How 'fake' is the media? - time to be less defensive and take a hard look

As a journalist for several decades, I've prided myself in always reporting the truth. Then I heard Carl Bernstein explain that a good journalist tells "the best version" of the truth. I decided to edit my response to that question, so much so that when a young journalist asked me about my approach to this profession, I mimicked Bernstein.

Then I read her paper, elegantly written and beautifully conceived. When I saw what I had said - I was not misquoted - I thought that "the best version" just isn't good enough.

If you're not a journalist, let me explain what goes on in news rooms and what news itself is. News is not a synopsis about the day your child brought home a B+ in Math, your family ate Hamburger Helper, the laundry had to be redone because the washer's acting funky, and Aunt Margaret dropped by unexpectedly. No - the news is that your genius child, aged 5, has advanced to high school math, invented a new social media app that has brought him to the attention of Apple's Tim Cook, and Aunt Margaret is dating Justin Bieber, which is what she came by to tell you, and TMZ is camped out outside.

I remember hearing "if it bleeds, it leads" and thinking that was just fine. But after all these years, constantly hearing from editors, "yes, but is it news?" or "where's the news?" I'm growing more and more skeptical about the news. That is not to say I support Trump's mantra about "fake" news. But I understand why his many supporters also support his view that news is fake, the media is fake, dishonest.

Part of the problem is the Internet. If we reporters report for online media, someone is watching to see how many page views a story gets. I interviewed for a job a few years ago in which I was told I would be rated by this measure. At the time it smacked of PR, I had no interest, wouldn't stoop so low. Flash forward a few years and the very publication for which I was writing used the same measure. It was not the sole measure, but stories that drew over 5,000 sets of eyeballs were valued well in Corporate.

This concerned me, and perhaps led me to the decision I made a few years ago to attend graduate school abroad. I would not get my M.A. in journalism, but another subject, one that could fill me with knowledge and ideas and help set a framework for better analyzing the changes in my profession. I fear that in the next few years, publications will be under so much pressure that the only barometer they'll use to keep or disgard staff will be that person's page views. And once emojis and infographics are proven to be more powerful draws than words, words will be pared to the minimum.

It's imperative that reporters and editors, whether at trades or standard publications, keep their heads and integrity in the roiling climate of the news business. I won't lie - I was proud when one of my stories was in the top three recently. But I would be prouder if I won the Pulitzer one day for deep, true, investigative reporting.

PHOTO: The reporter on assignment at Georgetown University, June 2017

Generations: How a young millennial journalist makes (and gets) her news (part 2 of 2)

In part one of this interview, Marissa Gamache, a reporting intern in Arlington, Virginia who'll spend her senior year of college at Maynooth University in Ireland before graduating from Bethel University, spoke to me about how her generation sees the current state and the future of journalism. Marissa and I work on the same publication, Transport Topics, right now. Following is a lightly edited transcript of that recent conversation.

....

I see myself and my parents' generation more connected than the one in between the two of us.

What do you mean?

I look at it as 10-year gaps, instead of Generation X or Z or whatever, or millennials. I think the values my parents had -- as well as those of persons in their 30s or late 20s -- are even different than those of the kids who are 18-25, 16- 28, and I think that's because right now it's the thirtysomethings who are starting to push all their ideals and all of their ingenuity. I think that when we come up in the next 10 years, we're going to push our platform which I think is going to be bringing us back to our roots.

I hope so!

Which is VHS tapes, and Nintendo and things like that.

Mortar and tablet, quill pens!

Exactly. (laughs)

Really old school! (laughs)

So I think journalism will go back to more of a journal-ism field.

I want to make sure I understand - your parents would be in their 40s?

50s.

So you are seeing more changes incrementally in 10-year spurts rather than in bigger spurts, like between you and I.

Yes, there is so much change -

Seemingly every month.

Yes, and I'm just at the bottom of millennials, when I was born, I'm second to last in that age group. I'm significantly different in what I'm looking for with a path for journalism.

Interesting. So it sounds like you are still optimistic about journalism. What do you think journalists who studied in the age of typewriters to become professionals, such as myself, don't understand about modern journalism?

