{"id":805,"date":"2008-02-04T03:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-04T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=805"},"modified":"2008-12-20T20:45:05","modified_gmt":"2008-12-20T20:45:05","slug":"arguing-against-nick-davies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/02\/arguing-against-nick-davies\/","title":{"rendered":"Arguing against Nick Davies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft frame size-medium wp-image-2422\" title=\"Flat Earth News by Nick Davies\" src=\"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/flatearth-155x240.jpg\" alt=\"Flat Earth News by Nick Davies\" width=\"155\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/flatearth-155x240.jpg 155w, https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/flatearth-77x120.jpg 77w, https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/flatearth.jpg 323w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 155px) 100vw, 155px\" \/><span class=\"drop_cap\">B<\/span>ritish writer <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" href=\"http:\/\/commentisfree.guardian.co.uk\/nick_davies\/profile.html\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Davies<\/a> is an inspiration to a lot of young journalists, and rightly so (you can read more of his writing on social issues <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/criminaljustice\/0,,996518,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>). But now he has moved from covering drugs and criminal justice <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion\/dp\/0701181451\/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=gateway&amp;qid=1202138462&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\">to report on journalism<\/a>. And in doing so, he commissioned <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediawise.org.uk\/files\/uploaded\/Quality%20and%20Independence%20of%20British%20Journalism.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">some research<\/a> to back up his criticisms and analysis.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Here is how Nick summed up that research in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mwaw.net\/2007\/12\/08\/davies\/\" target=\"_blank\">November 2007<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The academics did two things. Year by year they looked at what happened to the editorial staffing levels of those Fleet Street papers over the next 20 years. The second thing they did was they measured the space which those editorial staff were filling, how many column inches of news.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You crunch all those numbers for all these companies and you come up with something that is really important \u2013 essentially, your average Fleet Street reporter now is filling three times as much space as he or she was 20 years ago. Turn that round, look at it from the reporter\u2019s point of view: we only have one third of the time to do our job.<\/p>\n<p>Is this bald claim really true? The study links full-time employees to pagination.<\/p>\n<p>But what about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>freelance employees?<\/li>\n<li>bought-in copy?<\/li>\n<li>the amount of agency material used?<\/li>\n<li>changes in technology?<\/li>\n<li>the reduction in the number of editions?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Could any of these things have a bearing on the analysis? And shouldn\u2019t journalists be more productive? What about these innovations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>electronic databases<\/li>\n<li>computers<\/li>\n<li>mobile telephony<\/li>\n<li>the Internet?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Haven\u2019t these revolutionary changes all made life for journalists quicker and easier in the past 20 years? Shouldn\u2019t we demand that reporters work faster, smarter and produce more given all this?<\/p>\n<p>No cuttings libraries to sift through, no dial to turn on the telephone, or telephone books to wade through. No telex machines to service or wire copy to rip and read.<\/p>\n<p>There is a second strand to Nick\u2019s claims. His says the growth in pages has been fuelled by <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">public relations<\/span> content:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Where are we going to get our material from? While we\u2019ve been losing our jobs, somebody else has been getting more and more jobs. Which is the PR industry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Does this sound familiar? Any fans of <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Schudson\">Michael Schudson<\/a> will recognise it pretty quickly. Except that, as Schudson explains below, the claim was being made <span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstudies.com\/nacaf\/lectures\/schudson3.htm\">decades<\/a><\/span> ago.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Early in the 20th century, efforts multiplied by businessmen and government agencies to place favorable stories about themselves in the press. A new \u2018profession\u2019 of public relations emerged&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>By 1920, one journalism critic noted, there were nearly a thousand \u2018bureaus of propaganda\u2019 in Washington &#8230; Figures circulated among journalists that 50 percent or 60 percent of stories even in the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">New York Times<\/span> were inspired by press agents.<\/p>\n<p>The new Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia was churning out more graduates for the PR industry than for the newspaper business. The publicity agent, philosopher John Dewey wrote in 1929, \u2018is perhaps the most significant symbol of our present social life.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Journalists grew self-conscious about the manipulability of information in the propaganda age. They felt a need to close ranks and assert their collective integrity in the face of their close encounter with the publicity agents\u2019 unembarrassed effort to use information (or misinformation) to promote special interests&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;\u2018Many reporters today are little more than intellectual mendicants\u2019, complained political scientist Peter Odegard in 1930, \u2018who go from one publicity agent or press bureau to another seeking \u201chandouts\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Just before the First World War, New York newspaper editor Don Seitz assembled a list of 1400 press agents for the American Newspaper Publishers Association, distributed the list to ANPA members, and urged them not to accept material for publication from any of them.<\/p>\n<p>But this was a losing battle and by 1926 he complained that the Pulitzer School of Journalism \u2018turns out far more of these parasites than it does reporters.