Something I’m calling “identity journalism” has taken over the Democratic primary debates in 2019. Watching the third in a series of who-knows-how-many “debates” among the many contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, I became aware of something disturbing: The debate moderators—on-air anchors and reporters from ABC News—sorted themselves out into ethnicities and based many of their questions on those identities. Here’s how it played out:

The four moderators were ABC​ News’​ George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, Linsey Davis and Univision’s Jorge Ramos. As the debate [and I use that term very loosely] progressed, Linsey Davis—the African-American moderator—asked the “black questions” about racial inequality, the rise of white supremacy, and institutional racism in America. Jorge Ramos, the Latino moderator, asked the “Hispanic” questions about the candidates’ views on immigration and on Trump’s actions at the U.S.-Mexico border. Stephanopoulous and Muir asked questions that were more “universal,”—the subtext of which is that white is the default, the standard, the non-ethnic.

I don’t know if they talked this strategy over when planning the debate, but it makes me uncomfortable to realize that, apparently, only the black moderator can ask the racial questions, only the Latino moderator can ask the immigration questions, and only the white moderators can ask the “non-ethnic” questions. It’s journalistic stereotyping, and it makes me queasy to watch it.

There’s a similar stratification among candidates and the questions they’re expected to address. Kamala Harris and Corey Booker, almost inevitably through the debates so far, get the racial inequality questions first. They’re people of color so, of course, in the minds of the moderators, they’re the experts on these issues. I’d venture to say that Elizabeth Warren has not been asked very many questions about racial relations, but I’d have to review all of the transcripts to confirm that assertion.

Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro get the immigration questions. Pete Buttigieg gets the “LGBTQ” questions—and gets a special dispensation to answer “racial” questions because of unrest in South Bend, Indiana, where he is mayor. Sanders, Warren, Biden and Klobuchar get the “white people” questions about healthcare, foreign affairs and taxes, and are left on the sidelines of the “ethnic” issues. I’d like to hear more from them about their views on immigration, gun violence and racial issues, and I’d like to hear more from the others about their views on the more “generic” issues. That may happen, but only, I’m afraid when the field has narrowed considerably.

I want to note, also, that the candidates themselves have aided and abetted this stereotyping by staking out territories that distinguish them from the unwieldy pack of nearly two dozen people who initially sought the Democratic nomination. Kirsten Gillibrand billed herself as the feminist candidate. Tulsi Gabbard was the more conservative military veteran candidate. Tim Ryan identified himself as the working person’s champion. Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper and Steve Bullock positioned themselves as the get-it-done governors.

But as the field has begun to shrink, not only are candidates disappearing, so is attention to their self-proclaimed territories fading. With no governor on the debate stage, moderators don’t ask questions about the nuts-and-bolts of governing. In the absence of Kirsten Gillibrand, moderators at the third debate didn’t ask a single question about reproductive rights or Me-Too issues. Unions? Workers? The middle class? No Tim Ryan, so no working-guy questions. And if you’d like to hear candidates’ views on what to do about poverty in America’s “booming economy,” fuhgettaboutit: There’s not a “poor person’s candidate” in sight, so who’s going to bother to ask about that?

We are in desperate times. We need real political debate—not the made-for-tv, 60-second answer, try-to-spark-a-feud, issue-stereotyped game show that we are currently seeing.

The post Identity journalism pollutes the Democratic debate stage appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The next time you hear Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or any of the phony journalists and sneering pundits of Fox News claim that Muslims have failed to speak out against extremism and terrorism, remember the faces of Naji Jerf and Ruqia Hassan. These determined, anti-Isis activists are just the latest victims of a targeted assassination campaign waged against journalists and filmmakers who are putting their lives on the line to bear witness to the human-rights abuses of the Islamic State in Syria.

Jerf and Hassan, along with three other Syrian journalists murdered by Isis since October 2015, had their lives taken from them because they refused to keep silent. A recently released video shows another five men—who were falsely accused of spying—recounting the crimes that ultimately led to their executions. What exactly did they do? The first crime was operating an Internet café. The second was sending photos of life in Syria to Turkey.

