The First Amendment; Bruce Mccab

The First Amendment and the Free People Weekly examination of civil liberties in the media and the 1970s produced by WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. The host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Rubin. Our subject today is how well does journalism criticize itself and how prepared is it to criticize itself. And I'm delighted to have as my guest Bruce McCabe of the Boston Globe who once a week does the Literary Life column in The Globe and also the movie critic. He's been at the Globe for nine years and with the exception of the monitor Bruce tells me he's practically been on every newspaper in town. He was in the past an assistant editor there and is a graduate of Brown University. Bruce has been for 16 years in the newspaper business and all all of its facets. Bruce I was intrigued with a column

that you wrote in The Boston Globe. The question as you entitle it decline of journalism's self criticism this. This implies to me that there was a great age of journalism criticism and now it's in decline. Did you actually mean that or did you mean to say that there just isn't enough self-criticism. Well actually Vern there was an age of journalism criticism that I associate with the criticism of A.J. Liebling in The New Yorker. And I think that was a time when in many respects many more critical things were being said than are being said today as I recall. Liebling and I have to say I haven't read him in a long time but as I

remember. Reading him he was not afraid to call a spade a spade and he he was the one that coined the expression freedom of the press was confined to those who were on the presses or something along those lines. He was very hard on newspaper publishers and on the entrepreneurs and of course then it was just strictly speaking newspapers and not electronic media. So I think there was at one time some real no holds barred criticism of journalism and of the media as it existed. I think we had to run a silence when the so called media reviews or journalistic reviews proliferated in the late 60s and early 70s. And I think we had some very tough looks

being taken at newspapers and the other media. Now I think these reviews have more or less dried up and we are now at a very ominous time I think when we're going to have to. Come to terms about who is going to criticize the media and in what format in the article that I was referring to which was September the 16th 978 in the Boston Globe. You took to task especially the Columbia Journalism Review for becoming more of an advertising outlet then than it should be and becoming plumper and more concerned with softer articles. And when you commented on the demise of another journal which was devoted to criticism or magazine which was aimed at the

fourth estate by the Fourth Estate you you said there's hardly anything left. Would you go on with your criticism for example of the Columbia Journalism Review which is published through the auspices of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Well essentially that was written out of a sense of disappointment because I have in the past liked the things that the Columbia Journalism Review has done. I think one reason more which is the other. New York based media review publication one reason if not the chief reason that that came into existence was that the Columbia Journalism Review got out of touch with its readership or with the

interests of a certain kind of reader in seeing some critical evaluation of the media and the sea Jr. became less critical and less relevant and more sprang up as a much tougher no holds barred type of publication in fact as Liebling was its hero Liebling was the totem that the people who founded more clung to and they wanted to maintain the Liebling tradition. Now I think that had only a certain kind of a certain length. In terms of popularity and then more became more perceived to be more of a scold and it began a lacking focus I think and lacking direction

and it went through a series of owners and publishers that had a series of financial crises and kind of the standard problems that that many so many publications face nowadays and it kind only finally phased out along with a lot of the other or similar types of publications. Now I don't know what Columbia Journalism Review is going to do and I'm very. Wary of it. I'm looking at it and hoping that it's going to. Become more critical and it is now I don't know what direction they are going to go in but I'm not optimistic at this point. There are great critics in the journalism world for all of the journalism world for example been bagged Akiane is a splendid critic Les Brown of The New York Times

is a splendid critic. There are there are many individuals that you can name but the profession itself is not geared up to criticize itself no one suggestion is that it ought to do that is not a practical thing for a profession to criticize itself. Does any profession really do that well have lawyers or doctors had a good good background in criticising themselves. Well that's a very difficult question Vern and I'm not sure I can give my concise answer to that. My initial impulse when you ask me that is to say no profession does not criticize itself or police itself well and it requires an outside agency or force of some kind to really hold it to the standards that it ought to be held at. By the same token.

I can't think of an outside agency criticizing the media in any fruitful or meaningful way. And in such a way that it could really make that much of an influence I have a tendency to think that the impulse for reform has to come from within the media itself and the impulse is there certainly at the level of reporting and writing I mean we spend all our spare time. I never hear more devastating criticism of the media than what a bunch of reporters or writers or columnists get together but it doesn't come out of the public and you know exactly what this is it. The impulse is there but I think you get into the question of are the people who own and manage the media outlets trying to come to terms with how much self-criticism they want to indulge in.

