An active, informative press is the foundation of a democratic society.  We’ve got active!  Informative?  Not so much.

I think journalism is one of the noblest professions.  Not because it was mine for five or six years—not always nobly–but because I think a lot of young, bright people enter the profession every year with, for the most part, good intentions.  But something happens so that the ones who can be, first and foremost, hyperbolic, contentious and shallow seem to get a lot of attention and drive the discussion.  Or that may be all we as a society want to listen to. 

That of course is the dilemma of modern journalism.  How does it remain relevant?  I have no clear answers.  But there are some things we can try—and things we shouldn’t do. 

This blog will focus on both.  I’ll link to the research, discussion and examples of possible solutions and, I suppose, reasoned judgments as to why the profession is just hunky-dory right now.

Though a journalist for a fairly brief time, I have dealt with journalists most of my professional life, as a consultant to businesses, non-profits and politicians and in grassroots campaigns.  Through those nearly 40 years, I have the sense that most want a good story done well, honestly.  That’s as good as most of us will do in our careers.  How can they write and broadcast informative stories in these times?  Are they captive of the sturm und drang of today’s society and unquenchable quests for profit.  Or are they willful co-conspirators?

Who the hell knows?  But I feel the press—mainstream and alternatives that are honest—need to lead rather than excuse themselves by claiming subservient to eyeballs and profits.  That leadership has to start at the top.  For the most part, reporters are not the main problem.  If journalism is done well honestly, or at least better than a lot of what we see, hear and read, I think we will tune in and it can make money.

I’m not  pining for a bygone era.  I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot USA Today, once considered heretical, cable television, often considered ill-considered, talk radio, with its glorious history of demagoguery, the tabloid freak shows and bloggers can’t teach us something about what makes good journalism.  But I would choose wisely.

I read The Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal most mornings with coffee.  How much I can read otherwise depends on my day, though my wife would say “too much.”

I’m liberal about most political issues.  I’ve also blogged since 2004 but fitfully at Commonwealth Commonsense.  It started out as a blog about Virginia politics, quickly got into the national scene and lately, I’ve written a lot about media issues.  So much so that I thought a separate blog made sense, er, commonsense.

My day-job journalism years were as a radio and television reporter, though I’ve written a few op-ed columns and freelanced even less. About half my broadcasting career was at public stations and half at commercial ones.  Why I left the profession had as much to do with a fast growing family, but if I hadn’t maybe I’d’ve ended up asking the future president, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?” or writing for the umpteenth time about “death panels”–and been so proud of myself.

Still, I love the guy and gals of the press.  The News Commonsense blog is for you!

There’s a damning reportout today by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.  But upon closer inspection, while not great, it may be not as depressing as it seems.  There are two stories about it at The Washington Post, one is an AP storyposted last night and another was part of Howard Kurtz’s regular Monday column.

Kurtz wrings his hands.

Public respect for the media has plunged to a new low, with just 29 percent of Americans saying that news organizations generally get their facts straight.

That figure is the lowest in more than two decades of surveys by the Pew Research Center, which also found just 26 percent saying news outlets are careful that their reporting is not politically biased. And 70 percent say news organizations try to cover up their mistakes. That amounts to a stunning vote of no confidence.

I guess that’s pretty bad, but, and as a blogger it pains me to point this out, according to the AP story,

The poll didn't distinguish between Internet bloggers and reporters employed by newspapers and broadcasters, leaving the definition of "news media" up to each individual who was questioned. The survey polled 1,506 adults on the phone in late July.

Ah, well, we bloggers don’t have the greatest reputation for accuracy or non-partisanship.  So while there’s been a drop off of 26% since 1985 in the percentage of people who think news organizations “get the facts straight,” 24 years ago nobody knew that bloggers would be invented. 

New York Times editor points that out.

"The great flood that goes under the heading `news media' has been poisoned by junk blogs, gossip sheets, shout radio and cable-TV partisans that don't deserve to be trusted," Keller told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

Ouch.

For the mainstream media, there is still a glimmer of hope.

Even as more people than ever don't believe everything in the news, Pew found that the public still seems to value the media. When asked how they would feel about a news outlet closing, 82 percent said it would be an important loss if there were no local TV news and 74 percent said it would be a major blow to lose their local newspaper.

Amen.

