June 01, 2005

Media Romanticism

If WTMJ radio is any indication we'll be putting up with reporters' awe of Woodward and Bernstein for days if not weeks. Even with reporters who are my age, too young to have witnessed the events of Watergate first-hand, there's this sense of wonder. They're telling me, "Those two took down a President. They saved the country." With falling readership, viewers, and public credibility I guess the MSM needs to grab on to something to maintain their self-worth. Call me cynical (and it starts at a young age) but I'm already tired of the self-praise.

Dean Esmay sees an unintended consequence of Woodward and Bernstein's Nixon trophy:

A bigger concern to me is that the entire Watergate affair kicked off an obsession with scandal by the press in Washington. It also started the long, nasty, and irresponsible trend toward greater and greater use of annonymous sources. Mind you, Woodward and Bernstein were very responsible in how they used their anonymous source, printing nothing that they could not get rock-solid confirmation on. Too bad our current press corps lacks their fundamental integrity.

Every reporter today dreams of putting their own scalp on the wall. And it's not just MSM reporters. With the quick (and easy?) success of knocking off Sen. Trent Lott, Dan Rather, and Eason Jordan, many webloggers crave their own time in the spotlight when they take down a member of the old guard.

What is needed is significant introspection by investigators, both old school and new. They should ask themselves if what they are reporting/analyzing is really for their own self-promotion or for the betterment of their readers. This isn't always an either/or situation, but many see a scalp as their way to the top.

"W. Mark Felt Was Deep Throat"

UPDATE: Howard Kurtz follows in Dean's vein of thought:

But it must also be said that while Watergate and "All the President's Men" briefly turned journalists into heroes, they may have contributed to the long-term credibility problems of the profession. Too many journalists became sloppy with anonymous sources, some of whom didn't have first-hand knowledge of what they were talking about, and some reporters tried to pump every two-bit scandal into a "-gate." Having been lied to by the Nixon White House, journalists became more confrontational, more prosecutorial and more willing to assume that politicians must be lying. And the news business is still paying the price for some of those excesses.

"Is Deep Throat a Hero or a Villain?"