[promoted by BooMan]
While we bloggers have begun to take seriously complaints that we are dangerous `bulls in a china shop’ because we can say what we want without fact-checking and editorial control, we forget that a major part of our media (of the commentary part, at least) has long been publishing that way–without any complaints at all.
This question came up here recently in the Comments attached to a post by BooMan last Thursday. I attached a rant about how there is no editorial control over columnists like Novak, assuming that this was common knowledge.
Apparently, I was wrong.
In a Reply, BooMan wrote:
I assume Novak has some kind of editorial oversight. I also assume his long distinguished career affords him a wider berth than most other reporters.
BooMan, I am sure, was speaking with tongue firmly in cheek about Novak’s career (the “distinguished” part, at least), but his Reply does reflect the beliefs of most of people–and not just in the blogosphere. When something appears in a newspaper, we assume that someone has vetted the article.
When I replied that Novak has no oversight, BooMan (quite appropriately) challenged me to back up my claim:
Do you have a source for this allegation?
The Chicago Sun-Times or Washington Post editors exercise no editorial oversight?
This diary is my answer.
If you look carefully in most newspapers, you will see copyright assertions for the articles and columns not copyrighted by the publication itself. Comic strips, for example, and opinion columns often are accompanied by that little ©. These items are governed by specific copyright laws and agreements quite different from those with UPI and Reuters (news sources whose material can be rewritten to meet the needs and styles of the publications within established parameters–that credit be given, for example).
This distinction is one that is often forgotten, and is one that is at the heart of another difference we often elide… that between “reporter” and “columnist.” A reporter is part of a chain of responsibility governed by the publication. A reporter, generally an actual employee of the publication, does not own the copyright to the work produced–the publication does. In that way, the publication not only takes responsibility for what is written, but reserves the right to fact-check, edit, and otherwise change the work–or to combine it with other work it has available (such as a wire-service report). Until 1963, when Novak and Rowland Evans began “Inside Report,” Novak, indeed, was just such a reporter.
That changed with syndication. Though the Chicago Sun Times was the “home” paper for the column, Creators Syndicate has distributed it for a long time now, and holds the copyright (though it does not operate in any capacity of editorial oversight). Because of that, Novak became something other than a reporter–a columnist. He and Evans were no longer part of a process of vetting and chain or responsibility under control of the publication.
[What follows of copyright law was found here].
Current copyright law contains not just protection for the copyright holder against unauthorized use, but prevents others from attributing to the creator things he or she did not, in fact, write (or otherwise create). In other words, no one can change a copyrighted column unless they hold the copyright or have attained permission to make the change. That means that even the Chicago Sun Times is unable to change anything in a Novak column without express permission. Otherwise, all that paper can do (all any paper can do) is decide to either run the column or not.
Sometimes the fact of a syndicate holding the copyright can lead to peculiar situations (remember: the holder of the copyright can make any changes it wants, whether it was the actual writer or not). Universal Press Syndicate (which acts as an editorial entity, something Creators Syndicate does not do), for example, decided to alter an Ann Coulter column changing her description of rival columnist Helen Thomas (syndicated by Hearst) to “dyspeptic, old” from “old Arab.” The change came to light when the column, in its original form, was posted on Coulter’s website–but still with the Universal Press Syndicate copyright.
Universal Press Syndicate did not want to give up its rights under copyright law, but Coulter wanted to keep her writing as she meant it to be. Eventually, the two sides came to a Coulter-favoring agreement.
Until now, the line under Coulter’s columns said “copyright Universal Press Syndicate.” Under the agreement, all columns on AnnCoulter.com will say “distributed by Universal Press Syndicate (c) Ann Coulter” if the print and Web versions of the column are the same.
If the versions are not the same, the line will say “(c) Ann Coulter” only.
In other words, Coulter has taken complete control from UPS. Now, there is no editorial oversight on her work at all.
Pretty much, Novak is in the same position, though his columns still do carry the Creators Syndicate copyright.
No matter what the reputation someone has established, all writers need a check on what they are doing–especially when their readers assume that the information they are presenting has, indeed, been verified. As SusanHu says in another Comment to that BooMan diary,
When I submit a letter to the editor at my local paper, the editor calls me up to make sure I’m who I say I am. And if I quote another source, he expects me to e-mail him the link to that source. He also frequently includes full WWW links in the published LTEs.
