By Jonathan Arkin
Student Writer

“I would like for this to be a conversation,” invited guest speaker Bill Kovach, addressing those gathered to hear the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at USC Annenberg on Oct. 16. Joining journalism professor Roberto Suro, Kovach was speaking on behalf of his latest project, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, as he presented Democratic Information in a Democratic Media, the latest in Annenberg’s How Journalists Work series.

Speaking of a “new competitive atmosphere” dominated by media conglomerates suggesting the control of news output, Kovach warned of the danger that the space used for the dissemination of the news and the conveying of that information is shrinking even while the forms of media get more sophisticated. This, he said, affects the way journalists do their work; and perhaps most importantly, it dictates how – and if - they are held accountable by their superiors for the information they collect and submit.

 “We’re awash in information now,” Kovach said. “And I’m concerned if this information is going to be so dominated by forces of centralized power that the thought process is going to be radically altered by the flow of information … now that we’re surrounded by more information than the world has ever seen.”

Kovach said that in the last 20 years alone the gap between the thinking of owners or publishers and their managing editors are closer than ever, as newspapers begin to “overlook signals” because their business concerns are so fixed on building audiences. He said journalists face the ever-present pressure of not getting a return phone call by the right people at the right time, dealing with the potential loss of a story – and leading to lax fact-checking, relying on information and quotes given at the last minute.

“There’s not that tension of ‘I’m serving the public, not the economic interests of the publication.’”

Kovach’s work at the Committee for Concerned Journalists, he says, addresses these concerns by simply increasing the transparency of fact-gathering, actually providing it to readers while they experience a story. This approach, he said, would lead to “new ways to do the kind of journalism that democracy needs.”

“People can make up their own minds,” Kovach said. “The proof has to be in the journalism. What it knows and doesn’t know has to be part of the story.”

Working with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s educational Web site, Kovach mentored a group of young journalists in an online project – one that features a module allowing readers to see how journalists verify information demonstrated in the writing and thereby receiving an education in how journalists verify information. These stories and projects are then supported by blogs, fully involving readers in the process, not just the product.

“That’s the kind of journalism that news organizations should be working with [and] should be monitoring,” he said.

Now it’s the most well-received series on the paper. One of the stories involved a woman who was committed to raising emotionally and physically damaged children. Now when one of the children in a particular story grows, so does their story.

Kovach also spoke of the tangibles of these new relationships journalists can have.

“If we can figure out how to do this on a continuing basis with the trends most important to society, we can do the kind of journalism that will become a natural demand around which an economic base can be built,” he said. “Exactly how we do that as educators … it has to be thought out every step of the way, because of all the competition out there taking people where they want you to go … not where you want to go.”

Kovach said a school of journalism such as USC Annenberg’s would be a perfect venue for continuing this kind of work through a think tank.

“I think a university setting is the only place to do that,” he said. “Journalism schools have an opportunity right now ... There are no think tanks for the kind of journalism I’m talking about, but it has to happen – at journalism schools – but it’s not going to happen automatically. You guys understand this technology. Your generation can create the kind of journalism we need … to figure out how to incorporate, to think differently.”

But think tanks are rarely effective without funding, he added, saying that funding from endowments helps – especially at a school like USC Annenberg.

“You’ve got the support you need,” he said. “The kind of endowment, the kind of freedom in your classrooms.”