Of great concern, though, is the capacity for smaller community newspapers to serve as watchdogs when they barely have the resources to produce their product at all.
Those were among the opinions expressed June 17 during a panel discussion at the Union League Club in Chicago, focusing on the future of watchdog journalism. The sentiments were echoed this summer in an online survey of NINA journalists.
George Papajohn, deputy managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, responded to an audience question about whether social media is changing the standards for investigative reporting – particularly, what’s published and when.
“The same standards apply,” Papjohn said. “We are scrupulous. We are careful. The stories that need the extra time get the extra time. To us, that credibility is essential to our survival and to everything we do. Nothing we do in the future will matter if we lose our credibility. So every day when we examine stories – whether they are short-term, mid-term or long term, we’re applying very high standards to them.”
Kurt Gessler, Interactive Media editor for the Daily Herald, said deadlines and the pressure to publish incomplete information are less of a factor in investigative stories.
“We have six or seven irons in the fire, and when it’s ready is when we’ll publish it,” Gessler said, adding that misleading or inaccurate reporting could reduce news organizations’ credibility to the level of their untrained competitors.
“With all the different voices out there, you cannot tarnish your brand,” he said. “There’s been this flight to quantity. At some point there will be a flight to quality. And the media outlets that have stayed true to their audiences and to their beliefs will exist in some form. So on those types of stories, I don’t see any lapse. The breaking news stuff, we have clearly become quicker and dirtier at. We are a lot more radio-ish, a lot more television-ish. We get stuff out and then tweak it. That’s where I see the quality eroding more.”
However, the story changes in smaller communities, several panelists said. When community papers can’t afford to do investigative work, there’s not much profit motivation for out-of-town competitors, either, said Polly Smith, Money and Business editor for the Chicago Sun-Times.
“In the suburbs, there’s no competition (for investigative stories) from the smaller papers – the five-day-a-week or weeklies,” Smith said. “They’ve been decimated. They can’t cover everything. And so because there’s no competition from them, we can sit back and not worry about it. … That worries me more than anything.”
The Internet culture and the perceived demand for up-to-the-second news can work against watchdog reporting, too, said Jim O’Shea, co-founder of the online-only Chicago News Cooperative and a former executive at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.
“A news organization’s job is still, at the end of the day, to step back and put the events of the day in context,” O’Shea said. “And I fear that sometimes the competition to get audience on the Internet creates a situation in which people have a tendency to scream rather than just talk in a calm voice. I’ve spent my entire life encouraging people to do investigative journalism and good journalism and beat reporting … to be the voice of reason and keep things in context.”
The panel was sponsored by NINA and moderated by executive director Dirk Johnson.
Thoughts from the trenches
This summer, an unscientific survey of reporters and editors from NINA newspapers showed a range of watchdog journalism occurring. Some produce multiple stories every month. More than half said their paper does no watchdog reporting whatsoever.
The survey got only 10 responses – not a large enough sample to indicate trends. But some of the comments reveal the tension caused by newspapers’ responsibilities on one side and limited resources on the other.
One editor wrote that investigative work used to be routine for most reporters, but that today’s staffing levels make that difficult.
“We still try to allocate time for everyone to have at least one project in the pipeline,” the editor wrote. “We can’t do them as often as we once did, but I’m hopeful that will change with the economy. Until then, we need to keep them on the radar.”
Another editor said the paper does afford reporters time for long-range stories, “although there are few takers. More push is needed and support from editors.”
Another paper searches for creative solutions. “As the staff has shrunk, it’s become a greater challenge,” an editor wrote, “but we work in time for reporters to chip away at projects. Interns and free-lancers are a huge help in getting day-to-day items covered to free up some time for staffers to do this. Sadly, but candidly, it’s probably also resulted in more of our inside copy being press release rewrites, but something has had to give.”
Several reporters said they are too buried in day-to-day work to do investigative stories.
“We work under a quota of two stories a day because of our small size staff – only three reporters for a community of 35,000 not counting other surrounding areas,” one wrote. “Because of the quota it makes it difficult to hold stories or devote to more in depth types of investigation.”
The survey concluded with this question: Given our industry’s reduced workforce and limited financial resources, what suggestions would you give to editors and publishers about how newspapers can increase their amount of watchdog reporting?
Some of the responses:
- “Keep scheduled news stories short and to the point; push for watchdog or other enterprise FIRST on a daily basis. You won’t always have it, but will leave everyone with an ongoing impression that it is important to pursue it. Something we are considering is a significant monthly bonus for the best watchdog report (hoping reporters will find ways to find time if given additional monetary motivation).”
- Watchdog journalism is not only good journalism, it sells papers. Good managers understand this.
- We all talk about ‘limited financial resources,’ but there has got to be some way occasionally to reward reporters for superior work. And I mean beyond a pat on the back. Maybe it’s a bartering thing – like giving some free advertising to a department store, and then having a supply of $100 or $200 gift cards to give as bonuses.
- “A little overtime could go a long way.”
- “Reporters and editors need to understand the watchdog role applies to every story that should always keep our readers’ interests in mind. The real question is, do we or can we find the time to dig into bigger issues? I think it can be done, regardless of staff size. It’s just a matter of planning and chipping away each day or each week. Two things are needed, however: reporters who have the desire (and frankly they seem hard to find) and editors who beat the drum. I think our readers want and expect the watchdog role, but might have given up expecting it.”