It’s shameful that American media provides a seemingly unlimited platform for pundits and politicians spreading unsubstantiated claims of widespread Muslim acceptance and support for terrorism. It is even more shameful to witness how the narrative of hatred and fear is successfully exploited to gain airtime and rack up a few more polling points, while courageous Muslims are risking—and losing—their lives to protest the violence and let the rest of the world know the truth.

Naji Jerf was a Syrian documentary filmmaker, anti-Isis activist, and editor-in-chief of Hentah, a magazine reporting on Syrian life.

The 38-year-old father of two made films documenting massacres by the Islamic State in Syria. According to reports from the Committee to Protect Journalists—a non-profit organization promoting press freedom world wide—Jerf was shot and killed just one week before traveling to France where his wife and children had already been granted asylum status.

Jerf had been working with the citizen group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which in recent months has lost three other members of its staff by assassination.

Ruqia Hassan was killed by Jihadists in September of 2015. Thirty-year-old Hassan was the first female journalist and activist killed by Isis.

Hassan, who studied philosophy at Aleppo University, used social media to post information about everyday life in Raqqa, Syria, and the challenges of women living under the rule of the Islamic State. She also shared information about coalition airstrikes on social media using the pseudonym Nisan Ibrahim.

Confirmation of Hassan’s execution on charges of espionage was only recently announced, even though she had been killed in September.

According to The Independent, for months Isis claimed that Ruqia, who was imprisoned, was still alive. During the interim Isis hijacked her Facebook account and continued posting in her name, hoping to entrap other dissidents.

Two months before her murder, Hassan tweeted these defiant words:

“I’m in Raqqa, and I received death threats, and when Isis [arrests] me and kills me it’s ok because they will cut my head and I have dignity its better than I live in humiliation with Isis”

The post Brave Muslim journalists assassinated for reporting on ISIS appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There are no car chases, explosions, zombies or love scenes in the recently released movie, “Spotlight.” But a lot of important things happen. The movie recounts how, in 2001 and 2002, a special investigative-reporting team at the Boston Globe exposed widespread sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, as well as the systematic cover-up that kept the problem hushed up for decades.

It’s a quiet movie: Not much in the way of action, zero romance, no sudden plot twists, and a distinct absence of swelling violin themes and pulsating, urgent rhythms. Instead, “Spotlight” is more of a chronicle—following the [mostly] unhurried, step-by-step, cumulative process that characterizes real investigative reporting. The four-person “Spotlight” team at the Boston Globe won the Pulitzer Prize for this story in 2002.

The cast features big names—Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci—who play their roles as Boston Globe reporters and editors convincingly. There’s no showboating, no scene stealing, no over-emoting. I’ve read that the actors were so committed to getting their characters right that they met with them not just to gather background information, but also to observe them and nail down the way they dressed, the way they moved, and the way they talked. I’ve read, too, that the story told in the screenplay is about as true to the real story as it gets.

[Sidebar: I’ve just started reading “Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church,” which lays out the findings of the investigation that inspired “Spotlight.” The book includes much more detail about the investigation, including some of the stories of the victims. I’m looking forward to learning more, and from what I’ve seen so far, this book—written in a reader-friendly, feature-article style—is going to fill in a lot of the details that, understandably, couldn’t fit into the movie.]

So, kudos to director Tom McCarthy and screenwriter Josh Singer for authenticity. I’m confident that their effort will contrast sharply with that of pseudo-historian Oliver Stone, whose movie “Snowden” was previewed at our movie theatre before the screening of “Spotlight.”

“Spotlight” will undoubtedly draw comparisons to “All the President’s Men,” the 1976 recounting of Woodward and Bernstein’s expose of the Watergate scandal, which ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. That movie inspired a generation of journalists and investigative reporters. It would be reassuring to think that “Spotlight” might do the same. But in this movie, the cast is not nearly as celebrated as Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, and their exploits are not as cloak-and-dagger-y as the Deep Throat connection. In addition, there’s this: Investigative reporting—even in the mere 14 years since the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal broke—is fast becoming a lost art, not because it’s no longer needed, but because newspapers are losing their audiences and their clout, and because investigative reporting is increasingly seen as a cost center in a cost-cutting world.

