By George Foster
Chief Executive Officer

I would have changed the headline to “The Death of Journalism” but as a journalist myself, I was hoping that there still some professionalism in the profession.

For me, the recent election could be the nail in the coffin for this belief, as I’ve been questioning the profession’s integrity and objectivity for years. In fact, as far back as 1971 when I was an undergraduate journalism student at the University of North Texas, I kept a couple of articles for potential editorials about the very subject of impartial reporting.

The general manager of The Associated Press at the time, Wes Gallagher, “criticized ‘ego journalists’ who attempt to substitute personal opinions for objectivity in news reporting.”

Malcom Mallette, the director of the American Press Institute and a distinguished journalist, also said at the time that “the new activists contend that objectivity in the news columns should be cast aside as unequal to the problems of society” and quoted a 24-year-old newsman as saying “there is too much wrong to allow the traditional constraints of objectivity to get in the way.”

That was nearly 50 years ago.

Now, the large majority of those reporting in the mainstream media are “ego journalists” who substitute their personal opinions on every subject. This goes exactly opposite of what I was taught and applied as a sports writer where you reported (objectively) on the game. It was “Just the facts ma’am.” Sure, you could report what happened creatively but it better be based on fact. And opinions offered without attribution were immediately removed.

As an editor for all or most of Foster Marketing’s public relations efforts through the 40 years we’ve been in business, I’ve wielded a mean red pen to strike out those very opinions (or make sure they’re attributed). As I say, “Who says?”

Now, the news media, or the “media mob” as they’re often called, are all about developing a narrative to fit their personal views. The latest narratives are the rush for President Trump to concede the recent election and that there are no problems with the country’s voting system.

 

What We Have Here is a Failure to Investigate

The New York Times on Nov. 11 proclaimed in the following headline that “The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud.”  And followed that with a lead paragraph stating, “The president and his allies have baselessly claimed that rampant voter fraud stole the victory from him. Officials contacted by The Times said that there were no irregularities that affected the outcome.”

“Baselessly” is an opinion word without attribution in an everyday article. That would have gotten my red pen with the note “who says?”

Another offender is The Washington Post. They have fought the President at every turn and any questions about election integrity have been quickly dismissed by writers and editors at WaPo.

For example, Aaron Blake, a regular trasher of Trump, came up with this story. With a shallow tagline that “Democracy Dies in the Darkness”, it seems to me that if you’re interested in shedding light on any election impropriety darkness, you’d want to investigate all angles because this wasn’t our last election ever. There will be another one in two years; and more in years to come. Shouldn’t we remove all doubt about election integrity now?

But that would take reporting and investigation. Perhaps Blake and The Post could take a lesson from Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Victor Joecks who reported in an article that Clark County (Nevada) election officials accepted his signature on eight ballot return envelopes during the general election. Even more evidence that signature verification is a flawed security measure.

Atta boys go to Joecks for great journalism and for not only discovering election flaws but also having the courage, curiosity and creativity to investigate the system.

That there is no election fraud is simply not true. It’s to what level: from simply people voting for their dead grandmother or ballot harvesting or to more complex schemes such as software fraud? Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the self-proclaimed sworn enemy of lying, pomposity and group think, has said as much in this piece.

Additionally, as time has passed more election faux pas have been exposed – the discovery of an additional 2,600 and then 2,700 ballots in Georgia, dead folks voting in Michigan, issues with the Dominion software, etc. With more than 150 million people voting, we want to have trust in our election integrity.
However, today’s main stream media refuses to do the basic legwork to discover the facts. Whether that’s a function of limited resources, laziness or bias is debatable.

Holman Jenkins, a Wall Street Journal columnist, identified the issue straight-on in a recent column. He said the “U.S. has an ‘Intelligence’ Problem.” He discusses the fabricated Russian Trump investigation and follows with the Hunter Biden laptop story.

He says, “a working assumption, though, has always been that a fearless and truth-telling press was ready to expose and shame such an activity. More than anything on Hunter’s laptop, this is the issue that should concern you now.”

He goes on to add that, “So bamboozled and neurotic is our press, because of its anti-Trump virtue signaling, that it now angrily demands that the public be kept in the dark about matters that are the definition of news. The New York Times, The New Yorker and ABC News once led in exposing Hunter Biden’s history of trading on his father’s public status. Now they seek to suppress the story to protect Candidate (now President-Elect) Biden.”

 

High Tech and the Future of Media

I mentioned “demise” not “death” in my lead above, and that’s because I believe in journalism enough to endow two journalism scholarships at my alma mater, the University of North Texas.

As I may question what the professionals are doing, I’m reassured by the Dean of UNT’s Mayborn School of Journalism Andrea Miller that, “We have always focused on and will continue to focus on information-seeking, ethics, transparency, law and just telling people’s stories in the best way we know how. That hasn’t changed and will never change. We are proud of that legacy – a devotion to solid, ethical communication.” Through the years, UNT has produced numerous professional journalists and Pulitzer Prize winners.

I can’t say as much about the future of journalism when I watch an interview of former President Barack Obama by CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley (he uses the “baseless allegation” as well) on 60 Minutes.

In the interview, President Obama makes a very subtle reference (at the 9:00 mark in the video) in which he says “we’re going to have to work with the media and tech companies to better inform the public about issues.” What we don’t want is state-run media.

That’s scary. First, when the social media channels Twitter and Facebook become the arbiter of what’s news and put disclaimers on content – or even more egregiously remove posts, i.e. the New York Post articles on Hunter Biden’s computer – then one has to question whether or not they should fall under Section 230 of the Communications Act, which generally provides legal immunity for website publishers from lawsuits for third-party content.

Second, when the media is in lockstep with one party (or the other) that’s even scarier. I love my senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, and he presented that case best in this interview with Carlson. It’s worth a listen to the end. He said “journalists can’t pick sides; they have to be equal opportunity a-holes. And, too many journalists have picked sides.” Kennedy summarized it best:

“Without truth there is no trust and without trust there is no democracy.”

Let’s get started! Call us today at 281-448-3435, contact us online or connect with us on LinkedIn.

---

BONUS TIP

Everyone talks about the 4 P’s of marketing:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

BUT what about the 5th? PEOPLE. While the product is the star, the price is often the determining factor, the place offers logistical advantages, and the promotion tells the story; it is the PEOPLE that imagine the product, set the price, pick the place and sell the story.

Keeping the 5 P’s in mind will take you to your target audience.