All That Informs Is Not Good Journalism

Ezra Klein defends the beat-sweetener genre. And he’s right that these things include legitimate information. Certainly, I read them. The problem is that they’re stories that to really understand you need to read heavily between the lines.

And beyond that, they’re stories where what’s obscured is typically more interesting than what’s revealed. When someone reports that sources they can’t name have given them proof that the United States is running a secret network of prisons in Eastern Europe, the fact is a lot more significant than the mystery about the source. But when someone comes up with a bunch of charming anecdotes about Peter Orszag, the really interesting issue is who told the anecdotes and why? And the same goes for any other administration official. Is this good PR coming from the central White House communications shop, or is it coming from out in the agencies? Why was this particular reporter deemed worthy of the goodies?

A related issue is that a lot of journalists have a kind of contempt for people who do PR and communications work, a contempt that I think is related to the fact that journalists are generally men and PR is generally done by women. There’s little appreciation for the fact that people doing communications are typically just as smart as the journalists covering them, but they’re also better-informed about the subject at hand, better-connected to centers of power, and more committed to having the impact they want to have on the world. Under the circumstances, it’s basically inevitable that press coverage of the powerful will mainly be driven by competition between manipulators-of-journalists rather than by bold truth-telling. This is, however, little recognized inside the profession.