News As History

Disgusted with the journalistic efforts of their day, 1930s historians Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch set out to approach and record history in new and revolutionary ways. They rejected the dominant focus on reporting only accounts of high ranking political actors. Instead, they favored a view of historical and journalistic accounting as a science, one to be placed along side the other human sciences.

Today's mass media--newspapers, magazines, radio, and especially TV--could learn something from this "Annales" school of history, especially when journalists are viewed as modern, nouveau historians. Today's journalists rarely move past the chatter of politicians to ask the revealing question, do the extra bit of background research, or relate seemingly disconnected news bits.

A review of Seattle's major daily newspapers during the month of April provide numerous examples of how our daily historian/journalists could benefit from some lessons in Annales disciplines.

For instance, little coverage was given to a State House bill that would have affected millions of workers (April 4 Times). This bill would have stripped workers of the ability to sue for damages when injured at work. Boeing lobbyists ushered in the bill in response to recent lawsuits brought against the company by workers who had been getting sick because of fiberglass used during the manufacturing process.

If the bill had become law (it didn't), "injured workers would be able to sue only if they could prove a company maintained unsafe conditions specifically for the purpose of injuring them."

A journalist following precepts of Annales in this case could have moved past the discussions in legislature. Why not find out more about the bill, talk to workers who had suits pending, talk to a union representative, or talk to the Boeing lobbyists who wrote the bill? Instead, only senators and Boeing attorneys made this news; no other people were brought in to speak on the issue.

The Annales school wanted to move away from this sort of superficial treatment of the news; they sought to look past the big actors and find out what the little guys thought about the conditions to which they were subject. The Annales school also strove to dig deep into the history of regions and their people.

Today's mass media and journalists in general would do well to remember these goals. And, as mediawatchers, we should ask ourselves: what questions will place this in a historical context? Are such questions answered, or even asked, by our news reports?

We can apply this critical tool to two stories about local timber companies which are swapping, selling, buying, and logging our region's forests. In the first article (3/17, front page, PI), we find out that Plum Creek Timber Company is going to swap some land with the public so that the Scatter Creek basin, an area important to recreationists and conservationists, will not be logged. Sounds innocuous, right? The second article (5/3, page A3, PI) explains how Plum Creek and Weyerhaeuser--the benign "tree people"--have agreed to sell some of their private lands to the public so that recreationists may preserve Rattlesnake Mountain. The two private companies will receive $7.4 million from King County.

How could the reporter have been more responsible to the public? He could have asked how Plum Creek and Weyerhaeuser got the land in the first place. They got it, indirectly, from the federal government. In 1864, Congress granted this land to Northern Pacific Railroad Company for the railroads, with the stipulation that after railroad construction the land would be sold to settlers for $2.50 an acre. This never happened. (See ETS! #30.)

This history is never mentioned or approached in any meaningful way in the news report. The earlier article mentions the land grant in the ninth paragraph but it never mentions Plum Creek's connection to this legacy. The second article, written by reporter Heath Foster, never even mentions how Plum Creek or Weyerhaeuser received rights to their land in the first place.

It is unfortunate that so many people allow themselves to be duped by the media, and are quite happy with the news that comes their way at 11 PM on Seattle TV stations, where lead-ins to commercials are given more time than comprehensive news. This might be a bigger problem than getting journalists to raise their standards. These kinds of endeavors cost money--staffing a newsroom and encouraging such high standards might lower profits. But if standards don't improve, we're left with a partial and inaccurate view of what is really happening.

Relying on official sources, and failing to bring in historical context or consider larger issues, is a politically biased decision not necessarily made due to conscious political bias. Instead, it's a reflection of the cloistered world of political elites and the reporters who cover them, and of the needs of the entertainment industry. There's nothing wrong with entertainment--but when it's the only way most of us find out about public policy, democracy is in danger. The faith in extensive inquiry and comprehensive analysis as worthwhile endeavors is rarely held by those who provide us our news.

THE MICROBOEING WATCH

Tracking the volume of The Only News That Matters to Seattle's Dailies

Seattle Times Seattle P-I Microsoft Boeing Microsoft Boeing Week of 4/21-4/27 Front page 0 0 0 2 Front section 0 1 0 2 Business 6 8 3 8 total in paper 7 11 3 10 4/28-5/4 Front page 2 3 1 1 Front section 5 3 1 1 Business 4 13 5 4 total in paper 10 17 6 5

MediaWatch is written every two weeks by members of the MediaWatch collective, a local group monitoring Seattle news media. For info or to get involved, e-mail mediawatch@u.washington.edu or call 632-1656.