I’ve been writing quite a bit lately about journalists in the mainstream media who write about beer yet appear to know virtually nothing about the subject. I’ve had a few of my own theories about this phenomenon but I recently came across another one that I hadn’t considered in a book I happened to be reading. The book was 100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World by John Tirman. Number 99 on Tirman’s list is “‘Professional’ Schools, by which he means medical schools, law schools and the one that caught my attention — journalism schools. Here’s his general take on J-schools:
And journalism schools — what is it exactly they teach? What is it that one can learn that will improve skills as an investigator or writer that other disciplines cannot provide? Journalism schools do not and cannot teach problem-solving skills — critical thinking — as well as the social sciences or humanities or natural sciences.
Okay, I think it’s pretty clear he’s no fan of modern journalism. But it was the next sentiments Tirman expressed that really got me thinking about this issue. I hadn’t considered it before, but it makes a lot of sense. Here’s his analysis of the problem:
More than half of the new hires in newsrooms hold undergraduate degrees in journalism. There is an ethic among many in this field of “happy amateurism” — that one can report on anything using certain standard methods. You need not know anything about the covered topic, which means you’ll be at the mercy of people purporting to know — usually the well-heeled who can afford fancy P.R. operations.
That’s exactly the way beer is reported in many instances. A lot of stories originate with press releases from the big breweries, the ones with large marketing budgets. A reporter is then assigned to write the story who appears to know little, if anything at all, about the subject and often seems to do no discernible research. I have always suspected that the way beer is reported extends to other subjects, too, but since I don’t know much about those other disciplines I have no way of knowing. Because if they’ll assign reporters with no knowledge of one subject, why wouldn’t they do the same thing for other topics. So it makes a lot of sense that the problem is the process itself. I mean, it would be simple-minded and ridiculous to suggest there was a conspiracy against beer so this theory goes a long way in explaining why beer is so poorly covered by the media.
Happy amateurism may not explain everything but it seems a very viable start. Unfortunately, if Tirman’s assertion that this is a trend that’s essentially growing as older reporters retire and are replaced by J-school graduates then this problem is only going to get worse unless we can collectively figure out a way to get beer the respect in the media we think it deserves.
Hi Jay,
I’ll disagree on two counts.
1 – Training in journalism is good, whether it is in school or a matter of life experience. Granted, I last worked in a newspaper newsroom 15 years ago. But the attitude then, and I think now, is that you have a handle on a subject before you report on it. That means always being a skeptic and certainly about what “fancy” PR firms tell you.
2 – Most coverage has served the fledgling craft beer business well. Walk into almost any brewpub and if they’ve bothered to frame stories written about them then here will be several on the wall. The reporter may have made small errors in fact because he or she didn’t know all the ins and outs of brewing beer – and the fledgling brewer may not have either – but he or she found a local story and got the important facts in that correct. Local coverage for a local products.
Anyway, even though I didn’t take journalism classes when I was going to college (I was already working at a local newspaper) I would contend that we are surrounded these days by happy amateurism (blogs, podcasts, Internet disucssion boards, talk radio) but the problem isn’t the reporters and editors who come out of J schools.
Stan
Stan,
Thanks for furthering the debate but, perhaps not surprisingly, I’ll disagree with your two counts disagreeing with mine. But not just to be arbitrary, also because your two counts I think actually unintentionally support what I wrote.
Count One:
Training in journalism is, of course, good but Tirman’s point is that there is a difference between school and life experience and that the former is not enough. As you yourself said, it’s been 15 years since you worked for a newspaper and things do indeed seem to have changed. “Then” is vastly different from “now,” not least of which because there was no news via the internet then. And in my opinion, mainstream “journalists” lately do NOT “have a handle on [the] subject.” Indeed that’s the problem in a nutshell. There are local examples of decent reporting on beer, but the bigger news outlets seem to be getting worse. Witness recent disasters in the S.F. Chronicle, New York Magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer. In none of those recent examples were the reporters very skeptical, some not at all. One seemed like a PR piece entirely.
Count Two:
Take a look at the date of those framed stories. Are any after 2000? After 1996? Again, I’m not talking about “local coverage” which has in many cases done an okay job. And I’m also not addressing stories profiling one brewer or brewery. The bigger media isn’t really doing many of those, are they?
