Breaking News, Washington Post Edition

Today in Media Disruption came the explosive purge at the Washington Post when one of the country’s great newspapers announced massive layoffs – believed to be approximately 300 people, one-third of its entire staff – and kicked off an enormous restructuring effort that, I guarantee, no one, least of all gajillionaire owner and Amazon ayatollah Jeff Bezos and those he instructed to carry out his orders, have any idea how to pull off or how it will play out. 

The Post will eliminate its sports department, its books department, its news podcast and will severely cut back foreign bureaus and even local and investigative reporting. Every department took a big hit. All Middle East reporters and editors were turfed, as were correspondents in Iran, New Delhi and Ukraine. Sports reportedly will be covered as a “cultural phenomenon,” whatever that means. 

Executive editor Matt Murray informed staff on a Wednesday morning Zoom call, then later circulated a memo that any line editor would reject, with prejudice, for its obfuscation, double-speak and pusillanimous tone. He began: As we shared in our live stream earlier, the company is taking actions today to place The Washington Post on a stronger footing and better position us in this rapidly changing era of new technologies and evolving user habits. These moves include substantial newsroom reductions impacting nearly all news departments. For the immediate future, we will concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact and that resonate with readers: politics, national affairs, people, power and trends; national security in DC and abroad; forces shaping the future including science, health, medicine, technology, climate, and business; journalism that empowers people to take action, from advice to wellness; revelatory investigations; and what's capturing attention in culture, online, and in daily life. 

As Murray isn’t stupid, he’s certainly aware that the Post already does all of that, and that gutting entire departments and slicing coverage in no way puts a news organization on “stronger footing.” No, the reasons for Wednesday’s purge are contained deeper in the memo – burying the lede, as they say in the news biz. As you know, we have grappled with financial challenges for some time. They have affected us in multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts, along with periodic constraints on other kinds of spending. We have concluded that the company's structure is too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product. This restructure will help to secure our future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us stability moving forward. 

Deep down, still this fucking guy

A diminished product “providing stability.” Sure. Do go on: We are producing much great journalism of which we can be proud. As we discuss every day in the news meeting, some of our best work attracts readers and generates subscriptions and engagement. Unfortunately, some does not. Some areas, such as video, haven't kept up with changes in how consumers get news and information. Significantly, our daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years. And even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience. If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition. 

Of course, this is all about money and costs. The Post has been hemorrhaging subscribers and readers for many months, not the least because of actions by Bezos. Legendary former Post editor Marty Baron, who worked under Bezos for eight years after he bought the paper in 2013, acknowledged the paper’s financial issues but also called out his old boss in a statement Wednesday that read, in part: “The Post’s challenges, however, were made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top — from a gutless order to kill a presidential endorsement 11 days before the 2024 election to a remake of the editorial page that now stands out only for its moral infirmity. 

Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The Post. In truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands. The owner, in a note to readers, wrote that he aimed to boost trust in The Post. The effect was something else entirely: Subscribers lost trust in his stewardship and, notwithstanding the newsroom’s stellar journalism, The Post overall. Similarly, many leading journalists at The Post lost confidence in Bezos, and jumped to other news organizations. They also, in effect, were driven away. Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. 

This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.” Perhaps a suitable way to describe the Post amputation is: Shocking but not surprising. Newspapers and organizations have slashed staff and costs for years, sometimes shuttering entirely, a practice that accelerated when they were no longer run by families and news people but by corporations and business interests more wedded to profits than public service. 

Bezos didn’t buy the Post because of a soft spot for the First Amendment, but because he believed it to be a promising business move. Sure, there’s the prestige and ego boost of owning the outlet that printed the Pentagon Papers, busted open Watergate and is respected around the world. In the end, however, a man who can afford whatever money the paper loses without sweating a drop chose to further diminish his own product for bottom line reasons. Businesses make decisions all the time about the quality of their products or services. Maybe they use cheaper ingredients or farm out customer service to call centers, in the name of maximizing profits. But a newspaper’s sole currency is credibility; once credibility is compromised, it doesn’t come back. 

Again, giving Murray the benefit of the doubt, he knows that it’s not possible to “reinvent” journalism. Changing times may mean re-examining how stories are presented. New technology may assist the process. Maybe priorities shift, or reporting is pared back or expanded in certain areas. Maybe voices are added or subtracted, either in the storytelling or editing. But journalism requires pretty much the same formula as a hundred years ago: people asking questions, doing research, explaining how and why something matters. Though maybe Murray is on to something, as the new Washington Post writes about Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels and Caps’ all-timer Alex Ovechkin and Wizards guard Trae Young as cultural phenomena. Hasn’t been tried.

Requiem for Yet Another Newspaper

I read that the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette is shuttering its doors. Another one bites the dust, Big Wave Dave. This one after 239 years of publishing the news.

That one in particular saddens me because my grandparents were very close friends with the Block family for decades. That family owned and operated the Gazette, then the

Post-Gazette, since the 1920's. When my mom, uncles, and grandparents lived in Pittsburgh in the 1950's (remember Robert Frost and Jonas Salk?), my Grampa Jack befriended Bill Block, and they remained friends for 50 years thereafter.

