Brit media verus U.S. media -- a divide?

[Larry Kart]

For those of you with access to the NY Times, I found this David Carr column today to be very interesting and pretty much true:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/business/media/britain-as-a-breeding-ground-for-media-leaders.html?ref=todayspaper

Combine this with Russell Brand's recent episode on CNBC (scroll to about the 5:00 mark for the fireworks):

http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/11679-russel-brand-discombobulates-cnbc-crew-on-live-tv.html

which offers striking evidence of the divide in sense and sensibilities that Carr speaks of.

[ejp626]

Not sure I would agree with all the premises. What I think is more central to the UK press is that, aside from the BBC, there is no pretense whatsoever about neutrality. Stories are routinely spun one way or the other without worrying about the other side (so you don't have reporters desperately making false equivalencies). That is a bit refreshing but also has led to a heightened echo chamber impact. In the US, it's basically everybody else vs. Fox, whereas things are totally fractured in the U: you read the Daily Mail (or the Sun) or the Guardian or the Telegraph. Very little overlap in readership.

The other thing that is a bit surprising, given the UK's libel laws, is that reporters there really latch onto scandals (and try to create them) even more than happens here (or at least outside Beltway reporting, which is mostly about fake scandals cooked up by both parties).

At least that's my take on it.

[Big Wheel]

Not sure I would agree with all the premises. What I think is more central to the UK press is that, aside from the BBC, there is no pretense whatsoever about neutrality. Stories are routinely spun one way or the other without worrying about the other side (so you don't have reporters desperately making false equivalencies). That is a bit refreshing but also has led to a heightened echo chamber impact. In the US, it's basically everybody else vs. Fox, whereas things are totally fractured in the U: you read the Daily Mail (or the Sun) or the Guardian or the Telegraph. Very little overlap in readership.

The other thing that is a bit surprising, given the UK's libel laws, is that reporters there really latch onto scandals (and try to create them) even more than happens here (or at least outside Beltway reporting, which is mostly about fake scandals cooked up by both parties).

At least that's my take on it.

Also there's a paradox in much of European journalism: while the questions themselves are much more aggressive, the actual process of investigative journalism is much more limited (or so I've read). There's a heavier reliance on official sources for any story, which usually is going to mean much less shoe-leather reporting - aside from notable cases like, uh, hacking people's phones in an attempt to just smear them. So it seems like European journalism is better at figuring out when public figures are lying, but worse at filling out the details to find out what the true story really is.

BTW am I the only one who's noticed the BBC (on the web, anyway) getting much schlockier and "CNN-like" in the last 12-24 months in an attempt to jack up their pageviews?

Edited June 24, 2013 by Big Wheel

[ejp626]

Not sure I would agree with all the premises. What I think is more central to the UK press is that, aside from the BBC, there is no pretense whatsoever about neutrality. Stories are routinely spun one way or the other without worrying about the other side (so you don't have reporters desperately making false equivalencies). That is a bit refreshing but also has led to a heightened echo chamber impact. In the US, it's basically everybody else vs. Fox, whereas things are totally fractured in the U: you read the Daily Mail (or the Sun) or the Guardian or the Telegraph. Very little overlap in readership.

The other thing that is a bit surprising, given the UK's libel laws, is that reporters there really latch onto scandals (and try to create them) even more than happens here (or at least outside Beltway reporting, which is mostly about fake scandals cooked up by both parties).

At least that's my take on it.

Also there's a paradox in much of European journalism: while the questions themselves are much more aggressive, the actual process of investigative journalism is much more limited (or so I've read). There's a heavier reliance on official sources for any story, which usually is going to mean much less shoe-leather reporting - aside from notable cases like, uh, hacking people's phones in an attempt to just smear them. So it seems like European journalism is better at figuring out when public figures are lying, but worse at filling out the details to find out what the true story really is.

BTW am I the only one who's noticed the BBC (on the web, anyway) getting much schlockier and "CNN-like" in the last 12-24 months in an attempt to jack up their pageviews?

Well, certainly the CNN site has gotten unbelievably shlocky (the other day they were featuring a video of a woman tossing her rival off a cliff! -- way to stay classy, CNN). Basically everything is just going to hell in a handbag.

I also think that investigative reporting (and reporters) as we know them are a dying breed. The stuff doesn't "pay" at all in the eyes of newspaper owners. So this great investigative reporting probably doesn't exist outside the top 10-15 U.S. cities. And it probably won't exist outside the top 5 cities in another 10-15 years. It will just be reporting by press release...

[Jazzmoose]

I read the article this time, Larry, but I'll be damned if I'll watch Russell Brand for anyone.

[papsrus]

I also think that investigative reporting (and reporters) as we know them are a dying breed. The stuff doesn't "pay" at all in the eyes of newspaper owners. So this great investigative reporting probably doesn't exist outside the top 10-15 U.S. cities. And it probably won't exist outside the top 5 cities in another 10-15 years. It will just be reporting by press release...

Disagree.

The mid-sized paper I work for won a Pulitzer for investigative journalism recently. And continues to do similar work.

LINK

Often, the local daily doing the routine work of chronicling the unglamorous business of government will, through routine work, end up uncovering malfeasance, corruption, etc. Whether or not people find any value in that sort of thing is another question. But perhaps "prevailing wisdom" on this sort of thing shouldn't be greeted so readily with nodding heads.

