The writing, she said, seemed more like editorials than like news articles. Witness the use of words like "knee jerk" to describe columnists, "reeled with resentment," to describe how Cambridge reacted to Gina Grant's treatment by Harvard and "fumed over the invasion" with respect to the media barrrage upon Cambridge Rindge and Latin.
"Either it has to be a newspaper or I need to forewarned that it is editorializing," said the caller, who said she didn't need or want Page 1 editorials.
The caller, a local writer, was sincerely concerned about the role of her community newspaper. And she was not entierely wrong. Traditional journalism in the United States has steered clear of words, phrases and explanations that could be seen as subjective, or not scientifically factual.
Mainstream US journalists have long prided themselves on their reach for and grasp of an objective report. Anything thatt threatens or challenges that objectivity can be dangerous. After all, of what value is news if the messanger has an axe to grind or an agenda to plug. worse yet, how much can we believe a report if it is based on the biases of a particular observer.
I talked about these problems recently to Lou Ureneck, editor in chief at the Portland Press Herald in Maine and an editor-in-residence at Harvard's Nieman Foundation over the last year. I approached Ureneck because during my 15 years in journalism, my understanding of fair, accurate reporting and of what it means to communicate "truth" to readers has at times butted up against the traditional notion of "objective" journalism as it was taught to me in the daily newsrooms where I began my career.
Ureneck's paper has been experimenting with a new kind of reporting he calls "expert reporting." At the Portland paper, reporters on certain issues are told to actually present conclusions in their stories. They are given the time and support to go out and become relative "experts on a subject specifically so they can make conclusions that will help the community.
Ureneck pushed his papers in this direction after he saw how miserably traditional reporting could fail.
"We missed the big, the real story, several times," admitted Ureneck. " I was really discouraged with our ability to tell readers what they needed to know in a clear and forceful way."
The first failure that brought this failure home to Ureneck revolved around coverage of a gubernatorial race. The two candidates were arguing over whether the state's treasury was in good shape or a mess and the paper reported the back and forth. The incumbent, who said the treasury was fine, won the election, but within weeks he announced the treasury was in trouble. Ureneck believed the paper had failed by not trying to clarify for the readers which candidate was standing on firmer ground.
The type of reporting we call "he said, she said" journalism throws quotes and information at readers without giving them what they need to make educated choices.
In another example, Ureneck said, the state's workman's compensation system was in grave disarray, but no one agreed on what was wrong. Employers blamed employees and vice versa. For years, politicians and officials argued about who was to blame, and nothing ever changed. Eventually, Ureneck put a reporter on the beat for six months of intensive reporting. The resulting "expert reporting" series led to conclusions that were followed by significant changes in the system. Readers loved the series and it led the paper to adopt this form of reporting for many issues that deserve more attention.
"We pushed at the edges of what is traditionally thought of as objectivity," Ureneck told me.
But Ureneck said if he ever goes out into the heartland, questioning the notion of objectivity, he is shunned. People are horrified. Editors cringe.
We in the newsroom know that every day we must decide which quotes to use first, which ot use at all, which sources to call, which thought to lead with. Each day we must decide what stories to cover and what questions to ask. And yet, Ureneck found even reporters were loathe to give up the shield of objectivity.
All of us agree that we should be making decision without our own interests or agendas in mind. But clearly we make many decisions that depend on who we are and how we interpret and pare down the hundreds of lines that must be reduced to a bite-sized news report.
And as a journalist deciding how the chips will fall, I have questioned the rule that demands giving half the space in a story to each side of an issue. It's a simple formula, but does it bring us closer to truth? Do we divide the quotes evenly even if one side seems to be lying, or misstating facts as we know them? Or what about if one source if far less knowledgeable on an issue, has more self-interest at stake?
Then there are the stories that cannot be told without insight into a personality or into history. For instance, how can we write about the State Senate if we don't know what Billy Bulger means to South Boston? How can we write about the Charles River if we don't get a good sense of how dirty it was in the past?
Some reporters have years worth of insights and a natural ability to hear behind the words. Others do not. But such insights can entirely change the context and implications of the facts. Sure, the incumbent governor in Maine said there were no problems in the treasury. Would checking up on him mean the reporter was out to get him? And what about a reporter who had once worked in the treasury, or understood finances better? It might have been obvious to that writer that the treasury was in trouble. Would equal coverage of the two claims have been fair to readers and in the interest of truth?
Challenging this basic tenet of equal access reporting was only the beginning of my own thoughts on how to accomplish better, more perceptive reporting. If I was at a meeting and felt the anger, the tension or the glee in the room, a story that included this would be better. But emotions are neither factual, not always what they seem.
At the same time, objectivity seemed increasingly vague to me as I learned more of the ways a journalist can-- inadvertently or not -- include a point of view in a straight story. Using words like "claimed" or "denied" instead of "said" is just the beginning. Tone of voice and the order of quotes come next.
I also realized that an attitude that is on the surface is more honest than one that is hidden behind scientific language.
Although Ureneck has faced horrified looks around the country as he has questioned the concept of ojbectivity, in Cambridge he has found the opposite.
In Cambridge, he said, "I'm meeting complete acceptance of the notion we filter information through our personal" filters.
With this in mind, the Chronicle has perhaps taken it for granted that this town may then be more able to accept a newspaper that steps out of the norm for community and mainstream journalism.
In fact, compare a newspaper of today with a newspaper of 20 years ago-- the New York Times, the Globe, you name it -- and you're likely to see writing with a lot more narrative, personality and even attitude that you once saw. As Ureneck sees it, many papers are doing something close to what he is doing, but they are acting quietly, aware of the sacrosanct nature of "objective" journalism, which followed closely the effort to make all professions more scientific in the early 1900s.
"I see other newspapers giving more latitude with their voices and drawing conclusions and developing insights. I see it in the New York Times and the Miami Herald," Ureneck said. "But it's just a few of us who are writing and talking about it."
The young journalist who called me suggested that perhaps the Chronicle should redefine its mission if I was going to write articles like that.
I suggested our mission, in fact, would allow for this writing. The answers are not easy. There is no right and wrong. There is only what readers like and don't like, and the rise and fall of the writer's credibility. But reporters and editors need to be honest enough to acknowlege our humanity, that we come with the baggage of our perspectives -- as women, Americans, East Coast people or whatever else we bring in our personalities and lives. Otherwise, we are living a professional lie.
Amy Miller is the Chronicle's senior reporter.