Bill and Maxine Block were just terrific people. In the '80s and '90s, they wintered in Sarasota as next-building neighbors to my grandparents -- they were always good for cocktails with the grown-ups and card games with us kids. Mr. Block was super smart and routinely encouraged me to pursue my writing interest. Little did he know I'd have this fun, non-paying, underground gig for two decades.

One amusing story: in the spring of 1989, I was hung over as all hell in Monroe freshman dormitory at the College of Knowledge, passed out in my boxers on our crappy thrift store couch. Empty cans of Busch and Krispy-Kreme boxes littered the floor near me. A knock came at the door at dawn, or so 11:30am seemed.

"What?!" I hollered at whoever was waking me up so early.

"Whitney?"

"Yeah..."

The door opens, and Bill Block poked his head in sheepishly. "Hi, Whitney, it's Bill Block."

This was the genteel 73-year-old newspaperman; what on earth was he doing here?? With me in shabby drawers and nary a stitch else in my hobo-chic dorm room? Well, just dropping in on his old buddy's grandson to offer him a nice lunch at the Trellis. Oh, my. No, no, no, no.

Eh. Lunch was good. And the lack of prior notice from my family meant they got to have a story to tell at the holidays for years to come.

Anyway, the paper is no more. Bill Block died two months after my grandfather did in 2005. Grampa Jack was 87, Mr. Block was 89. Lives well lived by men in search of public edification through publication. 

Bill Block, a number of years back:

I’ve always been that horrible term — liberal — more so than my editors. …We’ve been liberal in connection with civil rights, conservative on economics. That is my personal feeling and the road that we followed.

Ownership of the newspaper(s) eventually fell to Bill Block's nephew, a Trumpster who has dragged the publication rightward over the years. And now it's dead.

So it's just one more thing to be sad and worried about here in 2026.

Fuckery Week sucks, so now feels like a good place to slide this in. How I long for the days of regularly scheduled dipshittery. 

Empty Journalism

If it’s a truism that people are skittish about change that doesn’t put more coin in their pockets or more flattering mirrors in their parlors, it’s even less comfortable for institutions. Businesses, sports leagues, legislative bodies, the local PTA, you name it. Disrupt the status quo and expect reflexive pushback and the inability to adapt. 

Major newsgathering organizations and political media aren’t immune from the stasis, as evidenced by recent interviews with Donald Trump on the occasion of his second first 100 days in office. The Disruptor-in-Chief sat down with correspondents from ABC and NBC for “exclusive” conversations about his actions and what’s transpired on his watch. They were, as you might imagine, disjointed exchanges laced with fiction, bravado and enough batshit crazy soundbites to fuel several news cycles. 

Trump has been at the center of American political life for a decade, yet it’s apparent that major news media remains ill-equipped or unwilling to recognize or to deal with him and his enablers and supporters in a meaningful way. As the site’s Media Grump, it’s alternately discouraging and infuriating that legacy media often doesn’t use its platform to speak plainly about the man. 

I mean, if any institution is built to withstand the whiplash and commotion he causes, it should be the media. They pivot daily, sometimes hourly, from one story to the next. They’re trained to seek truth, if not always justice. They’re equipped to explore multiple facets of people and topics, though to be fair the strip-mining of journalism resources now makes that more difficult. Yet far too often, major political media trades truth for access and equivocates in the name of supposed fairness or objectivity. 

Media has gotten better about calling out Trump’s lies and false claims and extreme actions from his days as a political novelty and throughout his first term. Yet we still get descriptions of his “unpredictable governing style” (NPR) and headlines such as “Trump is pursuing a radical agenda. Does he have a strategy or is he winging it?” (The Washington Post). 

Christ on crutches, there is no agenda, there is no governing style. Trump no more wants to govern than to ride rollercoasters. He wants to be in charge, to give orders, to make others knuckle under, and to make money. That’s it. Full stop. He and his justice people arrest and deport immigrants because he thinks it makes him look tough. Likewise, his imposition of tariffs despite warnings about their effects. 

So, Trump sat down with ABC’s Terry Moran and, as usual, tried to buffalo his way through the conversation. The border with Mexico is 99.9 percent closed to illegal crossings now; the U.S. had a daily trade deficit of $3-5 billion that he’s stemmed; there was no inflation during his first term, compared to record inflation under Joe Biden. Trump also sat down with NBC’s Kristen Welker for a comparably choppy interview that aired on “Meet the Press.” This time, the border is 99.999 percent closed; gas is under $2 a gallon in some places (it’s not); auto manufacturers are moving plants to the U.S. (they’re not); the 2020 election was rigged (it wasn’t); Elon Musk and DOGE found $160 billion in waste, fraud and abuse (they didn’t). Oh, and Trump said he was responsible for good economic news and results, and Biden was responsible for poor news and performances. 

He could be lobotomized. You don't know.

Honestly, the transcripts, with the interruptions and fragments of thoughts and often talking past each other, read like lobotomized David Mamet. One of the illustrative parts of Trump’s conversation with Moran regarded illegal immigrant arrest and deportation in general and Kilmer Abrego Garcia specifically – the Salvadoran man in Maryland who was arrested and deported back to a notorious El Salvador prison, which was according to a judge and to Trump’s own justice people done illegally and without a hearing. Trump said that Garcia was a criminal and had gang script MS-13 tattoos on his hand. When Moran politely pushed back and said, no, he had symbols on his hand and the MS-13 was photoshopped and the photo circulated, Trump insisted that Garcia actually had MS-13 tattooed on his knuckles. Moran tried to re-direct and move to the next topic, but Trump wouldn’t let it go, finally saying, “… they’re giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doin’ the interview. I picked you because – frankly, I never heard of you but that’s okay – but I picked you, Terry, and you’re not being very nice.” 

