Good journalism, proper sources, tweeting discussed

 
 
Photos by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services
 
 
In a wide-ranging discussion of the effects of social media on the practice of journalism, the recipients of the 2010 Edward R. Murrow journalism awards said they use social media – some more than others – primarily to call attention to the important work still being done in traditional media.
In the culminating event of the 36th Murrow Symposium, Murrow College Founding Dean Lawrence Pintak and WSU President Elson S. Floyd presented awards to what one audience member called “a trifecta” of the best of independent journalism at the Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum on Tuesday night.
Deborah Amos, a reporter for National Public Radio who has covered the Middle East for much of her nearly 35-year career, received the Lifetime Achievement award for radio. Judy Woodruff, co-host and senior correspondent for the Public Broadcast Service’s PBS NewsHour, received the Lifetime Achievement award for television.
Added this year, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Media Entrepreneurship was awarded to ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization that does investigative journalism and gives its work to news partners in broadcast, print or online publishing. Robin Fields, a senior editor at ProPublica, accepted the award on behalf of the organization.
Pintak, a former CBS News correspondent, started the hour-long discussion by asking about Twitter. Woodruff was the only honoree who has an active account, and she said she created one mostly because her employers at NewsHour “think it’s important to draw attention to what we do.”
“The tweeting is the hardest thing for me to do,” she said. She laughed that a social media “counselor” at PBS has told her that tweets should “show a little leg” but, after more than 30 years of striving for neutrality, that’s hard to do.
Amos, who has a Twitter account but doesn’t use it, said she does have a Facebook page, but she joins nothing and is extremely careful about her public persona online. Often, she said, people will Google her before deciding whether to grant her an interview, and in some cases the Republican Guard in Iraq has looked people up on Facebook before deciding whether to detain them or let them pass.
As social media tools have developed, so have opportunities for the public to be vocal in their criticism of journalists and their work. Pintak asked Woodruff if that dynamic has changed the way she does her work, or gives her pause.
“As long as I’ve been in journalism there have been people who criticize you,” she said. As a journalist, she said, she strives for accuracy, balance and context, but then has to let the story stand on its own.
 
“We can’t be so hyper reflexive that we can’t do our job,” she said.
Referencing the anger that seems to fuel discussions of public policy from health care to immigration to financial reform, Pintak asked Fields if anger also fuels the story ideas pursued by ProPublica reporters.
“There’s a core of outrage that’s at the heart of every great investigative story,” she said. “The kinds of stories that we choose are the stories that make our blood boil.”
At times during the discussion, Pintak called on audience members, primarily members of the Murrow College Advisory Board, to broaden the discussion to local and regional news organizations.
When do you use other people’s blogs as a source of information, Pintak asked.
“You have to do your own work,” Fields answered. “There is no shortcut. Source, then source again.”
Pintak followed up by asking, if you can’t trust a blog, why trust ProPublica?
Good point, Fields said: “Ultimately our independence is something we have to prove every day.”
Asked about whether people should trust an organization that doesn’t reveal its funding sources, Mike Shepard, publisher of the Yakima Herald Republic, said he would be skeptical, but the reality is that work needs to stand on its own.
 
“My paper has been supported by advertisers for more than 100 years,” he said, which could lead people to question the paper’s independence. “We have to prove our independence every day as well.”
A question from the audience toward the end of the evening drew laughter from the honorees and the audience: Do you think that Edward R. Murrow would tweet?
“If I’m tweeting, I think Murrow would tweet,” Woodruff said, and laughed. “There’s tweeting and then there’s tweeting.”
And here’s Woodruff’s tweet from the day: In Pullman, WA @WSU to receive Edward R Murrow award, what a giant he was &fantastic group of students, all far ahead of me with social …