It’s also disappointing to note that, at our movie theatre, on a Sunday evening, there were only 10 people in the audience. We saw “Spotlight” in a multi-plex in a suburban neighborhood. It’s also showing at a more arty theatre in an even more affluent area, where I suspect that the generally NPR-type demographic probably packed the house. But I’m guessing that this is not a mass-appeal film, and that the run will be quite short. Fortunately, Oscar-buzz has attached itself to “Spotlight,” [mostly to Mark Ruffalo, an actor with some serious sex-appeal–and great acting ability, by the way], so it may get more play down the line.

I hope so, because the subtext of the movie is that we cannot let the fourth estate dwindle: Its role in forcing government and societal institutions to be more transparent and accountable is critical to democracy. Left uninvestigated and unreported, powerful people and institutions are not about to reveal their flaws and their crimes. And, as we see in “Spotlight,” it’s just too easy to ignore problems, cover them up—even to acquiesce to them and thereby enable them—unless someone has the courage to stick them in front of our noses.

Today, the very existence of legitimate journalism is in serious danger: We’re substituting news- and press-release reprinters/readers for reporters. We’re allowing propagandists to pose as experts and journalists. So-called reporters and news anchors don’t bother to challenge the outrageous statements and outright lies of politicians. And we’re deluding ourselves into thinking that tweets and facebook posts constitute news reporting.

“Spotlight” is a timely reminder of the importance and the power of the press in a democracy: a basic building block that we, as a society and as individuals, should value and defend.

The post Spotlight: How real investigative reporting is done–and why isn’t there more of it? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There was a day when Walter Cronkite was the master journalist of all of American television news. We knew the serious side of him; the one that told us of John F. Kennedy’s semi-remarkable electoral victory in 1960, the one who carried us through the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo journeys with a tinge of excitement, and the one who told us all it was okay to cry when John F. Kennedy was slain in Dallas.

We didn’t know much about Walter Cronkite beyond what we saw on television or previously heard as a World War II correspondent for CBS Radio. There were references to him having been born in Western Missouri, not far from another plain-spoken man, Harry Truman. We knew that as he rose to the position of managing editor and anchor of CBS News, he became wealthier and loved to sail off the coasts of Massachusetts.

Cronkite lived in an era when the media did not ask President Kennedy about his dalliances. The probing that the media did into other public figures was tame as was the inquiry that looked into the lives of journalists. But that changed. Political figures were disrobed, most poignantly on June 13, 2011 when CNN political correspondent John King came just short of asking Republican candidates in a debate whether they wore boxers or briefs.

Twenty-three years earlier, in 1988, many in the press stalked Democratic Candidate Gary Hart about his supposed relationship with Donna Rice. Some of the photos were quite revealing. But through it all, mainstream journalists worked to protect their own integrity. A reporter for NBC, CBS, ABC, or CNN did not want to be confused with one for the National Enquirer.

In 1980, CNN took on the arduous task of providing real news around the clock. This was a most difficult task; news did not seem to move fast enough to fill each hour in a 24-hour loop. However, CNN adapted and replayed many of their earlier stories throughout the day. They also broadened their scope beyond “hard news” to the three big money-makers: weather, sports, and entertainment.

As peripheral news crept more and more into what the network projected as “real news,” the network was able to maintain the credibility of some of their top anchors and reporters including Bernard Shaw, Don Harrison, Christiane Amanpour and Nick Robertson. As time went on, CNN indulged in the production decision that somewhat doomed NBC’s Brian Williams.They sent their anchors to the scenes of so-called “breaking news.” In some cases it worked well; Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta were outstanding reporting from Gulf Coast in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina and later in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

