AP's new views on Journalism

I, for one, am stunned...

I was always taught to just report the news, let the reader make up their own mind.

This borders on blasphemy, as far as I'm concerned, to make a news story "personal" and having the reporters inject their own opinion. These people aren't writing freakin' columns, they're writing NEWS!

Saints begora, we're on a downhill slide. Is this yet another insertion into the world of the "dumbing down of America"? Does the AP actually believe people who read the news are so stupid they need to be told how they should feel about a news story based on the beliefs of the person reporting it? This is un-frickin'-believable!

My vote? He's destroying the AP.

I miss journalistic integrity. The news should stick to facts and quotes. The rest belongs on the opinions page.

In my book, news is just the facts, commentary is analysis of the facts, and opinion pieces are what columnists and editorial writers hope to persuade their readers to believe. I have no problem with all of these appearing in the newspaper, but all three should be kept separate and clearly marked so the reader can tell the difference. As I read the link, I kept thinking that the AP was condescending to his readers. The implication in a lot of what Fourier said was that readers are too stupid to interpret even-handed news and should be told what to think. Yuck!

Just wait until the AP oversteps and injects opinion into a story that turns out to be false. The wire service customers will not be happy.

Craig Klugman, editor of the Ft. Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette... said his newsroom has been split on the new format for AP stories, which some staffers consider “innovative,” while others don’t believe it’s “as cutting edge as the AP thinks it is.”

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Yeah.... This article would have been more useful if it had included some links to some stories in this astonishing new style. I mean, the AP has soooo far to go before it gets anywhere near the cutting edge. A radical change for them might not look like anything unusual at all compared to a lot of what we read in the news nowadays.

On one hand, it does fly in the face of the idea of journalistic integrity. On the other hand, journalistic integrity was an extremely rare breed before this change -- it isn't as if you can't distort the truth while reporting 'just the facts'.

Article redacted for clarity:

Translation: Dear public. You are stupid. We will make up the truth and tell you what it is.

Awful. There is a difference between factual reporting and editorials. The AP is blurring that line, and it cannot possibly end well.

I imagine at least the European press will stop using them if this is truly the way they're going.

This is a great topic for discussion. I'm going to port it over to the Roundtable to try and get more folks involved.

i was ranting to my husband about this last night, as soon as I saw the post. This smacks us all in the face, as readers of news, that we are too stupid to know how to feel.

The AP has already been on a slippery slope with their biased reporting, so much so it's being commented on television and in print. This will do more damage to their reputation than anything else.

Also, if you were a politician, would you talk to an AP reporter the same way knowing they will be putting their personal spin on things? I know I wouldn't talk to another AP reporter again, knowing I was being judged by the press BEFORE anything I said hit the press.

Journalists used to be an elite, untouchable group of people who had integrity. With the AP making this change, well, it occurs to me that their reporters could border on slander and/or libel. However, they have the first amendment to protect them.

This is muck-raking type journalism.

Summonere said:

In the stories the new boss is encouraging, first-person writing ... reporters are encouraged to ... call it like they see it ... when they think ... the average reader is “having a hard time figuring out the right from the wrong..."

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My problem with this is, it's the journalist's idea of right and wrong, not necessarily the correct right and wrong. And its assuming that the reader is just plain wrong.

I don't like this direction. This isn't news, it's opinion hidden as news.

I know that you can make a news story opinionated in the way you present the facts within the story, by placing information you agree with ahead of information you don't, or even putting that information on the jump -- which rarely gets read, but this is far different from that.

This is bias and it's wrong. As mentioned above, it's muck-raking, or worse, yellow journalism.

Opinion doesn't have a place in standard reporting. That's what editorials are for.

I'm upset, but I can't say I didn't see this coming. Various media outlets in US history have sacrificed objectivity for entertainment in the past, and they will continue to do so in the future. It's up to us, the consumers, to ensure that these entertainers die, as we've done before.

I think the reasoning that this kind of thing is necessary to tell the public how to feel stinks. I don't need to be told how to think of the news.

Though Fournier's logic is idiotic and condescending, I think a few good things could come of it. Journalistic integrity has gone out the window for almost all American news agencies and reporters today. Acknowledging their bias may well lead to articles that are easier to interpret.

It's easy to skew an article one way by reporting certain "facts" and leaving others out, and then the reader--who isn't getting all the information--could easily think that's all there is to the story. But when the reporter exposes his opinion, it can be easier to see through the bias and search out the rest of the facts.

Nothing new, except they are finally admitting it...and they wonder why newspapers are dying.

So the AP just became The O'Reilly Factor?

kuwisdelu said:

I think the reasoning that this kind of thing is necessary to tell the public how to feel stinks. I don't need to be told how to think of the news.

Though Fournier's logic is idiotic and condescending, I think a few good things could come of it. Journalistic integrity has gone out the window for almost all American news agencies and reporters today. Acknowledging their bias may well lead to articles that are easier to interpret.

It's easy to skew an article one way by reporting certain "facts" and leaving others out, and then the reader--who isn't getting all the information--could easily think that's all there is to the story. But when the reporter exposes his opinion, it can be easier to see through the bias and search out the rest of the facts.

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Very true. This may just encourage the average reader to look up the facts behind the bias.

Then again, I think plenty of people recognize the spin in the news, but don't bother to find out the truth. Instead, they complain about the lack of integrity in the media, etc, when their energy would be much better spent discovering what's what.

(I'm not making a jab at anyone in this thread--you all are a smart bunch and I have faith in your ability to discern. )

I'll never use the AP again, not that I used them all that much to begin with... It's not muckraking, its election rigging... watch the slant their articles take. It will slide from bias to propaganda.

I just realized, if you add some bad grammar to the AP articles, this will end up looking like China Daily. I think I'll go bang my head against a wall for a while. Maybe then I can appreciate what they're doing.

This is not news to me. The TV news as well as newspapers have been going in this direction for years. This is why newpaper fail.

If I want to read someone's opinion of the news, I'll read their blog. If I want the facts, I'll read the New York Times and hope for the best.

I see pros and cons. On one hand, news stories right now are written in a simple, easy to understand style with simple words, without ever giving an opinion, and without ever requiring more than minimum thought. It makes me want to shoot myself.

On the other, objectivity may well be swept aside in favor of emotional fervor. With this comes the interjection of opinion, which leads inevitably into questions of the reporter's credibility.

I think, ultimately, this is a good thing. Opinions make things interesting, IMO. I'm much more interested in witty commentary about a stupid crime than I am on the stupid crime itself.

And if we begin to open ourselves a little to opinions we object to, we might feel more inclined to participate in our society.

If a reporter is capable of telling me what happened concisely, giving me an opinion, and entertaining me all at once, he deserves accolades. Problem is, most journalists simply do not have this level of skill. It is much, much safer to "keep it simple, stupid."