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On Rosen on Minogue

In A Western Civ Course in What's Gone Wrong With the Press, Jay Rosen points to an essay by Kenneth Minogue, Journalism: Power without responsibility.

First thoughts: The general is the enemy of the specific, the specific is the enemy of the general, and one exclusive of the other is the enemy of understanding. Slipping easily between levels -- to parse the singular into the subsets for specifics -- keeps people from talking past each other by nailing down what is necessary to improve.

Minogue says, The rational basis of modern journalism, its claim to our attention as bringing us knowledge of the world, thus turns out to be the practice of revealing what other people want to hide from us. This is, of course, particularly true of what authority wants to hide. Consider the subset of the White House press at the gaggle Garrett Graff attended. There are some answers the press should not expect -- negotiations between Congress and the Executive will are not likely to take place on the front page. Diplomacy between Syria and our government are not likly to take place on the front page. But most of the gaggle is taken up with reporters asking exactly the questions to try to make that happen. Their frustration over being rebuffed is entirely misplaced.

Another example is the subset of activist press. Jay writes, Contrary to what most are taught in journalism school, Minogue sees disaster in the "social responsibility" theory of a professionalized press. He would name that a wrong turn. It was a disaster, he thinks, when it happened in education. "Teachers came to think that, because they were custodians of the minds of the rising generation, they held the key to social progress." This is addressed in "Activism undermines journalism", and is nothing less than "We have done your thinking for you and we have the answer."

After doing readers the service of introducing Minogue's perspective, Jay remarks, Maybe this explains some of the inbox: Those people are in pain! It resembles the explanation most popular with journalists: "your anger is with a world that refuted your hopes, but you've directed it at us, the news criers, because we delivered that message." but, thankfully, he does not necessarily agree with it. Baldly, this rationalization would set journalists up to ignore the criticisms itemized earlier in the essay. Besides, the rage of readers is yet another subset that needs consideration independent of the faults of the press and that, for our own safety's sake, shouldn't draw the eye from improving coverage of the news. Each subset has its problems. Each of those problems needs to be addressed.

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