The Los Angeles Times has demonstrated again why regular people just don’t understand journalists. The Times wrote in an editorial:
         “…Google now is doing yet another thing that’s bound to get under journalists’ skin. This month, it announced plans to let people and organizations comment on the stories written about them. For example, if The Times ran another exposé on conflicts of interest within the Food and Drug Administration’s drug-approval process, Google News would provide a forum for the FDA and any researchers or drug manufacturers implicated in the story to respond, unedited.”
    The Times argues that Google’s plan isn’t journalism. It may not be, but it’s giving readers, even if they’re not objective readers, a chance to reply to a story in an unfiltered way. Actually, forget the filter. Many readers can’t figure out how to break down the walls of the newsroom to comment on a story in any way, filtered or not.
    Google has a good idea. And the Times overlooks the fact that many newspaper sites already allow readers to comment on stories—another sign that journalism, even if the Times doesn’t call it that, slowly is crawling off of its perch and thinking like regular people.

Many reporters and editors at the Wall Street Journal think that the sky is falling—actually, that it fell on Tuesday—because the new boss might tell them what to write.

In their self-absorbed way, they’re missing the big point: New boss Rupert Murdoch has more control over media—way beyond the Journal–than anyone else in history. Experience has shown that he is a passionate news executive who isn’t timid about using that control either.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with passion. But Murdoch’s playground for passion is so big that it makes the old critics of media consolidation look like whiners. Think William Randolph Hearst times 10,000.

For starters, Murdoch’s playground is measured in numbers of continents, not mere cities, the way we used to count newspapers and TV stations. As one profile says, Murdoch’s News Corp. operates in “the United States, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Australia, Asia and the Pacific Basin.”

Murdoch soon will control the Journal as well as the United Kingdom’s largest-circulation Sunday broadsheet and tabloid newspapers—more than 100 papers in all. (“Our newspapers reach more readers in more countries than those of any other English-language publisher,” according to Murdoch’s immodest Web site.)

And a big chunk of DirectTV as well as similar companies in other countries. (Remember the stories of John D. Rockefeller’s vertical control of the oil industry, from the well to the gas station?)

And Myspace. 

And movie companies, including Twentieth Century Fox.

And magazines, including the conservative Weekly Standard.

And book publishers, including HarperCollins.

And 16 cable companies, including the Fox News Channel.

And traditional TV operations, which “capture more viewers, more desirable demographics and more awards than perhaps any other television group in the world,”
according to the News Corp. site.

So I’ve decided that the worriers at the Wall Street Journal were right. The sky did fall on Tuesday. As objectionable as the idea is, we need new methods to limit media consolidation. There is a certain irony in my saying that: I was a vice president of Knight Ridder, once the second-largest U.S. newspaper publisher, when its combined newspaper circulation was about 3.8 million copies a day—a laughably tiny number next to Murdoch’s influence.

For starters, we might reframe moribund U.S. anti-trust laws to limit broad Murdoch-type domination rather than focusing so much of their attention on traditional narrow definitions of monopoly. As for multi-continental domination of the media, I don’t have a good idea. But some of those bright business writers at the Wall Street Journal might if they would just focus on the big picture.
 

The Bancroft family clearly is treating the fate of Dow Jones seriously. The family is considering the rational question of a huge price for the company against the emotional question of giving up many decades of family ownership of America’s best newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, and assorted other enterprises.

Lost in the shuffle are two questions that make these calm issues—discussed in the offices of high-priced lawyers and perhaps over gin and tonics at the club—absolutely ridiculous.

Question 1: Who ever heard of an agreement that would prohibit the purchaser from exercising the usual rights of management? If the purchaser is that frightening, should the deal even be considered?

Question 2: Haven’t the best publishers—and editors and reporters and photographers—always “interfered” with the editorial product? The best haven’t told the staff to go easy on China, as some fear Rupert Murdoch would do. But they certainly stepped in and critiqued a headline or suggested an investigative project–and they certainly mucked around in the newsroom budget. (As I understand it, Murdoch would have the right—obviously—to set the budget numbers, which makes all this talk of independence ridiculous.)

From the sidelines, I worry, as many others do, that Murdoch will ruin a wonderful newspaper. But I also wonder if the owning family has stopped to consider just how ridiculous it is to try to prevent an owner from exercising the usual rights of ownership—particularly from the newspaper whose editorial page is the spokesman for American capitalism.

I used to chide broadcast friends, who tell me that they almost never pay summer interns. I always thought it was important, legally and morally, for important institutions to pay employees. (I remember how proud I was of that $67 a week that I earned in my first internship at the Frederick, Md., News-Post. Of course, that figure counted night differential.)

Now my friend Walter Middlebrook of the Detroit News passes along an amazing story
from Notre Dame Magazine saying that the university has purchased internships from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Concord Monitor and the Los Angeles Times “to take on Notre Dame summer interns. The (journalism) program’s endowment will fund the salaries of the news interns at the Inquirer and the Monitor, while the Times sports-reporting internship will be funded by a private donor.”

