A Letter to Jerry Ceppos,

Executive Editor, San Jose Mercury News.

Earlier this year I was one of about ten or fifteen "readers" who had the privilege attending a series of nine meetings at the Mercury News from January 20 to March 24, 1998. The subject was Fairness and Accuracy in reporting and it covered a series of topics:

Since early 1994, I had been in a running battle with the Mercury News because of their unfair and inaccurate coverage of Whitewater and the other "GATE" scandals involving Clinton. Although not as blatant as the unsourced leaking we observed during the Lewinsky scandal, the pattern in Whitewater and the earlier scandals was the same. Accusations and allegations from anonymous sources, a stern prosecutorial tone of voice, and what I came to call reportorial editorializing. As in the case of the Lewinsky scandal, almost none of this was written locally. Most of it came from the Washington Post and the New York Times. After one of the meetings, Dave Yarnold told me that at least one of the articles they received were simply not printed because of its content. It was clear that what was going on in Washington bothered all of the journalists in those meetings because the Mercury News was being blamed for some of the news it carried.

From some of the things Jerry said to me after some of the sessions, it was evident there was a great deal of journalistic soul-searching going on across the country this past February and March, as there should have been. In my view, good journalists like Ceppos and Yarnold are being hung out to dry by a Mainstream Media that is disconnected from the American people.

They are doing their best, but I have to tell you I now believe the Mainstream Media has not only failed to meet its responsibilities to the American people, but is itself a major reason why the American people no longer receive fair and objective news from their newspapers, TV, and radio. I think the people at the top have sold out to greed and short-term gains. But in addition, I believe the people at the top have their own subtle political agenda to push. The reporters and the editors at the bottom report the local news fairly and objectively. This gains credibility for the newspapers; a credibility that is used to cover the subtle political messages of the owners.  I believe the Mainstream Media of today now represents a danger to this country because it no longer watches and reports on those who would destroy our democracy and because the owners of the media themselves appear to have become part of the group who wants unlimited power and unlimited restraints.

Dear Jerry, March 5, 1998

Just after the session on "I Got It Wrong," two weeks ago, I mentioned to you there was a palpable sense of a journalistic culture in some of our fairness and accuracy meetings. Or at least this is how it felt to me. I am perhaps more sensitive to this than most because of my own background in another institution charged with the process of translating the realities of the world into understandable information -- the U.S. Intelligence Community. My job and the job of thousands like me, was to perceive and to report upon foreign activities posing a current or future threat to U.S. national security interests. After my retirement three years ago, and after reflecting back over forty-plus years of service in that institution, I have come to understand that the Community actually functioned and still functions as an "early warning system" for U.S. decision-makers.

Thanks to our fairness and accuracy meetings of the past few weeks, I have come to realize that the print media of the United States is the only institution in this country which performs the same early warning function, albeit on a much broader scale. In serving as an early warning system, the print media’s fundamental job is, as I see it, to alert the citizenry of this country not only to specific threats or long-term threatening trends, but also to future opportunities for the country, both at home and abroad.

The Deadline is King.

In a newspaper, and most particularly in a daily newspaper, the deadline is king. It permeates the thoughts and actions of all who practice daily journalism in an insidious way. Because it is always there, it is never there -- at least not in the conscious minds of a reporter or an editor.

What are its effects? In journalism as in current intelligence reporting, the emphasis is on getting it right and getting it out, or is it getting it out and hoping you got it right? It may surprise you, but there are many similarities between daily newspaper reporting and the present "current" intelligence reporting activities of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

"Local" and "non-local" intelligence and news. To begin with, the regional "current" intelligence centers supporting U.S. military and diplomatic efforts abroad are similar in at least one way to the hundreds of local newspapers throughout the United States. These centers are the passive consumers of the intelligence flowing in from all of the U.S. intelligence agencies just as the local newspapers are essentially the passive consumers of "non-local" news produced by national and international news services. The regional current intelligence centers select from this mass of incoming information those items pertaining to their regional intelligence targets and publish it in their daily intelligence summaries. They also publish "non-local" intelligence on significant matters affecting U.S. national security interests in other parts of the world. However, while local newspapers collect and report "local" news, this is not true of most of the current intelligence reporting centers.

The emphasis on current intelligence reporting is fairly recent. Thirty years ago, the senior U.S. authorities in the various areas of the World -- the ambassadors, the unified or specified commands in the armed forces, and so on -- were not satisfied with the intelligence they were receiving from the U.S. Intelligence Community. It did not answer the questions they had about local conditions, and above all, it was not current enough.

