D-News on journalism education

The Deseret Morning News has an editorial this morning entitled "Back to journalism 101." It discusses the growing controversy over the Bush Administration's paid political commentators.

Law school grades

Yes, it's that time again. First-year law students around the country are receiving their grades. Some are rejoicing; others are mourning. In my case, I almost dropped out of law school after the first semester. But, this post on a popular legal weblog discusses the relative unimportance of grades.

Gag order

The Salt Lake Tribune (here) and the Deseret Morning News (here) both covered the gag order issued yesterday by a Utah Fourth District Court judge in the case of several former college football players charged in connection with the rape of a 17-year-old last summer.

Dynamite on the court

A well-written story about a BYU men's basketball team victory appeared in today's Salt Lake Tribune. Patrick Kinahan played off the "Napoleon Dynamite" look-alike contest to develop a nice theme for the article, although some people may be shocked, appalled and offended that he called BYU fans "nerds."

This is news?

The Salt Lake Tribune reports today that "BYU counsel likely D.C. court nominee." It's simply a restatement of what we already knew: President Bush plans to renominate Tom Griffith to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Bashman on Solomon

Howard Bashman, author of the very popular How Appealing blog, wrote an excellent opinion piece about the Third Circuit's recent 2-1 decision to declare the Solomon Amendment unconstitutional.

In other Solomon Amendment news, the Third Circuit granted the government's motion to stay the mandate implementing the decision. Therefore, the judgment will not take effect (and, thus, law schools may not exclude military recruiters) until the Supreme Court speaks.

Provo City prevails over homeowners

The Utah Supreme Court held today that Provo City was indeed entitled to summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by a group of Provo homeowners upset with the city's ordinance that requires those renting out accessory apartments (there are many basement apartments in Provo near BYU) to live in their homes. The state's highest court said the ordinance did not exceed Provo's legislative authority, did not violate the homeowners' equal protection rights, did not improperly restrain the alienation of property and did not impose unconstitutional burdens on the right to travel.

Sportscasters as homers

The Deseret Morning News' excellent TV critic, Scott Pierce, sounds off today on a theme that is one of my pet peeves: local television sportscasters who become homers for the teams they cover when those teams do well on a national stage.

Olympic ice arena at heart of lawsuit

Tad Walch of the Deseret Morning News reports today that there is a "Pitched battle over Peaks." Utah County and Provo City are pursuing a lawsuit against the manager of The Peaks Ice Arena in Provo, which served as an ice hockey venue in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Checkbook journalism at the D-News?

Lee Benson of the Deseret Morning News reveals in this morning's column that he offered money to a homeless man in exchange for the man allowing Benson to interview him for a newspaper column. The man refused the offer.

Are Eagles and Steelers doomed by history?

This article on ESPN's website is great because it includes several of my favorite things: history, academia, statements by federal judges and football.

Staying the mandate on Solomon

Last Friday, while I was in Florida for the ABA Forum on Communication Law's 10th annual meeting, the Acting Solicitor General asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to stay its mandate in the Solomon Amendment case. If the motion is granted, a preliminary injunction would not yet issue and the Solomon Amendment would remain in effect. The government stated in its motion that it intends to seek a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court.

NY Times on Utah avalanches

The New York Times reports today that "Skiers Risk Answering the Call of Their Wild Side." The article discusses last week's death of a snowboarder in Park City.

CBS News and the values of American journalism

This month’s release of the 224-page investigation into the flawed September 2004 CBS News report about President Bush’s National Guard Service should serve as a wake-up call for the reeling American journalism industry.

The CBS broadcast, which aired on Sept. 8, alleged that President Bush failed to fulfill requirements in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 and then received preferential treatment from superiors who wanted to cover up Bush’s deficient service. Almost immediately, bloggers on the Internet raised questions about the authenticity of documents at the heart of the CBS News segment, which appeared on “60 Minutes Wednesday” and was anchored by Dan Rather.

While Rather and CBS News initially defended the report, they eventually acknowledged problems with their reporting work and asked an independent panel led by former Associated Press President Louis Boccardi and former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh to review their performance. The panel’s report was released earlier this month.

While CBS News and the panel should be lauded for their efforts at accountability and transparency, the conclusions of the independent panel are, at best, incomplete. The panel essentially concluded that CBS rushed to judgment about the authenticity of documents purportedly written by President Bush’s former supervisor. The panel went to great lengths, however, to say that it did not discover evidence that the CBS report was politically motivated, even though the panel had evidence that CBS producer Mary Mapes had zealously tried to nail Bush since 1999 on the National Guard issue.

