on the media
Bounty-Hunter Journalism
By Amy L. Eddings
From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's "On The Media."
Drag a million dollars through Capitol Hill, and you might get a story that brings down a politician. That's what Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt learned, after he placed a full-page ad in the Washington Post last October, promising the money to anyone with information about the sexual misdeeds of top politicians. His investigation turned up allegations that the Speaker-Designate of the House of Representatives, Robert Livingston, had several affairs during his 33-year marriage….charges that Livingston acknowledged right before he resigned.
Livingston is just one target of what we're calling "bounty-hunter journalism" that has some media critics longing for the higher standards of the "good ol' days." But "On The Media's" Amy Eddings reports that this type of dollars-for-dirt storytelling is nothing new.
Inspired by the reports he was reading in the press, a precocious 13-year-old wrote these lines:
"And you, the scorn of every patriot's name,
Your country's ruin, and your country's shame,
Go, wretch! Resign the presidential chair
Disclose your secret measures foul and fair."
It sounds like a poem aimed at Bill Clinton, but the piece, written by William Cullen Bryant, was penned about 200 years ago. Its subject was President Thomas Jefferson; newspapers then were running stories about his affair with one of his underlings…the slave, Sally Hemings. Gail Collins, author of the book, Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics, writes about the man who broke the story, journalist James Callender.
Gail Collins, author, Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics: He did that because he was angry at Jefferson, who had refused to give him money that he expected because he had been in Jefferson's pay for a while, as a supporter of the Jeffersonians and the enemy of the Federalists. This was all sort of a money game.
In fact, Collins says, "bounty hunter journalism" was a founding principle of the American press.
Gail Collins: For instance, in the early part of pre-civil war America, you didn't make money in journalism, the country was just too small and diffuse, you just couldn't sell enough papers or ads to make any money. So the way you made money was by getting printing contracts or getting a government job or some sort of patronage from the great politicians of the day. So the whole point of journalism was to fluff up your side and slander the other side.
Collins says journalists even went so far as to invent stories about their paper's political opponents; in 1828, reporters wrote that the nation's sixth president, John Quincy Adams, was a pimp for the Russian czar. Meanwhile, as the mud flew, many media observers then -- as now -- debated whether it was necessary to make an issue of the private lives of public figures. Janna Malamud Smith is the author of Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life.
Janna Malamud Smith, author of Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life: It is a dilemma that has plagued us since the beginning of the democracy. We have this idea that if our public officials are decent human beings with decent private lives, they'll be better public officials. But actually, that idea seems to fail us over and over again, because so often, people do well or badly in the public domain depending on the issues of the moment.
Newspapers started breaking away from political parties in the 1830s, when technological innovations in the printing process, coupled with a booming number of literate city-dwellers, spawned the birth of the so-called "penny press." These newspapers strove for objectivity, and, later, during the Civil War, accuracy. Although the practice of paying a source for a story became unsavory among the mainstream press, it never went completely out of style. David Mindich, author of Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism, says competition is the classic impetus for stories about the skeletons in peoples' closets
David Mindich, author of Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism: In Shakespeare's day, news was transmitted by balladeers, hawking their wares in the streets of London and elsewhere. At first, the balladeers were pretty tame, but as the crowds came, and more and more balladeers arrived on the scene, they become more and more sensationalistic. They not only had to be loud, but louder.
The newest balladeers these days are on the Internet, and members of the old school are trying to keep up - even a magazine like Hustler, which people are not likely to buy just for the articles. Mindich sees a lot of soul-searching accompanying this trend, just like the journalists did during the penny press boom of the 1830s. Back then, new standards were formed as a result. Those media critics who find Larry Flynt's tactics odious may take some comfort in this.
For On The Media, this is Amy Eddings in New York.
On the Media with Brian Lehrer airs on Sunday at 4pm and 10pm on Radio New York, AM820.
For past commentaries and weekly rundowns, visit the archive.
Eric Newton
"Please tell me the truth:
Is there a Santa Claus?"
Possibly the most famous and most reprinted newspaper editorial of all time is "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus," that was published by the "New York Sun" in 1897. But commentator Eric Newton imagines a major daily metropolitan daily getting young Virginia O'Hanlon's letter in this day and age…."My little friends say there is no Santa Claus," she wrote. "Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus?"
Hey, Virginia, your little friends are right. They are right to be cynical. These are cynical times. Eight-years-old is not too early to start believing your friends, Virginia. Here at "The Double Standard," we believe our friends. We know that the truth is only what you can see with your own eyes, or what you can confirm from two anonymous sources. Are your little friends anonymous? That could matter.
In this great universe of ours, truth is but a mere ant, stepped on by those with selfish motives. The universe is so vast, and the truth so elusive, that our little minds are incapable of grasping it. Only with the help of a lot of lawyers and a great metropolitan newspaper - such as the one you have written to - can we put together the facts and learn the God-awful truth.
No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus.
Sorry.
Santa does not exist, and neither do the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, true love, Zelda, Barny, Furby, Flubber, the Power Rangers, an honest business person or a truthful politician.
That's the way it is.
How dreary the world would be without these real truths, the plain truth: that instead of Santa at the North Pole we've got a hole in the ozone layer at the South Pole, along with famine, war, racism, crime, drugs, illiteracy and overpopulation.
Believe in fantasy? You might as well mail your piggy bank straight to QVC. Trust us, Virginia. Sneak down on Christmas Eve and you'll see it's just mom and dad eating those cookies.
Be wary, Virginia.
People are out to get you.
Heed our advice: Follow the money. They want your parents to buy, buy, buy the junk in TV ads, just like they will want you to buy their pitch for higher taxes, lower services and a generally unsatisfactory life. Heed the truth, Virginia. Let The Buyer Beware.
The sooner you get the silly notion of Santa out of your head, the sooner you can concentrate on how to survive in this sick and twisted world.
There are important things you must know as a child today.
The president lies and cheats. So do speakers of the House. So stay away from strangers.
Keep your Beanie Babies dust-free. If you can help it, don't leave the house at all. It's cold out there, especially at Christmas.
Do not play the Asian stock market. Avoid kids with guns. Always take Prozac.
Watch your back.
And remember, Virginia:
If all else fails, bomb Iraq.
Eric Newton is the Managing Editor of the Newseum
On the Mediawith Brian Lehrer airs on Sunday at 4pm and 10pm on Radio New York, AM820.
For past commentaries and weekly rundowns, visit the archive.
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"Please tell me the truth:
Is there a Santa Claus?"
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