And there's a real it isn't a case of all right villainy necessarily on their part. There's a question of how. Interesting this kind of thing is I think it has to be kept in proportion because we could fill the pages with self-criticism and examining ourselves and it might be fruitful and productive. But we also have to be aware of an obligation to report what's going on outside the building or outside of our own particular industry. So there's got to be a tightrope. Act there. You know years ago on television there was a program of the early days of television called CBS News the press which I believe Douglas Edwards hosted. Merely going over newspaper editorials of the previous week and other newspaper columns. There was such an outburst of rage against that program was considered such a sensitive subject that one part of the press was

was commenting on another part of the press that it soon disappeared from the airwaves. Today there is there are several devices to mention right away. One is the Ombudsman and the other is the national news Council. Suppose I start with the ombudsman at The Globe you have Charlie Whipple and he's practically unique at least in New England in being an experienced newsman who has the post of Ombudsman and the ombudsman is supposed to be aloof in some ways even from his own editor and publisher able to say what he wants to say without being interfered with. Is that a possible mechanism this ombudsman idea which might catch on which might or might produce good results. I think the real problem is and here we go back to the previous question about PL policing or regulating or criticizing yourself. I think credibility is a real problem and I think it transcends the person doing it.

Or the newspaper doing it I think you're always going to encounter a large number of people who are going to say how credible is this self criticism appearing in you know the organ that's being criticized. And I honestly don't know what the solution to that is I think the Globe is making a real commendable effort by having somebody of Charlie Whipple stature and capability in a position like that and publishing what he does. But I do see broadly speaking I see a problem in terms of credibility and reader reaction. Quite often justified in saying well what is the purpose of this being published here that the motivation is is questioned too much. And yeah it's a real conundrum I mean I don't know where else this would appear maybe the the

answer is in publications criticizing other publications and kind of each organ of communication taking on the others so that a certain amount of freedom would be felt in that area and you would just rely on the others coming back with criticism of you. I don't want to drop out I want to get to it sort of after the next phase of the first question. But before we get to the next phase of the last question. Obviously the national news Council is another. I know that you don't have much enthusiasm for it as a matter of fact a great many people of the Fourth Estate don't have much enthusiasm for it. Is it because this organization which was set up to view the press and its coverage of stories to see whether they were fair whether they are objective and so on it's an independent body headquartered in New York. Is it because it is an unnatural thing. There are a number of news councils around the country. The British have

one. Why are you so unenthusiastic about it. Is are is it the personalities involved or is it the mechanism. Well I probably should confess that I don't know that much about the national news council yet another variant of it exactly I've never had the sense that that lack of knowledge was a real handicap. I do read those interminable reports in the Columbia Journalism Review their investigations and whatnot I can't remember one that I've actually finished reading. I get a sense and this is only a sense that a lot of this. Criticism and investigating that they do is of a political nature. I get a sense of the national news Council and maybe I read this somewhere as originating with

say conservatives who didn't believe that they were getting a fair shake in the liberal press or something of that nature at some time during the Nixon administration and I guess I get a sense of that being kind of an ongoing theme. And while I can see that in and of itself as separate an interesting issue it is separate and I would rather have a sense that that agency was addressing issues of more widespread and fundamental concern possibly like. The the tension between advertising and editorial matter in newspapers now if the national news Council were in I highly publicized manner taking that issue up. That's something that could get me interested in what that comment is favorably received here because the Institute for democratic communication at Boston

University has done as its first major study of big business in the mass media coming out in a week or two as our second major study called questioning media ethics. And we are now working on minorities and the mass media more generic questions which you imply. Let me now turn to the question that I left behind and that was that there is very little criticism or deep criticism of the business of television of the business of business of the tension between advertising and editorial writing of many subjects. Why is that. Is it because of a lack of an audience or is it because the entertainment side predominates over the critical side. Well I think youve touched on something near Verna one of the things that I am grappling with at the moment as a critic of.

Magazines and websites and the media really because movies get involved here a little bit too. Is the what is perceived as an overwhelming demand for entertaining quote unquote writing. In other words. And the critic is commonly perceived today as a scold as a naysayer and somebody who's negative in Senegal. And the impulse is just surging through much of journalism today to say something positive. A lot of Tory look on the bright side and of course this is an impulse that is being helped along by people who have a vested interest in all kinds of favorable things being said about their their product in the

movie industry for example. You have large sums of money being tied up in some of these pictures and this is one reason that I get into movie criticism in the first place because I could see it as a real frontier as to where the tension between if you want to call it. Advertising the advertising and marketing approach and editorial integrity was going to be worked out because the movies are powerful is absolutely no doubt about it with the money and the influence that the movie industry commands. They are at the point now where they can really. Exert a tremendous amount of influence and. The tension just has to be worked out in some way that is going to lead to something

fruitful. We're really you know I. Are you suggesting that let us call it the. City city X rank on the city X newspaper the city X Pollyanna right that they pull movie reviews that get in the way of the advertising that they have talks with the movie editors and say you know these people are out there to watch movies and to enjoy themselves. Or that the television critics are told to to lay lay low because after all those people like the boob tube and we don't want to criticize their favorite programs just sort of tell them what's going to be on and tell them so that they could know where to turn that night. All right. My sense is that there's a trickle down effect from New York to the rest of the country. That can't be overlooked here Vern. I think that all that tension that I was alluding to before and the power of the big industries