But more recently CNN began to slide. Anchor/reporter Don Lemon was reporting from the streets of Manhattan on that January night in early 2015 when the Armageddon of all blizzards was to hit the east coast. If you were in Boston, indeed you got hit with such a storm. But in New York, the fury was mainly in the hype; not the snow and wind. All the same, Don Lemon and his crew were driving on the streets of Manhattan in their “Blizzardmobile” even though the city had banned all traffic that was not essential. Lemon wasn’t quite sure what to report; was it really a blizzard or was it a false alarm? He couldn’t make up his mind and neither could his producers. But the reporting reached a new form of absurdity when the Blizzardmobile stopped in the middle of the road; Lemon got out, all the while reporting live, thanks to the dash-cam and wireless mike, and tried to show us how the fallout on the street was good for making solid snowballs. Unfortunately for him, he could not find any good snow in the ice and water, and instead he tried to make a slushball, which simply dripped between his fingers.

If Don Lemon was chagrined, he did a good job of hiding it. However, it was clear that he had taken a hit, not from a snowball but in the form of lost respect from many in his viewing public. Lemon is game, and he has done an admirable job going back to news.

But then, CNN had a not so brilliant idea that truly sandbagged six of its anchors. On President’s Day, they wanted to have the anchors be contestants in a daytime-like game show, answering questions about U.S. presidents. Actually, the questions and answers were quite reasonable, but in order to entertain the audience, the anchors had to do just that, entertain.

Thus we saw John Burnham, Erin Burnett, Alisyn Camerota, Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, and Jake Tapper acting t like hyperactive teenagers as they battled one another for points to give a pittance of money to their favorite charities. I don’t particularly blame the anchors for their behavior; they were put up to it by management. This event was an equal opportunity misfortune.The anchors lost credibility and so did the CNN brand.

Comedian Jon Stewart has led a host of progressives to make fun of CNN. For the most part, I think that it’s fair. But with Fox being a simple propaganda machine for the right. and MSNBC allowing it arrogance to distort any real message that it may be trying to convey, CNN has the mainstream to itself. Yes, it has the problems associated with corporate ownership and providing poll-driven news, but it still is in a position to do a real public service for citizens around the world.CNN seems to be weakening its brand at the moment. It’s not too late to come back from the movement towards absurdity, but CNN had  better reverse its direction in a hurry.

The post CNN quiz show puts reporters at risk of being mocked appeared first on Occasional Planet.

“To innovate and change, we need to know what’s broken and how it needs to be fixed,” says the Solutions Journalism Network website. “The media does a good job of covering the problems: In fact, most hard news reporting is about problems and crises. That kind of reporting is essential. But we believe it’s time for journalists to get used to covering the other half of the story. Not just risks, but opportunities. And not just problems, but solutions, too. Solution journalism is a way of reporting that helps society learn how to fix itself.
It’s not advocacy, or fluff, or good news. Solution journalism is about stories that investigate the question: Who is solving what, and how?”

Founded in 2013, in New York City, Solutions Journalism Network encourages journalists and news organizations to report on responses to social problems, not just on the problems themselves. It funds reporters and news organizations that pursue what it calls “the rest of the story”—solutions. It analyzes news stories and critiques those that fail to offer a solutions angle.

Solutions Journalism judges reporting on several criteria:

Solutions journalism consists of rigorous, compelling, evidence-based stories about responses to pressing social problems. Solutions journalism goes beyond the traditional five Ws of journalism—who, what, when, where, why—to the missing H, the how. Model stories contextualize a problem, analyze a response, and use compelling narratives to bring it to life. If possible, they also discuss an idea’s limitations and draw out teachable lessons.

To get a better understanding of what kinds of stories meet these standards, take a look at the Examples page on the Solutions Journalism website.

The post Solutions Journalism Network: Beyond the traditional five W’s appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When the Congressional Budget Office released its report on the Affordable Care Act on Feb. 4, 2014, the headline in the next morning’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch was, “Health law is called a big jolt to jobs.” The New York Times said, “Health Care Law Projected to Cut the Labor Force.” The Washington Post said, “Health-care law will prompt over 2 million to quit jobs or cut hours, a CBO report says.”  CNN’s Chuck Todd tweeted, “CBO essentially reaffirms GOP talking points on healthcare. Says it will cost jobs, feel as if it raises taxes and contributes to deficit.” The ultra-conservative National Review gloated with this headline: “CBO report nukes Obamacare.”

