Hanna Trailer

12/14/2017
MSCM 351

Principles of Journalism Final Paper

 Kovach and Rosenstiel’s “Elements of Journalism” provides a helpful

framework for considering works of journalism in newspapers, fictional accounts, and

narrative retellings of prominent news stories appearing on screen and on paper. This is

because of the widely applicable principles of journalism they put forward in their work.

These principles are: a journalist’s first obligation is to the truth, first loyalty is to the

citizens, and most important discipline is that of verification. Furthermore, every

journalist must remain independent from faction and endeavor to make the news

comprehensive, proportional, engaging, and relevant. Journalism arises from one’s

character and so a journalist must listen to their conscience. Additionally, journalists

must promote a public forum and, finally, the citizens must hold their journalists

accountable.

In comparing and analyzing three examples of the portrayal of journalism in

Hollywood (“All the President’s Men,” “Spotlight,” and “Absence of Malice”) to one

another and to Kovach and Rosenstiel’s “Elements of journalism,” one finds two true

stories overflowing with demonstrations of reporters upholding their journalistic

principles and one story of precisely the opposite. In this instance, we will be analyzing

each work as it relates to obligation to the truth, diligence in verification, independence

from faction, monitoring power, comprehensiveness and proportionality, and

responsibility to conscience.
 “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight” follow the true stories of two of the

most impactful news events the United States of America has ever seen, while “Absence

of Malice” offers a fiction-based step-by-step guide for what not to do in journalism and,

though it is not the focus of this paper, law enforcement.

“All the President’s Men” recounts the story of Bob Woodward and Carl

Bernstein of the Washington Post uncovering the Watergate scandal (Pakula, 1976).

“Spotlight” shows the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team, for which the

film is titled, discover and report on the systemic sexual abuse of children in the

Catholic Church. That team consists of Mike Rezendez, Sasha Pfieffer, Matty Carroll,

and is overseen by Walter “Robbie” Robinson, Ben Bradlee Jr, and Marty Baron

(McCarthy, 2015).

“Absence of Malice” is the fictional story of a reporter named Meghan Carter

attempting to discover the truth regarding a Miami murder. This story forces the main

character to confront several important choices as a journalist, allowing for a fruitful

analysis to take place. The majority of the decisions Carter makes are, at minimum,

questionable and often erroneous. (Pollack, 1981)

The happenings of “Spotlight” exemplify most of Kovach and Rosenstiel’s

elements, but are founded primarily upon two of them: independence from faction, and

monitoring power. The latter was the overarching goal of the story, but it could not have

succeeded without whole-hearted commitment to the former by every member of the

team.
 Marty Baron, the then brand new editor at the Boston Globe, was an outsider in

Boston. He was not originally from the area and was not Catholic, which allowed him to

look at the Church with fresh eyes. This prompted him to act more out of loyalty to the

public and to the truth than to the factions that had grown within the Globe’s subscriber

base (this becoming evident when the Globe’s lawyer pointed out that the vast majority

of subscribers were Catholic). Though the investigative work was completed by the

Rezendez, Pfeiffer, Carroll and Robinson, they would not have carried out that work

without suggestion from Baron, as demonstrated by the Globe’s initial treatment of the

story (recall that the Globe “buried it in metro” the first time reports of systemic

molestation came up (McCarthy, 2017)).

Looking at “Spotlight” and “All the President’s Men” side by side, the similarity

in tone is clear. Both stories focus on a nearly all-powerful authority (The Catholic

Church and the United States Government, respectively) abusing its power in such a

way that it harms the public. Thus, the investigative work by each of the reporting teams

clearly demonstrates fulfillment of Kovach and Rosenstiel’s call to monitor power and

give voice to those without.

Another similarity between those films is the method used to obtain information.

Bernstein and Rezendez both wait for hours outside a potential source’s door before

eventually sneaking in to find what they are looking for. This practice is on the border of

okay, because one really should not go around sneaking into people’s offices, but it gets

the job done.

 The films diverge in their strategies for accomplishing the task of making the

news comprehensive and proportional. Woodward and Bernstein report continuously on

the Watergate scandal as new information comes to light, while the Spotlight team

uncovers all the information they possibly can before going public at all. This distinction

illustrates the importance of nuance and diversity of methodology in journalism, because

not every story is the same and thus cannot be treated as such.

