Jay Rosen to CBS: Release All the Unedited Interviews
Jay Rosen has an excellent suggestion for CBS — one that CBS will never implement:
CBS would be wise to think about innovations in openness, an area where there has been very little thinking, experimentation or change in the news business. . . .
A simple example of a different approach: Sixty Minutes publishes on the Internet (transcript and video) the full interviews from which each segment that airs is made. All interviews, every frame. Even the people who were not used. It would instantly have to become more accountable for these interviews and the selections made from them. And in my view that would strengthen the journalism, make for better work; it would also be a revolution in accountability. CBS would also be creating more value, although it would also be more open to criticism and scrutiny.
. . . .
CBS News: are you up to it?
Publish the full interviews.
I think it’s a wonderful idea. Why do I say it will never happen?
Here’s why:
I am currently about halfway into Bernie Goldberg’s book Arrogance. Goldberg tells a story that is relevant to Jay Rosen’s suggestion. A CEO who was the subject of a hostile 20/20 interview recorded the interview himself. Goldberg reports that the CEO, “fearing his comments might be taken out of context and that the interview might be edited to make him look bad, took the unedited transcript and video of the entire interview . . . and put it out on the World Wide Web.”
ABC’s reaction? They were not happy. Were they worried about their copyright? Nah. They were worried about their loss of control over what went the public got to hear. As an ABC Vice-President told the New York Times: “We don’t want other people attempting to get into and shift the journalism process.”
And another former ABC News Vice President, now a professor at the Columbia Journalism School, called the CEO’s action “a not-so-subtle form of intimidation.” Got that? In this former network news executive’s view, making the entire interview available — the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — that’s “intimidation.” But editing it so that the CEO looked worse than he would have in an unedited interview — that’s not “intimidation,” it’s “journalism.”
That’s how these people think.
It gets better:
In the aftermath of this episode, the president of another major network news organization put out a memo, directing that interviewees would be allowed to record interviews — but would not allowed to rebroadcast the full recordings of those interviews.
The supposed rationale of this memo was to protect the network’s copyright. But the memo also mandated that the interviewee could tape the interview only while the network’s tape was rolling. What does that have to do with copyright?
The conclusion is irresistible: this network news president’s real concern was the same concern articulated by the current and former ABC News executives quoted above: loss of control over what information the public hears — and doesn’t hear.
Here’s the kicker: this network president, who issued the memo prohibiting the release of full and unedited interviews? Guess who it was?
You got it: Andrew Heyward.
So, Jay: good luck getting ol’ Andrew to accept your suggestion. It’s a good one. But I don’t see it happening.
Interesting. What would be the equivalent for blogs?
Comment by actus — 1/10/2005 @ 6:09 pm
Links.
Comment by Patterico — 1/10/2005 @ 6:32 pm
Wouldn’t that be more like sourcing?
I’m thikning, what do blogs leave on the cutting room floor. Or do they just put everything up?
Comment by actus — 1/10/2005 @ 6:46 pm
Right. It’s sourcing. That’s the point.
The point is that, when we selectively quote from a source, we provide a link so that you can go see the entire context. This is not viewed as a threat — it’s the standard.
Blogs rarely interview people. As audio- and video-blogging become more prevalent, and technology develops, they will do so, more and more. And when they do so on tape, I won’t be at all surprised if it becomes the blogging standard to post the unedited interview within a hyperlink. Again, I would expect that this would be the standard.
How would you react to Rosen’s suggestion if you were Heyward, Actus?
Comment by Patterico — 1/10/2005 @ 7:40 pm
‘Blogs rarely interview people.’
But you still depend on information thats not being given a context. For example, when someone says that ‘iran contra had nothing to do with el salvador’, they are leaving on the cutting room floor all that they know about the conflict in central america. They’re not giving me the ‘context’ under which that statement is being made. The context that for some inexplicable reason this person is able to pick and choose from the consistent american policy towards central america.
As for quotes, linking is trivial. Even if unlinked, you’re likely commenting on something already public, if maybe hard to find. I’d say the important question is about what is left out that the public has no access to.
But I do like the idea that everyone on the internets could spend their days second guessing the editorial decisions of others.
Comment by actus — 1/10/2005 @ 8:52 pm
I’d say the important question is about what is left out that the public has no access to.
I agree — and blogs rarely have such information. Here, CBS does — and I’d like to see it.
