By Stacey Woelfel, RTNDA Chairman

A reporter at one of the other stations in my market lost her job last week.  Her company decided not to renew her contract, presumably to leave her position vacant.  This sounds like a blog about layoffs, but it’s not.  Listen to what she told the newspaper reporter who talked to her about her apparent layoff: “I’ve worked with so many great public officials, from the police department to the fire department, the county fire department.”  Did she really say that?  Great public officials?

Perhaps these were the words of someone distraught over losing her job and trying to make at least something sound positive.  But I think there’s something more here.  I, as a forty-something news manager, do not believe there is any such thing as a “great” public official—or at least I wouldn’t say so openly. To me—part of the baby boom generation—sources are sources, not friends.  In fact, in many ways, they’re the enemy.  But it’s a different story for this twenty-something reporter.  To her—part of the millennial generation—everyone’s a potential friend. 

Those who know me know I’m fascinated with the millennials.  I work with them every day, study them when I can, and write what I find for others to share and discuss.  They are a generation focused on rules, authority, and yes, friendship.  Leading a newsroom almost entirely staffed with millennials, I’ve seen that respect for authority reach new levels.  Now, it would be easy to say that, when I’m the authority, I want them to respect it.  But that’s not really what I want.  I want this group to questions authority, to hold it at arms’ length, to be skeptical about what every authority figure ever has to say.   Some of my millennials embrace that approach.  Most do not.  It’s not that they don’t get it.  They just don’t LIKE it.  Their parents raised them to respect their bosses, respect their teachers, respect the police—there’s that one—and anyone else who is in charge.  Four years of journalism school is usually not enough to change that indoctrination.  So try as they might, many of them just can’t get over the feeling that the senator-they-are-talking-to-is-a-really-nice-person-who-reminds-them-a-lot-of-their-grandpa-and-must-be-an-honest-and-respectable-guy-since-they-made-him-a-senator-and-all-and-he-works-really-hard-at-being-a-good-senator-and-all.  Whew. Believe me, it’s exhausting sometimes getting through to them that a senator or a police chief or a fire captain is just a man or woman with a job to protect and who will do what it takes to spin things to be the most positive possible.

As if this hero worship of the authority figure wasn’t enough, along comes Facebook, smack dab in the middle of this millennial generation.  One of the goals on Facebook (in case you aren’t familiar) is to get a lot of people signed up as your “friends.”  A Facebook “friend” is someone with whom you make an on-line “social” connection.  Then that person is added to your friends list.  Facebook friends aren’t real life friends for most people—they’re just someone you set up an online association with.  And one of those types of associations people are setting up is the reporter-source friendship on Facebook.  I’ve had a few of our news sources in the area send me a friend request on Facebook.  Early into the game, I even accepted one or two of their requests.  But then I thought about it a little bit more.  Do I really want to send the message to them (or anyone checking out my Facebook page) that I’m friends with them?  No, of course not.  They are, in my way of thinking, adversaries.  And I don’t want that relationship to get too cozy.  So I deleted the friendship with those first couple of sources and can now proudly say that I have 986 Facebook friends—and not one of them is a news source for my station.  I’m not sure every millennial would be so proud to say so.  Nor would a lot of new media experts.  Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can be a way to cultivate sources and stories.  I know that.  But deep in my heart, it worries me that a flack at a political party in Jefferson City could be sitting there in my Facebook friends list right between two of my former colleagues.  It’s just so, well, cozy, it makes my skin crawl.

So let’s go back to the unfortunate quote from the reporter who’s on her way out in Columbia.  Were they really “great” public officials or was it just that millennial sense of authority worship and friend-seeking speaking?  I can’t be sure.  But I know that anyone out there who is either a millennial or works with them should spend some time on pondering what relationship is proper between reporter and source.  Shouldn’t we reporters be on the record as having no opinion at all about the quality of our public officials and our opinions on their ability and performance?  Isn’t that the safest way to approach the relationship?  My advice: don’t run headlong into authority worship or digital friendship—neither is a good way to maintain a “great” reporting relationship.
 

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Afflict the Comfortable and Comfort the Afflicted?

I think your concerns are valid. And it's particularly a challenge in smaller markets where there are more opportunities for 'relationships' between journalists and the top public officials they cover.

Without putting words into the reporter's mouth, I'm assuming that her use of "great" to describe the public officials she worked with was not so much a judgment on their abilities to govern or serve the public, but rather in their willingness to help her in her day to day general news gathering.

These folks returned phone calls, made themselves available for interviews, and respected the deadlines and vagaries of the TV news business. Any of us who have spent time in a newsroom know the police departments who "will talk" when you need soundbites, or mayors who will comment on practically any subject, or even department stores that are more willing than others to let you come shoot b-roll for that quick story on holiday shopping that you're trying to put together.

The challenge, that you rightly bring up, is to ensure that a source that is "media-friendly" does not become a source that gets "friendly media". Or, to quote the founder of the oldest and best J-School, a good journalist is someone who "is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power, constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob.."

http://www.journalism.missouri.edu/about/creed.html

Reporter/authority worship

Stacey...does it surprise you that the reporter has turned up as the PIO for the Department of Corrections? Of course it doesn't!

interesting discussion

I would consider my self older than a millenial, yet I have found facebook to be one of the most useful tools I've ever encountered. I know so much more about my sources, their lives and what makes them tick through social networking, and also increased their level of trust in me. I don't have much respect for authority though, so maybe that's why I feel like I've not been compromised