Surface intelligence, surface news.

Thirty years ago, the principle currency of intelligence was in-depth term studies of various foreign threats and trends. Although we had problems with short-sighted analysts and analysis managers who would see only the surface of things and who would not look for the underlying reality, there were still enough "old-timers" from the Second World War intelligence agencies to minimize the production of "surface" intelligence. From their experiences in the day-to-day realities of intelligence collection, analysis and reporting when lives depended upon it, the "old-timers" knew the importance of in-depth term studies and term reporting.

As time went on, the "old-timers" retired and the emphasis on current reporting kept on growing. Rather than achieving a balance between current and term reporting, the "new" intelligence managers shifted more and more resources away from term studies and reporting to current stories with a self-imposed daily deadline, regardless of whether it was needed or not. This lack of balance has affected the overall intelligence capabilities of this country. And just as the quality of intelligence has suffered because of the lack of in-depth intelligence reporting, I would argue the quality of news has also declined because of the lack of in-depth news reporting. Moreover, I believe the need for both in-depth intelligence and news reporting has been overshadowed by the daily grind and the incessant need to meet daily deadlines.

The present emphasis on current intelligence reporting has had an even more far-reaching negative effect on warning intelligence. The search engines now common to all newspapers are nearly identical to the search engines used by the U.S. Intelligence Community, and, in my judgment, share the same common failing. The predominant source of archival information in both instances is identical -- current "stories" produced quickly and to a deadline, and which then become the "truth" of on-going events. As in the Clinton Sex Scandal, "speculation or supposition" in a news story or an intelligence report on one day becomes a "fact" in the story or report published on the next day, or month, or year.

The analogy between newspapers and intelligence extends beyond the problems mentioned above. Today, the Mercury News and all other "local" papers have, as it were, split personalities -- one personality is confronted with the need to get the local stories out and the other personality finds itself totally dependent on news services who themselves are judged on how quickly they can get the "national" or "world" stories out. More to the point, in the case of the Mercury News, almost all of your resources and most of your personal focus is on the local news. As a result, the Mercury News is an amalgam of a carefully-watched and controlled "local news" effort on the one hand, and on the other hand, "non-local" news which is effectively outside of the editorial controls and policies of your newspaper. In one of our first fairness and accuracy meetings, Dave Yarnold told me that the Mercury News was responsible for both the "local" and the "non-local" news it printed. But to meet these responsibilities, more time, more oversight, and above all, more resources will have to be devoted by the Mercury News to "non-local" news.

What is another effect of the pernicious daily deadline? It is the lack of fair context because of the lack of a historical context. I was not very popular in some sectors of the Intelligence Community because even thirty years ago I soundly criticized the Community’s failure to recognize and root out shallow a-historical reporting. This was particularly noticeable in the reporting of military intelligence agencies. There was no meat in many reports and nothing to engage the mind. You would read an intelligence report and it was like reading a factoid from USA Today. There was no context. It was as if the world had begun a week (or a day) earlier and there was nothing to connect the story in the report to something that occurred before the story appeared. Three weeks later, there would be another intelligence report on the same subject but with no reference to the prior story although both intelligence reports had been prepared by the same analysis and reporting center and probably had been written by the same intelligence reporter.

The A-historical Reporting of the News and the Creation of a Myth.

An excellent example of this is less than a year old. In the spring of 1997, a series of stories appeared in the Washington Post which literally accused prominent Democrats of providing a number of high-paying jobs for Webster Hubbell while he was under indictment. What was the reason for these high-paying jobs? According to the Post, it was to insure Hubbell would not provide Kenneth Starr with incriminating information on Whitewater. It was obvious to the Post that Bill and Hillary Clinton were guilty of something even if the Post did not know what it was. That was bad enough, but this same assumption of guilt is coloring the Post’s current coverage of the Starr investigation.

There was no suggestion of criminal activity relating to Hubbell’s billings until late November 1994 when the Post reported Kenneth Starr had brought a senior member of the Rose Law firm up before a grand jury to discuss the Hubbell billings. On December 6, 1994, Hubbell admitted all of his crimes in a plea bargain (fact).

The "Tone" of Newspaper Reporting.

In covering a story and then writing it, the reporters on the Mercury News are required to be fair and accurate. In his account of the "Toys" story, Mike Antonucci told a tale of initial allegations, of corporate stonewalling, of a supplier’s grievances which substantiated some of the original allegations, followed at last by a CEO coming clean. Some of your reporters, in responding to Mike’s tale, said the written story should truthfully follow this sequence of events even though "Toys Incorporated" would not appear in a very good light. This is a position with which I emphatically agree!

