{"id":1754,"date":"2009-09-17T16:13:08","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T20:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/09\/17\/who-is-journalism-about\/"},"modified":"2009-09-17T16:13:08","modified_gmt":"2009-09-17T20:13:08","slug":"who-is-journalism-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/09\/17\/who-is-journalism-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Is Journalism About?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago, I was acting station manager at a public radio station.  Despite my \u201cacting\u201d status, the station\u2019s board of directors wanted me to boost the station\u2019s income.  I conducted group discussions with the staff.  One question I asked them was, \u201cWhy do you work for a public <\/em>radio station?  The answers were surprising.  Mostly, it was a version of \u201cWorking in public radio allows me to do what I want.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Most of those employees were involved in music programming.  But I was reminded of that experience when I read this by the outgoing editor<\/a> of Texas Monthly.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s not about us; it\u2019s about them.<\/i> People who read this magazine care about Texas. Except in the rarest instances, they don\u2019t care about TEXAS MONTHLY writers. Personal essays have always been part of the magazine\u2019s mix, of course, but we\u2019ve had the greatest success when our writers are the vehicles to tell other people\u2019s stories, not their own. For as long as I can remember, we\u2019ve discouraged writers from \u201cinserting\u201d themselves where they don\u2019t belong. The magazine does right by its readers by remembering that egos should be kept in check.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t think reporters necessarily want to tell their stories.  But they often see their job as one that offers opportunities to showcase their writing, instead of their reporting skills.  In that way, it is about them.  And that\u2019s the problem with much reporting.<\/p>\n

Journalism should serve the reader.  If you want to write eloquently about things, be a novelist, or if you want to write about things that people don\u2019t really care about, be a writer for the Style section of The Washington Post.  <\/em><\/p>\n

Much of the narrative in articles doesn\u2019t do much to impart critical information.  For example, in today\u2019s Post<\/em>, I\u2019ll bet more eyeballs looked at the chart<\/a> than read the article<\/a> about Baucus\u2019s health bill. Yet, when looking online at the story, it\u2019s a lot easier to find the narrative than the chart.  Yet the chart gives most of the information you need (with some notable holes).  But the chart is a faster read.  And let\u2019s face it, the story is cluttered with self-serving quotes that do nothing to illuminate the issue.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about reporters; it\u2019s about readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago, I was acting station manager at a public radio station.  Despite my \u201cacting\u201d status, the station\u2019s board of directors wanted me to boost the station\u2019s income.  I conducted group discussions with the staff.  One question I asked them was, \u201cWhy do you work for a public radio station?  The answers were surprising.  Mostly,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}