ALSO: I think we’re fairly careful as bloggers. Yesterday, for example, I got a report from someone. It included the private e-mail address of a major rightwing journalist. I elected to leave that address out of the report because I couldn’t verify that it was alright to publish it.
The other neat thing about writing on blogs is that readers tell us when we’ve gotten something wrong. And how … and that’s terrific.
On a blog, the responses are right there, with the original. In a newspaper, this is not the case. A letter only appears sometime later, if at all.
Today’s syndicated columnists, Coulter and Novak included, have very little check on what they are saying. There is very little possibility for holding them responsible for their words. Perhaps this is why it is so easy for Novak to “out” a CIA agent or for Coulter to constantly write things that, well, are not quite true. Perhaps, also, it is why columnists like Armstrong Williams can take huge amounts of government money. A syndicated columnist, after all, isn’t an employee, but an independent business. With no one to answer to, Williams (apparently) felt he could do whatever he wanted.
Sure, freedom to do what one wants is nice… but a little responsibiity is a good thing, too.
Update [2005-7-31 12:6:29 by Aaron Barlow]:Today’s The New York Times contains an op-ed piece describing how they edit op-ed submissions–all of which are copyrighted by The Times. It’s interesting, for it shows just was does not happen to the Novaks and Coulters and Wills of the world–and why their stuff doesn’t appear in The Times (which doesn’t run anything it doesn’t hold the copyright to).
Well, you’re right, and BooMan is right. Sort of.
Syndicated columns, and for that matter news pieces, are sold in bulk. Your local newspaper may subscribe to, say, the NYTimes wire, and on that receive news articles, Times editorials, and op-ed columns.
Local editorial oversight on such material, which constitutes the bulk of your paper in this age of severely reduced newsroom staffs (think of the radio stations where the programming is all done elsewhere; same thing), is in what the various editors may choose to print or not to print.
At any given paper, the editorial department may take something from the wire, the news editor may take something else, the sports department may pick up a story, and so on.
But, unfortunately, so far as I know, there’s precious little oversight today on columnists other than the financial impact of subscribing newspapers complaining and refusing to run the offending piece.
I think a lot of the confusion about the print press is semantic. General readers and bloggers tend to lump ’em all together. In fact, there is (in theory) an unbreachable wall between editorial and news.
*Editorials (unsigned opinions) are written by paid staffers and are put forth as representing the position of the papers, and thus its publisher(s).
*Op-ed columns are signed opinion pieces that may or may not be written by paid staffers; at most papers, with smaller staffs, they are written by freelancers of various stripes who are sometimes paid as much as $50 total for their hours of work.
*News stories, signed and presumably neutral in opinion, are written by paid staffers and/or freelancers. In theory, they are reporting “just the facts, ma’am.” Reporters are not supposed to inject their opinions, but to act as information collecters who then distill an enormous amount of data into a narrative that is readily understandable, comprehensive, impartial, usually under 1,000 words, brilliantly written, and accurate.
For news stories written by freelancers, look for something like “Special to Name of Paper” under the byline. That’s usually a tip-off.
And for those who complain about the rich journalists inside the Beltway, know that at many papers, reporters (some with masters degrees) are paid starting salaries almost as high as those of manual laborers. The guy who fixes your car gets $50/hour. Rare, indeed, is the journalist compensated at that rate.
So, what it comes down to is that the public needs to be aware of the structures by which print news is disseminated and willing to call, write, fax, email newspapers to say Yay or Nay regarding national, as well as local, material.
Exactly. I want to reiterate the importance of copyright in all of this, however. If the paper that prints the material does not hold the copyright, it’s only choice is to either print the story as is or not print it at all.
Thanks for an informative response to an informative diary.
Well, rare is anyone who gets compensated at $50/hr.
To be fair, the “manual laborer” auto mechanic isn’t either. The shop charges $50-$85/hr for labor. It uses that to pay rent/mortgage on the building, commercial taxes, wages and benefits to the workers, business supplies, diagnostic equipment, training, utilities, etc.
$50/hr * 40 hrs/week * 52 weeks/yr = $104,000. Now, if you’re talking compensation, that’s not including the cost of health care / retirement / employer’s portion of payroll taxes.
