The latest news about that Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at now-former President George W. Bush is that he is seeking political asylum in Switzerland. (“Bush shoe man in Swiss asylum bid,” said the headline on the BBC’s website.)
Muntadar al-Zaidi’s attorney claims his client faces physical abuse in the Baghdad prison where he’s being held, even though in parts of the Arab world al-Zaidi is regarded as a cultural hero.
Whatever the case, heel or sole brother, the “Bush shoe man” may be a fitting symbol of journalism today.
The new journalism demands more advocacy, less objectivity; more entertainment, less seriousness. After all, the popular support shown for the brogue-less rogue is something American journalists these days can only dream about.
The old-line media are in serious financial trouble. Competition from the Internet, especially, has finally begun to erode the mainstream media’s business model.
Some, though, blame the fading of the traditional media on their liberal bias. That bias was evident, these critics say, in the media’s fawning coverage of the Barack Obama story. Financial disaster only serves them right.
But how could it not be a mostly positive story? That the inauguration of the country’s first African-American president came only a day after the birthday observance for Martin Luther King Jr. only adds to the good-news story line.
And yet it’s a story line that some people stubbornly reject — not just cynics and bigots and narrow-minded ideologues, but journalists, too.
Those are the journalists, too many of them, who measure the worth of a story in terms of its ability to do damage. What is a “good story” in this merit structure is more often than not “bad news” in the lives of the story’s subjects.
Journalists struggle with a story like Obama’s, which is basically good news.
Much of the American public has bought into this definition of good journalism. If coverage doesn’t result in damage to the subject’s good name, it isn’t doing its job. Take off some shoes and throw them. Journalists of the world, untie!
People increasingly seem to want to see a slant to coverage. They don’t want to be challenged. They want to be reassured that they are right. If the facts don’t support your world view, try another website.
Journalists still train to be experts at making judgments; to provide authoritative, reliable voices. Until recently, they were told it was their job to decide what was important for large numbers of people.
Now this is considered rather arrogant, even biased. People want to decide for themselves what is important.
The trouble is, no one has really discovered how to make lots of money online. Shoestring operations, managed by the stereotypical nerds in their pajamas (and slippers; no dangerous missiles on their feet), don’t need much income. But if you’re going to pay people to produce accurate stories, to do some investigating and fresh research, and not just react to what someone else has produced, you have to raise money somehow.
And it’s simply not true that the media never said anything critical about Obama. They did report the bad alongside the good — the rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the questionable companionship of shady characters like Tony Rezko and the past indiscretions of antiwar activist William Ayers.
But the reporting of the bad didn’t seem to do any damage. And that may be why so many are critical of the media. Because their stories didn’t achieve the outcome the critics wanted — they weren’t enough to discredit the man, to counter the other, good story — then it must have been a failure of resolve, perhaps even a conspiracy.
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News. His column appears twice a month.
