No More Bleeding Ledes, Please

Interviewing the politicians both Dems and Reps only gets the issue framed from the point of view of their donors. This is why no bad news about the donors and their interests ever gets on FCC licenses and these AP cut and paste job newspapers all over this country. We need to get behind the curtains on all the issues.

Letting Donors frame the issues through their Politicians in both parties on FCC licenses leaves the real story off the table for Americans. No wonder conspiracy theory abounds in this country, and people are ganging up on Latinos and Muslims. It is a set-up letting people like Rick Lazio set the agenda on TV.

whowhatwhy.com gets into this behind the scenes truth the "balanced" "reporting" that interviews two politicians will never get at.

These Journalism degrees from these people should rescinded and the Jschools they got them from should lose their tax-exemption.

Obviously AP knows what their subscribers want. And that is the explanation for the choice of stories that AP wants its reporters to cover.
The fault lies not with AP, but with the editors of the various news media outlets, who choose to run the bleed ledes over local news.
If one lives in Podunk, one wants to know what's going on with the school board, the road commission and the local library -- as well as the items in the police blotter. Readers want to know what actions of what officials and local entities are going to affect the readers' everyday lives.
So if the editor of the Podunk Daily Blare prefers to use news space to run an account of Lindsay Lohan's latest lustful addictive affair rather than report that the Podunk school board can't decide whether to fire a local principal, or the Podunk library is going to take "Huckleberry Finn" off its shelves, that is not AP's fault. That's the local newspaper editor's fault -- and by extension, the fault of readers who don't complain and who keep buying/reading the paper in spite of the fact that it isn't doing its job.
I am a longtime copyeditor for a big-city newspaper, and a lifelong newspaper reader. There is much room for improvement, but if that improvement is to come, we must know exactly what needs improving and focus on that.

Just to be clear, when an airplane crashes, you don't want the Associated Press to cover it? That makes sense.

Silly post. I for one am tired of reading blogs criticizing MS press that are written by people that never worked in the trenches. If they had, they'd be better able to understand what those guidelines are getting at.
I also find it funny that the suggested guidelines -- by the way, could you get much vaguer? -- include "getting at the truth." Yet, Libby Reinish failed to even contact the AP to ask how the guidelines are used. Nice reporting!

The response from AP is disappointing but not surprising. I have heard literally dozens of editors (from several states) complain about the declining quality of the AP state reports. This blog post raises valid questions about AP's news values. For the AP director of media relations to brush this criticism aside without even addressing the substance of it tells a lot about the AP today.

The reporting you champion is undeniably important at the local level, but why should readers in Toledo care what happens at a city council meeting in Dayton?

Wire service material is meant to supplement locally-generated content, not replace it. All I see in these AP guidelines is an indication of the types of stories which will generally be of interest to publications outside the immediate region where the event(s) being reported took place.

Simple - don't buy the products advertised in journals or other media and tell the companies that you object to the style of reportage.

Thank you, Mr Colford. I appreciate that you have taken the time to respond to this post on behalf of the AP. After 25 years in the newspaper business myself, which includes writing, editing and allocating column inches, and graduate school research, it comes down to two words. FEAR SELLS.

News media are businesses with expenses and payrolls to meet, just like hardware stores and restaurants. If a restaurant features spinach salad and people don't buy it, the business decision is made to drop it and offer something more popular, perhaps hot fudge sundaes. A fair argument could be made that spinach salad is better for the consumer than ice cream and chocolate. Media consumption is no different.

All the idealism in the world doesn't pay for a press run or air time. The only way to stay in business is to give the advertisers, and secondarily, readers, what they want. Advertisers want the largest possible audience. It is a researched and proven fact that fear and sensationalism generate the greatest audience. Stirring emotions can cause people to take -- or change -- their actions. Media is normally purposed toward the consumer buying an advertised item, and choosing your media product over that of your competitor.

I am not saying this is right or wrong, just explaining how the system works. I believe it's missing the point entirely to blame the messenger for giving people what is traditionally supported by advertising and subscription dollars. Economic survival depends on targeting your audience demographic successfully.

I loved everything you said under "I Want" in your list at the end of the article. Your article should have started with this and all the other stuff should have been on the end. Thank you for voicing what I think and feel. It is so frustrating to watch what is usually presented as news.

Sir: The AP guidelines emphasizing extraordinary events are there because these events are cared about on a state and national scale, which I believe is what the AP does.
Local news, if done right, is also compelling, vital stuff. A real local paper, a small but growing number of blogs, radio stations and (gasp!) TV do the stories you want in addition to the things the AP wants. The people who do it well are superheroes.
There are not enough of them.
There is a place for all kinds of coverage in this world. I think you're asserting a false dichotomy, though your point is well taken about serving a higher function than a body count.
The Real challenge? First, have more people that care enough to read multiple papers, call their elected representative, vote and engage in civic discourse... That starts from within every person.
When that happens again, local news, I hope, will still be here.

-Daniel Valentine
reporter

The world changes and our news institutions continue to reflect the old and very white interests of the wealthy elite. Violent crime continues to decline world-wide while panic-stricken American conservatives are persuaded the opposite is true. Population increases are linked inextricably to quality of life, yet Americans are led to believe it is driven by religious affiliation.

Honestly, an industry that subsists on maintaining a world-view from thirty years ago has to struggle harder every day to prop it up. It's hard to do and the strain is showing.

