Interview with Barbara Crossette Media and Foreign Policy

Interview with Barbara Crossette Media and Foreign Policy Welcome to the Great Decisions 2004 author interview series. FPA speaks with Barbara Crossette, former New York Times United Nations Bureau Chief and a columnist for U.N. Wire, on Topic 1: Media and Foreign Policy. The following excerpts have been extracted from the full-length interview, which will be available in audio format soon. The Project for Excellence in Journalism recently released its State of the News Media 2004 report, and as I am sure you are aware, the overall results do not bode well for news organizations nor the public they are meant to serve. The report, produced by the Columbia School of Journalism and the Pew Charitable Trust, states that American journalism is in the midst of an epochal transformation, as momentous probably the invention of the telegraph or television. Do you agree? I think what it is in the midst of is a reality check and, perhaps for the first time, a real self-examination, though I m not even sure how far that is going. I think a lot of the major papers had become extremely arrogant in the years since Watergate, to the point that they became the judges of their own behavior. The media became increasingly institutionalized by speaking to itself, and not to the general public, and for years, people have been saying that respect for and belief in the credibility of the media were drifting. Is that still true today? I think now comes the self-correction, but I am not sure if it is going to go far enough. I m not sure that it s not going to go just to the point where a few cases are hung-out to try, and some re-thinking is going on and some criticism is made, but some of these underlying problems that have been developing in the American press that I ve seen over a period of decades, I m not sure those are so easily rooted out. One is celebrity journalism, and another one is the star system. Those two things are not unrelated. If a lot of stories have to involve a personality, whether it s an entertainer, an athlete, the result is, quite literally, the popularizing of a lot of reporting. The fascination with celebrities of all kinds, intellectual and otherwise, and at the same time many reporters becoming celebrities themselves, was creating a circle that was a little bit worrying to say the least. www.fpa.org 1

That brings to mind the 24-hour news cycle revolution, sometimes referred to as the CNN effect, and the need for news providers, particularly cable news channels, to fill this time period with what they often refer to as analysis. If it were analysis, or good analysis, that wouldn t be so bad. What has begun to happen even with newspapers is that reporters who are already are being pushed are expected to be able to update or to send a kind of preliminary story for the online service, etc. The New York Times calls it continuous news. I think the result is that it actually cuts in to the ability for reporters to do their job, especially if you are on a beat, for example, investigative reporting or analytical writing which sometimes that means just sitting at your desk and looking out the window for half an hour until things fall into place. If there are people on the phone all the time or e-mailing you saying, Where is the story, it s been ten minutes, give us a new lead, etc, this really has in some ways made us all into wire service reporters. I would hesitate to use that label, though, because I think wire service reporters are doing spectacularly good work, and probably now holding up the profession of journalism. They have not been, for the most part, drawn in by the kinds of media problems you see being reported in the press today. They are just working flat out all the time, and they know how to do this. They know how to do continuous news, and they can sometimes take time to write background pieces, features and analysis that are really quite good. In fact, I ve included in my Great Decisions article Bernie Gwertzman s observations of wire services in particular really rising to a higher level of visibility and the fact that they are often used as the link on Internet services, and they are good, they are solid. They ve got built in systems that prevent them from making as many mistakes, and have very skilled people who get very little credit because they don t have bylines in important places. One of the most disheartening components of the PEJ report is an issue that you discuss at length in your Great Decisions article, and a complaint I have heard voiced by many of our discussion groups. It states that, those who manipulate the press and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists who cover them. Is the so-called 4 th estate living up to its duties, providing responsible coverage on issues of the moment like terrorism, WMDs and war? There has always been the danger of Washington-based reporters being manipulated by the administration, and whether this is leaking or just agenda setting, I wouldn t criticize them for being less-than-good journalists. I just think that in the crush of working around the clock again, you are in a way constrained to kind of focus on the topic of the day so that what happens is that there isn t much context or research or background. I have a particularly strong example. I have just come back from South Asia, and someone from New York University sent me a copy of William Safire s column on the UN and the kickback scandal concerning the Oil for Food program. Before I left for Asia, there had been stories in the Wall Street Journal, and a front-page story in the New York Times, in which it said generally, among other things, that the UN never noticed this or never did anything about it, that they missed it. I went back into my records, and found that I had www.fpa.org 2

