Explained! How come "if it bleeds, it leads"
Explained! How come "if it bleeds, it leads"
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston is a journalistic treasure -- and also a major league crank. In a new piece, he explains why most journalism is so bad nowadays, beginning with overhyped crime coverage:
To understand how badly we’re doing the most basic work of journalism in covering the law enforcement beat, try sitting in a barbershop. When I was getting my last haircut, the noon news on the television—positioned to be impossible to avoid watching—began with a grisly murder. The well-educated man in the chair next to me started ranting about how crime is out of control.
But it isn’t. I told Frank, a regular, that crime isn’t running wild and his chance of being burglarized today is 42.5 percent of what it was in 1980. The shop turned so quiet you could have heard a hair fall to the floor had the scissors not stopped. The barbers and clients listened intently as I next told them about how the number of murders in America peaked back in the early 1990’s at a bit south of 25,000 and fell to fewer than 16,000 in 2009. When we take population growth into account, this means your chance of being murdered has almost been cut in half.
“So why is there so much crime on the news every day?” Diane, who was cutting Frank’s hair, asked.
“Because it’s cheap,” I replied. “And with crime news you only have to get the cops’ side of the story. There is no ethical duty to ask the arrested for their side of the story.”
Read the whole thing, in which he hands up -- or maybe hands down (if you read the article, you'll understand what that means) -- an indictment of the way most journalists do their job. Regarding crime coverage, I'd have to say there have been times here at the Daily News where we've done what Johnston complains about, and for that very reason, that it was cheap and easy.
Recently, we've moved strongly away from that, curtailing our crime coverage often to one page, anchored by a helpful map. More importantly, the paper and its ace reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker just won a Pulitzer Prize for challenging the cops' side of the story. So it's hard work, but it can be done.
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"David Cay Johnston, while working at The New York Times, won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting" So Will, this guy is a "major league crank"? Will, when you win a Pulitzer, you can call someone else who won one a crank, and not until. Maybe if Wendy Ruderman was writing this blog, she might have some standing, but you look like a clown with this one.
Did they hire spiderman to spray police tape all over the place?— Timmy- Swift Boat, That's not Philly. The hat gives it away. That's a Pittsburgh PD Officer. Let me guess Bunch, that's the crime scene where the "Glenn Beck follower" gunned down the cops you love to write about. God, if I'm right, you are sick, man.
- Or possibly Chicago, maybe Michelle Obamas old neighborhood.
SBVFT Contributor: That is not a Philly cop. The photo is most likely a digital illustration, not a real picture (meaning untouched).- "Regarding crime coverage, I'd have to say there have been times here at the Daily News where we've done what Johnston complains about, and for that very reason, that it was cheap and easy." Really? I read that comic book online every day and I don't see any difference. Probably why you think your articles don't have partisan snark in them and are sooooooo objective. LOL
- Come on Will, be a real truther and tell us where the crime scene photo is from and the circumstance surrounding it.
- Actually Will, let us know when you get one of your "enlightening" articles posted at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. The Daily Kos, Huffington Post and Slate or whatever just doesn't cut it. Maybe Barry can help you out. LOL
blackhawk90: Actually, Will did win a Pulitzer, so by your criterion he can call Johnston whatever he wants. But What I want so say is that people refuse to believe observable facts. I talked to someone about illegal immigrants in Arizona. My friend said that the problem was that they were causing a high crime rate in the state. I pointed out that police officers report few crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and that the crime rate in Arizona has, like the rest of the U.S., declined a lot. My friend said "If that's the case, how come my cousin in Phoenix is afraid to go out of her house for fear of being mugged and afraid to stay home for fear of home invasion." I believe that this is exactly what Johnstone is saying--it is the perception of high crime caused by the media, and in the case of Arizona by the elected officials such as Jan Brewer or Sen. McCain.- "Bunch has won numerous journalism awards, including a share of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting when he worked for New York Newsday." Appy Polly Logies, Will. Bash away.
- Wow! Will posts about an issue, and a "conservative" obsessively vents hatred at Will.
Never seen that before.
Well, except every thread at Attytood.
Can someone, please, for once, explain to me why "conservatives" spend so much time commenting on Will's blog, telling us how much they dislike Will's blog.
Please.
Someone.
Just once.
(Gotta say, though, sloboat's comment about the tape was pretty funny.)— Talking point sleuth - Sure Archimedes, Arizona is just a wonderful place:
"Phoenix has also been dubbed the kidnapping capital of the U.S. amid a surge of extortion-related abductions tied to drugs and human smuggling. The city has averaged about a kidnapping a day in recent years — some resulting in torture and death. Victims' legs have been burned with irons, their arms have been tied to the ceiling, their fingers broken with bricks."
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