Don’t Bury the Lead on CAFTA
Re: Group Urges Nations to Probe U.S. Officials Over Torture, a news brief by Dave Reynolds
Monday, May 30, 2005
Dear Editors:
"For violations of workers existing rights to organize, CAFTA would have governments fine themselves. For violations of a new legal right to profit, CAFTA would give millions of dollars of public money directly to the offended corporation."
Why couldn't something like that have been in the second or third paragraph of Michelle Chen's article? The piece is excellent overall, but why did readers have to wade through stale discussion about so-called free trade -- a freedom for money and things but not for people -- before getting to the newer, and arguably most important, facts? The facts that hint at how sweeping the new laws made in the name of trade are and would be, and how completely biased toward [...?]
In conclusion, I have to complain about NewStandard burying the lead in the final CAFTA article. I don't want The NewStandard to report the news in the way the New York Times ought to. (What I expect from the New York Times is news from a corporate and government elite viewpoint, but complete and accurate. What I get is trash and propaganda.) Instead, I want the NewStandard to fulfill the role only it can. To quote from a certain FAQ page:
The public deserves better than "the best of the corporate media." ...
Instead, NewStandard journalists and editors provide well-researched articles that connect readers to important events going on in their world. In direct contrast to the mainstream media’s obsession with press conferences and official verbiage of politicians and industry "experts," NewStandard journalists concern themselves with the people that government policies and corporate activities affect. Stories are relayed from the voices of everyday people coping with real issues that impact them, and inspiration is drawn from people working to change their world through grassroots efforts and empowerment.
I'm not saying The NewStandard hasn't done that in this article, as you all do incredibly day in and day out. I'm just asking you try to do it higher in the article. I promise I'll still read the whole story.
--Benjamin Malancon
Michelle Chen Responds:
Funny that I got this letter shortly after receiving another reader response to a separate article that lambasted me for not providing enough coverage to industry's side of the story. Sadly, it's hard to please everyone in this business. But I guess that's why we're in it.
In the future, I agree it would be good to fulfill the mission that separates this publication from countless others: to provide information that would not surface in the mainstream media. But I wouldn't say that this article "buries the lead." Burying the lead, NY Times style, would be a deliberate, or semiconscious, effort to obscure information to keep the public in the dark. I might be guilty of affording a bit too much line space to the pro-free-traders in an attempt to provide balanced coverage, but I'd caution people against reading out of my admitted long-windedness an ulterior motive to push a corporate agenda.
I understand that readers want to obtain new and important facts as quickly and efficiently as possible, and you're right, that is a large part of our mission, as it should be for all media outlets (though you know how well most of them adhere to that principle). Still, facts tend to be more effective when delivered with clarity and balance, and the other side of TNS's mission in reporting facts is contextualizing information so that readers have a sense of the social forces that are driving the disturbing realities often buried or obscured in the public discourse. Succinctness is a virtue, and news should be efficient and reader-friendly--but not at the expense of providing the background that is equally crucial to understanding the issue, perhaps even more so.
I know our readers want information confirming ideas they probably already have about our government and the powers that be. But sometimes, analyzing the other side, especially when it is particularly abhorrent to one's personal views, can also spur action, or at any rate help people "know their enemy." (In my opinion, alternative media might benefit if more progressive journalists thought this way. Then again, it would also benefit from more concise leads.)
--Michelle Chen