When blogs do have such information, I think it would be a great idea for them to follow the same standards they follow when linking: select and editorialize in your post if you wish, but give us access to the full source materials through links. Be as transparent as possible.
I think blogs generally do this (full access to source material) very, very well, which is one of the reasons I like blogs as sources of information. Big Media does it poorly, but some outlets are getting better. CBS won’t do it here.
Comment by Patterico — 1/10/2005 @ 9:45 pm
As the user of open source software, and the reader of nearly anonymous blog news, I’ve come to value editing. The Editorial.
There is so much shit out on internet, that you need to distinguish between information and data. Information is good, data is bad. Signal is good, noise is bad. There is nothing more important than a good signal to noise ratio.
The Los Angeles Times emits alot of data.
Comment by Ladainian — 1/10/2005 @ 9:55 pm
Well, hopefully you can find good information here.
To follow up on the point of our friend Actus: if you think you’re not finding information here, you can learn this by clicking on my links to see if I’m representing them accurately. We don’t hide the ball here.
Comment by Patterico — 1/10/2005 @ 10:08 pm
Actus: Bloggers often editorialize, then open the discussion to the world. So your wish has already come true. Except that not many think that simply editorializing from “status” or some other illogical source, such as self-annointment by virtue of a direct meld with the Ideal, goes anywhere. [Although I do have such a connection with Truth myself.]
As usual, the proof is in the pudding.
Comment by J. Peden — 1/10/2005 @ 11:51 pm
Patterico wades into the Tyranny of Copyright
Good to see a solid blogger like Patterico wax poetic on an issue that touches on your humble blogger’s favorite rant: How intellectual property laws perpetuate media bias and stifle the competition for truthful debate in this country. As regular…
Trackback by Calblog — 1/11/2005 @ 2:17 am
Faith-Based Reporting II
Patterico in comments at PressThink provides an example of a CEO who recorded a 20/20 interview and “took the unedited transcript and video of the entire interview . . . and put it out on the World Wide Web.”
Trackback by Sisyphean Musings — 1/11/2005 @ 3:34 am
The blogger Bill at INDC made waves in September by conducting interviews with typeface experts, evaluating CBS’ defenses of the Killian memos (link to blog, not indiv. post, sorry). This is the sort of creation of original material that Patterico and Actus are discussing above. As I recall, INDC’s interviews were all conducted as email exchanges, and INDC did post the entire exchange.
It would be interesting to get his take on this question (I think he comments here from time to time).
Dean Esmay and Norm Geras are other high-profile web-log proprietors who have used this approach.
Comment by AMac — 1/11/2005 @ 5:51 am
For example, when someone says that ‘iran contra had nothing to do with el salvador’, they are leaving on the cutting room floor all that they know about the conflict in central america.
Yeesh. actus is quoting me from OTLM (I got it from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit originally). The issue was El Salvador in the original Newsweek article, NOT Nicaragua to which Iran-Contra was related — and Newsweek erroneously linked Iran-Contra to El Salvador. The US gov. supported covert “death squads” in El Salvador, NOT Nicaragua (the Contras were hardly covert).
actus trying to lay claim to a “context” argument doesn’t wash. If anything, it’s like what CBS did — “Well, the documents aren’t legit, but the ‘facts’ behind them are.”
Comment by Dave Huber — 1/11/2005 @ 6:06 am
‘I agree — and blogs rarely have such information. Here, CBS does — and I’d like to see it.’
What I find really interesting is that if people start feeling like they have a right to the private information — owned, no doubt, by CBS — then they’ll start getting an interest in the public information that the government owns. And they’ll start wondering what information is available to decisionmakers that they leave out of speeches.
And then everyday will be the equivalent of the day the pentagon papers were released.
‘The issue was El Salvador in the original Newsweek article, NOT Nicaragua to which Iran-Contra was related — and Newsweek erroneously linked Iran-Contra to El Salvador.’
And we’re left with having to guess as to whether you truly are ignorant, and think the contra war had nothing to do with el salvador (it did) Or whether you’re just trying to echo chamber on a partisan point you heard on the internets.
Comment by actus — 1/11/2005 @ 7:24 am
What I find really interesting is that if people start feeling like they have a right to the private information — owned, no doubt, by CBS — then they’ll start getting an interest in the public information that the government owns. And they’ll start wondering what information is available to decisionmakers that they leave out of speeches.
Yes. Because, as we all know,
1) Nobody wonders about that now; and
2) We expect political speeches to be as fair and balanced as news articles.
