Heroes of Journalism newsworthiness analysis

There’s been much discussion lately over whether Tim Russert’s death was overcovered.

Before anyone takes offense and leaves nasty comments, I will say this: Tim Russert was an excellent journalist who seemed to take his job and the profession of journalism seriously, and thus his death should be noted and treated with the utmost respect and reverence.

I also understand that since he died suddenly, so this makes it a newsworthy event.

However.

It has now been three years since my all-time, No. 1 Hero of Journalism died, leaving me depressed and feeling the call of the profession of journalism.

Peter Jennings’ death was what really got me into journalism. I won’t eulogize, since that’s kind of counterproductive to the point of this post. But it was life-changing for me.

So when I saw on Romenesko that journalism professor Christopher R. Martin had analyzed Russert v. Jennings death coverage, I was apprehensive. This kind of thing has the potential to upset me greatly — I know, I get too emotionally involved in these issues.

But I decided to read it. I’m glad I did.

I do believe that as media, we have the right and even obligation to honor our own. Tim Russert’s death was a shock. But the media also need to consider, in cases like these, whether they are letting their mourning get in the way of the news.

To quote Martin,

“When Jennings died there were no other big news stories. When Russert died, there was the major continuing saga of 500-year floods in Iowa and the Upper Midwest.

Given the comparison to Jennings, I think the coverage of Russert’s death – with no disrespect to him or his family – was out of proportion.”

I don’t believe that these journalists would have wanted mourning over their passing to take the center stage when news is happening.

As the media, I think we need to learn when to stop mourning our lost and honor them by doing what they did best — covering the news.

New Hero of Journalism — Anne Hull

I got caught up in life over the past few months, so my blog has gone to seed. Hopefully I can change that this semester. So starting today, I’m trying to post a couple times a week. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m also doing a weekly blog on University of Florida research over at the Alligator Web site — go check it out. Look for a new blog most Fridays, since I like to go right up to deadline and drive the online editor crazy.

As a side note, which isn’t really about science at all but gets me on one of my journalism soapboxes, Washington Post staff writer Anne Hull came to speak to one of my journalism classes yesterday. Hull is most recently known for her work with fellow Post reporter Dana Priest on the Walter Reed Army Medical Center stories. She has been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and is expected to be at least a finalist this year for the Walter Reed articles.

I went in to Hull’s talk Tuesday not sure what to expect. I’ve read some of her work, and I thought she was a very good writer. But she often writes in a well-honed narrative style that had me wondering: How do you draw the line between the story you want to tell and the story that is?

That’s something I have trouble with, actually. I worry that when I take something apart and piece it back together to make a cohesive story that it may not be exactly true to life. You have to worry about that even with science journalism; you have to consider how you’re representing the facts in order to make something interesting. So I wondered if Hull believed journalism was more about the truth or a good story. I walked into my class with a list of questions I wanted to hear her answers to.

At this point, I want to say that having been around journalists my whole life and even more at college in the past three years, I can determine in a five-minute conversation whether I respect someone as a journalist. Journalism is, in my opinion, a high calling — it’s about getting at the truth. If you presenting the truth makes your reader feel anger, pain, joy or sadness, that’s great. But with journalism, it’s also easy to jump from a high calling to an emotionally manipulative one. It’s easy to write something so you can get a knee-jerk emotional reaction from your reader. It’s easy to make it about telling the story you want to tell rather than the story of the people you talk to.

So if someone talks about journalism as “spinning a good story” with nary a mention of truth or being a communicator, I tend to cross them off my “Heroes of Journalism” list then and there.

But back to Anne Hull. She started by talking about how she gets her ideas — she goes to the scene and narrows her idea from the big picture to a specific person. She also makes “boring” stories into stories about people: A story where she spent 10 months with the children of Hispanic immigrants in Atlanta was prompted by the Census results. She said reporters were on the front lines of every trend.

That was interesting. She was a good speaker, it was good advice, but I still wasn’t sure what her philosophy of journalism was.

Then she started talking about how she gets her subjects to talk to her. She said she has two criteria for subjects: They have to be completely willing, and they have to be representative of a trend.

In terms of the subjects’ willingness, she said she always gives them the worst case scenario. She told the story of taking a gay Oklahoma teen’s mother into an internet cafe to show her that even people in rural Oklahoma can have access to the Washington Post. She said she gives her subjects references of people she’s written about and tells them to call them and ask them if they have been represented fairly.

That’s when I started listening.

And then I got to ask her my question: “How, when you’re writing a narrative, do you draw the line between the story that is and the story you want to write?”

She responded by talking about doing multiple drafts of her stories, which I wasn’t sure really answered my question. But a little later, she talked about how she calls her subjects before each story’s publication and checks every fact with them. But more than that, she gives them the general thesis of the piece and asks them if they feel it’s accurate.

“Goes over general thesis of the piece,” I have written in my notes. “WOW.”

I talked to her afterward, she gave me her card, and I was in awe. I think that type of integrity is completely necessary to whatever type of journalism you’re in, whether you cover science or politics. You always need to make sure you are representing people or facts fairly and accurately.