[ejp626]

I also think that investigative reporting (and reporters) as we know them are a dying breed. The stuff doesn't "pay" at all in the eyes of newspaper owners. So this great investigative reporting probably doesn't exist outside the top 10-15 U.S. cities. And it probably won't exist outside the top 5 cities in another 10-15 years. It will just be reporting by press release...

Disagree.

The mid-sized paper I work for won a Pulitzer for investigative journalism recently. And continues to do similar work.

LINK

Often, the local daily doing the routine work of chronicling the unglamorous business of government will, through routine work, end up uncovering malfeasance, corruption, etc. Whether or not people find any value in that sort of thing is another question. But perhaps "prevailing wisdom" on this sort of thing shouldn't be greeted so readily with nodding heads.

It would be nice to be wrong on this, but I've read local papers from MI and NC (where I still have family) and I don't recognize anything that resembles investigative reporting, certainly compared to 10 years ago. And I do think it will continue to get worse. I simply don't see enough people willing to pay to support newspapers down the road.

[Blue Train]

My take is I think those in the US are becoming more stenographers/stupider talking heads for whichever side with every passing year.


Washington Post & The Times-Picayune might be the last real major newspaper (and even the later has had cutbacks) that still does the kind of reporting back in the OLD SCHOOL days. NYT is a shell of itself, and @ times embarrassing. Is there a war they have tried to do their best to get us involved in since Gulf II?

Everything owned by the Tribune company has become a joke since Sam Zell. Don't get me started about News Corp newspapers.


The British Invasion is hasn't really changed anything. In the end....it's the lowest common denominator. Seriously, anything that brings up Piers Morgan of all people...talk about lowest common denominator. He actually makes Larry King look like a reporter.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Blue Train

[ejp626]

...Seriously, anything that brings up Piers Morgan of all people...talk about lowest common denominator. He actually makes Larry King look like a reporter.

I was no Larry King fan, but I categorically refuse to watch Piers Morgan. Frankly, given his disgraceful role in UK newspaper investigative "practices," he ought to be in prison.

[Larry Kart]

My take is I think those in the US are becoming more stenographers/stupider talking heads for whichever side with every passing year.

Washington Post & The Times-Picayune might be the last real major newspaper (and even the later has had cutbacks) that still does the kind of reporting back in the OLD SCHOOL days. NYT is a shell of itself, and @ times embarrassing. Is there a war they have tried to do their best to get us involved in since Gulf II?

Everything owned by the Tribune company has become a joke since Sam Zell. Don't get me started about News Corp newspapers.

The British Invasion is hasn't really changed anything. In the end....it's the lowest common denominator. Seriously, anything that brings up Piers Morgan of all people...talk about lowest common denominator. He actually makes Larry King look like a reporter.

Hmm -- the Washington Post's editorials when it comes to wide range of topics, foreign policy especially, are a neo-con festival. Its coverage of public education has smelled funny since the days it embraced cheating faux reformer Michelle Rhee (an embrace that hasn't let up). Its economic columnist Robert Samuelson is a joke.

The post-Zell Trib does have its problems (I'm a former Trib employee of pre-Zell vintage), but on good days it's still a better newspaper than its bosses deserve -- lots of good people still work there -- except when its trying to demonize school teachers and other public employees (but, again, that's the paper's editorial board and its masters wagging the dog's tail). Can't speak about other papers the Trib Co. owns.

[papsrus]

Another paper in my area, just up the road a bit, recently published this piece:

"America's Worst Charities" is the result of a yearlong collaboration between the Tampa Bay Times and California-based The Center for Investigative Reporting, the nation's largest and longest serving nonprofit newsroom dedicated to watchdog journalism.

How about the Portland Press-Herald's: "The Lobbyist in the Henhouse" a seven-month investigation of a former industrial lobbyist who became commissioner of the state department of environmental protection and basically continued to function as an advocate for the chemical, drug, oil and real estate industries in her new position?

Or the Patriot News breaking the Sandusky scandal?

I could go on, but I won't.

I will say that more and more, investigative reporting is falling under the purview of what I would call advocacy journalism, by such outfits as Mother Jones, TPM, etc. Not necessarily a bad thing.

[John Litweiler]

I'm inclined to agree with most of the comments here. Larry, even the Sun-Times, despite its critical, indeed intensive-care, condition, still gets in some good hits now and then. What we don't see much of anywhere is the kind of extended investigations of the bastards that used to appear in U.S. newspapers now and then. Some web sites' debunking (think of Rick Perlstein for ex.) seems to be as close as we get - somebody please show me I'm wrong.

What do our UK Organissimo members think of UK newspapers and TV? When I first went there in 1999 the big London papers were thick (Times, Telegraph, Independent, Grauniad [sorry], I think one other) looked thick and fat every day. The last time, 3 years ago, they looked thin and the Independent, which I'd once admired, had Brad Pitt-Angela Jolie on the front page. And what do our UK Organissimo members think of Private Eye and the BBC? (For 40-some years I've been impressed by what looks like a tough, dogged, expose-them attitude and appalled by recurrent racism in PE.)