Additionally, Mapes made contact with the campaign of Sen. John Kerry in the days before the “60 Minutes Wednesday” segment aired. There is evidence that Mapes’ contact with the Kerry campaign involved putting the campaign in contact with the source of the possibly forged National Guard documents; the source wanted to advise Kerry about how to deal with the then-raging “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” attacks on Kerry.

Nevertheless, Boccardi and Thornburgh relied on three factors to conclude that there were no political motivations behind CBS’ work: the reputations of Rather and Mapes as accurate and fair journalists; the editing process; and the assertion that, if proven authentic, the documents in question would have added new information to previously reported details about Bush’s National Guard service.

Ultimately, the panel recommended that CBS add another layer of internal review to stories such as the one that aired Sept. 8. But if the six layers of vetting in place when this story was produced failed to detect the high likelihood that these documents were politically motivated forgeries, I do not believe another layer of review will make a difference in the future.

I do not believe Rather and Mapes were such simplistic blue-staters so as to set out to produce a report that would prevent Bush from winning the election. In reality, most journalists do lean slightly left but work hard not to allow bald-faced personal political biases to affect their work.

The real problem with American journalism today is that it has only two values that really matter: speed and scandal. These two values – an explosive combination of the old and the new – have subsumed truth-seeking, public service and facilitation of democracy as the purpose and goals of the American journalism industry.

As a group, journalists are progressive reformers in the mold of the muckrackers of the early 20th century. The coin of the realm is uncovering wrongdoing, special favors and misbehavior among the powerful and elite. When that value is combined with the 24-hour news cycle and increased competitiveness brought on by technology, the environment is not conducive to in-depth reporting and measured consideration about the accuracy, fairness and potential impact of information to be published or broadcast.

Even the independent panel acknowledged in its report that “no set of recommendations can offer a failsafe guarantee.” I do not pretend to have all the answers to the problems plaguing the Fourth Estate, but I believe American journalism will continue its unprincipled downward spiral until individuals who work in the industry change the way they think about their role in society.

Regardless of the independent panel’s report and CBS News’ firing of Mapes and three other employees, nothing will really change until speed and scandal are replaced as the primary values of American journalism with something more robust, principled and worthwhile.

State of the Courts

Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham delivered her annual State of the Judiciary speech yesterday at the Utah Legislature's opening day. Durham called Utah courts a stabilizing influence in society. News coverage is provided by the Deseret Morning News here and by The Salt Lake Tribune here.

Durham will be recognized next month at the American Bar Association's midyear meeting in Salt Lake City for her work to improve public access to the justice system.

Times reporter willing to go to jail

This morning at the ABA Forum on Communications Law meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, New York Times reporter Judith Miller -- a Pulitzer Prize winner -- said she is willing to go to jail to protected what she called "alleged" conversations she had with "alleged" sources about who leaked the name of an "alleged" CIA operative to the columnist Robert Novak.

I was in attendance at the lunch meeting when Miller said -- for the first time publicly, as far as I know -- that she is willing to go to jail rather than acquiesce to the grand jury subpoena directed at her in mid-2004. Miller, a very articulate and knowledgeable reporter about national security issues, stressed several times that the conversations and the confidential sources in question here were "alleged." She didn't say this, but I read between the lines to mean that she may never even have had confidential sources on this topic but that she's not willing to go before the grand jury and admit that because it would signal to her real confidential sources that they cannot trust her to keep their identities a secret.

Miller articulated a compelling case that reporters should not be forced to give up confidential sources or information. Of course, she was preaching to the choir: the ABA Forum's annual meeting consists of 250 media lawyers and media law professors, so most of us already agree with what Miller had to say.

Miller was invited to be a speaker at the last minute, at the insistence of the publisher of the Times. Publisher Arthur O. Sulzburger, Jr., insisted that Times general counsel George Freeman, a Forum member, invite Miller to speak today. So ABA President Robert Grey had to share his podium time at lunch with Miller.