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Actually, Nick\u2019s study finds that only 19 per cent of quality newspaper content is <span id=\"fullpost\">\u2018<\/span><span id=\"fullpost\">all or mainly<\/span><span id=\"fullpost\">\u2019<\/span><span id=\"fullpost\"> from PR (p17), so there are grounds for arguing that things have improved in the course of a century. But the PR claim itself is misleading.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>After all, what does this PR stuff look like? Here is one of the more \u2018heinous\u2019 examples his study cites (I have linked to the originals):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A surprising number of longer print pieces were also coded in the \u2018All from PR\u2019 category (although long broadcast items consisting solely of PR copy were very seldom found). For example, a <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Times<\/span> story headlined \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/article\/0,,2-2100909,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">George Cross for Iraq War Hero<\/a>\u2019 (Michael Evans, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The Times<\/span>, 24th March 2006, p27) is an almost verbatim repetition of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mod.uk\/DefenceInternet\/DefenceNews\/HistoryAndHonour\/GeorgeCrossAwardedToBombDisposalExpert.htm\" target=\"_blank\">a press release<\/a> issued by the Ministry of Defence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So Evans\u2019 piece begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The blast tore off his left leg at the knee, drove shrapnel into his other limbs and flung the bomb disposal officer high above the Iraqi road.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his injuries, Captain Peter Norton retained the composure to warn his men of another device hidden nearby.<\/p>\n<p>Seven others were spared a similar fate and the bomb disposal officer, 43, from the Royal Logistic Corps, has now been awarded the George Cross for his outstanding bravery and leadership.<\/p>\n<p>He becomes the second serviceman to receive the medal in recognition of action that took place in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>Captain Norton admitted yesterday that when he realised how badly injured he was he could have \u201crelaxed\u201d and given in to the inevitability of death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">MoD<\/span> version?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>An Army bomb disposal expert has been awarded the George Cross for his heroic actions in Iraq in 2005. Captain Peter Norton from the Royal Logistic Corps is only the twenty-second member of the Armed Forces to receive the award since 1945.<\/p>\n<p>Captain Norton is one of 70 UK Servicemen and women to be honoured in the latest list for their role in operations around the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, and the former Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n<p>Captain Norton, an Ammunition Technical Officer, receives the George Cross for an act of \u201cthe most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger in the Al Bayaa district of Baghdad.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Are we really supposed to believe that this re-write is a grotesque fraud polluting the pool of journalism? I think we are being spun a line.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, more than half the PR material in the stories Davies\u2019 criticises actually comes from government, public bodies (police, hospitals, etc.), NGOs and charities (p22). When Andrew Gilligan broke his 45 minutes story he estimated that he appeared on 19 different BBC programmes. Given the range of outlets public PR materials now service, do we really want ministers, police officers and doctors conducting separate interviews with dozens of different publications?<\/p>\n<p>The real filler in newspapers (and online) is wire copy. This is presented as something of a shock and Nick conflates this misleadingly with PR material (at least he does on the <span style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/radio4\/today\/ram\/today5_bankrupt_20080204.ram\" target=\"_blank\">Today<\/a><\/span> programme). Actually the only shock is that newspapers have hidden their reliance on the agencies for so long.<\/p>\n<p>However the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Associated Press<\/span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reuters<\/span> and the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Press Association<\/span> are among the most scrupulously regulated news providers in all journalism.<\/p>\n<p>Nick\u2019s jeremiad is familiar to anyone who has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.harpers.org\/archive\/1927\/09\/0013450\" target=\"_blank\">thumbed through the literature<\/a> of reporters critiquing their profession (gosh, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Can-Trust-Media-Adrian-Monck\/dp\/1840468726\" target=\"_blank\">even I have a go<\/a>), but I would argue that his hope for journalism as an agent of change are the real problem. By over-estimating its influence, he falls prey to pessimism, rather than looking at ways in which his goals could be secured by other means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British writer Nick Davies is an inspiration to a lot of young journalists, and rightly so (you can read more of his writing on social issues here). But now he has moved from covering drugs and criminal justice to report on journalism. And in doing so, he commissioned some research to back up his criticisms [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1515,2210,1988,2213,268,1513,2207,15,2115,2209,1928,2201,1819,2212,1507,1552,2208,1834,2140,2205,1491,1487,2204,2211,2200,629,2214,2091,2203,2206,2202,1705,2015,1417,2085,250,1411,1433,1475,1922,2020],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-afghanistan","tag-american-newspaper-publishers-association","tag-andrew-gilligan","tag-armed-forces","tag-associated-press","tag-baghdad","tag-baghdad-governorate","tag-bbc","tag-british-broadcasting-corporation","tag-columbia","tag-dc","tag-don-seitz","tag-fleet-street","tag-george-cross","tag-iraq","tag-john-dewey","tag-michael-evans","tag-michael-schudson","tag-ministry-of-defence","tag-mobile-telephony","tag-new-york","tag-nick-davies","tag-northern-ireland","tag-peter-norton","tag-peter-odegard","tag-press-association","tag-public-relations-content","tag-public-relations","tag-pulitzer-school-of-journalism","tag-reuters-group-plc","tag-royal-logistic-corps","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-the-new-york-times-co","tag-the-times","tag-the-times-global-broadcasting-co-ltd","tag-reuters","tag-thomson-reuters","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-washington","tag-yugoslavia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2486,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/2486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}