Advocacy

Key Takeaways:

• Some local news sites adhere to the tradition of journalistic impartiality and avoid advocating one side of public controversies.

• Others – probably the majority – embrace the alternative tradition of either representing a particular community point of view, promoting specific issues, even crusading for particular causes.

• In smaller organizations it’s much harder to compartmentalize “news” and “opinion,” or reporters and columnists – even if you want to.

Let the people speak

Our readers do weigh in on the ethical issues really quick. We did a story about the police chief, went down to the police headquarters. The custodian had very strong opinions, and we put them in. We hadn’t realized they were outsourcing the custodial work. She got fired.

We immediately wrote about it, pressed the city about it. I got the phone number for the boss who fired her, and I urged everyone to call him. She got her job back by the end of the day.

But people had this great debate on our site. Dan Kennedy wrote about it, saying we were wrong. I think I was probably wrong.

What to do when asked for advice

We get asked for advice. My husband might be sitting in the corner covering a community organization meeting and a person asking a question turns to him and says, “What would you guys advise us to do?”

We get asked for advice. My husband might be sitting in the corner covering a community organization meeting and a person asking a question turns to him and says, “What would you guys advise us to do?”

It’s one thing if they ask a question that’s a fact. But if they want advice about something, we’ll do our best to recuse ourselves – “Hey, it’s really your decision to make.” It’s clear they feel that you’re something different from that objective person sitting in the corner who parachuted in with a notebook. They feel more like you’re there with them. It’s very foreign to me because I was always sitting in an office in a newsroom downtown somewhere.

It requires a lot of explaining to people – where you choose to draw the lines, why you choose to draw them there.

I’m really old school. I’ve tried to be a little more removed because I feel it’s right. We don’t take editorial positions, for example, which I am led to believe is really rare in this neighborhood media world.

It’s clear they feel that you’re something different from that objective person sitting in the corner who parachuted in with a notebook. They feel more like you’re there with them.

You can say that some degree of covering something a lot is advocacy. But we never say, “OK, we’re endorsing person X in race Y, or this particular position.” Or, “we want you all to go down to the business district tomorrow and protest because it’s outrageous that so and so is closing.” I don’t think that’s our place.

I find it fascinating that a lot of people look at me like I’m a space alien when I say that. “Of course we’re gonna take a position and tell you what we think should be done in our neighborhood! This is our neighborhood, dammit!”

Play an important civic role

I’m very happy to be the view from somewhere.

Most of my career was in Europe. I spent years in London, so I’m very comfortable with the notion that an authoritative paper can have a clear point of view. The Guardian news pages will approach a story about the Tory budget announcement in a different way from the Telegraph. There’s an inherent bias there that the editors and reporters and I think the readers are comfortable with. Jay Rosen’s work on “the view from nowhere” resonates very strongly for me. I’m very happy to be the view from somewhere.

We work very hard to be fair and to present all points of view. But I think there is a root presumption at Berkeleyside that change isn’t necessarily bad, that economic activity is probably necessary and good. These may sound like motherhood and apple pie – but in Berkeley, this puts us very clearly in one camp! And that’s fine.

If we can do anything to make Telegraph Avenue less crappy, I don’t see that as abandoning our position above the fray. I see that as we’ve done something great for the city we live and work in.

In the runup to the November election, we did pieces on each of the local propositions, and we didn’t take a view – there wasn’t a Berkeleyside editorial. We ran pieces presenting both sides of the argument, and people on both sides said that was very helpful and useful. But there’s no doubt in my mind that if you read Berkeleyside regularly you’ll find that we don’t think developers are necessarily evil. I don’t think we need to engage in a struggle against having a bias towards a healthy business community in Berkeley.

I think there’s a good tradition in journalism of newspapers being civic institutions and playing an important civic role. And in our own tiny, tiny way we would like to play that kind of positive role as well. If we can do anything to make Telegraph Avenue less crappy, I don’t see that as abandoning our position above the fray. I see that as we’ve done something great for the city we live and work in.

