Advocacy Journalism?

Advocacy journalism is a genre of journalism that intentionally and transparently adopts a non-objective viewpoint, usually for some social or political purpose. Because it is intended to be factual, it is distinguished from propaganda. It is also distinct from instances of media bias and failures of objectivity in media outlets, which attempt to be—or which present themselves as—objective or neutral.

The above definition comes courtesy of our friends at Wikipedia -- the source that I rarely if ever let my students use. The article continues to talk about the perceived professional "ancestors" of the practice (muckrakers) and proffers a few perspectives on why "advocacy journalism," is viewed as legitimate by its purveyors. Who knew? I hadn't heard the term until today, from the CNN president's statement on Lou Dobbs leaving CNN.

Now, I am not Edward R. Murrow. I think that's rather obvious as I am not dead. I have a little journalistic background, probably enough to fill a thimble. However, the issue of journalistic integrity keeps coming up in my head as I attempt to find news reports that I can actually view as news. You know, lists of facts reported in a timely, current fashion. You're even allowed to contextualize for the purpose of in-depth stories, but they're still supposed to actually be facts, checked, cross-checked and checked again.

I started thinking about this entry when I saw The Daily Show from November 10, 2009. Yes, I know it's not a news show. It's comedy. However, it really is rather funny that Jon Stewart commented on Fox News' coverage of the health care debate rally. He noticed that the crowd scenes were strange in the fact that from one pan to another, the color of the trees and sky changed. He and his staff then amusingly pulled the footage from the September 12 rally and noted that indeed, they were pretty much identical.

So I checked online to see if anyone had commented on last night's The Daily Show, and there were quite a few comments out there. At the same time, I discovered that Lou Dobbs had resigned. Why didn't I know that? Well, frankly, I don't watch Lou Dobbs. Rants about borders and fences really never interested me. I frankly got annoyed when I glanced one day only to see him blasting government waste on a little-used checkpoint to Canada. We have broken borders -- but the only ones that count are with Mexico, it seems. Does this mean no drugs come from Canada?

So, admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of Hannity or Dobbs. So the fact that Dobbs is leaving CNN really isn't bothering me that much. However, the idea of "advocacy journalism" is really rather disconcerting. One of the reasons I wrote more features than hard news was because I liked having an opinion. I remember from "the olden days" that you didn't put ads on the editorial/opinion pages so that the paper didn't look like it was for sale. However, even in features you can't show a picture of an entirely different play. You can have opinion in Sports, but you can't use a shot from the 1993 Boston Celtics to create a dramatization of your local high school basketball team.

So when did we get to doctor the clips without at least slapping "file footage" on the damned loop? When did opinion trump facts? This is way beyond the "half-full" or "half-empty" perspectives and into a realm where fantasies and our nightmares are true. This is also no longer about "spin." Glen Beck's show carries the motto: "The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment," which pretty much puts him up with John Edward and Crossing Over. However, that's at least vaguely honest and not a bad tag line.

It really is strange to think that this trend in journalism actually was viewed as substantial enough to even give it a definition. We usually call that punditry, not journalism. The words advocacy and journalism honestly shouldn't appear next to each other.

Now some of those who know me may be questioning why someone who actually does more marketing and public relations than journalism would even care. I have no problem "touching" things up in an advertisement to make things "prettier." I learned that fat people don't get college educations (at least according to the majority of admissions materials) when I worked at Clarkson University and laid out images. I've airbrushed, patched, colored, muted, lightened, darkened, cropped, replaced and reconstructed. I guess that's part of what bothers me about the Fox footage -- it's really poorly done. I used to teach students about matching light directions exactly to maintain a realistic view. Fox gets to use a different season entirely?

Again, from Wikipedia (in for a penny, in for a pound):

Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the communication between an organization and its publics.^[1] Public relations gains an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment.^[2] Because public relations places exposure in credible third-party outlets, it offers a third-party legitimacy that advertising does not have.^[2] Common activities include speaking at conferences, working with the press, and employee communication. It is something that is not tangible and this is what sets it apart from Advertising.

Does anyone else see the eerie similarity when you parse the two definitions? If you're going to do advocacy, if you're going to do public relations, please leave it to the experts. Don't label it journalism and abandon the quality requirements. If you're going to try and "spin" then at least admit it -- and do it well.

So I guess the new definition is:

Advocacy Journalism a genre of poorly constructed, internally inconsistent drivel spouted by talking heads. Advocacy journalism has a perceived third-party legitimacy until you realize that's really not even a good fake. Because it is pretending to be factual and simultaneously an obvious lie, it is differentiated from public relations. Public relations has quality standards.