Results-based Journalism

Last week, Joe Scarborough was utterly perplexed at a the comments of ABC political staff of "The Note" who said that they were disappointed that the brutal Iraq war was not getting enough coverage. "What are they talking about?!" exclained Scarborough. I tend to agree.

Now that NewsWEAK has been outed for its coverage of non-atrocity atrocities the question has to be asked, what are journalists thinking these days!?

At first, I was also perplexed as to what "The Note" was getting at? But it suddenly dawned on me: this is results-based journalism at its worst. Something akin to "making the news" rather than "reporting the news".

In truth, the war has been covered very intensely and on nearly every issue of every front page of every newspaper around the country. So why does "The Note" think the coverage is lacking? And why did NewsWEAK run with a story with minimal sources on a subject bound to stir up hatred against Americans? Easy.

The folks at "The Note" perceive the continued support for the war and the lack of American riots in the street against President Bush resulting from "not enough coverage of the war." As I see it, in their minds, the reason mobs haven't taken to the mall in protest of the war is that there's not enough bad news about Iraq being disseminated.

So too, NewsWEAK didn't blink twice about running this story because it fueled their motive to get the masses in the street around the Mall. Only this time they came out in force in the Middle East. Oh well, 20+ dead is certainly some type of result from journalism. Sad.