Never mind that Moran has been an ABC senior national correspondent for seven years and a national and foreign affairs reporter since the 1990s. Trump was doing him a favor by sitting down and talking to him, and he expected proper deference. Similarly with Welker, when she brought up inflation and price increases and the possibility of a recession due to tariffs and economic uncertainty, Trump called it a dishonest interview. He didn’t like the way she framed questions – not positively enough in his favor. 

That’s the thing about Trump. He gripes about unfair media, yet his ego craves the attention – Mussolini looking for a balcony, as it were. Interviews with him are journalistically and informationally worthless, because he constantly lies, deflects and blames. Reporters and network executives know that, but because he’s the President, there’s an entrenched desire for him to sit in front of their cameras and audio recorders. Clicks, eyeballs, ratings. Unfortunately, they crave the attention, as well, much to the detriment of the audience and population in general. 

The vacuousness of Trump appearances and interviews also distract from the important stuff. They cause reporters, and by extension, regular folks to focus on what he says and not what he and his circle do. Annex Canada as the 51st state. Take over Greenland. Rename the Gulf of Mexico. Bring back Columbus Day. Greatest economy ever. Third term. Whatever crosses his mind or just saw on Fox News or Newsmax or an aide handed him. 

It harkens back to the days when the President’s words mattered almost as much as his actions. Trump didn’t understand the presidency on his first go ‘round, but he’s always understood media and what draws attention. He doesn’t necessarily understand the presidency any better this time, but he learned enough to bend it to his will and to go full bootlick and put people in position to do his bidding while he plays the same toxic tune he always has. Too many continue to dance to it.

Rhymes With 'Skews,' More to Choose, May Need Booze

As we await the adventures of the upcoming Presidential administration, groups of reporters and media types decided that there are better models for delivering news and information. Traditional media, they say, isn’t up to the task of covering present society, particularly a past and future president whose m.o. essentially is to ravage the buffet table and belch into a megaphone. Newspapers and news organizations have been strip-mined of resources and staff. Many of those who are still at it chase profits and clicks at the expense of reporting. Corporate overlords, and investors, value their bottom line over an informed citizenry. 

Niche media efforts have sprung up in response. Among the latest is an outlet called “The Contrarian,” which will be helmed by attorney and former U.S. diplomat and government official Norm Eisen and Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, who walked away from her gig after sixteen years. “Our goal,” she told CNN, “is to combat, with every fiber of our being, the authoritarian threat that we face.” 

On her way out the door, she also delivered this bouquet: “The Post, along with most mainstream news outlets, has failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press.” 

The Post has impressively managed to irritate people both inside and outside the building for months. Gazillionaire owner Jeff Bezos nixed publication of an endorsement of VP Kamala Harris shortly before the election, reasoning that such political support presents the appearance of bias and that it likely doesn’t sway voters anyway. There was much in-house grumbling, and the Post lost a reported 250,000 digital subscribers in the aftermath of the decision. 

Part of the spiked Ann Telnaes cartoon

Since then, Amazon, Bezos’s cash cow and primary source of his staggering wealth, contributed $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund (show of hands: who thinks the caterers and musicians see a dime of that money?). Amid the surge of plutocratic fawning over the next Prez, Post editors recently scuttled an editorial cartoon by Pulitzer winner Ann Telnaes showing Bezos and other business leaders supplicating themselves before the Orange Guy. The Post’s opinion editor called it a “sound editorial decision,” as recent columns and pieces had called out Bezos and others, and that the cartoon was “overkill.” Telnaes walked, as well. 

The departure of a cartoonist and op-ed writer isn’t quite the United Mine Workers strike of the 1940s, or even the Amazon delivery hub drivers walkout last year. Nor does it begin to fix what ails journalism. Journalists can be tediously thin-skinned for folks whose job is to hold others to account. And they love some self-righteous posturing, particularly as it relates to their own work. That said, concerns within the profession about the tone of coverage and accountability are valid, starting with the guy at the top and those around him. 

We live in anxious times, when an increasing number of people seek confirmation rather than information, and any unpleasant or inconvenient reporting is labeled “fake” or dismissed as biased. The Contrarian joins a handful of other outlets trying to gain traction in this fractured media landscape, such as The Bulwark and Zeteo. 

The Bulwark is a conservative-leaning, anti-Trump outlet founded in 2019 by political strategist Sarah Longwell and longtime opinionators Bill Kristol and Charlie Sykes, who has since departed. Its website says it was founded “to provide analysis and reporting in defense of America’s liberal democracy. That’s it. That’s the mission.” 

Zeteo, which comes from the Greek word meaning to seek or search, was launched last February by left-leaning rouser of rabble Mehdi Hasan, a British-American journalist and author with stints at Al Jazeera, MSNBC and The Guardian. It promises independent and unfiltered journalism. Both sites feature veteran, respected heavy hitters as correspondents and contributors. Both have some free content but are subscription sites, and they hope folks will spring for the full menu. 