I think they don't understand you have to change on a month by month basis, whether it be your audience you're targeting, or your style of writing, or the things you think are important that you're writing. You have to think about what's important based on your readers, and if you don't, that's when you start losing readership right away.

Hmm. But let me focus in on that 'style of writing'; that's an interesting point. We all know journalists should be on one side, and then advertising on the other, right?

Mmm-hmm.

You're not supposed to worry so much about page views, but in reality we are and that seems like something that is also really changing. What do you mean about changing style of your writing?

I think that even the language. I think a lot of times people don't understand -- Older people talk in a way that is more informative, and in language that is more detailed and in-depth with a vocabulary that is robust. I think that in order to target younger people or a larger audience you have to continue to change that vocabulary and refresh it, so people can understand and make connections to their daily life, even though it's different.

Hmm. Interesting, that's an interesting perspective. What's your feeling about blogging and how seriously do you take bloggers? Does it vary by the type of blogger?

(nods) I think blogging is really an emerging market and it has been for the last couple years, the last five to 10 years it's started to get bigger and bigger, but I think it's gotten to a point where so many people are trying to make their living off blogging and instead it's a great supplement to someone who's, say, really enthralled in the business field and they're an exec. I think that blogging really has a following and if the information is niche enough, or extravagant enough, people will be interested and a following definitely happens. And I love keeping up on things coming up, like with travel bloggers. I think it's so much fun to just take a peak --

Do you have a blog?

No, I've never been one to write personally about anything like myself, or just experiences, or just information I think people should know.

So where do you see the most opportunity for journalists right now?

I think the biggest opportunity - I think in multi-media journalism, which is looking at startup companies on even Youtube platforms, and others like, Slate has gotten popular - that Tomi Lahren (a young conservative online video and TV host) who's got viral videos of her ranting on certain things. I think those will be the types of journalists most coveted, who can get up on Facebook Live and be reporting here, there, and kind of have a gamut of coverage.

I've had an article published on Slate; so are you talking about a certain aspect of Slate?

Their multi-media presence is huge. That sucks people in to following their website. ...I feel like news websites like Slate, if they can get a couple big faces that emerge, like young people in front of the camera, being in different areas.

What I hear from you is - and I'm so excited we've had this conversation because while I know a lot of this already, I've also learned a lot - it seems there's a big difference in how you've been learning journalism and how I learned it, which was to focus on the five Ws and one H. I'd like to think you still learned that?

Oh yeah!

So you're not saying that if your style changes, you're going to have to say 'I don't care when or why, I just care about the what and the how.'

Oh no. I'm saying that just how the composition of the story is, you stick to that. There's always the fundamentals. I think you have to keep up with the trends of what's hip, what's getting 'likes', and views in terms of your writing.

But what concerns me and a lot of people is attention spans are getting shorter because of technology, and I noticed that The New York Times and Washington Post will want to communicate the main points so they'll do it with a slide show now. Video, with script across. It's as if to say, 'We know you can only focus for two seconds.'

Yeah, yeah! I think it kind of does a disservice to the work that goes into stories. I think people think they then understand an issue based on those five slides that are shown, and realistically, they have just scratched the surface of knowledge. I definitely think long-form journalism has a place, and I think that it's online because no longer are people looking to just read a bunch of words, they want the pictures. It's like a picture book for adults; adults need those nowadays.

Hm, ok.

And so I definitely think there's a place for it (long-form journalism), but it's hard for someone to read 2,000 words unfortunately.

You said you hoped we'd revert to an earlier time. Do your parents have a newspaper subscription?

They have a daily subscription to the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis.

Generations: How a young millennial journalist makes (and gets) her news (part 1 of 2)

Marissa Gamache will be starting her senior year of college this autumn, spending part of it studying in Ireland at Maynooth University before graduating from Bethel University in Minnesota. She is completing a double major in journalism and international relations, and this summer, is interning as a reporter on the government team at Transport Topics in Arlington, Va. where I am a business reporter. I wanted to discuss with Marissa how her generation of reporters sees journalism these days, where it's going, and how she fights the allure of getting all her news from Facebook.

