When Jim Lehrer passed away yesterday, the internet was aflame with adjectives.
Jim Lehrer was “understated” and “thoughtful.” People were “heartbroken.” Lehrer was a man of “civility and integrity.” [“Scaia, your understated good looks betray foolishness. Civility and integrity are nouns,” you’re hollering at your computer. And you’re right to do it.]
Judy Woodruff took his place at PBS NewsHour. She said he was a mentor, another noun. Lehrer founded the program in 1975 and was the anchor until he retired in 2011, which may show he wasn’t fired nearly frequently enough.
Several associates have posted “Jim Lehrer’s Rules” on Twitter or Facebook.
These rules were frequently included with a caption that included some version of “Truer words have never been spoken,” or, “We need these rules now more than ever.”
And I’m on Team Lehrer.
Too often now, reporters are told to do the exact opposite of Number 9. We might be told to jazz up a news story with more sensational writing.
But if you’re always trying to find some superlative or some powerful adjective, will people notice when something substantial really does happen? If, every day, you refer to something as “amazing,” like the World Series or “tragic,” like a car crash, how do you send a message when something happens that really does change the course of humanity?
A news director in another city once took issue with my lack of sensationalism.
“Scare us a little,” he wrote one day on the assignment sheet. I don’t remember what that assignment was, but I remember being encouraged to scare people. I didn’t stay at the station long, and my news director was not, in fact, Bill Murray.
The most sensational writing might draw attention immediately, but it’s not a long-term solution to build trust with the audience.
At so many media outlets today, there’s a lot of pressure to be first instead of to be right. If someone else says it, we have to say it, too. If you say, “reportedly,” that makes it okay. It doesn’t matter if it’s wrong. It was reportedly right.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m pontificating. I make mistakes, too. In fact, I just noticed that earlier today, while I tweeted about American Airlines flight attendants getting nervous about flying to China, I clicked on the first “coronavirus” hashtag that popped up. Never mind that it was spelled wrong. I had to send that tweet!
Flight attendants @AmericanAir want “emergency measures” in place to “minimize any chance of exposure” to #coronoavirus. American Airlines’ statement is below. Live report at 9:03 on @KRLD. pic.twitter.com/8JpgFwcbyB
— Alan Scaia (@scaia) January 24, 2020
And the editorial board at 1 Scaianalysis Esplanade regrets overlooking Tip #2. That tweet did not take the same amount of care we would have if the tweet had been about us. A quick search shows quite a few spellings of the coronavirus hashtag. In fact, “#coronoavirus” is trending right now. Some people are using all three hashtags, I assume to follow through on Tip #4: Maybe someone else is perfectly smart, but that other person just clicked the wrong hashtag.
Regardless, this blog may be entertainment, but I don’t go to work to be a star. A journalist’s goal is not to entertain people, and Lehrer’s words are being ignored in favor of getting people too excited to look away. A college professor once asked us why we wanted to become reporters. A classmate said she wanted to be on TV. The professor encouraged her to drop the class and move down the street to the theater program.