One problem with the harrumphing and torch waving among the niche sites and start-ups is that they’re planting flags as much as committed to providing relevant information. They report and gasbag through their own filters and are unlikely to appeal to anyone who isn’t already in their camp. It's increasingly difficult to find unbiased news and opinion sites, though I’d argue that some degree of bias is inherent in the process. The Nation, MSNBC, the New York Times and Washington Post skew left. Fox News, the National Review, Wall Street Journal, Newsmax skew right. Closest to centrist or middle-of-the-road might be outlets such as the old, reliable Associated Press, Christian Science Monitor, the BBC, Reuters and Forbes. 

One interesting addition is 1440, a news site that pulls from numerous sources and bills itself as “curated by humans, not algorithms.” It’s focused on fact-based pieces, not opinions. Its name is a nod to Gutenberg’s first mechanical printing press, which he built in the year (approximately) 1440, and the fact that there are 1,440 minutes in a day; the site’s honchos pledge not to waste people’s time with filler and opinions. A noble aim, for sure, though I think the next four years will require some distractions from whatever fresh guano crosses our paths. Vigilance and goofballery in equal measures. Buckle up.

All The President's Book Sellers

Once again, primo Washington D.C., political snoop Bob Woodward pestered folks in his Rolodex in pursuit of a book. And once again, reasonable people might wonder: WTF? 

CNN obtained an advance copy of Woodward’s forthcoming tree killer, War, a peek behind the curtains at our current leaders as they dealt with conflicts around the globe. The book follows Woodward’s standard m.o. of remarkable access and scrupulous reporting from inside the rooms where discussions occurred and decisions made. He conducted hundreds of hours of interviews, and accounts come from aides and confidants and may come from the principals themselves, under cover of anonymity or confirmed in what’s referred to in the reporting biz as “on background.” 

There are descriptions of salty, unvarnished language that President Joe Biden used in reference to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian president Vladimir Putin. That’s more salacious than substantial, as both men could prompt priests to spout off like dock workers. More concerning is the revelation that former president Donald Trump quietly sent COVID testing machines to Putin for his personal use during the height of the pandemic, when such tests were difficult to come by, and has had multiple conversations with Vladdy since leaving the Oval Office. 

Trump’s admiration of Putin is no secret, or at least his regard for a guy who calls all the shots, turfs opponents with impunity and isn’t bound by pesky details such as co-equal branches of government and laws. Woodward is a legend and, at 81, remains nominally an associate editor at the Washington Post, where he made his bones fifty years ago with the Watergate scandal. But most of his efforts for the past forty years have been directed toward books about presidents and the D.C. political elite. Again, it’s fair to ask where Woodward’s priorities lay, reporting news or book sales? 

As the site’s media grump, I’ve hoe’d this row before. In a previous book, Rage, he reported conversations with Trump in which the Prez admitted that he was informed of the potential seriousness of COVID in early 2020, but intentionally downplayed and dismissed the virus, hoping that it would dissipate by fall because he didn’t want it to tank the economy or hurt his re-election chances. As tens of thousands died that summer and many more were affected, Woodward sat on those conversations and left them in book galleys for later release, when releasing them might have affected policy and saved lives. 

Four years later, credible reporting says that Trump extended a favor to an adversary who’d like nothing better than for America to chase its tail and leave him to his autocratic f*ckery. This isn’t historians Michael Beschloss or Douglas Brinkley digging through archives and personal correspondence to paint a picture years later. It’s not even Woodward protecting the identity of his famous Watergate source, Deep Throat, until after he died. It’s current, real-time actions by a man running for president for the third time, the standard bearer for the Republican Party. 

Granted, sending virus tests to Moscow doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors or even make the top 10 of the Orange Oaf’s acts and remarks that should be disqualifying. It is, however, part of the bigger picture, and I’d argue that the public has the right to know. What folks choose to do with that knowledge is their choice, but I’m generally in favor of more, not less, information. One might argue that the book’s Oct. 15 release date means that Woodward’s reporting about Trump hits the public sphere before the election, so that voters may factor it into their choices. Or, that it isn’t important enough to change anyone’s mind. But again, the nature of reporting includes elements of timing and immediacy. Woodward almost certainly learned of, or confirmed, Trump’s actions months ago. 

Books such as his require lengthy fact checking, as well as the legal and liability car wash. Perhaps that would have been early enough to affect the conversation and nomination process. He has said of the potential conflict between daily journalism and book reporting, that if he unearthed significant news that “the paper comes first.” That metric suggests that he didn’t think Trump’s largesse toward Putin merited mention before the book dropped. 

Woodward is painstakingly neutral in his books; he often explains that he prefers to describe events or quote people, and let readers make up their own minds. Deciding what and what not to publish, however, is a choice that reporters and editors make every day. Most of those choices don’t involve former presidents and presidential candidates. Most of those reporters aren’t Bob Freakin’ Woodward, who has the luxury of access as well as one of the nation’s most powerful daily platforms at his disposal. To not use it and instead to hoard information for books released at opportune times feeds into the mercenary lean of everyday life and feels less than helpful to the citizenry, something Watergate-era Bob Woodward might have had a few thoughts about.

All The News That Fits ...

