And let me be clear about biases from the start.

Some of the journalism I discuss here does indeed carry those ironic little quote marks.

They are there in the same sense I would say let's go watch "wrestling" right before I tuned to a professional bout where chairs are thrown and guys wear viking horns into the ring.

Let's start with the basics, with the real deal.

Journalists report facts.  The simplest version of good, plain journalism is that something happened. The Yanks beat the Red Sox 4 to 3.  The local city council voted 12 to 4 to approve a zoning permit.

So the intent is to get the facts right, and to inform.

Another layer atop that is also the need to do this clearly and in an entertaining and an appropriately attention commanding  manner.   Even A.J. Liebling, who invented the field of media criticism, acknowledged there is a slight wink and a con to even the best journalism.

Key word here?  A little.  

As in there may be a little wine in the best sauces that top fish and poultry.   Add too much wine, though, and you are serving drinks, not nourishment and that is kinda the worn road a lot of the wayward press has followed.

There is a point at which intention means everything.

And it feels to me as if a good 90 percent of the video and web news sources said ten years ago, "You know, fuck it, the viewers don't care, and the 'fourth estate stuff' is bullshit....

"I'm covering politics and government like professional wrestling.  This is not really journalism anymore, I am a kind of second rate actor and.....whoa, did you see Clinton throw that chair at Newt. He's down! No, no, he is up, the Comeback Kid is up! Here comes Monica over the rings...Hillary too!

Thus did we have the press in slapshoes and paint face chase after stained blue dresses.  And killer sharks off the Florida coast!  Right before 9/11 and the economic slide of our nation.

So if that sounds particularly liberal, I do not intend it to be.  Fox News certainly has perfected the professional wrestling model of news, but MSNBC and progressives there have given tit for tat.  CNBC is now the business version of ESPN, with the same wide-eyed lack of perspective on meaning and context.

Even poor Wolf Blitzer, vaguely aware that something has happened to the business beyond him, blinks and is confused about what is a news fact and what is an Entertainment Tonight gossip line.

So what should you be looking for?

That's the wrong question really. Try this instead:

How should you be looking for it?

In these complex days, it is rare that "urgent" news is important.  Market crashes, invasions, tsunamis, yes.  Not much else really from a public policy standpoint.

What passes for urgent news these days is more likely warmed over exclusives that play with emotional pictures and impact designed to keep you glued to the popping eyes of the news anchor and the plunging  neckline of the reporter in the field. (See popular meme/email: "News Anchor or Porn Star" quiz.)

You already are genetically arranged to react to this "urgent" delivery.  You are programmed to listen to negatives -- to warnings.

So if CNBC says the market has plunged by "500 points!" once, it is better for them to say it four times.  And call it the "biggest drop in five months!!!"

By all means don't say, "The market is off four percent today amid uncertain trading" and let it lay there.

The urgent is the enemy of the important.  But it is the king of your attention.

 While we are urgently waiting to see if Bill Clinton is being impeached or there really are killer sharks off the coast of Florida, while all our concern and energy is attuned to crazies disrupting the dignity of military funerals, and Obama birth certificates, and Michelle and Sarah antics, real stuff happens.

And it is virtually unseen and not understood by most of us.

This is not some grand conspiracy theory.  It is how we are wired and how the media market is incented to behave.

How do we change that?

We get the media and the politicians we deserve.  We vote for each, one with our money and the other with our votes (and money.)

The best sources of journalism for me are those with the best intent.  And the best intent for a journalistic organization is the goal set out by Walter Lippmann early last century.  He set a higher goal than traditional "news."  He aimed for the truth.

And what was his version of the truth?  As good as I have ever heard it said:


“... the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.”


So the next time you are listening to the "news" -- or more rarely these days, reading it -- apply that test to your news provider. 


Is the reporter or broadcaster really trying to give you something actionable?  Something you can really make a decision on?


Or are they spinning an idealogy, or just grabbing your attention for the sheer "urgent" moment that provides the fire of ratings but sheds just smoke and smudge, no light, on what to actually do about it.