written a front-page story for the New York Times on March 7 th, 2001, about kickbacks and illegal commissions, and it was in a United Nations report to the Security Council, and it were UN officials who were confirming this to me. Now, what this shows me is one of two things. Either nobody went to the UN and asked if this was true, that this passed you by, or the UN wasn t cooperative or didn t know itself that this information was in UN reports from 2000-2001. So even when the UN is involved, the reporting is not rounded, there is no depth. It is too-often just taking what is coming out from the administration or whomever that day. We ve heard charges from both sides of the political spectrum accusing the liberal media and the conservative media respectively of bias and unfair coverage of international events. But are the distractions or this agenda you are referring to being set from outside the journalism community, or from within, or is it a combination of both? I think it s a combination of both. I don t work in Washington now, so I don t know, but everyone I have talked to tells me this is a very closed administration, very much a control-freak administration when it comes to information. And by the way, a footnote, a lot of people are focusing not on the issues, but on whether Colin Powell is talking to Donald Rumsfeld, or where Condoleeza Rice stands, and again, it s personalities and celebrities, and not policies. I think then two things kick in. Reporters on these beats in Washington are competitive with each other, so people know how to manipulate this. The Washington Times is there and has great contacts within this administration, and is pushing some issues, but then the others catch up but they are on the same trail. It s almost as if an editor or reporter is afraid to say, That s not where the story is because then they look like sour grapes I didn t have the story first kind of thing. So this idea of making people match stories that other reporters have, unless they are genuinely news breaks, I think is tricky. Many Great Decision discussion groups, after reading your article, question the role that the widespread use of un-attributed sources can play in the news game, where these tactics are often viewed as the norm. Could you comment briefly on that? I think there are major newspapers that try very hard to avoid it. The questions becomes, as you well know, at what point is this more important to get out to the public. And I think here we have to make a kind of deal with the public, that we say clearly that this is the limit of what we know and what we can say, and that these people have refused to be named so that the reader can look at the new information, but also look at it in the context of where we got it. If newspapers can work towards that end, that might help solve some of this problem if it s not too late on public trust. It seems that many Americans who are disgruntled with both sides of this equation are circumventing traditional news organizations by turning more and more to alternative sources, like the so-called indy-media, Web logs and non-government www.fpa.org 3

organizations that they feel are less influenced by corporate motives, government influences etc. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this trend? The advantages are that they are simply another place to look for information, not just so that you have a balance from what you consider corporate intervention in the news, but also to plug holes. For example, if you are interested in a small country like Sri Lanka where I have just returned from, without Internet collectives that put out news from the Sri Lankan newspapers, I wouldn t know what was happening day to day, because all of the reporters in that region are in Pakistan or Afghanistan. So that s where it is very useful and it allows people interested in any part of the world to get information almost daily. Ditto the wire services that you can get into, because not all are open to the public. And also the NGOs that do good surveys, like your opinion polls, information the Council on Foreign Relations puts out, all kinds of people in every subject. The problem, of course, becomes when you have a very focused lobby that is willing to go beyond, in some ways, the facts in order to present a case rather than information, and also to manipulate people who often already want to believe that. That s where it is very difficult, and it is where the average person is asked to do a lot and to make a determination on whether or not this is believable. The danger there lies in conspiracy theories. I ve just been speaking at a conference in Sri Lanka, just to give you an idea, and in the audience of academics, intellectuals and others, there were people who really do believe, because they ve read it on the Internet, that the Bush administration destroyed the twin towers in order to go to war in the Middle East and have oil. They believe this. Now, there are plenty of Web logs and other things out there that purvey these theories. There have always been rumors and conspiracy theories, but for many they have become the reality. I always try to emphasize to people how important it is for readers to act as their own editors, to filter information carefully so that they are not misinformed by the wide-range of information out there. Right. One contradiction that you discuss in the GD piece, and is also apparent in the PEJ study and other by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press is that while quality news and information are more available now than they have ever been, Americans in particular seem to be less informed and less interested in learning more about the world. Where is the disconnect? I hear a lot of people who say, I just can t handle all this bad news anymore, or the twocareer families who just don t have time. Sometimes it is diffuse, like the war on terror. People had to get their minds around Afghanistan, now they ve got to get their minds around Iraq. It takes hard work to keep up everyday with the news, and I suspect that many people just don t have the time and energy to do it. www.fpa.org 4