The thing that really irks me is the lack of coverage of massive white collar crimes sometimes amounting to billions of dollars. It isn't interesting because reporters can't make a compelling connection between our wallets and the perpetrators. I can understand the problem. But I can't sympathize. These stories should be communicated up but aren't.

Editors are often wonderfully smart, caring people that can explain why your story didn't make the cut. Their jobs are very difficult and demanding. The smart part needs to help our society find its way to the future.

"Reporting that prevents wars, economic collapse and environmental disasters, not just covers them after the fact.."

How will we manage that. What matters to me most in any news reporting or writing is credibility. News is not a cause.

It's regrettable that the writer of this blog post did not contact the AP for comment.

I would have explained that member newspapers and/or broadcasters that subscribe to the AP wire and services in a given state – Ohio and Minnesota, for example, as cited here – sometimes interact with the AP bureau in the state, seeking and suggesting pickup by AP of some of their own stories. These listed guidelines, if you will, help the uninitiated distinguish the everyday story from the more compelling news that would be of interest to the wider AP audience.

At the same time, it goes without saying, there’s much more enterprise involved over all in AP’s global news reporting.

Paul Colford
Director of Media Relations
The Associated Press

It's really hard to read your blog when your font size is so small. Gives me the impression you don't want to be heard. I could adjust the size on my browswer but that's really annoying.

Just a couple of comments about your wants and Don't-Shares:
--Reporting that prevents wars, economic collapse and environmental disasters, not just covers them after the fact;-Interesting but how would this be implemented
--Coverage of issues that are important to women and people of color; Issues that effect more than 50% of the populations are, by definition, important. Breaking it out like this could have the consequence of segregation in the news. A "section" called women's issues or some such. Better to leave it an unspoken and interleave these stories throughout.
--He-said-she-said journalism (or "balanced reporting") that covers both sides without getting at the truth; Whose truth? Better to present facts without opinion unless specifically labeled an editorial.
--Coverage that reinforces negative stereotypes; 1 man shoots another man, they are both minorities; reporting it reinforces the negative stereotypes that men and minorities are inherently more violent. This is an extreme example of this directive but it is a slippery slope that paints with a broad brush.

With few exceptions our news media are tragically insufficient. Reporting is filled with opinion and gossip, with a strong predilection for violence.

Information is a public right and the public owns the airwaves. The news media should be subsidized by the federal government to the extent that the Public Broadcasting System be huge, diverse and popular. (So should AmTrak, by the way.)

Reporting should be exhaustive and focus on the facts, not opinion. It should work to empower the population, exposing 'power points' where citizens can legally exercise their power.

It should cover issues affecting the welfare of the general public, including education, environment, labor and other community-wide issues

During election season it should cover all viable political candidates in equal doses.

It should include much, much more content about foreign cultures so we can improve ourselves and our country by considering other ways of doing things, and so we can feel a kinship with foreign people before we decide to attack them militarily.

Washington, D.C., where I live, is arguably the dark heart of sensational journalism (yes, I do include WaPo in this assessment). The reason for this is that media outlets don't believe that they can compete unless they broadcast yellow-tinged headlines and TMZ re-writes.

The thing is, they're wrong. If one measures the reach of a given piece in terms of page-views and click-throughs, anyway. News used to be all about bringing the big world to the little man, but now the world isn't so big. Media and journalism now can turn its focus to regimented public discussion (i.e., this blog). It is impossible to be any reader/listener/viewer's only source for information any longer. Even if you aren't looking for diversity in your media consumption, you will inevitably be exposed to the same re-tweeted, summarized or aggregated content that everybody else is reading. So it is impossible to compete on the big world scale.

Now, if a local teenager runs off a hundred copies of his 'zine, featuring his own amateur reportage on the goings-on between the garrulous Ms. Smythe in 6A and the noisy couple in 4A... Sure, it's still gossip, but who wouldn't hand over a fifty cents for that? While you're reading that, you might learn a bit about the last HOA meeting or the budding community garden project down the road a bit.

Now, if the teenager above is instead a small businessman with 10 years of experience in journalism, a nuanced understanding of targeted advertising, utilizing new media, community connections, a vested interest in community affairs, a back-seat at the HOA... You get the idea. Maybe you'd visit this person's blog on a daily basis - and just maybe you'd find an advertisement for a local eatery or plumber...

Who knows? The above hypothetical isn't perfect, but the opportunity is there; it has to start with journalists themselves.

I guess my point is that centralized media can't handle the little stuff, but that's where the "good" money is. So instead, they are clawing for self-preservation by shouting buzzwords and giving Sarah Palin undeserved editorial space.

But this is actually a definition of what's not local news. That is, AP is describing what stories in one place might appeal to people in another place who have no local connection. The newspaper in St. Cloud won't be running neighborhood or zoning news from Minnetonka, and vice versa.

There ought to be a place on AP's very specific list for "compelling story that appeals to everyone," but that's a hard one to order up.

As the quality and depth of news deteriorates, so does the quality and depth of society.

As a recovering APer, I love the AP guidelines on what its Minnesota members want, leading w/ train wrecks. I I certainly endorse the call for more comprehensive coverage of ALL parts of our communities. Still, on the anniversary of 911 we have to acknowledge that in the hierarchy of news needs/interest, the terrorist attacks (or train wrecks) still are of legitimate interest. The problem with "good news," as Wendy says above, is not only who would underwrite it (and whose "good" news?) but who would read/watch/listen to it.

I agree with your call for 'good' news, the problem is finding someone to support it. Local newspapers are being driven out of the market by lack of subscribers. Reporters are driven out of the industry by low pay and overwork. Any solutions?