Who knew that liberal California would be putting one inmate to death each week.

In the past, I’ve expressed my distaste for anonymous bloggers and commenters.  Now the Lawrence (Kan.)Journal World & News tried to write about how people comment on news sites and blogs.  The paper discerned who its top 10 commenters were and asked them to participate in the story.  But to do so, they would need to reveal their real names. 

Of the 10, two use their real names, and one no longer actively comments.  The other seven refused to reveal themselves.

I think it’s cowardly.  The excuse that they would face retaliation in their professional lives or from those who oppose their views doesn’t hold water with me.  If you can’t stand behind what you say, don’t say it. 

I think it’s just another way of people refusing to take responsibility as they might do in other aspects of their lives.  Someone else is to blame and someone else needs to bail them out, but it’s not their fault.

The right to free speech was written into our constitution without the writers having the benefit of what was to come, of course.  While you could not reliably express yourself orally without people knowing who you are, you could in print, and many people did.  They simply wrote a pamphlet, didn’t sign it and distributed it.  So you could say that our founders were OK with the idea of anonymous comments.

Still, I’m not.   Two hundred odd years ago, you had to physically  distribute those comments to people one by one.  Today, those comments are read by millions instantly and then forwarded on to another million or so.

The reason most anonymous commenters do it, I suspect, is that they are afraid to defend their views and take the chance that those views might hurt them.

Rumor has it Sen. Arlen Specter is calling for impeachment hearings against President Obama.  He also wants the GOP caucus to have a veto over any Democratic legislation and wants the Pennsylvania Democratic senate primary cancelled and himself declared the winner of the 2010 general election.

Well, far fetch, maybe.  But possible.

"There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner."

–Specter, according to NYT

I lived in Texas for nearly a decade.  I got to know the mindset there, the arrogance, the prejudice.  So I say with confidence, “Good riddance.”

That said, I married a Texan.

On a procedural vote to prohibit  reconciliation on climate change legislation, both Virginia senators vote “aye.”  It wasn’t a strictly ideological vote (Russ Feingold voted for it), but Sens. Webb and Warner joined 26 mostly wimpish Dems in voting against reconciliation.

Far be it from me to defend the GOPers budget alternative.  I may not like, but I’d like a little more than what The Washington Post offered this morning.  Less than 12 column inches, the budget story was buried on page A6.  Here’s why:

While the minority party in Congress typically offers an alternative budget plan that is widely ignored, this year’s proposal has drawn fresh attention thanks to the scathing GOP criticism of Obama’s budget plans and the president’s challenge to the GOP to offer a constructive alternative.

Two points here.  One, because it has little chance of being passed, The Post decided that people don’t really need to know what the Repugs are offering.  I disagree, and not only because I want it more widely ridiculed.  If the positions were reversed, I’d like more people to see what the Dems were offering.  If you want an informed electorate, then you need to give voters the information needed to make  judgments.  In the 2010 elections, it would be helpful to know how the opposition might govern.  If you know what that alternative is early on, voters can make judgments along the way on how things might be different leading up to the 2010 vote.  The second point is that if the situation were reversed, Dems would do well to offer full throated criticism of a GOP president’s budget.  Making a lot of noise just might draw “fresh attention.”  That’s PR 101, but Dems don’t seem to understand that.

LBJ knew how to win legislative battles:

Uncooperative legislators paid a price for their independence. When Senator Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, justified a vote against a Johnson bill by saying that columnist Walter Lippmann shared his view, Johnson scolded him: “Frank, next time you want a dam in Idaho, you call Walter Lippmann and let him put it through.”

Many defenders of extravagant CEO pay say it is justified because their expertise results in shareholder value.  On CBNC today, they discussed the issue and gave us these comparison between CEO pay last year and what the shareholder return was last year

And before you say, “Well, the stock market was down overall,”  let me point out that the S&P last year fell 39.3%.  Which means that only two of the eight companies above beat the average.  What shareholder value?

UPDATE:  Listen to this discussion on CEO pay later today.  Note that the hyperactive Jim Cramer and faux journalist Erin Burnett touch on two points: 

1.  Compensation committees on boards of directors can’t really evaluate what the CEO should be paid and therefore relies on compensation consultants.

2.  Pay is forced upwards by the “comparison” approach; it just bids up the prices.