I thought that this would certainly change after 9/11. I thought that people will see how vulnerable the United States is and that we re going to have to pay attention to what is happening elsewhere in the world, but the polls show that it hasn t happened. There was a blip, or a rise in interest there, that to some degree has remained according to people I ve spoken with at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Paul Farhi, writing in the Washington Post in response to the PEJ report, says that people are too busy, lazy, or just aren t very interested in the world at large, noting that its hard to blame the media for that. I think this is true, and I think also that Americans, despite our recent problems, are living better they re building bigger houses, they re driving bigger cars. One would have thought that if you are worried about the future of the Middle East, people would think twice about yet another SUV, and that kind of indicates that they don t see any reason in their lives to have to pay attention. I think maybe after 9/11 they did for a little while, and then thought, Well, it s over now. They don t feel the need to be plugged into the world. I think if we had a huge epidemic disease heading our way, you might see that, but then again, people would just read about that issue. One reason that news organizations consistently give for less foreign coverage, that you also give credit to in your article, are the costs involved in running overseas operations. However, it seems to many that with the advances in technology, the opposite should be true. Is this really an adequate response, and if cost really is an issue, are there new, more creative initiatives out there that might help fill this gap? I think it s a big response, and it is more than just the cost of a laptop and a satellite link up, at least in the case of a television network. In New Delhi, for example, you ve got to maintain studios, technicians and cameramen, etc. But it isn t just the equipment. It is keeping a correspondent in a place, paying the rent, the cost of the family expenses. Increasingly, many correspondents have come to believe they are owed more than a living, they want to put their children in private schools, they want to fly home back and forth, they want all kinds of special privileges. The cost now in Delhi is so high that a house that the Times bought in 1977 for about $800 a month now costs nearly $10,000 a month, and it s the same house. This is the case with so many other news organizations. The expense of travel, insurance, and the demands that reporters are making that a generation or so ago people just assumed included hardship. Now, the assumption is much more of a corporate one that correspondents have, they won t accept hardship. The costs have just become much greater in terms of salary and living expenses, not just operation. European news organizations like France 2, Deutsche Welle and BBC, all of which are accessible on public stations here in New York, have the capacity to do extensive and high-quality international news reporting. What is it that these news organizations have that American news corporations can t get their hands on? www.fpa.org 5

I think that reporters salaries are a little bit less than they would be in the U.S. and that some foreign reporters may be more willing to go out and do whatever seems interesting, whatever they are told to do without whining about fringe benefits. The BBC has very good regional hubs. Keep in mind what we see here are the world broadcasts as well, the international news editions. And the opposite is true as well. When you go to Europe and watch CNN, for example, you get the international edition, and the quality seems much higher Not just Europe, everywhere in the world. I watched the entire Iraq war on CNN International and BBC while living in Cambodia, and the quality of reporting on both was quite good. So why don t we get that here? Why is this an export product? I asked Ted Turner himself, and I ve asked people at CNN here as well. Turner said that you can see some of it here and there. I ve been told, and Turner didn t say this, but I ve been told that it is just a lack of commercial interest in this country. CNN reporters have told me that whenever the subject is raised, the CNN business side simply says that they can t sell that here to American cable, people just aren t interested. People also think that this is already what they are getting. That s the problem. I think the BBC is committed on the long haul, and while BBC reporters complain more than anyone else about their salaries, they don t live like corporate executives the way American journalists often do these days. They are also quick to move. They are right on top of issues, and tend to use local reporters in better ways than American news organizations do. It s just a crack organization at knowing how to cover the world, and they are not doing it for commercial reasons, though the bosses wish they could. Of course, it is government subsidized, and so that is what we don t have. People pay higher taxes for such a service, and even if you are paying it indirectly in London by paying the TV tax, the money is there for public channels. Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, upon being asked if the news media had a responsibility to educate the public, was said to have replied in short that the business of the media is to stay in business. In today s world, defined by the 24-hour news cycle, what is the business of the media, particularly in regards to foreign policy? I think the fact is if people really did want foreign news, and that was made abundantly clear, that might become the business of the news media. As we spoke about earlier, the consumers of foreign news in this country are small in number, and the demographic is quite clear. That group, it seems, is not big enough to have any influence, whether it is on politics or business. So it is easy for CNN and others to say that the public doesn t want it, so why should we do it? We won t get any advertising for it. www.fpa.org 6

If there is a whiff of a strong public reaction to not liking something you saw how fast the Janet Jackson controversy spread advertisers will pull back. If the public isn t demanding foreign news, they won t do it, it doesn t bring in ads. So there is a kind of unfortunate problem in that there may never be a critical mass demanding a CNN International. I don t know how you get out of that except with public broadcasting and they just don t have the money to do this. As a person who travels around the world to train journalists in developing counties, what might be some of the more positive or creative trends you ve seen that might improve this state of media? Well, one positive trend is the leveling playing field occurring regarding news organizations around the world. The developing world always said we get news stuffed down our throat by the West, but now they find that they can go to original sources as well. Groups like the World Health Organization and others now have information that is available for less than a dollar and hour in Phnom Phen at an Internet cafe. If you are a good reporter without your own telephone or computer, you can still find out information on your own from anywhere in the world. Some of the most interesting things that are happening are new newspapers and new kinds of reporting coming from the developing world, taking advantage of online resources and desktop publishing. In my opinion, the Western media at its best need to get in their fast, before all of the bad habits get relearned by people who have a real interest in providing as much high quality news as possible. www.fpa.org 7

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