They got it wrong.

How did they manage to do that? At best, it was lazy journalism. At worst, it was a corporate news media echo chamber for Republican spin. Mostly, it was an epidemic of latching on to whatever seemed the most dramatic, headline-making, doom-saying aspect of the story. After all, two+ million is a big, juicy number.

People who call themselves “news reporters” and “journalists” appear to have taken the easy way out by not actually reading the report itself but, instead, glomming onto whatever talking points hit their desks first. Republicans are way better at flooding the internet with their spin, so that’s the spin that was passed along as “news” to the general public.

When I first saw the headlines, my heart sank. I don’t think that the Affordable Care Act is the ultimate answer to healthcare reform in America, but it’s a giant leap in the right direction–and it’s something that no other President has been able to accomplish. The headlines made it sound as though “Obamacare” was, indeed, the “job-killer” that Republicans have railed against. It was an early-morning bummer for everyone who has supported and defended the Affordable Care Act.

But then, I did what the official news media should have done: I looked further. And I found, as they should have, that the CBO report actually did not say that ACA would kill jobs. If media people had bothered to ask around just a little bit, they would have learned the following [summarized today in a post by Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice:

The CBO is not predicting any increase in unemployment or underemployment. The CBO report states, “The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a new drop in businesses’ demand for labor.”  This is not about jobs offered by employers, It’s about workers and the choices they will be able to make.   2.5 million people will no longer be tethered to a job in order to have health benefits. They will be able to change jobs, work fewer hours, and retire when they want. This is due to the increase in insurance coverage and the subsidies to help pay premiums made possible by the Affordable Care Act. Workers with pre-existing conditions will also be freer to change or leave jobs because the ACA requires insurers to accept all applicants regardless of their health status.

I must say here that some of the blame for this media debacle goes to the author[s] of the CBO report. Reading the key passages, it’s a challenge to figure out what they’re saying [which leaves it wide open to interpretation–and spin.]

For example, in explaining its “job loss” conclusion, the CBO report says:

The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).”

Some follow-up reports have said that this passage essentially “screams that it’s not about actual job losses.” But to me, the phrasing is reminiscent of Greenspan-speak–the kind of convoluted, vague language favored by Alan Greenspan when he was chairman of the Federal Reserve. Words matter–and the CBO authors did a poor job of expressing their message in plain English.

That said, it still doesn’t excuse media people for getting it wrong. If you don’t understand it–ask. Don’t just copy and paste the talking points spewed out by Republican spinmeisters, who–always looking for ways to dis Obamacare–pounced on the CBO’s unclear explanation and spun it into the job-killing meme they so dearly love.

I’m also assigning some blame to President Obama and his staff. Did they not understand that this report would be a hot potato? Why wasn’t President Obama right out there, touting the good news that the Affordable Care Act was freeing people from the need for second and third crappy jobs as a way of paying for their health care pre-ACA? The White House–or its spokespeople, or members of the Democratic caucus, or Democratic governors–should be repeating the phrase “job lock” over and over. Breaking the chains of “job lock”–the situation in which workers are stuck in their jobs because that’s the only way they can get health insurance–was one of the primary goals of the Affordable Care Act. And here’s the CBO report telling us that the strategy is working!  That should be the headline. But once again, the Obama Administration is behind the news curve–letting the Republican spin machine define the terms and dominate the coverage.

This morning, things are looking a bit better. People are catching on to what happened yesterday and getting the message straight. The New York Times editorial page did a good job of righting the wrong in a morning-after editorial. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker took the time to clear up a lot of misconceptions. But I haven’t seen a lot of evidence of outright retractions in the media. And I doubt that there will be very many. The right-wing world will, of course, continue to push the “job-killer” meme and use the erroneous headlines–from mainstream media– as justification. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of the headlines are featured in campaign advertising. And that’s especially sad, because, just as the “repeal-Obamacare” mantra was beginning to lose its mojo–as more people start reaping ACA benefits–the false characterization of the CBO report offers new fake fodder for Republican candidates to use in their 2014 election campaigns.

