Michael Jackson, global warming & Cincy TV news

I found myself watching, watching, watching and listening to television anchorbabble awaiting the Michael Jackson verdict to come in. So, now we know he's criminally not guilty but just very, very weird -- as were the parents who let their children go to the home of an adult man for a sleepover. But we all knew that and watched anyway.

Far more significant was the cover story of today's USA Today, describing the growing consensus that global warming is real. The newest converts are some of America's biggest corporations, such as General Electric. This has the best chance of getting the Bush administration's attention. Perhaps that sounds partisan and cynical, but it is reality. Will media outlets find clever ways to help readers/viewers take this kind of news more seriously?

Speaking of TV news ... I am doing an RSS feed to my "My Yahoo" account that includes Kentucky news from WLWT, a local affiliate here. Every single feed that the computer picks up has something to do with murder, violence and mayhem. Television news in the Cincinnati market is among my biggest disappointments after a year in this area. Words that come to mind: Shallow, trivial, sensation-seeking all-too often. And the infatuation with weather, while reflective of the market in some sense, is embarrassing. A few potential snowflakes routinely lead news reports and weather forecasters tease and tease and tease in shrill efforts to get you to keep watching for a forecast that rarely is very ominous. The stations are increasingly in "I-Team" wars in which they do low-level consumer investigative reports for the most part.

OK, I know. Glass houses and all that. Print side folks can do a lot better, too. I just think the newspaper people have a healthier fear of the future right now than the local television folks so maybe we're further down the road to meaningful change. The newscasts here are clones of what TV news directors were being told was "hot" at their conventions in the 1970s. The only difference, really, is the computer graphics are glitzier. As their audiences keep fragmenting, they'll either get better or even more shrill to be heard over the din. If anything, local affiliates will eventually face even more profit pressure than newspapers do today. Any bets on which way local television news will go?

Newsweek still doesn't get it

One other thought on anonymous sources. In the same issue in which Newsweek said they're going to improve their policies and procedures on anonymous sources, there was strong evidence that the Newsweek editors still don't get it.

An article on Latino political power said that the John Kerry campaign missed the boat with Latinos in 2004. This point was essentially well sourced. But, to illustrate it, Newsweek used an anecdote from a Georgetown dinner party in which Kerry allegedly "offered what two guests called 'a full mea culpa' and the assurance that he'd strive to avoid a similar fiasco in the future." Parenthetically, Newsweek reported the two guests "asked not to be named because they considered it a private event."

This is the exact kind of anonymous sourcing that is gratuitous and unneeded. The anecdote does not advance the story enough to justify anonymity. The premise the anecdote supports already had been clearly stated and reported. Nor is the story important enough for anonymous sourcing. Nor does Kerry get a chance to confirm or rebut. Well, maybe Kerry himself is a source. If so, all the more reason not to allow him to hide.

Consider the irony of this appearing in the same issue of Newsweek offering its own mea culpas. Unbelievable. Arrogant. Stupid. Hypocritical. And more ammunition for those who say journalism simply does not have its act together.

Watergate & sources

As someone who came of age as a journalist in the Watergate era, it's good to see the class and integrity Bob Woodward has displayed this week. Now we know for sure. Deep Throat wasn't an invented character. Woodward and Bernstein played it straight and didn't let the thirst to be first screw up their values -- at least not too often. (It did happen, though, as the Hugh Sloan incident in "All the President's Men" records.) Journalism could use some luster and class at this moment. We can argue about Mark Felt's motivations, but it seems indeed he was as advertised -- the dream source who was always accurate, knew a lot and kept reporters from making big mistakes.

Journalists mark roads, not build them

Traditionally journalists have thought of their jobs to build, mark and pave the one road worth traveling that readers drive on their knowledge journey.

In new journalism, journalists provide directional markers that reader/travelers can use on multiple roads. They might provide one, but only one, of the better, paved routes available. Many of those roads are unpaved. Many don’t lead anywhere. Some will lead to new, exciting places. Because there are so many roads and roads are now so much easier to create, the value of those who provide clear, credible, valuable directional markers increases while the cost of providing a road itself is open to anyone with a computer and a keypad who can imagine himself to be a road builder.

A world is emerging where everyone will carry their CPU with them. It will be able to plug into big screens, little screens, e-paper sheets, full size keyboards and perhaps virtual keypads defined by detectable finger movements. The CPU will be a personal computer, cellphone, MP3 player, video capture and play device, camera, etc., etc., etc. And it will work high speed and wirelessly.

Journalists have just as important a role to play in this world. Maybe more important.