Comment by Patterico — 1/11/2005 @ 7:28 am
Why We Get All Uptight About Forged Documents
Dan Rather and Mary Mapes seem to think that CBS is being made to suffer because a few people, who are probably being paid by the Bush Administration (disclosure: I am paid handsomely by the Bush Administration under their Former Armchair Socialist Veg…
Trackback by Who Knew? — 1/11/2005 @ 7:43 am
I’m not saying it happens now. I’m saying it will be reinforced.
Comment by actus — 1/11/2005 @ 8:14 am
And we’re left with having to guess as to whether you truly are ignorant, and think the contra war had nothing to do with el salvador (it did) Or whether you’re just trying to echo chamber on a partisan point you heard on the internets.
Newsweek did not make a general statement about whether America’s support of the Contras was linked to its support of anti-communist “death squads” in El Salvador. In a sense, the two are related within the broader context of the Reagan administration’s anti-communist agenda in South America, and I readily conceed that point.
However, Newsweek linked the Salvadorian “death squads” to the Iran-Contra scandal. Our support for the “death squads” is manifestly a different thing that the sale of weapons to Iran to influence the release of American hostages, with the profits directed to the Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment (Boland Act?).
Comment by Joshua Martin — 1/11/2005 @ 8:57 am
It never ceases to amaze me how good the libs can be at finding the connections they want to be there, and at not finding the ones they don’t. On the one hand, Saddam Hussein and international terrorism are oil and water, and one can never have anything to do with the other whatsoever. On the other, Nicaragua and El Salvador are not only related, they are so friggin’ joined at the hip that Newsweak was justified in asking us all to assume that our policy of aiding to the Salvadoran death squads caused Oliver North to illegally sell weapons to Iran, all to benefit the Nicaraguan Contras (who, presumably, could be trusted to funnel the proceeds all back to the the real beneficiaries, the Salvadoran death squads).
Comment by Xrlq — 1/11/2005 @ 9:37 am
actus: see Josh and Xrlq. “Ignorant” indeed.
Comment by Dave Huber — 1/11/2005 @ 10:21 am
And no-one stops to think whether the Contras had their own death squads; or whether the Contra policy was really the same as the El Salvador policy, except built on a stateless entitty; or whether one realized that in order for the salvadorean policy to work one needed the contra war to also succeed in stopping the rebels from being supplied by the sandinistas; or whether the same hubris that okays the working with terrorists in el salvador and elsewhere (the contras had several bases) okays working with terrorists in iran.
Comment by actus — 1/11/2005 @ 1:40 pm
Or you can rattle off a whole ‘nother list of all the libs’ favorite reasons why Reagan was a meanie. It doesn’t matter. All that does matter in this context is that Newsweak asked us to assume, without evidence, that the U.S. policy of supporting one group in one country magically caused us to become embroiled in a scandal intended to benefit another. By bringing it up in the context of Iraq, they might just as well have said “President Bush had better not help the death squads in Iraq, or he’ll end up nearly being impeached for selling arms to North Korea to benefit insurgents in Syria.”
Comment by Xrlq — 1/11/2005 @ 2:08 pm
‘All that does matter in this context is that Newsweak asked us to assume, without evidence, that the U.S. policy of supporting one group in one country magically caused us to become embroiled in a scandal intended to benefit another. ‘
Uh, the evidence was the claim that sandinistas were helping the salvadorean rebels, and that thus the contra war was part of the effort to stop socialism not just in nicaragua, but throughout central america and el salvador. It was even claimed that the contra war was needed to defend texas from the sandinistas!
Its interesting that the right, that pushed the links and causal connections between el salvador and the contra war, and would call you all sorts of commie sympathizers for asking that nicaragua be left alone, are now the ones claiming that there was no connection.
Of course, there is’nt certain necessity to the causal connection — the white house was free to have followed the law instead of dealing with terrorists. But in their minds, that was unthinkable. In their minds, denying the connection was wrong. And now its back to haunt them.
Comment by actus — 1/11/2005 @ 3:41 pm
Acthole, are you really that thick or are you just playing dumb? No one denied that there was some connection between the commie scum that ran Nicaragua and the commie scum disrupting neighboring countries, nor that was some connection between the U.S.’s response to each. Of course there was. The point we are denying - and the one you’ve been repeatedly dodging - is Newsweek’s idiotic claim that U.S. aid to Salvadoran death squads caused the Iran-Contra scandal. It didn’t, any more than smelly clothes cause lung cancer. Correlation is not causation.