In today’s topsy-turvy media world, I’ve come to expect almost anything. But buying internships almost makes Murdoch control of Dow Jones seem like no big deal.

Here’s why:

–Interns who are carefully chosen work at least as hard as regular staff members. Newspapers should pay them.
–Profitable institutions, such as newspapers (yes, even today, almost every newspaper makes big profits) should help non-profit institutions, not the other way around.
–If this ridiculous scheme catches on, poor universities, often with poor students, will find themselves at the bottom of the food chain yet again.

Let’s allow the free market to control internships. In relatively good times—or perhaps in bad times when lots of “permanent” employees have been laid off—newspapers will jump at the chance to hire eager employees who can be paid low salaries. When things get tough, newspapers will scale back on internships, as they always have, and some deserving kids will freelance or otherwise figure out how to get experience.

Any of those options is better than putting the squeeze on universities to pay the salaries of newspaper employees.

Human resource managers from around the nation convened last week in Las Vegas, a desert venue that seemed fitting given one speaker’s remedy for addressing negativity in the workplace: Put your head in the sand.

Steve Gilliland, a consultant and motivational speaker from Pittsburgh, didn’t exactly use those words, of course. His point was simple – what goes into your brain comes back out, reflected in actions and attitude. If you want to have a positive attitude, surround yourself with positive people and positive thoughts.

Therefore, Gilliland told a standing-room only audience of about 1,500 at the annual Society of Human Resource Management conference, a key to managing negativity was to avoid the news.

 “I haven’t read a newspaper in years,” he said. He makes sure to avoid TV news – why would he want to know about all those horrific things that happened elsewhere, he asked, since there was little he could do about them except pray? Gilliland went on to explain that the media only focus on the negative, because it sells.

Having spent more than three decades in and around media, I admit that these sentiments – referenced several times during Gilliland’s 75-minute presentation – got my back up. Of course, I have heard them before. I have always wondered: How can someone know that newspapers only focus on the negative if they don’t read them? I also wonder: If mainstream media focus on the negative “because it sells,” how come newspaper circulation has been in a 30-year slide?

That said, Gilliland’s point of view is worth serious reflection. In fact, there IS a lot of depressing news out there – and there are some producers in broadcast, and a few editors in mainstream print, who think lurid news brings bigger audiences. And news executives shouldn’t kid themselves: Millions of Americans think as Gilliland does. At least some of them have voted with their feet, abandoning newscasts and newspapers.

But the “media focus on the negative” truism has become a convenient way for people to skirt past a complex set of societal dynamics. Analyze any mainstream paper carefully. You will find a mix of good news, bad news, uplifting tales and just sheer information, much of it very useful to the audience. Few newspapers get into the gutter; most mainstream papers veer more closely to “boring” than “sensationalistic.”

Regardless of media, the human condition is such that each of us faces challenges. Pretending they don’t exist creates its own set of problems.  Each of us deals with negative circumstances differently. For some, walling ourselves from current events may be the right move. But I cannot imagine that workplaces would be any less negative if no one watched TV or read newspapers. They would simply be less capable, and more ignorant.
 

It is the season of ceremonies – graduations, weddings, recitals, final commemorations of any activity that must cease before summer. I have attended several this past month. I was particularly thrilled to see my son graduate from middle school last week. But the most inpsirational event I have attended recently was my brother’s college graduation.

Tony received his bachelor’s degree in informational technology after close to three decades in the workforce. If you want to be inspired by the power of a dream, attend any commencement ceremony at his school, the University of Phoenix.

The University of Phoenix, of course, has become the nation’s most prolific granter of degrees based on smart use of e-learning and relentless marketing to professionals seeking to augment their college credentials. I can’t tell you much first-hand about its classes or course offerings. But I can tell you about its students.

You won’t find too many who are there because, “well, you go to college after high school, right?” Or because they are indecisive about their future and college seems as good an idea as any. Or because their parents are paying for it, so what the heck?

No, if you’re at University of Phoenix, you are there because you have a dream. You are trying to pull yourself up, to get that one credential that is the ticket to a better-paying job, to show your kids that education is indeed the path to a better way.

And you are not spending your spare time at the campus pub or playing intramural volleyball or ping-pong in the rec room. You have no spare time. While taking classes, you are working full-time, or caring for your kids or aging parents or both.

It’s a long slog, because students generally take only a class or two at a class at a time. My brother, who earned some college credits when he was younger, spent about four years finishing his degree at University of Phoenix, meanwhile working in a demanding customer service role for a prominent telecommunications company. Tony would do a shift at work, get home around 7, have a bite to eat with his family, take a nap, wake up at 10 or 10:30 and do his schoolwork into the early hours, maybe 2 or 3 am. Then it would be up at 7 to get ready for work. Weekends? More schoolwork at home, or with study-group partners.