The post How the media went wrong on the CBO “Obamacare” report appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Last week, a reporter from St. Louis’ KSDK-TV decided it would be a dandy idea to test the security measures of some local high schools. His inquiry—and suspicious-looking behavior—at suburban Kirkwood High School caused administrators to lockdown the school for more than 40 minutes.

KSDK likes to call itself “NewsChannel 5.” Its slogan, in recent years, has been “Where the News Comes First.”

In this instance, the news clearly did come first—but not in a good way. The news department’s eagerness for a scoop really did come before everything else—including common sense, journalistic ethics, and the emotional well-being of the locked-down students and their panicked parents.

In a world that has almost completely disappeared, to be a journalist meant to observe and to report the news, not be the news. I guess the crew at St. Louis’ KSDK-TV was absent when that subject was discussed in whatever passes for journalism at some schools these days.

There were probably several other ways to get this story without scaring the hell out of an entire school community. You could, for example, simply pick up the phone, call the school, and tell them what you’re working on—maybe even get them to agree, in advance, to a secret-shopper gambit. You could interview people—kids, teachers, administrators, the school cop. But, of course, those conventional strategies would require actually interacting with people, perhaps even taking notes and checking facts—things that you can’t do via text messaging—things that aren’t nearly as fun, easy, and sensational as an ambush.

The result of NewsChannel 5’s poorly-thought-out sneak attack was not a news story that informed us about the various states of school security in an era of gun-crazy school shootings: The story became what the reporter did and its effect on students, staff and parents.

By the way, if the reporter intended to say that Kirkwood High School’s security was lacking, he got that wrong, too. His own behavior—walking in unannounced, asking to speak to the school security administrator, disappearing, and then not responding to cell phone calls to confirm his status as a reporter—set in motion a security response—the lockdown–that  seemed completely appropriate, even if it is an unfortunate, extreme by-product of the times.

Notice, too, that I have not used the name of the reporter. Although we learned his name a few days later, NewsChannel 5 did not initially identify him. So, while news outlets are usually very quick with names of alleged criminals, terrorists and victims, KSDK went all private when its own employee was at the center of the story.

I don’t have a problem with enterprising reporters who get out from behind their desks to nail down a legitimate story through solid interviews, no-nonsense questions, and serious study of primary documents.  In fact, we should welcome that kind of news gathering, because it is the—rare—exact opposite of what we often get: newsreaders essentially, blindly repeating press releases and talking points issued by politicians, police, political parties, and entertainment sources.

KSDK has publicly apologized for the screw-up. It’s  not the first, and it won’t be the last, news outlet to use poor judgment, let an overzealous reporter go too far, get sloppy, or create news where it otherwise might not have occurred. This is simply another example of the continuing degradation of news values in a corporate-driven, profits-first , news-as-entertainment environment.

It’s been said that Mt. Everest makes its own weather. We can’t control that. But it’s simply not okay for news outlets to create–and be–their own news.

The post A journalistic low: Being the news appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Are you paying attention, mainstream media? You’re just not doing your job. You’re avoiding coverage of the news we need. And you’re not even trying to explain the meaning behind the headlines you do cover. That thin gruel you pass off as news is like the tasteless mounds of stuff masquerading as food at buffet-style, fast-food barns. There’s plenty of quantity but hardly any quality.

I’ve given up. My television screen’s gone dark. Now that I’ve completely turned off traditional news outlets, the question is how am I going to satisfy my cravings? Not knowing exactly where to turn, I composed an ad for Craig’s List soliciting for a more simpatico news partner. The ad looked something like this:

Starving news junkie seeks raw, unfiltered news. Desperately seeking smart reportage that will engage, enlighten, and energize. Eye for detail and keen sense of humor definitely a plus. News outlets peddling piffle need not apply.

Fortunately, this bit of silliness never got published because my twenty-something daughter came to the rescue and introduced me to a smorgasbord of youthful online news called Vice News.