Manufacturers routinely subject their products to stress tests, a wise and necessary practice that allows for improvement and reduces the chance of human suffering and litigation. Other outfits have stress tests thrust upon them while in motion. Their ability to cope and adjust on the fly determine their value. News organizations belong to the latter group. 

Each day brings new challenges, and it’s up to the group to figure out the best way to gather and distribute information within the landscape. Sometimes results are deft and seamless, other times leaks and cracks and breakdowns are apparent. Or, as the philosopher Sam Elliott said in “The Big Lebowski,” “Sometimes you eat the b’ar, sometimes the b’ar eats you.” 

As an old newspaper guy and the site’s media grump, I’m often as curious about *how* stuff is covered as *what’s* covered. Which brings us to a couple of areas that caught my attention. One is the war in Gaza, or more specifically, coverage of the war in Gaza by several major news outlets. The other is who gathers and presents the news, and the filters through which they sift coverage, in this case at National Public Radio. 

First, you can go to a hundred places for news about Israel and Gaza and its effects on Israelis and Palestinians. I have no additional sources or insight. But I was struck by a couple of pieces illustrating that large, smart, capable news organizations are twisting themselves into crullers simply attempting to tell people what the hell is going on. The news site The Intercept was given an internal memo from New York Times editors instructing reporters about what language and terms they should and should not use in describing the conflict. Avoid terms such as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing,” as well as “slaughter” and “massacre.” Don’t refer to areas of displaced Palestinians as “refugee camps” or Gaza as “occupied territory.” The words “terrorist” and “terrorism” are acceptable when referring to the original Hamas attack on Oct. 7, but not when Israeli soldiers or citizens target or kill Palestinian civilians. 

NYT editors say the aim is to avoid loaded words and terms that convey more emotion than fact, and to simply use precise descriptions. However, a NYT newsroom source told The Intercept: “I think it’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But if you do know, it will be clear how apologetic it is to Israel.” 

A handful of NYT newsroom sources claim that the paper is being deferential to Israel and Israeli military sources for details of actions and civilian deaths. Meanwhile, NPR’s public editor wrote a recent piece saying that the most frequent criticism received is that its coverage highlights the suffering of Palestinians and downplays the pain and grief experienced by Israelis. That NPR doesn’t emphasize enough that Hamas sparked the present conflict with its initial attack or camouflage itself by blending in with the general population. Nor does it provide Israeli voices and context within stories about what are described as Palestinian civilian deaths and casualties, raids on hospitals and communities, etc. 

The public editor’s response was, essentially: We’re doing the best we can; not enough hours in a day or time in our broadcasts to mention everything. Unspoken was: And no matter how much we do, some of you *still* will bitch because we aren’t tailoring coverage or using language *you* want. 

NPR’s supposed Palestinian bias was also cited by a former editor. Uri Berliner was a senior business editor who recently resigned after 25 years, saying that he “cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR” he outlined in a recent online essay. Berliner wrote at length for a piece on the site Free Press that NPR’s news side has morphed from an obligation to straightforward journalism, albeit with a liberal slant, to full-on, left-leaning advocacy that attempts to tell listeners what to think. 

Despite a commitment to a more diverse newsroom, he wrote that the “most damaging development” was an absence of viewpoint diversity: no conservative voices, no one to challenge when more rigorous standards of reporting or journalism are ignored. He pointed out that several years ago, NPR’s Washington D.C., office where he worked had 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans, a ratio that was met with staggering indifference when he brought it up to superiors. Listenership is down, he wrote, and the audience has narrowed. 

In 2011, twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle-of-the-road, 37 percent as liberal. In 2023, eleven percent said they were conservative, 21 percent middle-of-the-road, 67 percent liberal. On the journalism end, Berliner wrote that the office went all-in on Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 presidential campaign before anything was proven, barely bothered to investigate the possibility of a Chinese lab leak as the origin of the COVID-19 virus despite credible questions that persist to this day, and dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 out-of-hand before any real reporting as a potential distraction for the task of ousting Trump. After George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, rather than explore the impacts of racism through reporting, he wrote that management accepted systemic racism in the nation as a given and charged staff with acknowledging and helping to dismantle white privilege. [Note from the tiny dictator: For what it's worth, the WaPo's Erik Hemple dug into Berliner's claims and found many of them wanting for evidence, which doesn't besmirch the media grump's broader point.]

These are tough times for the news business. As news sources dwindle in an increasingly polarized society, there’s no guarantee that if NPR reported straight down the middle and had more conservative voices that it would attract listeners and have a better balanced audience, that if New York Times reporters didn’t have to check every other sentence through a wartime sensitivity glossary that it would present a fair accounting in a combat zone. But dear lord, people, don’t overthink it. Report and write and speak and present the way you were taught. Follow common sense and your gut. Don’t erect more obstacles than are already in place. The b’ar needs no help.

The Full Story

Years ago in my previous life as a newspaper guy, I had occasion to write a feature story about a local high school coach. Successful. Personable. Admired by players and parents, respected by his peers. Through conversations and research, I learned that his father had passed away several years earlier. His father was one of his role models, a huge influence on his life and career. 

