"Why'd They Put THAT in the Story?"

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer offers a gentle defense of reporters who have been accused of going overboard in covering the VT story.  I generally agree with much of what he has to say -- reporters themselves often dislike doing so; the story is profoundly sorrowful and that creates an interest in a variety of details that reporters will naturally cover; there is a thin line between responsible and outrageous journalism, but "if the story came to a close tonight" because reporters stopped covering it, "viewers would riot," and reporters should err on the side of overcoverage rather than overcoverage.  The defense is gentle, as I said: Shafer doesn't defend every coverage choice, and neither would I.  (That goes triple for network news and the cable news networks, but I only qualify most of those as "journalism" under protest.)

I would add four things to Shafer's piece.  First, he is right to say that "[t]here may be no tougher assignment in journalism than knocking on the door of a mother who has lost her young daughter to a killer and asking, "How do you feel?"  With a few changed details, I've done it, and it is extraordinarily unpleasant, although the family member is often far less put out and upset by such questions than one might think.  Second, I have met as many shy reporters as bold and extroverted ones; some people get into the business precisely because they are looking for a job that forces them to meet people and ask difficult questions although they would be more comfortable aone in front of a keyboard.  I usually spent as much time agonizing about picking up the phone and calling complete strangers to ask them questions as I did actually dialing. 

Third, while I can understand an image of reporters as callous, the ones I actually would be the most leery of are the ones who are wells of sympathy.  Shafer writes that one way "journalists numb themselves is to slip the veil of compassion over their newsgathering practices."  That seems not quite accurate to me.  Compassionate reporters are more like most politicians I have met: there is a genuinely sympathetic and friendly and warm side to them, but at the same time the other half of their brain is coldly ticking with thoughts of how you can be useful to them.  Their friendly and sympathetic behaviors are not lies or calcuations; rather, these individuals seemingly have two separate personalities operating on parallel tracks.  Similarly, these reporters are not slipping a veil of compassion over their newsgathering practices; it's not a ruse.  They are genuinely sympathetic, and the second they are done sincerely draining a source of every heartbreaking aspect of a story, they will turn to their computer and chortle at what excellent quotes they've gotten.  They're Janet Malcolm without mens rea.  If you ever encounter such a sympathetic reporter, rest assured that the sympathy is genuine, but under no circumstances should you trust him or her.

Finally, Shafer doesn't note one source of overcoverage in news stories.  I reflected on this yesterday as I saw some wrap-up package story on VT which quoted an Asian student there saying her parents were afraid there would now be an anti-Asian backlash.  I suppose it's possible, and certainly the reporter found someone who actually said it.  But it felt a little forced, as if the reporter were trying to force a narrative detail out of the story that was either out of place altogether or at least premature.  Don't assume this is all about the calculating and exploitative reporter on the ground.  Remember the editor!  From experience, I can imagine many a reporter covering the details he or she thought relevant and important and stopping there, and then phoning or mailing in the story, only to face some editor two hours before deadline asking: "What about anti-Asian bias?  Get something on that.  And what about [detail x]?  Did anyone say anything about that?  Go get me something.  And you're missing the following details."  And so on.  At least some set of the overkill details that end up in stories aren't becuse of the reporter, who might well make sound judgments as to what is appropriately part of the story and what isn't.  They're there because someone at a desk in the newsroom sent the reporter back out to answer every question they could dream up.  You can often spot such details because their placement in the story seems both forced and half-hearted.  You may say these reporters have thus abdicated their responsiblity.  On the other hand, don't law professors do it all the time?  How many "To be sure" paragraphs or half-hearted footnotes crammed into law review articles are the obvious result of some editor telling an author, "we need x, y, and z," until the author surrenders on some or all of the editor's demands?  The dynamic is a common one, in short, but it may often be invisible to outsiders.  If you're displeased at overcoverage of this tragic story this week, or at the inclusion of unnecessary and intrusive details, it might help explain the phenomenon somewhat if you're aware of the internal mechanics that contribute to it.