But not all stories have heroes and villains. And in American journalism, as in American law, the accused is innocent until found guilty, and is not accused without a clear and compelling indication of guilt.

Fairness and accuracy in the reporting and editing of a story would appear to require no prejudgement as to guilt or innocence in the initial or continuing coverage of a story. If there is a consistent prosecutorial tone in a story or a series of stories, it is fair to assume the reporter, the editor, and the newspaper printing the original story or series of stories have already made a judgment as to guilt or innocence, and in this case have found the subject of the stories guilty. "We know they are guilty, we just have to find the evidence!" Any newspaper which prints the initial story or series of stories without checking them for fairness or accuracy is equally culpable of prejudicial reporting.

Similarly, if there is a consistent exculpatory tone in a story or series of stories, it is fair to assume that everyone involved in the printing or the re-printing of the story or series of stories have already found the subject innocent without any attempt to determine if this is true or not. Again, any newspaper which prints the initial story or series of stories without checking them for fairness or accuracy is equally culpable of prejudicial reporting.

In one of his journalistic tales, Pete Carey told us of the disappointment of his editor who said "Too much research can ruin a good story." It is only in the pulp-fictional world, and not the Real World, where the heroes wear white hats and the villains wear black hats. A single story or even more so, a series of stories which displays a consistent prosecutorial or exculpatory tone should be highly suspect to an editor. This is, of course, if and only if, they have time to think about it. Deadline pressures and the shortening news cycle have deprived most local newspapers of this time. What can a local newspaper do to protect itself and its readers?

 An Analysis Tool for Determining the Tone and the Calculated Organization of a News Story or a Series of News Stories on a Particular Subject.

It seems to me fair and accurate journalism is not prejudicial journalism. So it is fair to look at an example of recent American journalism to determine what is fair and accurate, and what is prejudicial. Whatever one might think of it, the "Whitewater" reporting of the New York Times and the Washington Post has shaped the thinking of most Americans (including the American press) when they are asked to consider both of the Clintons, and the Clinton administration. Many of the "Whitewater" stories published in the first "burst" of coverage from October 31st 1993 to April 13th, 1994, were either written by, or were based upon stories by Susan Schmidt and Michael Isikoff of the Washington Post, and Jeff Gerth and Stephen Labaton of the New York Times. A number of these were printed in the Mercury News.

In years to come, I am sure this reporting will be included in a syllabus in most journalism schools as a example of a particular kind of journalism having important and far-reaching effects. Because of this, and for the education of your younger reporters, I would like to recommend the following for the 1993 and early 1994 "Whitewater" stories by these four reporters:

2. That the full-text stories from both newspapers be placed in a single chronological order in a three-ring notebook. For all of the stories directly printed in the Mercury News or derived from the reporting of these four reporters, the first page of each story should be so marked.

Powerful journalistic institutions such as the New York Times and the Washington Post sometimes refuse to admit they overstepped the bounds of good journalism in their initial coverage of a story. But I believe a part of this is simply a cultural "pique." People inside a culture have a difficult time "stepping out" of that culture so they can examine both its good and bad points. I think both you and Dave Yarnold know there is a problem but you are having trouble getting your minds around it -- hence the fairness and accuracy meetings.

Although I believe the media coverage of the Clinton Sex Scandal has been one-sided, Clinton will be departing the White House on or before January, 2001. The problems confronting this country of ours are much larger than one man. My primary concerns are with the credibilty of the Mercury News and the print media as a whole. If the American people come to believe the print media cannot be trusted it would be an absolute disaster in our history. The comments of all of you at the fairness and accuracy meetings have told me that at least one small part of the print media is to be trusted. Because of this, it would be totally irresponsible for me to attack the only institution I see as providing hope for the future of democracy.

But to be credible, the Mercury News must not only be fair; it must be seen to be fair. It must be accurate and it must be seen to be accurate. But even as the two of you make a major effort to insure fairness and accuracy, you are being hamstrung by the dependence of the Mercury News on "non-local" reporting and editing over which you have little control. As for the daily deadline, you can ameliorate some of its unfortunate effects by adopting some new analytic tools and techniques, particularly with the stories you are receiving over the wire.

I had to deal with information from many sources over the past forty years. Yet even today, the credibility of received information continues to be a major problem for the Intelligence Community. And although this will be vehemently denied, that monolithic institution we call the U.S. Intelligence Community still does not have a single and highly-consistent evaluation system for incoming information, including intelligence information.

