Newspaper editors wonder how to do basic journalism

Lawrence Henry has a great wrap-up of the clueless response of editors such as the Tampa Tribune's Rosemary Goudreau to the assertion from readers that there might be good news in Iraq. It never occurred to them to try some reporting.

Goudreau herself has to ask her own boss "if there was any way to check these assertions" (in the e-mail). Pick up the phone, Ms. Goudreau! Turn to your own back files of "returning soldiers" profiles and -- what? The Tampa Tribune hasn't done any profiles of returning soldiers? Well, call the local VFW posts and churches and start finding some. Then arrange for interviews and ask questions. Assign your reporters to dig at the topic. If your reporters find out something, print it.

If you're out in the world, it falls right in your lap. At our church a few weeks back, one of our service men, home on leave, stood up to say that we shouldn't believe what we saw on TV or in the newspapers, that it was nothing like what was going on in Iraq. After church, he told me, "You don't know anything if you're not reading the blogs."

No one in the Seelye story gets the point, not Goudreau, not Silverman, not Dardarian, and certainly not Seelye herself. They've turned news into a product, like toothpaste. But it's worse. A real toothpaste manufacturer, faced with customer complaints, would find out what's wrong with the toothpaste. The AP-ers never even consider there might be something wrong with their reporting. At best, they are willing only to work on how their readers "perceive" their reporting.

Ponder this, editors. There is something wrong with your product, and your readers have stopped buying it.