UC Berkeley Journalism - Faculty - On Being A Teaching Fellow

Where to Start: Transforming Our Newsrooms and Newspapers

by William Woo
Freedom Forum Teaching Fellow

Why don’t people like us any more? This is not exactly the same question as why people don’t read us any more. We tend to confuse the two, so let me use a homely analogy to unbundle them.

Imagine that you once had a friend named Bob. There was a time when you didn’t think you could get along without good old Bob. He was your constant companion. You saw him every day.

But these days, you don’t see much of old Bob. Perhaps you’ve stopped seeing him entirely. And someone asks you about it: “Whatever happened with you and Bob?”

There are a number of things you might answer. You might say, for instance, that you can’t seem to find the time for him anymore. If you had more time, you’d probably look him up again.

Or you might say the truth is that you’ve found other people you’d rather be with. You get more out of them. In fact, you saw old Bob not long ago and you didn’t find he had much to say that was relevant to anything you were interested in.

Or you might even say that the problem is that you’ve changed and Bob hasn’t. Maybe you’ve got a family now, maybe you’ve got a new job, maybe you’ve got a whole set of new interests and old Bob, he just keeps wanting to go to bars or hang out at the mall or cruise the drive-ins.

Or maybe the problem is that you’ve stayed the same and want the same thing you always did from Bob. But Bob seems to change with every new fad and fashion.

In any case, it’s not your fault — not his fault, either. Just one of those things.
But there is another possibility.

What if you said, I don’t see Bob because I no longer respect him. I no longer trust him. I just don’t like Bob anymore.

Bob, he’s been wondering what’s gone wrong between the two of you, and word gets back to him through your mutual acquaintances George Gallup and Lou Harris that you no longer have confidence in him, that you distrust him, that there’s something about him that you dislike. What does Bob do?

Well, Bob could hire a consultant and shell out a lot of money to find out what’s wrong and what he can do about it. He could spend some time playing with Legos or prowling around a parking lot with a Polaroid camera to rediscover his vision and his values. Bob can get counseling.

Or Bob could convene a focus group. He could remake himself and see how the focus group responds. Bob could try out some new personalities: the new kinder, gentler Bob, or the more connected Bob, or the Bob who presents himself differently to different people (the zoned Bob, you might say). Bob, in short, can ask his friends for help.

But there’s something else he can try, and that’s to examine his behavior, to critically and unflinchingly look into his life and ask himself if his conduct accords with the values he proclaims and the values that, deep within his heart, he would like to live by.

Let’s turn to our business, newspapers.

A recent survey by Lou Harris found that barely half the people thought we’d get the facts right, that two-thirds thought us unfair and three-quarters considered us biased.

Like old Bob, we’re no longer as well liked or as well trusted as we once were. In fact, to be plain about it, we’re distrusted and disrespected. And that’s quite different from saying that people don’t have the time for us or that another medium is more relevant to their lives.

So what do we see if we look within ourselves?

Editor’s note: Each year the journalism school and the California Newspaper Publisher’s Association co-sponsor a day-long training workshop for newspaper reporters and editors from all over the state. The fall workshop drew more than 250 people.
William Woo, former editor of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and Freedom Forum Teaching Fellow at the J-school, was the keynote speaker.

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