Finally, here’s a news outlet suited to my Gemini personality: multi-faceted, ambiguous, sometimes uncomfortably complex, questioning, exploratory, curious about anything and everything. Vice video and print reporters put you right on the scene. They give you the real deal. They’re never lazy.  Not for them the easy clichés or sound bites that let you wrap yourself up in cozy familiarity. The intent is just the opposite. The diverse gang at Vice wants us to get really uncomfortable. They want us to squirm with the reality of what they’re showing us. How else, their reporting implies, can they encourage us to question our assumptions?

Although Vice targets a demographic I’m decades past, this is reporting I can relate to. The selection of topics wildly ricochets between the facile and the deadly serious. Some of the reporting takes on hot-button issues. Some is nothing more than dessert material. Story lines are quirky and idiosyncratic. At its best, the reporting can be downright revelatory.

An add-on value to Vice is that if you’ve ever found yourself waking up in the middle of the night wondering “what interests millennials right now?” this is the source that will give you the answer.

Founded in Montreal in 1994 as a government-sponsored community magazine, Vice Media (of which Vice News is just one division) is now headquartered in Brooklyn. Although Vice now has 35 offices in 18 countries, its roots in one of the world’s trendiest hipster destinations go deep. The company could easily display a byline declaring, Williamsburg Meets the World. And that world, if you’re willing to jump on the ride with Vice, turns out to be a fascinatingly complex, multicultural whirlwind.

Unlike old media, Vice News doesn’t spoon feed its audience. Visitors need to sort through the abundance of offerings based on personal taste. For the most part, the videos skip main-dish news.  Vice serves up the ingredients that make up the underbelly of the big news stories and offers a bit of garnish on the side. For example, are you curious to understand the emergent culture of wealth in China that’s being fed by American consumerism? Then a report on the burgeoning popularity of high-stakes pigeon racing among China’s newly wealthy will provide you with insights into the changing mores of China’s business class. America, take a good look, the piece implies. This is where your money’s going.

On the other extreme, a five-part series called “Renegade Jewish Settlers” may be the most insightful, on-the-ground reporting of the story of Israeli settlement building and annexation of Palestinian land I’ve ever seen. Reporter Simon Ostrovsky succeeds in opening a window onto the wrenching tragedy of the gulf between hard-line Jewish settlers who believe god and history have granted them the lands they’re taking and the anger and frustration of Palestinian farmers who for generations have lived and farmed those same plots of land.

Fascinating and powerful stuff is what Vice dishes up time and again. How about looking into the faces of children working in silver mines in Bolivia in a piece called “Child Workers of the World, Unite!” Would you be shocked, as I was, to learn that child workers have formed their own union called UNATSBO? The union advocates for passage of laws legalizing and regulating child labor. Going into the mines to interview these teen-agers, the reporter shows us that many of las cuartas (referring to child laborers who are paid one-quarter of what their labor is worth) are working underground not only to help support their impoverished families but also to save up for their own education. The Vice reporter challenges our first-world assumptions about child labor by asking, “Who suffers when children work? Who suffers when they don’t work?”

Vice’s headlines often intentionally grab you by the neck in order to shake you up a bit.  Check out “Military Police Are Killing the Cambodians Who Make Your Clothes,”  a print piece about clashes in which four protesters were killed and twenty-one injured when military units opened fire on garment workers demanding nothing more than a living wage at a factory in Cambodia.

Time and again, the reporting at Vice News delivers that kind of slap in the face. This is immersion journalism as crusade. The challenge embedded in the coverage is clear. It goes something like this: Okay, people, here’s what’s going on. Here are the ripple effects of your politics, your governing, your buying habits, your lifestyle. Here’s how your life intersects with the global community. So now that you know, what are you going to do about it?

The post A smorgasbord called “Vice News” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

“Tell the truth.”  “Shame the devil.”

Leave it to one of America’s most respected and incisive journalists, Walter Lippman, to sum up in a few simple words the difficult charge of true journalism.