About a year into World War Two, the head of British naval intelligence developed a simple A1 to E5 system to evaluate the masses of incoming information, including intelligence information. The letters A to E evaluated the source. Was the source in a position to speak authoritatively on the matter being reported? A prisoner of war from a German U-boat who was a mechanic for the submarine’s diesel engine was an "A" source on U-boat diesel engines, a "C" source on the operations of his U-boat, and a "D" or "E" source on the strategy of U-boat operations. The numbers 1 to 5 gave intelligence officers another tool to criticize and to evaluate the information. They provided an estimate as to the information probably being true (1) to probably being false (5), with specified "shades of gray" in between. When the Royal Navy and the other British forces began using this system, many pieces of garbage, particularly "stories" from so-called "spies," were then discarded before they could taint reported intelligence. (Some of the garbage still "poisoned the well," at least for some very senior officers in both the Allied and Axis camps known for their stupidity about intelligence. Many of these same men were also "true believers" in a particular policy -- the British morale bombing of German cities, for example.)

No one is asking you or your editors to apply such strict critical standards to the "non-local" news coming across the wires. But to protect the Mercury News credibility, the editors should develop a "critical sensitivity" to these stories and remove reportorial editorializing and bias from supposedly objective news accounts before you print them.

Have your editors reduce both sides of controversial stories down into individual true/false statements. All of us tend to get caught up in the "flow" of a story and to forget the story may be a series of conflicting allegations and assertions. By reducing these accusations, allegations and assertions down into singular statements, it is then possible to ask, "Is the (accusation, allegation, assertion) true or false?" The editor may not know the answer, but at least the question is asked and the attention of the editor has been focused.

It is particularly important for editors working on "non-local" news stories to reduce the accusations, allegations, and assertions of competing parties down into a timeline of individual true/false statements, for they may be the strongest indicators of the intention to manipulate the story and the media.

This is also the principal reason why it is so necessary to build up a timeline of agreed-upon "facts" for continuing stories.. However, as I mentioned above, be careful the agreed-upon "facts" are facts and are not suppositions or speculations that appeared in a story and were labeled as such on one day, and which were then miraculously transmuted into facts in a story on the next day.

A More Advanced Analysis Tool for Detecting the Manipulation of a Story

For both "local" and "non-local" stories, have your reporters and editors divide the true/false statements into timeline columns labeled Gotcha! "A," and Gotcha! "B." Here is where you assume that both sides of a story are guilty as charged and both deserve the prosecutorial approach to reporting. For balance add on two more timeline columns for Exculpatory "A," and Exculpatory "B." Here are listed the exculpatory true/false statements about both sides. Add in one last column which asks three questions: (1) Who profits from the story as written? (2) Do you wish to have one side or the other profiting from the story? (3) Is the story fair to all concerned? The answers to these questions may compel the reporter to go back and re-write the story before it is printed.

You may note in the above paragraphs that the term timeline is in bold letters. There is a reason for this. Much of American intelligence and American journalism is a-historical because the culture of this country is a-historical. Over the past thirty years, I learned that placing information in a chronology -- a timeline -- was absolutely essential in detecting a threat to begin with, and to maintaining continuity on a threatening trend as it developed into a clear and present danger. It is an analysis tool badly needed today in both U.S. intelligence and U.S. journalism, and it is only possible with the printed word.

More on Culture

Over the past few weeks I have come to believe that print journalism is the only institution in the United States with the power and the obligation of keeping this country a democracy.

If this is true, then it is also the only institution with the power to destroy us as a democratic society.

Because of this, it is absolutely essential for journalists to stand back from their culture and to understand their role in informing and educating what should be the sovereign power in a democracy -- its people. We are always concerned with the opinions of our peers in our professions (read cultures). But why do newspapers exist in the first place? Reporters and editors, and executive editors as well, must always remember they are writing for the reader first, and for their journalistic peers second. Mission statements are fine and the new mission statement of the Mercury New is simply outstanding. But even an outstanding mission statement will not protect the Mercury News from criticism if the day-to-day stories printed in the paper are not fair, accurate, and balanced.

The people in this country have a hunger and a desperate need for substantive information from a credible source. The recent polls have confounded and confused the journalistic power centers in this country. As poorly served as they have been by the media, the people still have detected reporting which they believe is unfair, inaccurate, and heavily biased.

Honesty and integrity in reporting, and in a newspaper as a whole can be discerned by most readers. You are not dumb, and neither are they.

Frank Mancuso