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February 28, 2007
PBS Frontline News War Chat with Stephen Talbot
Update (Thursday, March 1): Apparently Los Angeles Times Editor Jim O'Shea was none-too-pleased with Frontline's 'News War' segment about the newspaper. In a memo to L.A. Times staffers, O'Shea wrote, "I found it to be simplistic and excessively negative about the future of the newspaper industry and the L.A. Times. The piece lacked balance and sophistication and relied on stereotypes." (The entire memo is available on the Poynter Web site.)
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Wednesday, 'News War’ Producer Stephen Talbot participated in an online chat on washingtonpost.com, fielding questions about the “steady demise of original reporting,” newspaper ownership models, the public’s changing news consumption habits (especially with the Internet) and more.
‘News War’ is a PBS Frontline series described as a “special four-part investigation into the future of news.” Part three aired last night, and it focused on “network executives, journalists, Wall Street analysts, bloggers, and key players at Google and Yahoo! who are all battling for survival and market dominance in a rapidly changing world of news.” You can watch the series (the parts that have already aired, anyway) on the PBS-Frontline Web site.
Talbot had a few interesting points during the chat, and his responses to comments and questions seem to define him as an advocate for newspapers and democracy. (In one of his answers, Talbot wrote, “I am a strong believer in newspapers as a civic institution. At their best, as others have said, they can be the soul of a city.”)
A few of Talbot’s ‘answers’ from the chat:
On ownership models:
There is no perfect ownership model, as former L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet told us. A paper can have a "bad" private owner. But it does seem true these days that ownership by a publically-owned company brings enormous pressure on a paper from Wall Street investors demanding higher profits. That's why a lot of papers are looking to a "white knight" owner, someone like Eli Broad in Los Angeles. There's also the "benevolent family" ownrship model like the Grahams at the Washington Post. And there's the non-profit St. Petersburg Times model in Florida, a very unusual arrangement set up by a former owner, Nelson Poynter.
On ‘serious’ journalism:
Washington: Great program! Do you think the reporters on shows like "Dateline" and "Primetime Live" aspire to do more serious journalism and are co-opted into doing the tabloid pieces they produce, or do you think that these journalists have decided to just abandon serious journalism in the public interest?
Stephen Talbot: That's a question I have often asked myself. I think the answer varies with the individual. But there are many talented and dedicated people who work for the network news shows.
I will say this. I interviewed Connie Chung for this program -- it was one of many interviews we could not squeeze into the final show -- and she got very excited describing the good, enterprise reporting she did as a young, pioneering Asian-American woman reporter in the Watergate era. After reminiscing about her work back then, she stopped and said, "Why did I ever give that up?" I responded, "Maybe because of the money? [the money she was offered to become an anchor and host]" And she smiled and said, "Oh yeah, the money."
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