During one conversation, he revealed that his father had committed suicide. It was devastating for the family, but he gradually opened up about how it affected him going forward. It made him more aware of and sensitive to depression and mental health. He tried not to wall off thoughts and emotions and to communicate better with his own family. He thought it made him a better coach, because he tried to be more receptive to his players and their situations. 

As I wrote the piece, the coach’s father’s suicide and subsequent ripples weren’t central to the narrative, but I wove them in as a component of the whole, among stats and accomplishments and quotes about his life and impact on others. A day or two before the piece was scheduled to run, the coach called and asked that I not include his dad’s suicide and his remarks about it. He said it was still a painful subject for the family and they didn’t want it publicized. 

We haggled a bit. I asked if people outside the family were aware of it. He allowed that it was kind of an open secret within their community but he didn’t know how widely known. I said that I tried to handle it sensitively in the piece, that bringing it to light might help others experiencing similar situations themselves or in their families, that he had spoken movingly and eloquently about a difficult subject. 

He appreciated the possible benefits but was still uncomfortable with the publicity. I told him that I’d speak to my boss and relay his request. My boss wasn’t thrilled with the idea of removing that story thread, though understood the reluctance to expose a family tragedy. In addition, we would have to continue to deal with not only the coach, but the entire high school coaching community. If they thought we had betrayed a confidence or exploited a sensitive situation for the sake of a more memorable story, that would reflect poorly on the paper and make our work more difficult. 

In the end, I removed the dad’s suicide and reworked the story into a boilerplate feature: good coach; a little background; stats and records; here’s what everybody says about him. Perfectly acceptable piece. But it was lacking. I knew it. He knew it. His family and inner circle knew it. He was hugely grateful. 

I think about that story now and then, particularly in the past few days, in the wake of the Shohei Ohtani interpreter gambling kerfuffle and a completely unrelated piece on the sports and cultural website Defector with the headline: “You Never Get The Full Story.” 

The Ohtani situation is weird and convoluted, with several components that don’t pass the smell test: competing explanations; empty days before a denial and counter accusations; interpreter/aide/friend with unfettered access to mega-star’s seven-figure account; said mega-star’s supposed complete ignorance of the matter. 

Here’s hoping that further reporting will provide answers and clarity, rather than more questions. The Defector piece is by and about a woman discussing the complications of putting together a podcast or documentary that attempts to straddle the line between journalism and collaboration with subjects and interviewees. One of the author’s and documentarian’s points is that journalism, and storytelling in general, is an imbalance heavily tilted toward the storytell-er and not the storytell-ee. That’s accurate in many, though certainly not all, cases. 

The headline, however, rings true damn near all the time. Journalism, or to be more precise, reporting, is a trade-off. Reporters have a certain level of access and inquiry. They compile information as quickly and thoroughly as possible and, based on their judgment and knowledge, present it within the constraints of time and space and available material. Some stories lend themselves to follow-ups, based on individuals or subject matter. Some do not. The former provide more information and context, but does that make the picture fuller or the canvas broader? 

With the latter, reporters and editors simply hope that they got it close to right in their lone shot. It’s almost by nature incomplete. Good reporters agonize about this. They always want more information, more time, more space to tell better, more complete stories, which they come to realize often ain’t gonna happen. They do the best they can that day and try again the next. The landscape is littered with partially or unreported stories, from government and business f*ckery to local topics and people worthy of recognition. 

It’s increasingly challenging to tell those stories, as news outlets wither and disappear, and powerful interests are shielded by money and layers of protection. In Ohtani’s case, there are also language and cultural components that add another level of difficulty. As for the documentarian’s and podcaster’s concerns about exploitative journalism, the journalist or reporter is responsible for treating subjects courteously, if not respectfully, when warranted. There are times when being adversarial is appropriate – hell, necessary – and times to pull back rather than open a wound, even if doing so would make for a better story.

Gheorghemas Interlude: Journalismism

The calendar hasn’t flipped yet and already we have a candidate for Gassiest Journalism of 2024. Being a presidential election year, there will be no shortage of entries, but The Atlantic will be tough to beat. 

The venerable, respected magazine’s January-February issue shipped, and its cover theme is “If Trump Wins.” It features essays from two dozen staff writers on various topics related to the Orange Oaf’s possible re-election. There’s indisputable quality up and down the lineup – David Frum, Anne Applebaum, Adam Serwer, Barton Gellman, Caitlin Dickerson, Sarah Zhang to name a few – but it’s easy to view it as massive overkill, a journalistic vanity project geared toward reporters and commentators, policy wonks and true believers. 

Despite the mag’s longstanding motto, “Of No Party or Clique,” they’re preaching to the choir, for the most part, and unlikely to change a single mind. And twenty-four essays will wear out supporters and even the most loyal readers. It’s like a 6½-hour Scorsese movie. 

Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg attempts to make a case for the package and the decision to go all-in, pointing out Trump’s position as prohibitive GOP frontrunner, his recent inflammatory rhetoric, and ideas floated by supporters that a good deal of what he supposedly stands for is un-American. “Which is why we felt it necessary to share with our readers our collective understanding of what could take place in a second Trump term,” Goldberg writes. “I encourage you to read all of the articles in this special issue carefully (though perhaps not in one sitting, for reasons of mental hygiene). Our team of brilliant writers makes a convincingly dispositive case that both Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America and to the ideas that animate it. The country survived the first Trump term, though not without sustaining serious damage. A second term, if there is one, will be much worse.” 