I know something of their journey, having not yet achieved my own degree. Last year, I re-enrolled at George Washington University and took a summer course online. I aced the course, but the long nights of reading, writing and research nearly killed me.

I am very proud of Tony. In attending his commencement, I realized how many others were out there, just like him. Single moms, couples and people with disabilities went to the stage to receive their diplomas. I had tears in my eyes throughout the joyous ceremony, thinking of what each of these adult learners had taught all of us about the triumph of ambition and the sacrifices necessary to achieve something meaningful.

One of America’s best reporters was on stage recently explaining how she and a colleague broke a great story, a sure Pulitzer candidate next spring. Each of the reporters worked four months on the story, she said–and then gave the federal government four or five days to respond, with the publication date right after that. Someone joked to the effect that “that’s better than the one day we usually give them.” The audience knowingly chuckled.

Journalists don’t often think of response time as one of the elements of fairness, but we should. If the story took eight months of reporting time, is four or five days of response time enough? We, of course, expect the federal government to drop everything when we break a big story, but is that expectation fair? Furthermore, if the rushed response is coming on the eve of publication, isn’t it tough for journalists to recast their conclusions in the unlikely event that the government, or another adversary, has an important response?

Some colleagues who heard the discussion disagree with me, saying that the reporters offered enough time. But those colleagues probably never had an experience like mine: Years ago, a newspaper prepared a story critical of reporting that my own paper had done. The critical story clearly had taken weeks of work. But, as far as I could tell, I was called after the story was written so that my quote simply could be plugged in, thus meeting journalistic standards of fairness. As it happened, I was called so late in the process that my quote didn’t even make the bulldog edition of the Sunday paper; it was inserted for later editions.

In both cases, “the other side” was asked for comment, as journalism ethics require. But does the offer of a rushed comment, solicited after a major story was framed and perhaps even written, meet even the minimal standards of fairness? That answer doesn’t require even four or five days. The answer is no.

From a leadership perspective, it’s not too early to start thinking about Memorial Day 2008.

This year, we grieved over the nearly 3,500 American military personnel killed thus far in Iraq. What will the number be next year? What’s a leadership posture for dealing with this ongoing tragedy, one that has also killed untold numbers of insurgents and Iraqi civilians?

An important leadership trait is the ability to admit, “I was wrong.” President Bush and his advisers must start there. They should work on another key skill – listening – and commit aggressively to creative solutions that will resolve as much of this situation as possible on their watch.

Bush’s opponents must concede that, regardless of who is responsible for the Iraq debacle, the solutions will be complex and require careful thought and execution. Each side must give the other room to exercise leadership in a dignified manner.

Those who would be president must speak forthrightly about Iraq, in a way that gives evidence of their capabilities of leading the U.S. during complex and dangerous times.
Those of us who have platforms and pulpits must speak out, invoking the values and principles that are at the heart of our heritage – among them, courage, fairness, decency, respect for others’ beliefs and cultures and the will to do what is necessary to defend the U.S.

By next May, many of us will have had the chance to involve ourselves in our national political process. Let’s study the issues carefully, challenge the candidates, and above all, exercise our right to vote in primaries and ultimately the November general election.

That small act – the right to vote – is one of the cornerstone principles of freedom, a freedom for which tens of thousands of our countrymen have made the ultimate sacrifice. Sadly, more will give their lives by next Memorial Day. The responsible exercise of the vote is one small way to honor our brave servicemen and servicewomen. Let’s hope all of us can step up to acts of leadership, big and small, that by next year leave fewer of them in harm’s way.

Many of you soon will be welcoming summer interns. You are happy to see the fresh, eager faces, young people who pick up slack while permanent employees go on vacation and do some of the drudge tasks that everyone else has avoided.

Think strategically. A good intern program is probably the most cost-effective talent-management strategy in your company’s arsenal. For the cost of relatively small salaries, you can survey and identify fresh talent; expose young people to your organization’s values, mission and culture; tap into the interns’ own network of friends and associates; begin the process of recruiting the best to permanent jobs, and bring a variety of different kinds of diversity into your organization.

The best intern programs I’ve seen:

- Are specific about the criteria for hiring.

- Provide orientation, including discussions about the company’s general expectations of employee behavior, such as dress codes and policies on ethics and harassment, sexual and otherwise.

- Assign some drudge duties, yes, but also ensure each intern works on at least one high-quality assignment during the summer.

- Ask a staff member to serve as a “buddy” or “mentor” during the summer.

- Provide at least one or two opportunities for in-house training on relevant skills.

- Encourage interns to network among one another and to meet younger staff members.

Interns will always be special to me. In 1983, I was co-director of the intern program at the Detroit Free Press. Our outstanding group included an exceptional young woman named Brenda Turner, who unfortunately took ill and died that summer. I will never forget the way her fellow interns bonded together, or the way the Free Press responded. It created the Brenda Turner Intern of the Year award, which continues to be presented each year. The Free Press continues to work hard to ensure its interns have a meaningful, productive experience.