BY ALAN PITTMAN
KEZI lacks time to correct all mistakes;
R-G editor indicts paper’s practices.
I
t’s hard for KEZI-TV to find enough time
in its 30-minute news broadcast to run all
the corrections it should and a top
Register-Guard editor is “terrified” at omis-
sions in the paper’s coverage.
That’s the news from a panel on “Ethical
Challenges to Journalism” sponsored by the
local chapter of the Society of Professional
Journalists at the UO May 5.
“God knows we make more mistakes than
I’d say a newspaper does,” said KEZI-TV
news director Alan Beck. But he said that in a
30-minute newscast, “It’s hard to find time to
correct them all.” Beck then looked around at
the lecture hall of about 100 journalists and
journalism students and added, “Don’t quote
me on that.”
“An engaging sociopath that’s good at lying,”
Godbold said, “can take people for a long,
long ride.”
Beck said he has to guard against some
young TV news reporters who “start to stage
things” in response to pressure for compelling
video. If you do that “you begin to hack away
at your credibility.”
Beck said he also struggles with the move
toward softer, more entertainment-oriented
TV news. “You have to hold the line.”
With only a half-hour minus commercials,
TV news is necessarily “broad but not very
deep,” Beck said. “When people tell me that ‘I
get all my news from TV,’ it horrifies me as a
news director,” he said.
Beck said he’s seen surveys showing that a
‘When people tell me that ‘I get all my news
from TV,’ it horrifies me as a news director.’
—Alan Beck, KEZI-TV
Register-Guard Associate Editor Jim
Godbold announced that he had a “blistering
indictment of the R-G’s practices” in failing to
cover the diversity of the community. “The
Register-Guard believes the people who read
the paper are the people who are in the paper,”
Godbold said. “On a given day, I am terrified
by the size of that omitted population.”
The panel discussion focused on recent
scandals around journalists who made up sto-
ries at the New York Times and USA Today.
Godbold said journalists at the R-G be-
lieved such a scandal couldn’t happen at their
smaller paper because a reader, colleague or a
source would complain. “Someone would
blow the whistle.”
Unlike larger papers, “The size of The
Register-Guard provides for a lot of interac-
tion” both inside and outside the paper,
Godbold said.
Beck agreed that the “appalling” made up
stories would be harder to do at a smaller news
organization where people talk to each other
more.
But Seattle Times executive editor Michael
Fancher, the third panelist, said, “I don’t think
there is an editor in the country that would flat
out say that couldn’t happen at their paper.”
Fancher said editors depend on trusting
that their reporters aren’t making up stories.
“We’re really vulnerable to the trustworthi-
ness of every individual.”
Godbold apologized for implying that a
similar scandal wasn’t possible at his paper.
“Of course it’s possible anywhere.”
Godbold said papers were very vulnerable
to reporters who flat make up their stories.
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large number of people get all their news from
watching Leno and Letterman and other “talk,
entertainment spin crap” shows. “It’s incredi-
ble,” he said.
Panelists responded to a question of how
ownership of local media affects coverage.
KEZI is owned by the Chambers family,
which also owns Chambers Construction and
donates to pro-development local candidates.
The Register-Guard’s Baker family also owns
one of the area’s larger development compa-
nies.
Beck said he regularly consults on KEZI
news coverage with Scott Chambers. “He can
steer me in a way to the community that can
help me,” Beck said, adding, the Chambers
owners “become great sources of informa-
tion.”
Godbold said, “Every publisher has sacred
cows and blind spots and tender spots and is-
sues they’re afraid of.” Godbold said when he
was news editor, he tried to encourage the
Baker family to allow stories about such sensi-
tive topics as their own business deals. He said
he’d ask the owners, “You don’t want to see it
in Eugene Weekly before you see it in The
Register-Guard do you?”
Godbold said, “I’ve never ever been told
not to do a story.” But he admitted in response
to a question that the R-G didn’t cover some
labor stories about a recent contract dispute.
The owners had decided, “We’re not going to
discuss our labor negotiations on the pages of
the paper.”
Fancher provided this advice about news-
paper sacred cows: “They make great ham-
burger.”
ew
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