like television and movies is exerted in New York and that until we know this is something I've been thinking a lot about last I think until we somehow and I don't know how this can be done break up the conglomerate power of the entertainment industry and journalism in New York and the influence that that exerts on the rest of the country. In a sense it's not attacking the problem directly to talk about the local newspaper and what kind of television critiques or reviews they have. Bruce McCabe Could you give me an example of. You don't have to name the names if it's very strong if you don't want to but give me an example where the trickle down effect. While I will say as a critic now this would be I'm speaking as a movie critic now more than as a literary critic. Maybe I could

be applied as a literary criticism but as a movie critic you're constantly aware of the what The New York Critics say in the stamp that they put on a film by the time it gets to to your city and to Boston. And this is a particular problem with me because I don't trust the New York critics that much. And I don't trust their reactions and one of the reasons is that I think there's such a concentration of power and advertising and marketing and promotional power in New York that. Sure not convinced that they can isolate themselves from that as as hard as they try to. I just think there's too much business involved for a critic no matter how well intentioned he or she might be to be able to overlook it. There are too many a newsweekly

movie critic might attack a movie with all the best intentions but you have to consider what is the impact when the newsweeklies doing a cover story. A lot of Tory cover story on the picture that he might attack as a review made us hailing it as the best thing to come out of Hollywood in 30 years. And then you have to question the motivation behind Alana in the decision making that went into that process. And of course of the most. Obvious case as Time Magazine having ownership or having some stock in Columbia Pictures. And not being very upfront about it and having it announced in other publications before Time magazine finally came around to talking about itself. Well we've discussed similar situations to that like

the great American newspapers which own book publishing houses now write and advertise their own wares in such a way as to say this comes from one part of our company and not from the editorial side. When you know darn well that they give us either special rates or lowest possible rates for the advertising. Or perhaps give the advertising space away free on occasion went to the other parts of the company. What about the criticisms made by the the people like Author Schlesinger Jr. a recent guest on this program who wrote in The Wall Street Journal. Last week that privacy and the press makes him wonder about whether the press knows enough to respect the essential line between an individual's right to privacy and their desire to go healthful leather on a story because it will attract circulation

he feels that the press errors on this more than it does and on certain kinds of stories like the lives of certain politicians. Right. It's a tough issue to really come to grips with. I think we're in an era now where and maybe this is the thing that's commonly referred to as the post Watergate era where we do want to know more about a say a political or a public figure's personal background. I don't think you can get away from that. I don't think you can shy away from it or ignore it. And possibly I'm aware even as I say this possibly We always wanted to know but just were never told. And now somehow we feel that it's it's all right to be told. I almost think that this is a way this isn't the total answer

but this is a way of critiquing government and the people who are in government. In a way that we can't do otherwise. Do you do you have any line that you would stop at yourself in covering a story for example you do. Would you obey the line of the individual sex life or drinking behavior if it doesn't interfere with his or her public duties is really not part of the story unless it can be shown to be essential in what is happening. I guess that's the best rule it's not and it's not a great one by any means I guess that's the only thing that we can abide by. Right at the moment I would like to see more reporting on. Personal lives I guess. And on lifestyles that type of

thing to get. They are anything that would convey more of a sense of the politician as a whole person rather than as a one dimensional cardboard public figure I think we've suffered from that kind of reporting for far too long and I think that's why we're getting some of the performances we are. Well if you if you follow that rule then I guess the the only way that we can have good journalism of good journalism criticism is to have good journalists. And some people are saying that the Woodward Bernstein imagery not the individuals but the imagery is all out of whack with what journalism should follow that investigative reporting is not as important as having competent reporters competent reporters report. They don't do special investigative assignments. No matter what story it is that they're assigned to they do the best job that they can. In the Woodward Bernstein things a little bit more of the adventurous side at least in imagery. Right. I think I think. That and I think this is what we're

talking about ongoing competent journalism has is the necessary thing not springing something as a surprise. And you could even put Watergate in that category saying look what we've discovered and here it is and isn't this shocking and dismaying I think that has a limited fruitfulness as a literary critic of The Boston Globe we need perhaps less Gad Zeuxis kind of journalism. Exactly. Bruce McCabe It's been an absolute pleasure to have you and I want to congratulate you for bringing to the attention of a vast audience your views on the need to in prove journalism's self criticism. Well thank you this Ed. Bernard Reuben. The First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. In the

1970s the program was produced in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. Why didn't you GBH radio Boston which is solely responsible for its content. This is the station program exchange. This is NPR National Public Radio.