But Stan, “blogs, podcasts, Internet discussion boards, talk radio” are not happy amateurism. Happy amateurism is “professional” journalists who have learned how to write but know precious little, if anything, about the subject they’re writing about. The examples you cite are knowledgeable, passionate hobbyists, a completely different kind of amateur. They know something, often quite a lot, about their subject but may not have the formal journalism training. And Tirman’s other point, which I obviously agree with, is that it’s easier to teach someone to write a newspaper story than to train them to be an expert on a particular subject. Years ago, I used to manage record stores. Generally, I’d get two kinds of job seekers, applicants with retail experience and applicants with music experience. The music knowledge took years to acquire and was far more valuable to me than retail experience. It was much, much easier to train somebody who already knew about music to work a cash register and greet customers than train a cash register operator to know the difference between Bach and Beethoven. And that’s the same problem today with beer’s coverage in the mainstream media. They’re asking writers to report on a subject they know little about rather than asking an expert to do a piece that’s perhaps not as polished or technically well-written. But isn’t that what copy editors are for, at least to some extent? With all due respect (and I mean that sincerely since you are a friend), I don’t understand why you insist on being an apologist for bad journalism. I understand the maxim “there is no such thing as bad press” but I can’t agree with it. Much of the bad journalism is harmful to the industry because it either perpetuates or creates false and poor images of what beer actually is, which, I think, plays into the hands of the big breweries whose advertising likewise maintains beer’s poor image to the detriment of craft beer.
J,
In simplest terms I would say we disagree. You think Tirman is right; I think he is wrong.
I’m not defending bad journalism. I commented on the New York Magazine piece (without noting one brewery sent out a press release because its beer got a good review). But I’m saying there is more good journalism than bad.
And that journalism schools are producing good journalists (before they realize they can make more money in PR) and that newspapers do well by drawing from journalism schools.
I understand that Tirman coined the phrase happy amateurism to refer to journalists – which says something about his manners – but my point is that it is fair to also use it when referrring to much of what appears on the Internet and in publications aimed at a specific beer audience (craft beer drinkers).
Bottom line: It is not “easier to teach someone to write a newspaper story than to train them to be an expert on a particular subject.” These guys write about things far more important than beer – like what your local sewer board is up to.
That said – and we could get into an entire discussion of what copy editors are for since I supervised copy editors for 10 years – I wish I could find the quote (and I will) that I periodically pasted on editing terminals of our copy desk. Basically it said you believe everything you read in the newspaper until they write something you know about.
Stan
J & Stan:
Thanks to you both for expressing your different opinions clearly, thoughtfully and politely.
Could it be that interest in fine beer has grown so quickly, recently, that editors and professional (mainstream) writers are just now catching up?
I bet the New York Magazine writer is learning a lot about fine beer this week.
-Craig
Craig,
Jay may soon start charging me rent for the words I’m leaving here (there’s an inside joke here, but I’ll leave it inside) … but you introduce a key word here: editor.
It is the editor at New York Magazine who should have said to take the story as seriously as a reporter would have drinking wines that cost $50 or so a bottle (and to get wine comparable to the beers they were having in a restaurant $50 or more would be likely).
It is editors in any publication that includes stories about food who could be assigning ones with a beer bent. That’s why it’s nice to pick up Paste (http://www.pastemagazine.com) and see a story by Stephen Beaumont about Bavarian beers.
Stan
A couple of points:
1) Newspapers are dying and staffs are getting smaller. Fewer and fewer news reporters and feature writers are expected to provide just as many stories as the paper did before the personnel cutbacks. This leads to writers not having the friggin’ TIME to master their subject matter before cranking out a story.
2) Most of the J school grads end up being editors, page designers and administrators. More and more, the writers didn’t major in journalism at the university level. When I’ve had openings on my staff, I truly didn’t care what the applicant majored in. I cared about practical experience. One of the best sportswriters I ever hired had majored in environmental science, but he’d minored in journalism and worked on his college paper.
3) Yes, feel lucky that the mainstream media is doing anything at all for beer’s sake. Stan’s right: Most of the reporter cluelessness that seems obvious to us isn’t so obvious to the general readership, and the story usually does more good than harm for craft beer in general.