How well do contemporary journalists live up to Lippman’s expectations?   Let’s just say Mr. Lippman might be more than a bit disappointed, even though by the time of his passing in 1974 he was already declaiming the decline of political coverage in the mass media. Lippman probably wouldn’t be that surprised to see how most of today’s broadcast journalists seem content to simply scratch the surface and fall back on simple-minded slogans.

How often these days do we get raw, unfiltered truth telling?  Not often enough. In the name of phony, balanced coverage (and I’m not just referring to FOX here), the lines between messaging, spin, exaggeration, lying, and outright propaganda have nearly been obliterated. In the process, truth itself has been obliterated.

Truth telling takes courage. It’s risky.  It’s hard work. It’s complicated. Dig deeper, and you don’t know what you’ll find or, more importantly, who you might offend.  Those risks –the devil often bites back, after all—feed into a journalist’s temptation to self-censor. Add into the mix the influence and pressures of corporate ownership and advertising, and you see why truth, uncomfortable facts, and integrity so easily get lost in the shuffle.

When a contemporary journalist pushes back and chooses to answer Lippman’s call, we should take note. Integrity needs to be acknowledged. There are two mainstream broadcast journalists today that I’d nominate for passing the Lippman litmus test:  Bill Moyers, the granddaddy of probing discussion and truth telling, and the newbie, Chris Hayes.

Hayes is the brainy kid squirming on the edge of his seat at the front of the class.  It’s easy to imagine Hayes wildly waving his arms around in his enthusiasm to have the teacher call on him.  He’s jumpy because he’s got something pithy to say that no one else has thought about.  Or if they have, Chris has figured out a more erudite and inclusive way to sum it up.

Recently on his MSNBC weekend program, “Up w/Chris Hayes,” there was a stellar moment that Lippman would certainly have applauded.Hayes was interviewing Mitt Romney’s economic adviser, Emil Henry.

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  Henry took the usual Romney/Republican attack line about Obama’s role in the explosion in the number of individuals and families on SNAP (or food stamps).  There was Hayes, armed with the facts and ready to refute the right-wing meme.  What a joy to watch Hayes calmly explain the facts  (I could hardly believe it!) to Mr. Henry. Watch Henry’s facial expression as Hayes explains that the expansion of SNAP was the result of two factors: increased numbers of people hit hard by the recession and unemployment but also revisions and easing of eligibility requirements that were put into place during (yes, believe it!) the Bush administration. If that’s not enough, Hayes goes on to point out that Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan had himself voted for the changes to eligibility.

Shaming the devil, indeed. During his preparation for the show, Hayes must have suspected Mr. Henry might jump in with the SNAP attack line.  Hayes and his staff took the time to dig around a bit.  By the time Henry was sitting in his East Hampton living room chatting with Hayes, there were the uncomfortable facts squirming around in Hayes’ back pocket, ready to jump out. Hayes could hardly suppress his delight. Contrast that moment with what happens most of the time on other news shows. How many times a day do other phony journalists let false claims float by them because they just don’t know the facts or haven’t bothered to look them up?

That brings me to Bill Moyers. If ever there was a survivor of the consequences of hard truth in broadcasting, it’s Moyers. Moyers’ battles with corporate broadcasting executives over content are legend.  If Hayes is the brilliant geek in the class, then Moyers is the wizened teacher up there at the blackboard. With a communication style of stern, truth-telling and probing questions delivered in a soft, reassuring voice, Moyers is the Mister Rogers of the journalism world. Like Fred Rogers, Moyers is a humanitarian missionary in the cause of truth. In fact, the two sermonizing broadcasters shared training as ordained ministers—Moyers as a Baptist and Rogers as a Presbyterian. The two share not only a communication style but a steely core beneath a deceptively soft exterior that never fails to communicate their shared faith in the moral underpinnings of every human endeavor—whether it be in politics or child’s play.

On September 14, 2012, Moyers hosted a segment on his “Moyers & Company” show called “The One Percent Court,” based on an article by the same title in The Nation. Featured were Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, and legal scholar, and Maryland state senator Jamie Raskin.  Watch Moyers, our master journalist, as he gently but firmly shapes an in-depth conversation about the state of our current and future Supreme Court.

Lippman would have approved.

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