Watching the watchdogs

The Deseret Morning News comments today on the CBS News/Dan Rather flap that led to the firings or resignations of a news producer and several news executives. The News position piece includes this statement:

As more and more news outlets scamper to break big stories, the cut-throat atmosphere leads to shortcuts. And with thousands of Internet "blogs" weighing in with opinions, traditional news outlets in both the print and broadcast worlds are forced to make spur-of-the-moment decisions about stories. Indeed, some analysts say the time will come when newspapers will simply gather reports from other many sources, do the fact checking and pass the reliable pieces on to the public — much like a digest.

Supreme Court on sentencing

The Supreme Court held today that juries must consider factors under the federal sentencing guidelines that increase the amount of time a convicted criminal will spend in prison. The New York Times reports "Federal Sentencing Rules Are Wrongly Applied, Court Rules."

Judge appointed to Cabinet

President Bush has selected a federal appellate judge as his new Homeland Security secretary. Michael Chertoff, a former federal prosecutor now sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, has been appointed to the post and now awaits Senate confirmation. If Chertoff is confirmed, he will give up a lifetime appointment on the bench for a position that will last, at most, four years.

Independent report on CBS/Rather

CBS News fired one producer and asked three executives for their resignations in the wake of a report by an independent panel into a campaign season broadcast segment about President Bush's National Guard service. Dan Rather initially defended the information in the report, but the panel stated that the information about the President could not be verified.

Justice McConnell?

The New York Sun speculates today that Tenth Circuit Judge and former University of Utah law professor Michael McConnell might make a bipartisan choice for Supreme Court justice should Chief Justice William Rehnquist decide to retire.

Justice courts

Does Utah's system of justice courts (whose judges can be non-lawyers) and district courts violate the Constitution's prohibition of double jeopardy? The Utah Supreme Court said no.

Attorney general nominee grilled

Among the questions Senators asked Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzalez yesterday: Would you seek review in the Supreme Court of the Third Circuit's recent decision declaring the Solomon Amendment unconstitutional? Gonzalez didn't give a definitive answer to Sen. Sam Brownback of Texas.

C-SPAN coverage

C-SPAN, in its television coverage at least, just cut away from the Senate hearing on Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzalez's nomination in order to carry the riveting Electoral College vote count.

According to C-SPAN, there will be an objection to the Ohio electoral votes, a fight being led by Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.

The Gonzalez hearing may still be heard on C-SPAN's website.

Trib gets closer

Beginning next month, The Salt Lake Tribune promises to get "a little closer to your world." That means the Tribune will start some community news weeklies, although the paper has yet to provide many details other than to solicit news correspondents in several Utah cities.

Senators want Supreme Court review

Four United States senators are urging the Justice Department to seek Supreme Court review of a recent Third Circuit opinion declaring the Solomon Amendment (a federal statute that would withhold federal funds from universities that bar military recruiters) unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Carpetbagging

Oh, and another thing about the Utah news media's coverage of the University of Utah's Fiesta Bowl appearance. Without fail, every journalist gave former U. Coach Urban Meyer (already in Florida to get paid more money) a free pass. Sure, the guy took the Utes into the top 5 and to the Fiesta Bowl. But, there was no hard look at him after he took the Florida job. No columnists wrote about his carpetbagging. No reporters looked into the nature of college football, money and coaches promising recruits the moon and then bailing out on their school and their players for more money somewhere else.

Boosterism

It happens every time a local sports team goes big. Big, as in starring in the national spotlight. Whenever that happens, the local sportswriters and broadcasters get all giddy and boosterish. It's not very good journalism.

It happened in 1997 and 1998 when the Utah Jazz made the NBA Finals. Salt Lake City broadcasters were talking about how "we" were taking on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls as if the TV personalities were going to suit up alongside John Stockton and Karl Malone (actually, a Salt Lake City TV weatherman recently did suit up -- and score 7 points -- for a Utah professional basketball team). It happened in 1998 when the University of Utah's basketball team made the NCAA Final Four. And it happened again this week with the U.'s football team in the Fiesta Bowl.

I saw a KSL-TV reporter Saturday night interviewing a few U. students watching the game. The students were calmly talking about the game while the reporter and anchorpersons went crazy in rooting for the team.

Yesterday, a Deseret Morning News assistant sports editor wrote a sick piece of boosterism. It was labeled "Commentary" but reads more like P.R. copy. The writer was so unabashed in his boosterism that he even recounted an argument he had with a University of Pittsburgh fan named "Joe" about whose team was better. I didn't realize journalists had teams.

Come on, guys. Let's at least make a pretense at objectivity, neutrality and professionalism. Otherwise, why don't you just go get a job at your favorite sports information department?