I doubt it was intended, but that quote came across as a bit snobby to me. If I were a blue-collar laborer, I certainly wouldn’t feel very welcome to a political party that looked down its nose at the possibility I deserved my paycheck, just because it was higher than that of a reporter, a teacher, a non-profit lawyer, or other similiarly “educated” worker. No wonder we get tagged with the ‘elitist’ label so easily.
Ah well, from all the examples of “reporting” I see these days, I think the compensation scale is horribly skewed anyways.
Ain’t it sad, to continue your point about salaries, that the local reporters end up working (often) for less than minimum wage… for many papers pay them by the piece.
I’m sorry I didn’t pick up on the pay thing, by the way. Having worked in garages (though not since the days of showing up for graduate classes with “VW” on one side of my shirt-front, “Aaron” on the other and grease on my hands–got some funny looks), I do know that the posted hourly rate often fools people.
Oh, and I like your descriptions of media workers.
A small quibble “The guy who fixes your car gets $50/hour.” No he charges $50 an hour. Even if he owns his own shop he is paying rent and buying equipment. And if he is a mechanic is someone else’s shop the boss is taking a huge slice. Doctors and lawyers and car mechanics charge a lot but they also have huge overhead. The lights, the salary for the paralegals and secretaries, the office supplies, all of that comes out of that billable hour. Whereas a freelancer needs a Compac Presario and a broadband connection to the Internet.
I don’t doubt that the average auto mechanic who works full time takes home much more than the average freelance writer, but let’s keep our rhetoric grounded in economic reality
You’re pretty accurate as far as your description of the overhead for an auto mechanic, or even for a lawyer or a doctor. But you’re way off on freelance writing.
Trust me when I say that the average auto mechanic makes a lot more than the average freelance writer, who needs a good bit more than just a computer and an internet connection. (I used the auto example because I was looking for a quick comparison that everyone would recognize, and because I’ve spent the better part of the last couple of weeks in serious consultation with my car guy.)
With the great changes in recent years in publishing formats, consolidations, web pages and so on, freelancers now have to worry about retaining copyright.
It used to be that you could afford to work for lousy freelance rates because you could sell something once to, say, the Times, then resell it in subsequent markets–perhaps to a magazine here, or a corporate newsletter there. It was called selling first North American rights. It created a certain economy of scale that make it worthwhile to invest in a piece perhaps hundreds of hours of work, for which you would be paid well below minimum wage.
But now, the big publications insist on retaining all copyright forever to items they publish, whether they assign it or you dream it up and pitch it to them. That change has effectively destroyed the secondary market for freelance work.
And an enormous amount of the material on the internet, that people casually copy and send on, is copyrighted. A number of things I’ve written but not given anyone reprint permission for are out there on the internet.
Although I have no journalism experience, I more-or-less figured this out years ago when George Will seriously pissed me off by describing an incident as if he were “reporting” facts that sounded bogus to me.
Later, I happened to read a LTE by a credible person – and one in a better position to know what happened than Will – explaining that the events didn’t happen the way Will described and basically, Will had just made shit up. How many people read his column but never saw the LTE?
When a columnist says “This is what I think about this” and proceeds to describe something that never actually happened, or adds details that are false, or blatantly mis-quotes someone – how many readers either agree or disagree with the opinion but never question the reality of the event being described? The description looks like “reporting” even if the opinion is clearly the columnist’s opinion about it. We say, he’s absolutely right about — or what an asinine thing to say about –, but we don’t question the “–“.
Will never issued a retraction or correction, as far as I know – just moved on to other topics. That’s when I figured out that columnists are not reporters and if they include “facts” to justify their opinions, there is nothing to prevent them from making up whatever they like to “support” their point of view. Nothing except their own integrity that is, and some columnists don’t seem to have much of that.
That dovetails with SusanHu’s comment about how replies keep bloggers honest…. Nothing, unfortunately, keeps the likes of George Will (not to mention Ann Coulter and Robert Novak) honest.
I dimly remember a column from a couple of years ago concerning a piece Safire had done on supposed French sales of (I think) nuclear materials to Iraq. The factual errors were even more egregious than usual for Safire, and when the author demanded to know how the Times could print such outrageously erroneous material he was told by the relevant editor that Safire’s columns were regarded as “opinion” and not “fact” and consequently were not subject to fact-checking or similar forms of editorial supervision.
