Can Journalism Be Saved By A Fake News Show?

I am a news junkie but lately I have a pretty low opinion of journalists. Okay, maybe not journalists personally but the news outlets who feed us crap and call it news.

My political and social views were formed post-Nixon and pre-Reagan; therefore I mistrust the government, corporations, rich people, religious institutions, radical groups, and zealots.

Perhaps it’s because I watched too much Lou Grant and 60 Minutes and listened to years of Herb Shaindlin but I have always though that the job of a journalist is to keep an eye on those aforementioned institutions (and others) and to report when they are lying to us and/or causing us harm.

Apparently that’s too much to ask these days.

But wait, all hope is not lost. Leave it to a fake news show to sum up the problem with the real news outlets.

Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Cramer (or actually Jon Stewart’s lambasting of Jim Cramer and CNBC) hit the nail on the head.



Here’s part of a transcript (by Darcy Logan at Mahalo.com) edited and emphasized by me. Click on the YouTube link up top to see the video itself.

Jon Stewart: I gotta tell you. I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a f---ing game. When I watch that I get, I can’t tell you how angry it makes me because it says to me, “You all know.” You all know what’s going on. You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear and at AIG and all this derivative market stuff that is this weird Wall Street side bet.

Jim Cramer: But Jon, don’t you want guys like me that have been in it to show the shenanigans? What else can I do? I mean, last night’s show---

JS: No, no, no, no, no. I want desperately for that, but I feel like that’s not what we’re getting. What we’re getting is… Listen, you knew what the banks were doing and yet were touting it for months and months. The entire network was and so now to pretend that this was some sort of crazy, once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that nobody could have seen coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.

JC: But Dick Fogle(sp?) who ran Lehman Brothers, called me in when the stock was at 40 because I thought that the stock was wrong, I thought that it was the wrong place for it to be. He brings me in, lies to me, lies to me, lies to me. I’ve known him for twenty years.

JS: The CEO of a company lied to you.

JC: Shocker stock trading.

JS: But isn’t that financial reporting? What do you think is the role of CNBC? …

CNBC could act as—No one is asking them to be a regulatory agency, but can’t—but whose side are they on? It feels like they have to reconcile as their audience the Wall Street traders that are doing this for constant profit on a day-to-day for short term. These guys companies were on a Sherman’s March through their companies financed by our 401ks and all the incentives of their companies were for short term profit. And they burned the f---ing house down with our money and walked away rich as hell and you guys knew that that was going on.

JC: … I think we have reporters who try really hard. We’re not always told the truth. But most importantly, the market was going up for a long time and our real sin I think was to believe that it was going to continue to go up a lot in the face of what you just described. A lot of borrowing. A lot of shenanigans and I know I did, I’ll bring it up, I didn’t think Bear Sterns was going to evaporate overnight. I didn’t. I knew the people who ran it, I always thought they were honest. That was my mistake. I really did. I thought they were honest. Did I get taken in because I knew them from before? Maybe to some degree. The guy who came on from Wachoviawas an old friend of mine who helped hire me.

JS: But honest or not, in what world is a 35 to 1 leverage position sane?

JC: The world that made you 30% year after year after year beginning from 1999 to 2007 and it became—

JS: But isn’t that part of the problem? Selling this idea that you don’t have to do anything. Anytime you sell people the idea that sit back and you’ll get 10 to 20 percent on your money, don’t you always know that that’s going to be a lie? When are we going to realize in this country that our wealth is work. That we’re workers and by selling this idea that of “Hey man, I’ll teach you how to be rich.” How is that any different than an infomercial?

JC: Well, I think that your goal should always be to try to expose the fact that there is no easy money. I wish I had found Madoff (sp?)—

JS: But there are literally shows called “Fast Money.”

JC: I think that people…There’s a market for it and you give it to them.

JS: There’s a market for cocaine and hookers. What is the responsibility of the people who cover Wall Street? Who are you responsible to? The people with the 401ks and the pensions and the general public or the Wall Street traders, and by the way this casts an aspersion on all of Wall Street when I know that’s unfair as well. The majority of those guys are working their asses off. They’re really bright guys. I know a lot of them. They’re just trying to do the right thing and they’re getting f---ed in the ass, too.

JC: True. True. .. I’m a commentator. We have—and you can take issues with the fact that I throw bulls and bears and I can still be considered serious. I’m not Eric Sevareid. I’m not Edward R. Morrow. I’m a guy trying to do an entertainment show about business for people to watch. But it’s difficult to have a reporter to say I just came from an interview with Hank Wilson(Sp?) and he lied his darn fool head off. It’s difficult. I think it challenges the boundaries.

JS: Yeah. I’m under the assumption, and maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I’m under the assumption that you don’t just take their word for it at face value. That you actually then go around and try and figure it out. So, again, you now have become the face of this and that is incredibly unfortunate.

JC: I wish I had done a better job trying to figure out the 30 to 1 and whether it was going to blow up. It did. Once it did I was late it saying it was bad.

JS: So maybe we could remove the financial expert and the “In Cramer we Trust” and start getting back to fundamentals on reporting as well and I can go back to making fart noises and funny faces.

JC: I think we make that deal right here.