I don’t disagree with Goldberg’s argument, but given that mags, newspapers, publications, websites, blogs should want to attract readers, it strikes me that the case against Trump could be distilled down to five or six more digestible points: preventing a White House built upon revenge and retribution, and by extension authoritarian structure; U.S. isolation and abandonment of allies; stacking of judiciary; grift and the Oval Office becoming a personal ATM; stripping down various Federal government agencies and erosion of citizen protections. Maybe one or two more. 

Some of the separate essay topics in the issue could be folded into larger points: climate change; misogyny; China; science; abortion; disinformation; the military; America’s character. I’ll give the Big Hats the benefit of the doubt that the issue springs from sincere motives and concern. Though it’s also worth considering that the saturation approach was an attempt to separate themselves from the slow drip of piecemeal reporting about a possible second Trump term, that they wanted to present a one-stop shop of “Yikes!” and “Can you believe this effin’ guy?” 

Unintentionally, it also represents a level of haughty and an indirect dig at the present state of journalism. Publications everywhere are turfing staff, The Atlantic included, and the implied message is: You can’t cover stuff the way you used to? Well, we can have 24 people riff on one topic if ‘We’ decide it’s important enough. Knock yourself out, Sparky. If folks read and heed, then the effort was valuable. If The Atlantic’s work launches other outlets to do their own reporting, that’s a win, as well. But presentation matters. Overwhelming the audience can be as detrimental as silence.

Newsgathering, Objectively Speaking

News is in the news once again. More specifically, how stuff gets covered, what merits saturation coverage, what goes uncovered or overlooked, how news outlets can be better in a time of diminishing resources. 

As the site’s media grump, I’ve written about the state of newsgathering and newspapers previously, but those dead horses won’t beat themselves, so here we are. A story earlier this year on the website The Bulwark dove into what the election of Congressman George Santos revealed about the decline of local newspapers. Santos, a Founding Father and former Heisman Trophy winner, fabricated many of his life’s experiences and accomplishments, and much of it didn’t come out until after he won. A familiar refrain: it would have been helpful if news outlets reported Santos’ prevarications *before* the election. 

Well, it turns out that they were. The Long Island (NY) paper, the North Shore Leader, did some digging and concluded that Santos was “a fabulist – a fake.” It ran an editorial calling him a fraud. Its reporting, unfortunately, didn’t resonate with voters, nor did it prompt larger nearby outlets such as the NY Times, NY Daily News, Newsday or any of the local TV stations to take a closer look. 

Leader owner and publisher Grant Lally told The Bulwark that he didn’t get a single call about his paper’s reporting. “If this had run 25 years ago, it would have been gobbled up,” Lally said. “There’d have been 20 follow-ups from Newsday and other publications and the weeklies.” The problem is that many of those “other publications” no longer exist, and newspapers and outlets now are often as thin as tissue paper. 

Between 2004 and 2022, the country saw more than 2,500 newspapers shut down, according to a study by Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and Media – 242 daily papers and almost 2,300 weekly or non-daily papers. From late 2019, pre-pandemic, through May 2022, 360 papers alone shuttered. As of the middle of last year, 6,380 newspapers still published – 1,230 dailies and 5,150 weeklies. 

Seventy-million people, roughly one-fifth of the population, live in what are called “news deserts” – areas with zero or limited local news coverage. More than half of the nation’s 3,143 counties (1,630) have only one local newspaper, usually a weekly with a small, depleted staff. Newsroom staffing plummeted from 75,000 in 2006 to 31,400 in 2021. Through shutdowns, layoffs and consolidation, overall newspaper employment fell from 365,000 to 106,000 in that same period. 

On an encouraging note, there were 545 digital-only local news sites operating in 2022, most of which launched within the past 15 years. The downside is that many of them operate in more populated or wealthier areas, where there is greater access to funding and advertising and where there already are other outlets for local news. Rural and poorer areas are where local news increasingly dries up. 

The cost is steep, for society and democracy. In communities that lose local news, studies show that voter participation declines in state and local elections. Corruption increases in government and business due to lack of accountability. Absent credible reporting, misinformation and disinformation proliferate as people turn to social media and outlets that confirm their opinions. Tribalism and extreme partisanship take root. Divides widen. News media itself comes under attack for supposedly biased reporting. 

Much of the criticism starts against major media outlets – FoxNews, MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, etc. – but broad-brush skepticism eventually covers any and all reporting that someone doesn’t like or believe. After almost 35 years in the local newspaper racket, I cannot convey how maddening and discouraging that is. Local newspapers are the corner bodega or mom-and-pop grocery, while cable and network giants are some combo of Wal-Mart and theme park. 

Journalism and reporting are supposed to be held to the same standards at all levels, but too many outlets have sacrificed reporting for opinion in pursuit of clicks, eyeballs and advertising dollars, and it ain’t the local papers. Their overlords have sacrificed reporting. Period. As we approach another presidential election cycle, and powerful interests work to cement positions and dodge scrutiny, it’s fair to wonder if journalism is up to the task of informing the citizenry. 

