Monday, August 17, 1998
News falls into tabloid-style reporting
JOURNALISM: ‘Credible’ sources place Lewinsky, alien visits on
same page
Time magazine is now hard to distinguish from your average
supermarket tabloid, and Newsweek is no different. If you think
that sort of bold statement shouldn’t be made without evidence, get
a load of how Time starts its articles. For instance, the following
excerpt is from the opening paragraph of Nancy Gibbs’ Aug. 10 cover
story on Monica Lewinsky.
"The girl we know so well, the one in the flirty beret on the
Rose Garden rope line, is gone now, ground up by the machinery of
investigation and fame. This new Monica is still warm, puts people
at ease, pays attention to them when they speak, but she watches
out for herself in a way she never had to before."
Perhaps Gibbs’ opening paragraph is more articulate than mine,
but it is no better when it comes to being backed by evidence. Her
opening words are essentially opinion, and that’s unacceptable in a
news story.
Reporters are supposed to show, rather than tell. If Gibbs
thinks Lewinsky is a nice person, she’s not supposed to be able to
tell us that. If she thinks that Lewinsky "watches out for herself
in a way she never had to before," she should give us an example of
this "new Monica."
But Gibbs, who has written about the Lewinsky scandal in Time’s
last two issues, uses as many adjectives as the most descriptive
novelist. For instance, in this Aug. 10 article, Gibbs describes
the president’s position as one that "transmutes a lifetime of
ambition, deal-making and supercharged hormones into a symbol of
dignity, power and promise to serve the greater good."
Let me update those of you who have been living in a cave,
and/or have read only the Daily Bruin’s Viewpoint section. Lewinsky
was a White House intern in her early 20s a couple of years back,
and it is widely speculated that she had a love affair with
President Clinton. While other presidents are alleged to have had
extramarital affairs, never before have those affairs been
investigated in a federal court by a special prosecutor.
But that’s what’s happening to Clinton, who is being hounded by
independent counsel Kenneth Starr. As of now, Lewinsky claims that
a sexual relationship took place, while Clinton continues to deny
it.
It’s one of those stories that you’d think tabloids would write
a lot about, although it depends on the tabloid. (The Daily Bruin
is actually a tabloid – when you use the word to refer to the size
of a newspaper. The Bruin is tabloid, while the L.A. Times is
broadsheet.) Most tabloids are known for featuring stories about
violence or scandal and portraying them in a sensational
manner.
Meanwhile, more legitimate media (like the Daily Bruin) include
more relevant, but less exciting news (i.e., news that actually
affects people’s lives, like the passage of a law or the opening of
a park).
The Lewinsky scandal could certainly become relevant to most
Americans in the event of impeachment, but that’s only speculation.
And it’s certainly not as relevant as it is scandalous. It sounds
like a movie-of-the-week: a young intern, just past her teens,
seduces the president of the United States. It’s telling, then,
that Time’s coverage of the story has been prolific.
In fact, Time’s coverage has been prolific to the tune of a
six-story, 30-page "special report" in its Aug. 10 edition titled,
"As Monica Turns," which reported that Lewinsky had finally agreed
to come forward and testify. Meanwhile, Time’s web site features a
link to "Monica Madness: Our special scandal coverage, featuring a
timeline, players, a story archive and more!"
The coverage has also been made as provocative as possible.
Take, for example, the reference to "supercharged hormones" or the
following opening paragraph to the Aug. 17 article, "Over To You,
Bill."
"The night before her day in court, Monica Lewinsky promised her
lawyers she would go to sleep early, but instead, she lay awake for
hours. She worried about what it would mean to put her private life
irrevocably into the public record: She had no illusion that
anything would stay secret for long. And she wondered how she would
keep her composure through something so painful."
What an opening! The star of the story, the girl who was sexy
enough to seduce the president, is tossing and turning in her bed
at night. Wow. I need a cigarette. But I am kind of curious: How
did Time know about Monica’s restless night?
You have to wonder about a lot of the things that Time reports
in its articles on the scandal. For instance, in its Aug. 10
edition, Time reports that on July 23, Lewinsky celebrated her 25th
birthday. It continues:
"She had planned (to celebrate her birthday with) a family
barbecue at her father’s home in Brentwood, Calif., but her comings
and goings have been evoking the same response as celebrity
weddings do, so she opted for a French restaurant dinner instead.
As a present, she told her family, ‘I want my life back.’"
How did Time know that? I’ve thought of a few possibilities.
Time reporters may be stalking Lewinsky, and they may have heard it
from a nearby table in the restaurant. They may have an informer in
her family who went to a phone booth – soon after Lewinsky blew out
the candles – to call Time with the tip.
That’s just one of many details behind Time’s coverage that
makes you sit back and ask, "How the hell did they know that?"
While newspapers make sure that just about every fact that’s
reported is attributed to a source, Time asks you to accept things
on faith. And sometimes – if you’re like me – you start to think
that maybe, just maybe, they made it up.
And so in my mind, Time is losing credibility. If their stories
are made up of one part over-descriptive opinion, one part
speculation, with unverifiable tidbits mixed in, then how
believable can the final product be?
In a way, all I’m writing about here is old news; tabloidization
of the media has been going on for a while. Scandals get more and
more coverage, while city council meetings get less and less. Is
this a valid measure of the media’s performance? But I hadn’t
realized until recently that Time and Newsweek have gone in that
direction. (Newsweek had a cover story earlier this year titled
"Monica Lewinsky and her Mother.")
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. One of my favorite
newspapers is The Weekly World News. The Weekly World News is
barely covering the Lewinsky scandal; it only gets mentioned once
in the Aug. 18 edition, in the story, "Rush Limbaugh Urged To Run
for President – by Extraterrestrials From Space!" The article notes
that "The aliens have a high moral standard and are appalled by the
lurid allegations that surround the president."
The Weekly World News is great because its lack of credibility
is obvious. But publications such as Time and Newsweek make me
nervous because I’m not exactly sure what to make of them. They’re
not the Weekly World News, and they’re not C-SPAN. Like most media,
they’re somewhere in between, and they’re looking more like the
Weekly World News every day.
Dittmer is a fourth-year geography, environmental studies and
economics student. Send feedback to [email protected].