JS: Mad Money airs on CNBC weeknights at six.

Ethics Question + Update

Tell me what you think:

Is it appropriate for a news agency to identify an alleged sexual assault victim by their initials?

The reason for the question relates to the following news story.

I'll quote directly from the Anchorage Daily News for the facts since I have absolutely no problem with their reportage on this one:

An Anchorage man killed on New Year's Day was stabbed numerous times in a confrontation with a man he accused of raping his girlfriend’s teenage daughter, according to formal charges filed Tuesday.

Keilan Ebli, 20, of Anchorage was charged with first-degree murder, first- and second-degree sexual assault and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of William Oestreich. Ebli was scheduled to appear in court this afternoon along with a suspect in an unrelated New Year’s Day shooting that left two people dead.

Oestreich, 45, had gone with his girlfriend to pick up the woman’s daughter from an apartment in the 600 block of east 16th Avenue early Monday morning.

The couple went there in response to a call from the girl that she woke up naked on the floor of Ebli’s bedroom and had been raped by him, according to charging documents. The girl had arrived earlier by cab and was “very intoxicated,” Ebli’s roommate told police.

The mother told police that Oestreich hit Ebli, possibly with a bottle. The men began arguing until downstairs tenants told Ebli to quiet down and persuaded Oestreich to leave.

Soon after Ebli ran down the stairs past the tenants, yelling “I’m going to kill you” and carrying a knife, court records say. When he returned, Ebli told them he had stabbed the man and the tenants then found Oestreich lying on the street bleeding, according to the court records.

Police were called and arrived shortly after 4 a.m. Monday. Oestreich was taken to an Anchorage hospital, where he died during surgery.

Officers found Ebli hiding under a bed, according to the court records. He told police he was intoxicated when the girl arrived and that they had consensual sex but that the girl got upset when she couldn’t find her clothes.

Ebli also told police he was sleeping when Oestreich hit him on the head. The court papers say Ebli had a cut on the back of his head that required medical attention.

Ebli denied any knowledge about the stabbing. Police found several knives in the apartment that tested positive for blood as well as a towel bearing the bloody shape of a knife, according to court documents. Blood also was found in the bedroom and outside the apartment leading to the street.

Ebli was arrested and was being held on $200,000 cash-only bail.

This is pretty sensational by Los Anchorage standards so it's fair that all media outlets have been reporting extensively about the homicide.

One TV news station, which I will not name, during their report on the nightly news tonight mentioned the alleged sexual assault victim's initials no less than 4 times by the reporter and a fifth time by showing a clip of the judge at the suspect's arraignment reading the portion of the bail which mentioned no contact with the victim.

I don't know how old the sexual assault victim is but another station's website (KTVA CBS Channel 11) reported: " According to charging documents in the case, Ebli sexually assaulted, then raped an underage girl as she was passed out drunk in his apartment."

So she's a minor too? What is gained by disclosing the initials of a juvenile sexual assault victim?

Tell me I'm overreacting.

Oh and I have an email in to the folks at the news station. I’m interested to see what they have to say.

~~

Anchorage Daily News Story

KTVA News Story

~~

UPDATE: 1/3/2007

I have my answer.

For the record, the news agency was KTUU Channel 2 Newshour, the reporter was
Rebecca Palsha, and the managing editor is Jason Moore.   

I sent Moore (and cc'd Palsha) the following email: 

Is it standard practice to identify the initials of a sexual

assault victim?

During the 6 o'clock news report tonight (12/2/07) regarding the Oestreich homicide
reporter Rebecca Palsha referred to a sexual assault victim by her initials no less
than 4 times in addition to showing a clip of the judge at the arraignment saying the
initials (there was clearly no other reason for this clip to be shown).

While I realize that the initials were available in court documents and were spoken
aloud by the judge at the suspect's arraignment, what is the rationale behind using
the initials over and over during a broadcast? Why on earth would you seek to identify
a sexual assault victim to the public?   It would not be difficult for even casual
acquaintances of the family to piece together the identity of the victim by her initials.

I am curious as to the editorial thought process behind this decision.

Thank you in advance for responding,

 Eric Anderson

I received the following response from Jason Moore:

Mr. Anderson,

A manager here did review the Rebecca script and felt as though the initials
gave the victim adequate anonymity. We discussed it this morning and realize
it was probably not the right decision and will make future references to sexual
assault victims in more general terms such as "the victim."

Thanks,

Jason

Which is really all I wanted to hear.   

I sent him a quick reply thanking him, mentioning that I
had thought I was watching FOX for a moment, and adding
with relief that I would continue to be a faithful watcher of
the Newshour.


** Another update!! **


This from Steve Mac Donald, Assistant News Director:

Dear Mr. Anderson,

We clearly made a mistake. We never should have used the
victims initials. In past stories of this nature we've either
made up initials or simply referred to the person as
"the victim."
I've spoken to the reporter and the person who checked her
script to make sure this error is never repeated.
It is something that should never have aired and feel
terrible that it did. We've always taken great care in
protecting victims of sexual crimes always siding with more
protection rather than less.
We will do our best to never do this again.
Thank you for writing.

Regards,

Steve Mac Donald
Ch 2 News