Which brings me to an essay by former Washington Post and Boston Globe editor Marty Baron, adapted from a speech he gave last month. He endorsed and doubled down on the importance of objectivity in journalism – fair, impartial, accurate, rigorous, open-minded reporting. Now, this wouldn’t seem to be controversial, but in some journalism and academic corners it is. Not that quality reporting shouldn’t be the standard, but that objectivity can’t be attained and can be harmful to the process. 

Critics say that objectivity has gotten us where we are. They say that everyone has opinions and biases, so reporters and news outlets might as well lean into them. Story choices and how they’re told automatically demonstrate bias on some level. Too often, objectivity equates to false balance, both-sides reporting and a hedge against criticism that stories are too slanted, regardless of facts. 

Because journalism has been dominated by white males, there’s nothing objective about stories told through the narrow lens of Caucasian men. Baron’s response is pretty much summed up as: do it better. Start with questions, not answers. Be humble. Listen to people, rather than talk at them. Understand that the world is more complicated than it appears from behind a desk or a laptop. Develop thorough and consistent methods to test and verify reporting, precisely so bias is less likely to affect the work. Own up to mistakes. Try not to repeat them. Report information as gathered. Don’t try to avoid criticism or to appease one side or the other. 

The aim cannot be to curry favor from readers and viewers. It’s to tell the truth, or as close as one can get, and let the chips fall. 

 “There is no profession without flaws,” Baron wrote. “There is not one that always fulfills its highest ideals. Journalism is by no means an exception. We have often failed, embarrassingly and egregiously. We often did harm: Through errors of commission and errors of omission. Because of haste and neglect. Because of prejudice and arrogance. But our failures were not ones of principle. They were failures to live up to principle. “We can – and should – have a vigorous debate about how a democracy and the press can serve the public better. But the answer to our failures as a society and as a profession is not to renounce principles and standards. There is far too much of that taking place in today’s America. The answer is to restate our principles, reinforce them, recommit to them and do a better job of fulfilling them.”

Lower Standards, Diminished Credibility

ESPN Bigfoot reporter Adam Schefter is collateral damage in the email dump that’s part of the NFL’s investigation into the Washington Snydermen franchise that cost Jon Gruden his job. Schefter shared a piece about efforts to end the league’s lockout in 2011 and corresponded with then-team president Bruce Allen, emailing: “Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked. Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust. Plan to file this to espn about 6 am. . . .” 

Schefter is catching heat for violating a foundational point of journalism: reporters do not share stories with sources before they’re printed. If a reporter wants further clarification from a source before printing? Fine. If a reporter or source wants to negotiate what and how something will be presented? No problem. But sharing a story with a source? Can’t happen. 

To be sure, the Schefter-Allen “arrangement” is a minor transgression compared to the racism, misogyny, homophobia and general assholery that the Gruden emails conveyed. But it’s a bad look for Schefter and troubling for several reasons. One, sharing stories with sources and permitting them to edit erodes the ideal of a free and independent press. The Founding Fathers thought that important enough to include in the Bill of Rights’ First Amendment. 

Now, some in the audience may be thinking, “Lighten up, Francis; it’s sports, not treason or state secrets.” But the NFL is a multi-billion-dollar behemoth and long ago quit being about just sports. We live in an era when public figures – politicians, executives, athletes, celebrities, even corporations and professional sports leagues – want to craft their own images and messages. They want to be seen as attractive or sympathetic or responsible, and they’re increasingly able to do so through P.R. types and contracted storytellers and various social media platforms that bypass the traditional press. Because access is so important, some reporters make ethical rationalizations about what they choose and choose not to report, about how chummy or forgiving they are to sources and subjects. 

The NFL hasn’t exactly been progressive on many fronts – concussions and head trauma, domestic violence, minority hiring, social justice and recognition of player concerns, to name a few areas. It’s fair to wonder how much Schefter and other reporters overlook certain subjects for the ability to report injuries, depth charts, player movement, juicy quotes from unnamed sources. Since the Gruden fallout was a result of a broader investigation into an entirely different franchise, it’s also fair to wonder to what extent the email dump is a cover for other people and organizations. Guaranteed that Gruden isn’t a one-off or outlier. 

Sharing stories with sources also skews the boundaries for other reporters. For example: Reporter, to source: “I found out such-and-such. Can you confirm?” Source: “I’d need to see the story first.” Reporter: “I can’t do that.” Source: “Why not? Schefter did it.” Full disclosure: In my newspaper days, I ran phrasing past a lawyer or two for a couple of stories for the sake of precision and proper language. Before I depended on an audio recorder in interviews and often relied on written notes, on rare occasions I ran a quote past a subject to double-check its accuracy. I never shared an entire story with a source. 

Under this gravestone, there is rolling

For his part, Schefter issued a statement that said the criticism is fair, and that he uncharacteristically
shared the story because of its complicated nature. He said that he was wrong to do so, and that he would never cede editorial control or final say about a story to outside sources. Schefter has reported plenty of complicated stories. Was that the only time he shared one with a source beforehand? We’re supposed to believe that he would never concede control to someone to whom he referred as “Mr. Editor”?

As award-winning journalist and author Tommy Tomlinson pointed out, no reporter has ever referred to a colleague as “Mr. Editor” unless there was an expletive between the two words. Schefter has broken dozens of stories over the years, through dogged reporting and a humongous contact list. But what he did, at least once, failed journalism, and the entire profession suffers for it.