Competence Means Credibility p.10

By: MARK FITZGERALD IF THE NEWSPAPER industry is to stanch the current crisis in credibility, it must send its journalists back to school, Detroit News editor and publisher Robert H. Giles says.
In his valedictory on the end of his term as American Society of Newspaper Editors president, Giles urged editors to spend as much time educating their newsrooms as they do thinking about market share, revenues and newsprint.
"As an industry, newspapers have not provided the resources for, and have not made the commitment to, serious mid-career education. Encouraging the intellectual preparation to do the job well has not been a high priority," Giles said.
Newspapers, Giles said, are now paying the price for letting their competence slip:
u Difficult and subtle issues such as education, government devolution and competition for natural resources get covered in a mediocre way ? or not at all.
u A better-informed and increasingly media-savvy public sees the faults of the press more clearly.
u Even editors and publishers become discouraged, as suggested by the recent FACS survey in which newspaper executives rated their reporters as just mediocre in covering important public policy issues.
There's a connection, Giles argues, between shoddy journalism and the weakening public commitment to press freedoms that make possible the recent $223 million libel judgment against the Wall Street Journal by a Houston jury.
"The price of protecting our freedom includes meeting our obligation to educate our readers by first educating ourselves," Giles said.
"As a means of rebuilding public trust," he added, "as a means of responding to the message from the public that says our essential freedoms are endangered, as a means of doing better at fulfilling our roles as guardians of truth, accuracy, balance and fairness in our newspapers, we can do no better than to raise the bar of competence on our news staffs, we can do no better than to consistently publish stories that demonstrate to readers why their local newspapers are the most authoritative, fair and reliable sources of news and information."
Giles urged editors to restore credibility at their own papers "page by page, edition by edition, newsroom by newsroom."
Too often, Giles said, newspapers have reacted instead in a defensive way, emphasizing First Amendment protections "without regard to our duty to exercise rigorous self-scrutiny."
During his one-year term as ASNE leader, Giles emphasized content as the key to the industry's future. He created, for example, ASNE's Newspaper Content committee, which last year analyzed the reporting provided by the nation's top wire and supplemental news services and this year will look at the writing quality of these services.
"Content . . . is the means by which we can re-build credibility, through ensuring that our reporter and editors have the expert knowledge to cover the growing complexity of local news," Giles said.

Need to diversify
In his final speech as ASNE president, Giles also said public credibility hinges on diversifying newsrooms. At the ASNE convention in Washington, the organization released its annual survey on minority employment in newsrooms ? and, as so many years in the past, once again the census found only marginal improvement. Total minority representation in newsrooms increased from 11.02% in 1996 to 11.35% currently.
"Diversity must continue to be a priority for ASNE and for our endeavors as editors," Giles said. "The imperative to succeed, to do the right thing, carries profound consequences for our efforts to be credible, to honor the tradition of serving a public trust."
?( "As an industry, newspapers have not provided the resources for, and have not made the commitment to, serious mid-career education. Encouraging the intellectual preparation to do the job well has not been a high priority.") [Caption]
?(? Robert Giles, Detroit News editor and immediate past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors ) [Photo & Caption]
Web Site:http://www.mediainfo. com.
Copyright: Editor & Publisher --April 19, 1997