Kovach and Rosenstiel’s first principle is this: “journalism’s first obligation is to

the truth.” (Elements of Journalism, p. 49) They explain the importance of this principle

as it relates to journalism’s role in society: “it is important to remember that journalism

exists in a social context. Out of necessity, citizens and societies depend on accurate and

reliable accounts of events. They develop procedures and processes to arrive at what

might be called ‘functional truth.’” (Elements of Journalism, p. 56)

This principle is the basis for the primary struggle of “Absence of Malice,”

alongside the principle of always verifying information. The problem that the fictional

journalist has with the truth can be summarized by one of the lines spoken by a non-

reporter character called Gallagher: “You don’t write the truth, you write what people

say.” (Pollack, 1981). For a journalist who adheres to the principles of journalism, this

assertion would not hold water, however, the protagonist of “Absence of Malice,”

Meghan Carter, does not do that and thus, the statement is true.

The shortcomings of Carter become clearer when she is compared to the reporters

portrayed in “Spotlight.” Carter consistently reports information as soon as she receives

it and fails to get it confirmed before publishing (Pollack, 1981). The consistent errors

of this kind become especially jarring when her supervisor offers her an editing position,

because it reminds the viewer that her unverified stories should have been scrutinized by

the paper’s editors (Pollack, 1981). Meanwhile, “Spotlight” showcases the painstaking

efforts the Globe’s reporters undertake to ensure that they have all the facts straight.

Kovach and Rosenstiel explain the importance of verification by saying: “in the

end, the discipline of verification is what separates journalism from entertainment,

propaganda, fiction, or art. Entertainment—or its cousin “infotainment”—focuses on

what is most diverting. Propaganda selects facts or invents them to serve the real

purpose: persuasion and manipulation. Fiction invents scenarios to get at a more

personal impression of what it calls truth. Journalism alone is focused on the process

employed to get what happened down right.” (Elements of Journalism, pp. 98-99) Their

emphasis on the distinction between journalism and the other genres outlined in the

above passage is important, because it shows how unverified journalism falls into at

least of those genres, while failing to accomplish its goals.

In examining truth and verification, “All the President’s Men” offers something

of a middle ground between “Absence of Malice” and “Spotlight.” Woodward and

Bernstein failed to adequately verify their information just once and it nearly cost them

the story (Paluka, 1976). Following that incident, the two took extra care to make sure

everything they had written was accurate. This gradient from complete failure to verify,
to learning the importance through experience, to fully understanding and practicing

verification sheds new light on the importance of Kovach and Rosenstiel’s work.

Another principle that the each of the journalism films deal with is responsibility

to conscience. This principle informs all others. It is the component of the work that

concerns the humanity of its creator. Kovach and Rosenstiel put it like this: “in the end,

journalism is an act of character. Given that there are no laws, no regulations, no

licensing, and no formal self-policing practices governing journalism’s production-and

because journalism by its nature can be exploitative-a heavy burden rests on the ethics

and judgment of the individual news gatherer, and the organization that published the

work.” (Elements of journalism, p. 271)

For “All the President’s Men,” responsibility to conscience is expressed in the

loyalty to anonymous sources. In “Spotlight,” it is the delicacy with which the stories of

sexual assault survivors were handled. In “Absence of Malice,” there comes an example

of what happens when one fails to listen to their conscience.

Carter experiences how, to use Kovach and Rosenstiel’s term, “explosive”

journalism can be when a source in one of her stories commits suicide following the

publication of a story (Pollack, 1981). In cases of suicide, it is not fair to assign blame to

any one party, given the complexity of the situation and all of the unknowns involved.

The suicide was not Carter’s fault, but it goes to show how careful one must be when

confronting sensitive topics. In this particular example, Carter purposefully turned off

her humanity while speaking with the source. This meant pressuring her to go on the
record as having had an abortion, when doing so would put the source’s job in danger.

Furthermore, Carter removes herself so completely from her own conscience that she

does not see the significance of what she is doing to the woman before her.

One principle at which “Spotlight” excels is making the news comprehensive

and proportional. The film’s sentiments regarding that principle can be summarized with

a quote from one of the movie’s most prominent news-workers, Baron: “I’m more

interested in a way to make this paper essential to its readers.” (McCarthy, 2015)

Of their eighth principle, Kovach and Rosenstiel said: “Journalism is modern

cartography. That is its utility and its economic reason for being. This concept of

cartography helps clarify the question of what journalists should cover.” (Elements of

Journalism, p. 242) Their inclusion of this element speaks to the necessity of

journalism’s practical application for the everyday citizen.