Marissa, when you think of previous generations of journalists, what words come to mind?

I think of the 6 p.m. nightly news and my parents.

Are they journalists?

No. I think of old journalism, Watergate, Edward R. Murrow, and Bob Costas.

Thank you. So, how do you feel your generation is changing the way journalism is done?

I think we're on a minute-to-minute basis. I think we are expecting fast, but not as accurate, journalism. We are expecting information to be constantly updated, constantly gone back to. I think we just expect platforms to be different - Facebook, Twitter, even Instagram - getting all of our news through those mediums first, and then going to websites before even going to print, and print is always the last for us, but Facebook is the first.

That's interesting, because as you know from the election that was the big problem, with 'fake news' right? So what do you see, in your own words, as the pitfalls in getting all your news from Facebook?

I think we get led down rabbit trails of thinking what reality is when it really isn't, and I think a lot of kids in my generation have false realities of what's going on in the world. Because they just take the tag lines and think of that as what news is and they don't take the time to read the stories that are being written. They just look at those eye-catching words and think they know what the story's about.

And yet, anybody who meets you is obviously impressed with you - you're so well-spoken and intelligent, it seems you and others like you would say, 'Well I realize my generation is sacrificing accuracy for the sake of speed but I also want accuracy.' So how do you push back a little bit and say, 'We also need to incorporate Old School journalism standards?'

For me, I always go to the source. And I think I just look at news as something to be respected, and it's important for us, when I interact with my friends to enlighten them. (laughs) I don't want to think I'm above them, but in terms of my profession now that I'm going towards journalism, to know the importance of letting people know and helping people be aware of what platforms are reliable, and I try to put down my phone and push myself away from social media and give myself breaks so I spend more time interacting with paper and websites.

Great, Marissa, that leads into the next question so we're on the same wavelength. Where do you see journalism going over the next five to ten years? I've had friends, including myself, who've experienced layoffs, and yet at your age I would not have expected print to fade away. And I told you about the Pulitzer Prize winners, alums of my college, who got laid off. Not to be Debbie Downer, there are a lot of positive changes, but what does your crystal ball show?

If I were to take it out now and just start thinking, I'm optimistic or hoping that we will get to a point where we are so electronically dependent that people will push back and the pendulum will swing, and it will almost be like when people have novelty t-shirts that become popular. At least I'm hoping that's the direction we'll go in, that people will want to bring back family values of the Sunday paper.

Part 2 of my interview with Marissa will run next week. Read some of her reporting here.

Journalists and so-called 'corporate culture'

One of my favorite journalists was Hunter S. Thompson. I remember my ex-boyfriend Benoît telling me that he'd loaned my copy of "Fear and Loathing" to his brother, and that they both said my comments in the margins seemed more like something a guy would have written. I took that as a compliment.

In college, I took a five-unit Hemingway course (three units was the average) and loved reading his old journalistic writings. I liked being a "chick" in a man's game. It reminded me of my high school newspaper, where I was one of the only females on the team of reporters. I am still in touch with these guys, and cherish those memories from Livermore, California.

So looking back, I realize I was molded long ago to be a tomboy type of journalist, one who could spar with fellows on the one hand, while still looking lovely in lace that evening. I wore the same long man's blue and white striped work shirt with jeans in college, every day, cigarette dangling from my mouth as I hung out in the quad and thought Deep Thoughts.

Now I am beyond middle-aged. In some parts of the country I'm even considered a "senior", a term I revile of course, because I'm nowhere near retirement age (and how can I be when my hair is still a beautiful chestnut brown, ahem?) So by now, one would think, I'd know myself well enough to know where I do and don't fit in. And yes, I do know that, and I also know that despite evidence to the contrary, I will always try to fit in where I do not.

I remember being a counselor at a summer camp outside Yosemite. I was 20, and my charges were 12-year-olds with too many curling irons and giggles to fully control. They would, however, end up looking after me as I became terrified of the mice that sultry summer. As more and more care packages arrived, more and more mice would scamper across the boards below the ceiling, sending me scampering right out the door. I remember fleeing to the advisors' air-conditioned van to sleep one night, knowing my co-counselor Karen could control the girls back at the cabin.

