Congress but by the media.

The Times had a scandal and a shake-up, followed by yet more trouble involving the CIA leak investigation. The same investigation spattered the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who is not a bad reporter.

But on balance, this wasn't a year that calls for an apology by these newspapers or by American journalism. The profession does not need to convert to advocacy journalism, which many antiwar crusaders and others with various causes are demanding. And it is a lot better than some of our own practitioners think.

As for me, I don't have that much to brag about. I -- a resident of Virginia, no less -- am still trying to live down a column I wrote that seemed to give the French more credit for planting equality on American soil than Thomas Jefferson. Egads.

But I am one of the few columnists who sounded the alarm as far back as 2004 on the harsh interrogation techniques being used against terrorism detainees and the administration's suggestion that the torture standards could be given a relaxed interpretation. At least I got that right.

I'd rather be in this business, warts and all, than any other. To the employees of the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, many still without homes, Season's Greetings and the best of luck to you in the New Year, pals.

John Hall is the senior Washington correspondent of Media General News Service. E-mail [email protected]. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.

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