PressEthic

In our Press Ethics class, a few international students have brought up the difference between foreign and U.S. news. As a child of two British parents, I have had my ears talked off about the superiority of the British papers. Interestingly enough, the October/November edition of the American Journalism Review had an article that touched on that very subject.

With the advent of budget and staff cuts at newspapers and magazines in America as well as across the Atlantic, British papers are taking a novel and, some say, radical approach to journalism.

The four main daily papers in London--the Times, Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, and the Independent--all face declining readership and circulation. The Times and the Telegraph have reacted similarly to American newspapers--by adding more color and more "eye-catching" stories. However, Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian and Simon Kelner of the Independent have taken very different approaches in addressing the problem. The article explores those two approaches and suggests that perhaps America could take a lesson or two from their overseas counterparts.

The article reads,

"Kelner hopes to survive by refusing to compete with the Internet and instead shifting the Independent's emphasis away from scoops to magazine-style roundups, opinion and analysis. Rusbridger's tactic is to create a flexible media company that can provide news in many formats, one of which remains (for the time being, at least) newsprint. And both men reject the notion that downsizing necessarily means what it symbolically suggests – going downmarket.

Kelner has assembled a coterie of high-profile columnists, such as Middle East expert Robert Fisk and "Bridget Jones" author Helen Fielding, and provides a string of high-concept cover stories – usually sweeping themes designed to up the angst of his left-of-center readers. The paper might devote its front to Britain's summer water shortage or to the increase in mental illness among children; it might decry the evils of the gas-guzzling SUV or describe a leaked memo by the U.S. ambassador about the deteriorating situation in Baghdad that first ran in the Washington Post. The stories are often anti-Bush, always antiwar and once in a while, Kelner admits, just a bit flippant."

Kelner changed the face of the British daily by creating a "viewspaper." He changed the size to "consumer compact." Readership went up, and the Times and The Guardian have begun producing a small-paper version. Kelner says that his readers can get breaking news from TV or the radio. Readers need to be given a reason to pay over a pound for a paper every day, and the reason he gives are his sassy columns and splashy features.

What has traditionally distinguished British papers from American is the claim of "total objectivity." While American papers strive for "nothing but the truth," British papers make obvious their political slant and expect that their readers will appreciate their straightforwardness. When you pick up the Independent, you're going to read the news through a left-wing perspective. What you see is what you get.

Kelner makes a case for this type of paper in the article:

"As for that church/state divide between opinion and news? It's never been as strong in Britain (where papers have traditionally hewed to a political line) as it is in the United States; commentary has always absorbed a greater part of the paper, as has an emphasis on writerliness and humor. And Kelner argues that he can leave it up to readers to figure out where the reportage stops and opinion begins. For example, Fisk – whom the Independent acquired from the Times in one of many interpaper raids of prominent columnists – is staunchly critical of the Iraq war. 'Robert tells it how he sees it,' Kelner says. 'If readers don't like it, they can vote with their feet.'"

The Guardian takes a more conservative approach to newswriting, and instead of veering towards tabloid sensationalism, Rusbridger's success strategy is media convergence.

The article describes,

"These days, [Rusbridger] is in the business of selling news rather than newspapers, and he is experimenting with doing so not only in print, but online, on podcasts, on mobile phones – indeed, on whatever technology looks as if it may ultimately make commercial sense. The paper has a circulation of some 380,000, but its Web site, Guardian Unlimited, which won the international Webby Award for the best newspaper site this year, has more than 13 million unique visitors each month and has begun making a modest but real seven-figure profit."

By avoiding an extreme political bent one way or another, Rusbridger hopes to establish the Guardian as a newly centrist, moderate paper. However, that doesn't mean that it's going to purport itself as lacking in any political influence. British papers don't do that. People who want a moderate's view of the news will read the Guardian, and people who want left-wing perspectives will read the Independent. That's how it goes. Like American newspapers, the Guardian has incorporated blogs, reader feedback, and pieces written by readers for readers, opening up the communication lines with its consumers. It's making a move into the American market, following the footsteps of the Economist and other overseas publications.

American Journalism Review comes to a provocative and pressing conclusion:

"Quality U.S. papers may never opt for the Independent's provocative mix of news and views; it not only upsets the traditional church/state divide, it flies in the face of the emphasis on solid reporting at which they have excelled. But the Independent's and the Guardian's experimentation prompt questions that U.S. papers would do well to consider. The recent crises of trust that quality papers here have suffered – from the coverage of WMD to the debate over the New York Times' June story about the government's tracking of terrorist funding – have renewed questions about whether American papers' claims of fairness are a cover for pushing a political agenda. In the wake of such public disillusionment, mightn't there be a place for publications that wear their allegiances more clearly on their mastheads?"

I'm not advocating for the New York Times to go ahead and declare themselves liberal and get it over with, or the Wall Street Journal conservative, and so on. But, in this day and age of technology connecting countries and continents, we can no longer stay isolated from the influence of different forms and approaches to journalism. If the American print media is going to survive, it's got to make some changes to keep up with the times. It might help for us to look to other examples of papers undergoing innovative (and sometimes radical) changes in order to keep circulation alive. Those Brits may not be so stodgy after all.