I wrote a song called "Mommy I Can't Stand the Mice" and had the drama chug (group, in Yiddish) act out the parts - mice and sleeping campers. It was a huge hit with everyone at the camp that year except one person: the camp director. I will never forget - and we are going back over 30 years - looking over at her, as everyone's cracking up, and she's just glaring at me like I broke some sort of ancient code.

This was my first experience with breeching corporate culture. I had broken the rule of being a camp counselor--never leave your cabin, not for mice, not for spiders, not for some cute male counselors down by the river. Sure, I was barely an adult, but no matter. I was not behaving as the culture was advising me to do.

For journalists looking to take jobs in corporate America (or anywhere) I would advise them to really do some soul searching. I cannot imagine Hunter S. Thompson or Hemingway inside a corporate environment, any more than I could imagine a freelancer friend of mine (we'll call him Tom), who worked out of his apartment in New York, taking a 9-5 job.

Me? I'm still trying to find my place in this world I guess, still wanting to fit in and be brave enough to go back to the cabin. I will always be proud of that mouse song, by the way, and more than that - that I made a dozen 12-year-olds my friends that summer.

PHOTO: The author, a bit dirty and exhausted, Camp Tawonga, 1981

Moving from freelancing to full-time work: pros and cons

Whether you are 25 or 55, as I am, transitioning from pajamas to pin-stripe suits can be a daunting experience. Once day you're eating PB&Js and working from 10 to 4 or 11 to 10 and the next you're expected to be in a cubicle by 9 and play nice with strangers.

Having recently taken a staff reporting position - after 10 years of freelancing - I can attest that there are growing pains. I take responsibility for my independent skin, one that got tougher as I aged, and so learning to be in a team is sometimes tricky. Mom put it this way: "You're like Luzie (her elder cat); you don't like people to get too close."

Now, Luzie and I happen to have a lovely, warm relationship. She'd wait in the doorway of "her" room alongside Mom during the four months I spent at Mom's in South Texas. She'd "meeew!" and I'd "meew!" and know just how to pet her before she bit me. So yeah, perhaps that's me, at least on days when I'm tired.

The benefits to being on a staff are that you'll get a regular paycheck, of course, but you'll also forge relationships that can last a lifetime. I am still friends with people from my last job, close friends with one of them, and occasionally e-mail my ex-boss just to joke that it's Summer Sausage Season again.

What I would recommend before you decide to jump the freelance ship is that you ask yourself these questions. If you don't know the answers, and especially if the answers are more no's than yesses, then get back in your PJs and take the laptop back to bed:

1. Are you comfortable with not only one editor critiquing your work but a team of editors?

2. Do you mind centralized air and not being able to open windows? Many jobs if not most fall into this category.

3. Are you social enough so you feel comfortable saying hi to dozens of people (if it's a big company) each and every day?

4. Can you smile and be chipper even when you're tired or down?

5. How comfortable are you working with members of the opposite sex? Are you prepared for everything from subtle misogny to unwanted flirtations or unwanted attractions? Can you remain professional and see everyone as, to the extend possible, gender neutral?

6. Do you have the physical toughness to work in a loud office where you sometimes can't hear yourself think? Can you conduct interviews either in person by phone with lots of ambient noise?

7. Are you more of a chameleon than an iconoclast, who can blend in easily with most office cultures? I came from the New York area to the DC area and there are differences, especially in how men and women work together.

8. Can you keep your opinions to yourself if need be? Can you share ideas when called upon? Can you accept that many of your ideas will not be accepted by higher-ups?

The pros and cons of full-time employment tip the scale one way for some, another way for others. Obviously, how well you get along with your boss(es) and coworkers will go a long way toward tipping the scale in a positive direction.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons images: BEN_6159, May 23, 2012, European People's Party: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BEN_6159_(7255866304).jpg

Should reporters relocate for a job?