Comment by Xrlq — 1/11/2005 @ 4:26 pm
You know, I was a bit young during the 1980’s, and I didn’t pay as much attention to political issues as perhaps I should have, but I don’t seem to recall a line item in any US budget for “aid to death squads”.
Newsweek could have said that the US aided the El Salvadorian government/military during its war with the equally vile Salvadorian guerillas, and that the Salvadoran military had operated death squads. But unless Newsweek has a copy of a check with the Treasury of the United States of America as the payor and “the Death Squads of El Salvador” as payee, their casual slur of direct and intentional US aid to death squads is also objectionable.
Comment by Sean — 1/11/2005 @ 5:39 pm
‘ I don’t seem to recall a line item in any US budget for “aid to death squads”.’
Are you sure you didn’t lose your youthfull naivete in the time since?
Comment by actus — 1/11/2005 @ 8:58 pm
“Death Squads”
Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu
Comment by Sisyphus — 1/12/2005 @ 5:27 am
Media Insurance
Both Dan Rather and 60 Minutes have long been known for their willingness to take an interview and parse it so the words of parties involved come out just the way the story’s producer wants it to. Rather infamously did this in his expose The Guns of A…
Trackback by Bunker Mulligan — 1/12/2005 @ 11:38 am
‘The point we are denying - and the one you’ve been repeatedly dodging - is Newsweek’s idiotic claim that U.S. aid to Salvadoran death squads caused the Iran-Contra scandal. It didn’t, any more than smelly clothes cause lung cancer. Correlation is not causation.’
In a sense you’re right, what ultimately caused iran contra was the maddening obstinance of people in the administration to continue to fund the terror campaign of the contras against the wishes of congress, and their willingness to negotiate with terrorists in order to fund terrorists. But you’re ignoring that it was really part of one policy.
I guess to analogise to your example, people don’t undertake policies of ‘I shall have smelly clothes’. Like smoking, they undertake policies of ‘we shall use terror agaisnt soft targets in central america, the law — domestic and international be damned’.
The causes are related, the decisions aren’t independent, and sure, reason and humanity can intervene, but we are dealing with ideologues.
The El salvadorization of iraq, the decision to wage a war against the sunni population, can’t be seen in isolation.
Comment by actus — 1/12/2005 @ 1:39 pm
I think you got my analogy backwards. No one sets out to wear smelly clothes, but no one sets out to get lung cancer, either. People do set out to perform a third activity, which in turn causes both.
As applied to death squads and Iran-Contra, the common cause was the combination of a messy, threatening situation in the region, plus uncertainty as to what the U.S. should do about it, coupled with a risk that anything we do can create problems of its own. If we had simply invaded the countries and occupied them indefinitely, we wouldn’t have needed Contras or death squads, but we would have experienced other problems, instead. So we kept our distance, and instead worked with the groups whose interest were more or less aligned with ours, but who made us look bad everytime they committed atrocities sort-of in our name. Was support for Salvadoran death squads bad? Maybe. Was support for the Contras, especially by creative funding bad? Maybe. Either of these actions was either right or wrong on its merits. Neither was good or bad because it “caused” the other, as Newsweek implied.
Rather than look at what Iran-Contra and U.S. support for El Salvador clearly did not cause (each other), lets look instead at what they did cause, or at least may have helped cause: long-term, stable democracies in both countries and throughout the region. When Reagan took office, the phrase “Latin American dictatorship” was basically redundant. By the time Bush I left office 12 years later, it was almost a contradiction in terms. We should be so lucky in Iraq.
Comment by Xrlq — 1/12/2005 @ 2:34 pm
‘I think you got my analogy backwards. No one sets out to wear smelly clothes, but no one sets out to get lung cancer, either. People do set out to perform a third activity, which in turn causes both.’
Exactly, and just as we go down the path to death squads, we go down the path to iran-contra. Frankly I think the first is the worst. It just happens that the second was later in time.
‘Rather than look at what Iran-Contra and U.S. support for El Salvador clearly did not cause (each other), lets look instead at what they did cause, or at least may have helped cause: long-term, stable democracies in both countries and throughout the region.’
Never mind how it might just be ‘correlated’ and caused by the end of the cold war. Then again, it could show that terrorizing people into voting your way works.
Comment by actus — 1/12/2005 @ 8:56 pm