As Media Change, Fairness Stays Same
MOST of the time, Michael Powell writes the Gotham column for the news pages of The Times, in which his liberal politics - that's his own description - may be understood, though not made explicit.
But occasionally, the veteran reporter turns his attention to a larger, investigative article, as with one published this month on the front page. It told of how a case accusing law-enforcement officials of misconduct in a small New Jersey town was quashed, reportedly because of political influence. The main target of the indictment, according to the article, was a political ally of the state's governor, Chris Christie, a nationally prominent Republican running for re-election.
After the article appeared, I received a letter of complaint from Michael Drewniak, the governor's spokesman. His objections are to this specific article, but they raise larger questions that I found worth considering.
Journalism is changing drastically, and the once-prized quality of objectivity is increasingly dismissed by some as outdated and pointless. Journalists like Glenn Greenwald or Laura Poitras, who both worked with Edward J. Snowden in publishing revelations about government surveillance, are proud, rather than apologetic, about their passionate advocacy on matters of civil liberties. So Mr. Drewniak's questions present an opportunity for discussion.
The entire story, writes Mr. Drewniak, “strains to make tenuous connections,†and ignores the valid nonpolitical reasons that the indictment was dismissed. He objected strenuously to Mr. Powell's writing this story not as a column but as a news story. That switch “is questionable and unsettling in terms of his ability or desire to be fair and impartial.†And he faults Times editors for allowing him to do so.
I asked Mr. Powell, as well as the politics editor, Carolyn Ryan, and the managing editor, Dean Baquet, about these complaints, and the larger issues. Mr. Powell told me that he reported the story as thoroughly and fairly as possible, and that he sees no problem in moving occasionally from columnist to reporter; the editors told me that they paid particular attention to the tone and substance of the story because of Mr. Powell's usual role. They say that a reported column, like Gotham, on the news pages is not the same as an opinion column on the Op-Ed page; it is intended to contain not opinion so much as reported analysis, written in a columnist's voice.
Mr. Powell said that with a 28-year history of reporting, he feels confident about producing a solid, fair investigative piece. What's more, he said, “I think that objectivity is a farce - something that makes no intellectual sense whatsoever. Fairness, however, is something that I take very, very, very seriously.â€
The important question for journalists to ask themselves, Mr. Powell said, is “Am I intellectually honest enough to confront my own biases?â€
In general, The Times has enforced a strict definition of impartiality. Its internal guidelines say that reporters can't be politically active and editors have told me that the less readers know about reporters' political beliefs, the better.
The Associated Press has a similar set of rules, as do many newspapers. The A.P.'s standards editor, Tom Kent, has cautioned against treating impartiality as “easy road kill in the rush to new journalistic techniques.†Some prominent journalists have gone so far as to say that, to preserve neutrality, they don't even vote.
Would Times readers have been better off if Mr. Powell had taken his early reporting on this story and handed it off to a reporter, or reporting team, whose personal politics would not come under fire?
Ms. Ryan says no. She told me that Mr. Powell, with his reportorial skills and deep knowledge of New York and New Jersey, was the right choice, noting that he managed to get several members of a grand jury to speak to him - not an easy feat. She also noted that this is not a first: Mr. Powell and other news-side (as opposed to Op-Ed) columnists have stepped away from their columns to write investigative pieces before.
“There's no question that Michael was the right person to write this story,†she said. Mr. Baquet told me that the story withstood “a very high level of scrutiny†that helped ensure its thoroughness and balance.
Mr. Drewniak's objections do not include any factual errors. He complained, though, of “gross omissions†and “unsubstantiated leaps of faith,†and wrote of fighting an uphill battle, during the reporting process, against Mr. Powell's “preset narrative.†He gave me many examples of columns in which Mr. Powell criticized Mr. Christie, once calling him “congenitally pugilistic,†and, as recently as January, writing that the governor “can be rude and petty and play a mean game of politics.†Asked about this, Mr. Powell and Ms. Ryan noted that the column had also sometimes presented Mr. Christie in a favorable light.
The journalism world is changing. In the broadest terms, transparency (lifting the curtain so that readers see and understand the process and the players) has become more important; traditional objectivity (the idea that reporters should appear to have no beliefs) less so. Within the whirlwind, journalists need to hold on tight to accuracy, intellectual honesty, rigorous reporting and fairness - values that can never go out of style.
Investigative stories, by their nature, will make some people unhappy. Ideally, the reporter's politics and opinions would not provide ammunition for those who complain or criticize afterward.
But in the end, the proof is in the story itself. Is it accurate? Is it fair? Does it dig up something worth knowing that we didn't know before? From all I can tell, Mr. Powell's article meets those crucial standards.
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A version of this op-ed appears in print on October 27, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: As Media Change, Fairness Stays Same.