The subject of today's blog post wasn't hard to come up with: I recently made the decision to relocate for a job opportunity.

However, even nearly two weeks into the job I'm still grappling with how to explain my decision-making process. It's sort of like someone throws you in a forest and tells you to find your way back to camp. You know you were at camp; you know you're only 3 miles away; but you also know you don't recognize anything where you are.

Moving is one of the most stressful experiences in life, and so is taking a new job. Combined, you might as well get a divorce or grieve the loss of your puppy. I haven't researched this, but I imagine it's even harder as one ages.

When I was 39 I drove across the country for a job in New York. It had been my lifelong dream to work in the Big Apple, having grown up on Woody Allen movies and fancied myself a kind of Mariel Hemingway-esque character. I would grow sophisticated on the Upper East Side and learn to sip cosmopolitans with Carrie and friends.

New York lived up to the billing - and then some. I moved for New York, not the job. In fact, the boss-to-be at the time said to me: "Don't move here just for us." I said, "I won't." When that job didn't work out, I still had New York, or more accurately Connecticut (where I was living).

It's far trickier when you find yourself moving someplace you never imagined yourself living. While most of my friends and family members imagine I never really wanted to work in Wyoming (where I once interviewed) or rural Massachusetts (where I also interviewed), the fact is, huge parts of my heart resonate in both areas. I drove through Wyoming on the aforementioned trek and found its wild openness invigorating. I also fancy myself a true New Englander now after over a dozen years in Connecticut.

Falls Church, Virginia, where I am now, was never on my radar. Working in DC wasn't either. I'd only been to the capitol thrice, each time a fun experience, but it seemed more like a place to visit rather than live. Yet when I told people I was moving here for work, resoundingly, everyone projected their excitement on to me.

"Oh! Washington is such an exciting place! Enjoy the transition. So many monuments, so much history, so much to do!"

None of that factored into my decision to take this job, though. I took the job because I needed a full-time position, liked the person who would be my boss, and figured at least I'd be (more or less) still in the Northeast. It bugged me, I must admit, that I was still secretly pining for New York.

Yet as a journalist, nothing is more enriching than having to do as I did - pick up and go, learn to traverse new terrain, make new friends, learn new mores and memorize new Metro procedures (took me a week to remember to slap my Smart Card on the turnstile both when going into the terminal and leaving).

In the long run, having to be lonely in a new place -- yes, I said it -- can only feed the very mill that drives the machine that makes me a journalist. Without friends here, I will be forced to meet new people. I will be forced to see things in a new way. I will get lost. I will cry. I will fall.

So far, some days have been very rocky, while at times, it's been ethereal. I love noticing new types of trees here in Virginia, or seeing a different busker at the Falls Church Metro after work each day.

And who knows, maybe in time I won't keep comparing every citizen I see to the bustling populous of Manhattan or the refined, good-hearted New Englanders I left behind. Maybe. But then again, it's too soon to tell. Photos: top - the author in front of the White House soon after arriving in the area in May, 2017; bottom - on a cruise on Harbor Cruise Line of the East River, photo by Jason Sagebiel.

Eye rolls, smirks, and sighs must stop

Journalists are tasked with holding persons in positions of power accountable. We are also supposed to remain objective at all times, at least when we're on the job. This is probably easier for print journalists who can scowl or laugh with colleagues behind closed doors as they hammer out their latest treatise for print or online consumption.

Broadcast journalists have a steeper hill to climb, though, and that has never been more apparent than during the Trump era. While CNN's Wolf Blitzer does a sterling job keeping a poker face, Anderson Cooper recently and famously rolled his eyes when speaking to Kellyanne Conway and Jake Tapper frequently smirks during interviews.

CNN has a history of hiring reporters whose emotions are easy to read. Remember the Piers Morgan era and his passion for gun control? What about Don Lemon getting so drunk on New Year's Eve that it was embarrassing to watch? While these issues, one can argue, are morally poles apart from a journalistic perspective they are equally wrong. (Note, Lemon still works at CNN.)

