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February 15, 2002/Adar 3 5762, Vol. 54, No. 22
Seeking and reporting the truth
FLORENCE ECKSTEIN
Publisher
The Arizona Republic is asking questions.
"Newspapers are historically arrogant," says John D'Anna, deputy managing editor and public editor of the Gannett-owned daily. "(But) we don't have all the answers."
D'Anna convened a Jan. 30 meeting of about 30 Republic staffers and a dozen representatives of the Valley Jewish community. Impetus for the gathering began last Easter, D'Anna explained, when "a number of" Valley Jewish residents protested publication of a "BC" cartoon depicting a menorah morphing into a Christian cross. Recent coverage of the local Jewish community and the Middle East stepped up reader complaints.
Cathy Wolf, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, saw the meeting as a way "to begin a dialogue. I think we accomplished that."
Bill Straus, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, was "pleasantly surprised" by the Republic meeting's candid discussion of content and placement of a Page 1 story headlined "Jews choosing NE Valley," and a story buried deep inside headlined "Suicide Bombers Hit Jerusalem."
Participants raised concerns about news judgment and fairness. "I give them a lot of credit for inviting us," Wolf said. "We will continue letting them know how we feel if we see things we don't like."
I asked Republic Editorial Writer Richard de Uriarte how the public might effectively comment on what they read. He suggests:
- Contact the reporter who wrote the story by e-mail, phone or regular mail. Contact the news editor or wire editor about Associated Press and other wire stories.
- Give your name and number.
- Be civil. Angry messages from anonymous readers tend to be dismissed.
- Don't impute motivation. Most reporters try to be objective.
- Consider that each story is a fragment of reality and that the newspaper's goal is to "connect the dots over time."
Readers must look to multiple sources for a full picture of what's happening, de Uriarte says. Coverage of foreign events had shrunk to 2 percent to 3 percent of the news hole in U.S. dailies prior to Sept. 11 and likely will revert, as readers demand more sports, business and entertainment news and, of course, comics.
Jewish community leader Ron Bookbinder finds Republic staff members "genuinely interested in learning more about our concerns" and willing to take phone calls and e-mails.
It's good for newspapers to meet with people who have opinions about coverage, says Republic Editorial Writer Kathleen Ingley. "It's easy to forget the demands on newspapers with everything happening in the world - so many forces affecting news play."
What, ultimately, is the newspaper's job - striving to raise the level of public dialogue, digging deeper for the news and reporting it better, or dumbing down the news to cater to the lowest common denominator?
D'Anna says the meeting "sensitized some people to things they hadn't thought of. We heard there's no monolithic Jewish community, that there are a lot of different opinions."
He intends to convene a team of journalists and community members for a detailed content audit of Republic coverage on issues of concern "to see if perceptions of bias are borne out in fact."
"If the paper is going to truly serve the community, it has to make an effort to cover the communities we serve," D'Anna says.
It needs also to serve the truth.
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