The Press: Bad Readers=Bad Papers

For 39 of his professional years, Lester Markel, 68, has edited the prestigious Sunday magazine of the New York Times. During that time, Sunday Editor Markel has stored up his share of gripes about the competence of his colleagues. In the current Harper’s Magazine, Markel fires off a volley at what he calls “The Real Sins of the Press”—a scattershot barrage so broad that some of its shells might well fall on Markel’s own paper.

Some of his targets have been shot at before. (“Too many American newspapers are media of entertainment rather than of information”; “newspapers are failing to make the important news understandable,” have “lost much prestige as leaders of public opinion”.) But as he rakes these familiar topics, Marksman Markel occasionally discovers a new angle of fire:

> “There has risen lately in journalism a credo that writing should be simplified. Write as you talk, the mentors say. But most people should not even talk as they talk. And writing is different from speaking; it must have rhythm and accent and imagery.”

> “As for the schools of journalism, large doubts arise as to whether there is any legitimate reason for their existence. Journalism cannot really be taught. The essential newspaper ‘techniques’ are not techniques at all, but touches of talent.” — “There is in journalism a widespread view that when you embark on interpretation, you are entering choppy and dangerous waters, the swirling tides of opinion. This is nonsense. In the presentation of a so-called ‘factual’ or ‘objective’ story, judgments are involved. And they are judgments not at all unlike those involved in interpretation.”

> “Bad newspapers could not exist without bad readers.”