This week, our focus is on the obvious.
It seems obvious to me that more than a few readers believe The Bee is rife with zealots who can’t separate their personal views from their responsibilities as journalists. Many say the zealotry is subtle, and that The Bee is collectively too stubborn or too blind to recognize its own obvious anti-whatever (or pro-whatever) biases. Allow me to cite two examples, both of which came in e-mails I received last Monday.
Reader Jerry Gonsalves of Ione saw a bit of pro-Catholic influence from the higher echelons of the McClatchy Company in the placement of articles on a recent spate of traffic accidents that have taken the lives of several teenagers and young adults in the region.
A week ago yesterday, The Bee published a front-page article on a crash that left a Jesuit High School student dead and three of his buddies hurt (one was on life support as of Friday and was not expected to survive). The article was a rich, sensitive account of the accident, with evocative details about the victims and the somber scene at the school.
Two days later, there was more tragedy in The Bee. Three young women, recent graduates of Casa Roble High School, were killed in a crash on Interstate 80 near Loomis early Sunday. Minutes later, on a different stretch of I-80, a young man was killed and three others were injured when their car overturned.
There wasn’t much information about the young men – the authorities did not immediately release their names – but there was a fair amount of detail on the young women. That article, however, ended up on page B1.
“I realize the [McClatchys] are Catholic, but once again I found unfair coverage this past week in the coverage of two tragic car accidents,” Gonsalves, who said that he is Catholic, wrote. He noted the placement of the articles, and ended by saying, “there needs to be fair coverage, no matter where our students went to school or their social status.” Implication: The McClatchy family’s religion led editors to give more emphasis to the tragedy involving the Jesuit High students.
Hold that thought for a moment.
On the same day that I received Gonsalves’ e-mail, I received a message from Alan Smith of El Dorado Hills. It started, “I am amazed that you continue to believe that The Bee is not a hopelessly biased publication.”
He went on to trace the bias to the publisher, Janis Besler Heaphy. “To believe that the political bent of the publisher does not affect the attitudes and philosophies of the average employee is nonsense,” Smith wrote. “As a longtime CEO, I can tell you firsthand that the culture of an organization is set by the leadership. I believe it is impossible for a Bee reporter to ignore the fact that the leadership of The Bee is so anti-Republican in general and anti-Bush in particular that they can report dispassionately about political events.”
To Gonsalves, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that the founding family of this newspaper would influence decisions on news content. To Smith, it seems obvious that the head of the newspaper might not look favorably on reporters whose articles don’t reflect her worldview.
It seems to me that Gonsalves and Smith – and I don’t mean to single them out, since this is not uncommon among readers – consider the obvious synonymous with the truth, when in fact obvious is synonymous with perspective.
I don’t know what line of work Gonsalves is in, but perhaps it isn’t uncommon in his workplace for the bosses to expect, if not demand, a certain level of ideological fealty. If that’s the case, it’s no surprise that he would take it as obvious that the McClatchy family would nudge its newsroom employees – subtly, subconsciously or overtly – toward its way of thinking.
But from a newsroom’s perspective, such influence would be nearly inconceivable. I don’t know where Gonsalves got his information about the McClatchys’ religion, but his e-mail was the first time I heard anything about it. I’m not even sure if the family really is Catholic – it’s never come up. I suppose I could have picked up the phone and asked James McClatchy about his faith, but since he has nothing whatsoever to do with newsroom operations, it’s irrelevant.
In fact, what determined the placement of those articles, according to editors here, was the relative value of the other news on the front page that day and the availability of information. Not to diminish the tragedy suffered by the Jesuit High School students, but the article about them made the front page because the reporters had access to the school and were able to gather considerable information from students, teachers, family and friends.
Reporting the other tragedies was more challenging because they occurred on a weekend.
Editors did the right thing by printing all the available information, then assigning a story on the spate of fatal accidents involving young people driving at excessive speeds. That story ended up on the front page on Wednesday. The reporting was further advanced on Friday with a touching story on page B1 about the funerals for the three young women killed on I-80.
Similarly, it isn’t unreasonable that Smith, as a chief executive officer, sees obvious, if unspoken, consequences for reporters who ignore the publisher’s personal political agenda. It isn’t unreasonable, but it isn’t correct, either.
Responding to his e-mail, I tried to explain the difference between corporate culture and newspaper culture.
“In newspapers,” I wrote, “reporters and editors consider the separation between the newsroom and the business side as sacrosanct as the separation between church and state. It is nothing short of heresy for a publisher – whose major responsibility is to oversee the financial health of the newspaper – to exert that kind of influence on news coverage.”
There may be publishers in small markets who do that, but try it at a major newspaper and you’d end up with newsrooms that look like Versailles after the French Revolution.
It may not be obvious – there’s that word again – to people who believe that Bee newsroom employees march in liberal lockstep to a left-handed drummer, but here’s a little not-so-secret secret for you: Most newsrooms are about a half-inch away from anarchy.
People are drawn to this business precisely because they are repulsed by the idea of toeing the company line or adhering to corporate dogma. There are no lists of talking points to follow, no admonitions to stay on message, whatever that message may be (employees of Rupert Murdoch and his spawn are free to dispute that).
Of course, reporters and editors aren’t automatons. Their individual views about what’s important and what’s nonsense influence the subjective aspects of this business – decisions on which stories to cover, where to place them and the like. But any suggestions of malicious preconception or intentional deception in the execution of articles best come with more than just a few disparate examples of perceived reality.
That’s obvious, isn’t it?