The reason “Spotlight” exemplifies this principle so well is due largely to the

unique structure of the reporting team. The Globe’s Spotlight team by design had time to

dive deeper and search wider than most journalists on most stories. This raises the

question as to whether it would be worthwhile for every newspaper to employ such a

team full time. Without a dedicated investigative team, it is unlikely that the Church

molestation story would ever have been told.

Kovach and Rosenstiel say that journalists need to remain independent from the

people, groups, and subjects about which they write. (Elements of Journalism, p. 142)

Among the many examples they give is one of Linda Greenhouse in 1989. Greenhouse

was a Supreme Court reporter working for the New York Times. While she was working
for the Times, she participated in a “Freedom of Choice” demonstration supporting

women’s right to get abortions. Her employer reprimanded her for this action, because it

showed their readers that she had political opinions and they might wonder if those

opinions would seep into her writing. (Elements of Journalism, p. 149)

The reasoning Kovach and Rosenstiel give for the strict standpoint against

political and other kinds of public affiliation is rooted in pragmatism: “One might

imagine that one could both report on events and be a participant in them, but the reality

is that being a participant clouds all the other tasks a journalist must perform. It becomes

difficult to see things from other perspectives. It becomes more difficult to win the trust

of the sources and combatants on different sides. It becomes difficult if not impossible to

then persuade your audience that you put their interests ahead of those of the team that

you are also working for.” (Elements of Journalism, p. 143)

The film that most confronts the principle concerning independence from faction

is “Absence of Malice.” This is because Carter ignores the principle entirely. Early on in

her investigation, Carter accepts food from her source, which one is not supposed to do.

Later, she begins a complicated romantic entanglement with this same source. (Pollack,

1981).

Addressing the first component first, one is not supposed to accept gift from the

people about whom or related to the articles one writes. This is important for the same

reason that verification and obligation to the truth is important. Journalists cannot simply

write what they want to be true, they have to stick to their facts and maintain a healthily

objective eye as much as they can. The best way to ensure that this occurs is to apply
broad rules as to how one interacts with all of one’s subjects. Not all writing qualifies as

journalism, or, as Kovach and Rosensteil put it: “Freedom of speech and freedom of the

press are not interchangeable terms. Anyone can be a journalist. Not everyone is.”

(Elements of Journalism, p. 145)

Perhaps the more obvious of Carter’s offenses: do not date your subjects. This

should not need to be said, but that is the case with the dismissal of many of Carter’s

decisions throughout the film. Dating one’s subjects does not allow a journalist to fully

perform the necessary tasks of their job. This decision complicates everything in

Meghan’s life, to such an extent that it begs the question: is “Absence of Malice”

intended as a cautionary tale? (Pollack, 1981) This would explain why Carter seemingly

goes out of her way to make the wrong decisions.

“Spotlight” also confronts independence from faction, but mainly in the context

of what happens when people practice it. In the film, the reporters live in a very tight-

knit community in Boston in which the Catholic Church is at the center of most social

bonds. Putting the Church under the microscope threatens the social lives and possibly

the safety of each of the reporters. This is risky from a journalistic standpoint, even

though it is the right thing to do, because at the end of their fight with the Church they

still have to live and report in Boston. If their choice to remain independent from faction

and take a swing at the most important part of many people’s lives results in reduced

access to sources, that could compromise the integrity of the paper.

 Upon reviewing and comparing the events of “All the President’s Men,”

“Absence of Malice,” and “Spotlight” one comes away with a deeper understanding of

Kovach and Rosenstiel’s elements of journalism. This is because each film not only

encounters scenarios in which they must invoke most of the elements, but the characters

therein must face the challenges put to them with the added pressures and complications

of their lives. This is important because one can study the elements all the livelong day

and still struggle to make the right decision when they need to, because principles look

different in real life than they do on a page in a classroom.

Bibliography

Pollack, S. (Producer & Director). (1981). Absence of Malice. United States of

America: Columbia Pictures

Coblenz, W. (Producer) & Pakula, A. J. (Director). (1976). All the President’s

Men. United States of America: Warner Bros.

Faust, B. P., Golin, S., Rocklin, N., Sugar, M. (Producers) & McCarthy, T.
(Director). (2015). Spotlight. United States of America: Open Road Films.

Kovach, B., Rosenstiel, T. (2014). The Elements of Journalism. Three Rivers

Press: New York.