Taking strong positions

I’ve taken some very strong positions on some pretty polarizing topics. We did a lot of reporting around a bill called AB 1991. It’s very complicated, but essentially it was a special bill that would allow the city of Half Moon Bay to suspend all environmental regulations on a particular parcel of land they’d been sued over. It was horrible, and I was pretty withering about it. There have been a couple of issues like that. Land use issues tend to be pretty polarizing anyway out here. Even just reporting on them generally without taking a position, it’s a minefield.

When picking up after a dog becomes news

This bar was in a kind of downtrodden area, and it had actually done a lot to improve the neighborhood. So imagine this bar that’s been there for five years, and a guy moves into the neighborhood and decides that he doesn’t like that they make noise. He started going after them, calling the police, often with noise-ordinance claims. Every opportunity he got he would sit out on his porch with a little sound meter and wait for the decibel to go over, then record it and get the cops. It was a big controversy with our users.

He would post on our site frequently, saying it doesn’t matter that I came afterwards or that they’ve done good things for the neighborhood, the law’s the law. No matter what, you have to follow the law.

We got wind of the fact that this guy did not scoop after his dog. So we sent a staffer out and staked out his house until we got video of him not scooping after his dog.

This was one where our community was overwhelmingly behind us but there were a few people that didn’t like us taking such an advocacy role. Most of our users were just thrilled.

He left the neighborhood shortly after that.

Taking our cues from the weekly

We follow more in the line of the alternative weekly. There are a ton of causes that we picked up, like advocating for farmer’s markets and against food deserts. Our political editor’s relatively pro-labor, and he’s made it a goal to be as supportive as possible of Chicago public schoolteachers. Things along those lines. On the other hand, we go out of our way to avoid endorsing political candidates.

Sometimes reporting and opining can mix

Our school board recently voted to make Martin Luther King Day a snow makeup day. And the local NAACP called for a student boycott and an economic boycott against the city. They called Charlotte a racist bastion. I covered those stories, and then I did a column saying the Charlotte I know is not a racist bastion.

I’m not gonna beat myself up excessively over necessity. I needed to cover that story, and I felt I needed to write that commentary.

It occurred to me as I sat down to write that column, that that would not happen in a newspaper. If I were a reporter writing that story, I would not come back and opine. If I could afford to have a reporter go out and cover that story and then me as the editor do a commentary or whatever, that would be perfect. That’s my dream, but until I get there, I’m not gonna beat myself up excessively over necessity. I needed to cover that story, and I felt I needed to write that commentary.

So in this way we are different [from a traditional news organization]. By necessity. We don’t have the finances and resources to construct all the layers necessary to avoid that kind of conflict.

Issues of objectivity remain unsettled

“Opinion” and “objectivity” never appear in the SPJ Code of Ethics. It’s always been OK for some journalists to have opinions and to express them. You know, we have columns. And there are alternative publications that are doing journalism in their own right that follow a different reporting standard in terms of voice and perspective. And blogging continues in that vein.

First of all, the notion that somebody needs to be objective and completely detached is something that has never been settled. That’s an issue that’s always been with us. We’re just seeing the latest wrinkles of it, and journalists are going to disagree about it.

I think part of this discussion needs to be: are there connections that go further than opinions? Because one of those key points in the SPJ code is to act independently. Most of the elaboration on that in the SPJ code is about independence with advertisers. I think that one of the big debates we need to have is about this question of independence. Are there lines we need to watch and not cross while still allowing – and in my view encouraging – people to recognize that we are human, we do have judgment and perspective, and that can add value to our journalism if we use it correctly.

Reframing the questions

A newspaper has always been, even when it doesn’t admit it, a participant in the life of the community it serves. So the extent to which you not only admit that but embrace it makes your newspaper better, period. The question is not whether, but how – how do we become a better participant in our community?

My role as an advocate is to advocate for better democracy in my community. It is not to advocate for this or that or the other thing.

And so I’ve long ago passed that Rubicon. So the questions are more like, what does engagement mean? And how do we listen better? As opposed to advocacy. My role as an advocate is to advocate for better democracy in my community. It is not to advocate for this or that or the other thing.

You know, I won’t tell my wife how I voted, much less anyone else. I won’t opine on virtually any specific issue, even at the coffee table at my favorite coffee shop. It’s just ingrained in me.

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