 |
USA Edition | Today Is Friday, March 12, 2010 |
|---|
|
USA Edition | Today Is Friday, March 12, 2010 |
|---|
| Newsroom Magazine Technical Enhancements | « Scan Content In The Order It Was Published » | Shepard Smith vs. Ralph Nader | |
| Previous In Section | « Scan Only The Public Media Section » | Next In Section | |
PBS NOW With David Brancaccio
PBS Public Affairs Journalists
Compared to other public affairs programs aired on Friday evenings, NOW rarely meets the standards established by either Washington Week, or Bill Moyers’ Journal. Then NOW tackled Wall Street’s internal conflicts of interest.
Ever since the departure of Bill Moyers three years ago, PBS’ NOW newsmagazine has seemed uncertain about its purpose. Compared to other public affairs programs aired on Friday evenings, NOW rarely meets the standards viewers have come to expect from Washington Week, or Bill Moyers’ Journal. NOW is, however, more civil and less noisy than John McLaughlin’s sometimes entertaining, but largely non-informative program.
Newsroom Magazine spoke to some of these same issues one year ago in a review of NOW’s coverage of the widespread corruption in Alaska’s Republican political machine. What’s common to both articles are NOW’s unclear mission as well as the activist inclinations of Chief Correspondent, Maria Hinojosa.
NOW has not consistently maintained the level of journalistic integrity and credibility exhibited during the Moyers years — perhaps as much by way of being shortened to half hour format as by its fuzzy, unclear mission. Given that some of the best producers working in public broadcasting remain on the NOW roster, the program’s sometimes obtuse content remains an inexplicable conundrum.
At the heart of that conundrum is a near iconoclastic political frame of reference that swings far left of PBS’ normal liberal bias. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with bias, overt or concealed, for political ideologies are central to legitimate journalistic inquiry. It would make no more sense were the political slant conservative for it is not which polarized political view predominates, but rather that NOW’s journalistic frame of reference is so narrowly defined that even stories which seem non political are routinely framed, some might say contaminated, by political ideology.
Television newsmagazines are inherently difficult — as much due to dis-congruent content as by inconsistent standards. But NOW has suffered from another malady — absence of critical editing. Having an experienced producer and a competent reporter-presenter are essential to reportorial excellence. NOW has these resources. But, perhaps intentionally, the absence of a skeptical and critical editing, strong willed personalities are more prone to overreach. We believe NOW consistently over reaches — perhaps unsure that a point has already been made, NOW often keeps hitting the same nail over and over again. Doing so, given the intellect and motivations of NOW’s audience, is rarely warranted and probably counter productive.
PBS Journalist Maria Hinojosa
Hinojosa is a serious, credible journalist — albeit one with strong and clear political views. Her many strengths are offset by insufficient critical editing. That’s not her fault, but critical editing is essential to honest, credible, probative journalism. Critical editing is one of the most critical checks and balances. Good editing, especially in television package production is rare. But the editor’s gatekeeper function is essential to filtering out what is journalistically sound from what may be perceived as distortion or outright propaganda.
Our intention is not to indict NOW for failing to apply any critical editorial judgment, but rather to question its effectiveness. Any news and information program seeking to promote only liberalist causes reported by bonafide and credible journalists who tend to filter content through feminist, liberal or Latino colored glasses, risks becoming an advocacy program not a standards driven journalistic activity.
No matter Ms. Hinojosa’s personal views or agenda, she is a major journalistic talent — something there is far too little of in television news today. Critical editing that challenges Ms. Hinojosa with the same degree of energy and directness that she brings to her work, could broaden her appeal, clarify the information she and her producers have gathered, and expand her credibility beyond viewers who share her views.
Maria Hinojosa is one of the most penetrating interviewers working in television. The NOW program that aired on November 21, 2008 is evidence of Hinojosa at her best — going after what matters most with immense energy and focus. The result is probative and relevant reporting.
NOW’s November 21st broadcast, overseen by senior NOW producer Brenda Breslauer, constituted first rate broadcast journalism. It addressed an embarrassing reality not widely reported by electronic media — the widespread breakdown of governmental, commercial, regulatory, and institutional oversight. Taken as a whole, widespread failures in corporate governance, institutional compliance, and governmental oversight were the principal cause for the meltdown in the U.S. economy.
If you wonder how so many smart people could be deluded into believing bad debt could be repackaged into good debt you’re not alone. The reason, Ms. Hinojosa tells her audience came about as a direct result of a widespread suspension of reality by nearly everyone who could profit from doing so.
NOW’s Print Publication Citations
- Associated Press: SEC proposes rules on credit rating agencies
- Financial Times: When junk was gold
- New York Times: Triple-A Failure
- NPR: The Giant Pool of Money
- Reuters: Are credit raters off the mark again? Spreads say yes
- Wall Street Journal: How Rating Firms’ Calls Fueled Subprime Mess
Failed oversight and governance would seem to have been unlikely after the collapse of Enron. But as Alan Greenspan now claims to have learned, greed is a powerful force that easily distorts, subsumes or corrupts everything in its path. The Enron case revealed how easily Certified Public Accounting firms could be compromised by a greed driven need to serve the illusion of legitimacy being projected by their clients.
The worldwide collapse of so many banks reveals the extent to which the banking industry became enamored with securitized mortgages — largely due to failed oversight by FDIC and Bank Regulators — and ineffectual boards of directors. Is there any wonder, Ms. Hinojosa makes clear, that nearly every level of human activity, both governmental and private sector, became corrupted by the systematic removal of controls, oversight and regulation?
Of course not — for the very people who corrupted the system are the ones being bailed out by taxpayers. More to the point, the men and women who made the corrupting decisions, engaged in fraudulent behavior, and flushed several trillion dollars of wealth down the drain are not only still employed, they’re in line for bonuses for their sordid behavior.
What was so different about NOW’s Credit and Credibility broadcast was that it played to PBS’ traditional strength in public affairs and news programming — reporting about what matters most. No suggestion is made that NOW has never done this before, only that this particular broadcast skipped the ordinary kerfuffle and political coloring by getting directly to the central issue:
How did so many legitimate and credible institutions, agencies and governmental regulators fail to recognize what was happening in the complex credit market manipulation that has all but brought the world’s integrated financial systems to their knees?
The foundation for Hinojosa’s report was the cooperation of Frank Raiter, a former divisional managing director at Standard And Poor’s, who was driven out of the company when he questioned the legitimacy of S&P’s fee-driven ratings on mortgage based securities.
Those who watched Credit and Credibility saw Maria Hinojosa at the very top of her game — not by advocating a liberal agenda, not by portraying women as victims of male oppression, and not by declaring Latinos as downtrodden Americans. She did it by way of solid, probative, adversarial journalism. Made all the better by the excellent work of producer Brenda Breslauer.
Well done.
Watch NOW’s Credit And Credibility
Newsroom Magazine offered Standard and Poor’s an opportunity to make a written statement about their views on NOW’s Credit and Credibility broadcast. Standard and Poor’s responded to Newsroom’s request, but had not provided a written statement by the date this article was published.
Standard and Poor’s did however provide written responses to NOW’s producers.