The author then offered to write an op-ed piece rebutting Safire’s claims and was told that that was against Times policy. (He was, however, permitted to publish such a column in, I think, the Herald Tribune.)
Somebody else must remember this better than me, and maybe even have a link.
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Timing is very interesting: Judicial Watch Inc. – March 28, 2003
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Useful Overview of Literature March 14, 2002 thru May 23, 2003
Export Controls & Iraq
Plus all UNSC Resolutions and Multilateral Export Control Regime websites.
~~~
While we worry about “blogger ethics” and similar tommyrot, we are missing the point if we look at the excesses of columnists in the “Commentariat.”
To me, it’s simple.
1, If you run a news clip site, like Buzzflash or Information Clearing House for example, you have a duty to present the story without alteration.
2, If you run a discussion site, like Booman, Kos, Atrios, Digby, etc., present the story you want to discuss with out alteration, and most sites I visit do this very well.
3, Most general bloggers, including my own, are commenting [ranting?] about one thing or another, and may be totally right, or totally wrong, but it is opinion. It is commentary.
The recent Darr rubbish before the FEC should tell every left blogger that that the GOoP is worried about sites like MoveOn, Michael Moore, Atrios, and Kos, etc., due to the extremely heavy traffic these sites have, and the ability of such sites to quite effectively steer public opinion away from the pre-planned political “message [drivel?] de jour,” being peddled on Fox or CNN.
I am truly grateful that we have the net and the blog system in place to speak out about the excesses of the Bush Cabal, and the neo-con fabulists. For if we did not have the net and were saddled with Bush and his grisly gang, I do not want to think of the damage that America would have had to endure if we had had to rely solely upon the LMSM!
Though I think you have missed the point of the post and the discussion (it is about MSM, not about bloggers), you do bring up something important.
Since the election, on the liberal blogs, there has been a developing discussion (and it is much more than a “tempest in a teapot” or “tommyrot”) of the place of ethics and responsibility on the blogs. This has led to pressure on bloggers to back up their statements–a good thing (it was BooMan applying such pressure that led to this diary), developing new research skills and interests on the parts of bloggers. The move towards insistence on links has honed our discussions, keeping us away from our craziest statements and even forcing the MSM to pay more serious attention to the blogs. The Jeff Gannon affair would never have come to light but for the blogs. The Downing Street Minutes would have disappeared (in this country, at least) if it weren’t for the blogs. And the MSM would have ignored blogger calls for examination of the DSM if it had not been for the proven blogger track record (that included Gannongate).
You may think it navel-gazing, but our discussions of blog ethics are part of a movement that is changing media as a whole. In fact, it is just this sort of thing that gives us enough “legitimacy” to provide the counterbalance to the right that you laud in your last paragraph.
SO, though you may not like the discussion, you certainly do like the result!
Whoa, back up!
The tommyrot is the Darr partisan effort to control the left blogs with no similar control of the right blogs.
I tend to think of blogs in catagories.
1, clip sites, Buzzflash, Cursor, Information Clearing House for rxample, News Wire is another;
2, Super-blogs, Kos, Atrios, Digby, Booman, Free Republic, Red State and so on.
3, Individual blogs, including boilerman10’s place, Apostate Windbag, Uggabugga, Abu Aardvark, etc.
In the last case, when I editorialize, I am editorializing. When I post a link I am commenting on a story. To me, that’s how it works.
I am not a clip site, nor a super-blog, and I do not care to become one due to time constraints that probably do not apply to others.
but, I will call partisan efforts to quash the left blogs but leave the right blogs to say anything they damn well please tommyrot whether you like it or not.
Being honest and giving credit is one thing, but always calling upon the left to “improve” while the right sits and laughs at us is partisanship that I find odious, and I will not hesitate to speak loudly against it every chance I get.
I understand your sentiment but, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, I do not want to become my enemy in the moment that I preach.
Just because “they” do something is no reason for “our” doing it!
Beyond that, I see absolutely no effort on the part of anyone on the left to “quash the left blogs.” Can you give me any examples?
And you can call anything you want anything at all, whether I like it or not. I’ve never said otherwise!
Nor would I.