Monday, October 22, 2007

Who DO you trust??

Paul Giacobbe

          In its purest sense, the Viewers’ Voice/ombudsman program at NBC10 is designed to give the public a chance to be heard when they believe that an NBC10 news story is unfair, lacks balance or is inaccurate.  It is at its best when it provides an opportunity for persons who believe they have injured by a story to respond.

But the program has evolved, particularly with this blog, to provide viewers with the opportunity to express an opinion about things they simply don’t like about the news programs.  It is an extension of this remarkable, unique television experiment, now in its 10th year, to give air time and website space to news consumers critical of the product.

It’s become clear that many of the things viewers don’t like about a news show are related to the pressures of the business side of the news shows. Just like the prime time entertainment shows, the news shows are expected to earn money.  The more people that watch, the more advertisers pay for commercials.  The more advertisers pay, the more the station has to spend (theoretically, anyway) on reporters, editors and the news product.

But the business side of the news appears to more and more frequently clash with traditional journalistic principles.  The incursion, sometimes, is across a razor thin line, recognizable only to purists; other times, it is glaringly obvious.

 

Peg, a viewer, emails that she doesn’t like the NBC10 frequent reference to “the team you trust,” any more than she likes the competition’s “news you can count on.“  She notes, significantly I think, that not only are faceless, off camera announcers using the phrase, but also the news anchors themselves.

 

I agree with Peg and several others who have written about the use of the slogan.  It make me a little squeamish to hear a reporter, in effect, endorsing his or her own work; it’s a little like a commercial within a news story.

 

The issue may be in one’s definition of a reporter.  Is an anchor who reads stories prepared by others, or assembles facts gathered by others, or introduces a report done by another, a reporter or an announcer?  A reporter wouldn’t do a commercial, or endorse a product, but anchors routinely will promote a network’s entertainment programming, for example.  Are they putting their own credibility at stake when they refer, for example, to a program as “a hit,” when, in fact, it may not be?

 

I don’t, even for a moment, believe that a reporter or anchor is less able to objectively report the news because he or she appears to endorse the station’s programming.  But sometimes, as Peg’s email suggests, there is a measure of discomfort arising from the perception of reporter/anchor as pitchman.

 

While NBC10 provides the space for this blog, the opinions are mine alone. – Paul Giacobbe

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

By Any Other Name . . .

by Paul Giacobbe

Sometimes a really good question doesn’t have an answer, it just spawns more questions.  Such an issue arose as the result of an email received last week from Jeff in Riverside, who objected to a reporter’s description in a news story of an injured man seeking workers’ compensation benefits as an “undocumented worker.”

The worker, Jeff wrote, is an illegal alien, and referring to him as an “undocumented worker” is “politically correct but shades the story away from the fact that the worker is an illegal.”

The NBC10 news department follows the Associated Press stylebook, which suggests the term “illegal immigrant.”  The reporter referred to the injured man as an undocumented worker, said NBC10 News Director Betty Jo Cugini, because that’s how he was described in the matter before the Workers Compensation Court

I asked other members of the Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO) http://www.newsombudsmen.org, comprised primarily of newspaper ombudsmen, if their organizations had a policy with regard to unattributed references to such residents/workers.

USA Today ombudsman Brent Jones says the USA Today style guide says the preferred term for foreign nationals who have illegally entered the USA is illegal immigrants, but the terms illegal aliens and illegals are also accepted, as is undocumented worker, when applicable.

Interestingly, however, he says the style guide warns to “take care not to identify individuals as any of the above unless it is known with certainty that their presence in this country has been ruled illegal by (the appropriate authority.)”

The Washington Post, writes Ombudsman Deborah Howell, says that the term “undocumented,” when used to describe illegal immigrants, “is a euphemism that obscures an important fact – that they are in this country illegally.  In general, use illegal immigrant (but not illegal alien. The word alien is repugnant to some people.)  Terms such as undocumented worker may be used for the sake of variety . . .  (but) do not use illegal as a noun, as in Jiminez is an illegal.”

The Houston Chronicle also discourages the use of the word “alien,” which they say is a pejorative to immigrants.  They don’t use the word “illegals” as a noun.  The Chronicle’s ombudsman, James Campbell, also referenced the view of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which advises against the use of the word “illegals” and “alien.”

With regard to the term “illegal,” the NAHJ suggests that it too is inappropriate since, they say, under current U.S. law being an undocumented immigrant is not a crime, but a civil violation.  In addition, says the NAHJ, about 40 percent of undocumented people living in the U.S. did not enter illegally, but have simply overstayed their visas.

The USA Today stylebook admonition of characterizing someone as a lawbreaker without appropriate attribution or proof, as well as the NAHJ position regarding the use of the word “illegal,” was also addressed in the response of Dr. Edward Wasserman, a Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, and an ONO associate member.

Wasserman notes that while many of these immigrants may be here illegally, “the determination that someone’s presence is ‘illegal’ is a matter for a criminal or administrative tribunal to decide.”

“I don’t see why ‘undocumented’ doesn’t say enough,” wrote Wasserman, “and doesn’t lump a largely inoffensive population in with muggers, rapists and CEOs.”

Using the term “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants,” says Wasserman, calls attention to the law breaking aspects of their behavior, rather than, for instance, “highlighting their desperation, or their presence as willing workers, or the ineptitude of our political leadership to figure out a way to accommodate both the supply and the demand that they represent.”