Keeping a straight face is imperative, because to do otherwise shows the audience what the journalist is feeling and thinking. Eye roll? Cooper thought Conway was full of mullarkey. Tapper's smirk? It reads that he thinks he's better, more knowledgeable, and above the person he's interviewing. Notice how he doesn't assume that pose when interviewing someone he probably respects.

I like Tapper and Anderson, and 90 percent of the time, their passion for this profession fuels the best part of them and their journalism - asking incisive questions, surmounting perceived obstacles, striving for transparency and honesty.

Print journalists should also be careful, but the job is more subtle. Watch verbs and adjectives and other ways of subtly disclosing one's opinions. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a producer was "use says". I was insisting that I could say things like "he demurred" or "he enthused". In strong journalism, a reporter mustn't color or slant the story. See the difference: "John said his daughter was his favorite." Versus: "John gushed that his daughter was his favorite."

With the current presidential administration the subject of daily controversy, it's time for journalists to hunker down and get to work. No one cares whether or not you think Sean Spicer will race toward you Melissa McCarthy-style from his podium or that you'd rather be marching on Washington than covering it.

These times call for all the truth we can muster. Rise to the challenge.

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons Images, Pete Riches, 2011.

Technology and typos: The battle between the generations

Recently, I've experienced at least a handful of faux pas on the behalf of what I assume were millennial mistakes - calling me Laura or Miss Wiegle, not understanding what a "commission" means (do you have a dictionary?), and completely leaving out the name of an entity written in my post. In all three instances, I'm sure the offenders were in their 20's, an age when both the mind and body are more agile. I remember being 23 and stewing over whether or not I'd put my quotation marks on the right side of the period.

In 2017, though, I rarely get the sense that millennials care as much about typos and grammatical errors as I did. On the flip side, they care very much about apps, social media, and the latest smartphone flavor. I recently conducted a job interview on Skype, for which I was thankful, but in the coming weeks I completely blew it when I didn't know how to fix my microphone. I ended up looking like a ludite (which I am not) in front of the thirtysomething filmmaker I was interviewing.

My brother said a while back that we're at the perfect age on the technological scale - young enough to quickly adapt to technology, but old enough not to become addicted. I'd like to let my millennial readers absorb that for a moment. For that matter, seniors need to think about this as well.

While it's true that many seniors are more tech-savvy than some younger people -- i.e. my dad gave me my first computer, first iPad, etc. -- predominantly, younger people are pushing the way forward. It's important for people my age and older to be open to change, not tethered to our typewriters and quill pens. Yet, while we're being adaptable, our sons and daughters must stop texting for an evening and blow off the dust on "Huckleberry Finn".

I recently worked a holiday job at a popular bookstore, and when I asked one of my coworkers whether a certain magazine sold well or not, I was in for an earful. I found out that typically these days, magazines aren't selling as well as they once did. She said many of the magazines have to go back to distributors. This made me sad! I graduated from college in 1985 hoping to set the world on fire as either a magazine writer or a TV scriptwriter. I was thrilled when I got an internship at San Francisco Magazine.

Because of my age and print experience, I'm fond of correct grammar, less fond of hyperbole and cliché, and completely sickened by sloppy writing. I must admit that if someone calls me Laura or Miss Wiegle (though the latter is, of course, hilarious), it's a t.u.r.n.o.f.f. I was schooled on double-checking spellings, especially people's names!

Technology is the culprit for millennials' sloppiness, I'm convinced. Staring at a small screen for hours on end is not only damaging to the eyes, but destructive on many other levels including snipping away at one's attention span.

So hey, millennials - yes you! Put down that phone. I don't care about your Snapchat. And just because you ate a nice tuna casserole doesn't mean everyone has to see it on Instagram. Although yeah, I too am guilty of posting too many photos and checking in with people who call themselves "friends" but are in reality, just people I was told I'm related to.

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Images. "Statesmen No.537: Caricature of Mr Thomas Power O'Connor MA MP."Feb. 25, 1888; Vanity Fair. Digitized version from : darvillsrareprints.com; Author - "Spy"; Leslie Ward (1851–1922) Link back to Creator infobox template wikidata:Q920924