In this era of fractured journalism, there is a resurgence of the pamphleteers. Is this good or bad for democracy? In a interview with Joel Kramer, founder of MinnPost we discuss this topic Is a pamphleteer a journalist?

This issue is top of mind for me because of two stories in the news about journalists, the first about Lou Dobbs leaving CNN. Dobbs was once the stoic anchorman of Moneyline, a bastion of capitalistic news and analysis. In the last several years Dobbs became a middle age populist, an advocate journalist. His show became a cause driven program on immigration reform, opposition to both Bush and Obama administrations’ economic policy, and other issues about which Dobbs took a stand.

Jon Klein, president of CNN news said of Dobbs departure yesterday, “He pursued some of the most important and complex stories of our time… and with characteristic forthrightness has decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere.”

The question – do advocacy journalists report the salient facts across an issue or is their objective to obtain policy or behavior change?

Ukraine Famine Casualty of Advocacy Journalism?

The other story about journalists is one I’m sure less of the readers of the Marketing Edge blog are familiar with compared to Dobbs. His name is Gareth Jones whom I learned about last night. USA Today did a piece on Gareth Jones who is best known for his chronicles of the forced famine in Ukraine by Russian dictator Josef Stalin in 1933 and 1934. Jones had a reputation as a solid journalist among is contemporaries in the 1920s and 30s.

He went to Ukraine against the wishes of the Soviet regime and at considerable personal risk, to see first hand the reports of famine in the country. He wrote about the export of millions of tons of grain to the west by the Communist Party, leaving Ukrainians with little food. The Soviet authorities used the funds to build its military, as estimated millions died of starvation in the Ukraine countryside.

This story caught my eye because I spent time in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union giving presentations about political communications in the United States where there is a free press. I worked as a journalist and as a press secretary in several government positions in the 1980s. I was selected to share my experience on both sides of the news/information equation with individuals who were thrust into a new world order as Ukraine broke away from the former Soviet Union.

Many of Jones’ journalist peers dismissed his reports. As the USA Today article explains, at the time there were many journalists sympathetic to the communist system who disputed Jones’ reports and helped destroy his reputation. One Pulitzer prize winning writer of the day, Walter Duranty of the New York Times described Jones’ articles as a “scare story”. The writings of Gareth Jones are on display at Trinity College in Cambridge, England through mid-December.

The reality is that every journalist has a lens of perspective through which they choose to report. The ideal is an objective reporting of issues. Even though the writer may have an opinion, those beliefs and hypothesis should be submitted to the writer’s own critical examination of the facts as they experience them. Jones meets the criteria of a higher standard in my opinion.

The YouTube era becomes mainstream.

You know, I’ve been at a few of those goat rodeos called presidential debates back when I was press secretary of the Republican National Committee. My expectations were low regarding the YouTube experiment with CNN and Anderson Cooper.

I was hoping it was not dominated by a bunch of people who finished uploading a Jackass contest entry and threw on a question for the candidates. I thought CNN would do its usual headline grabber followed by the always handy “Most Trusted Name in News” or something like that. It is entertainment after all: plot, conflict, antagonist, protagonist, etc., etc., etc.

But no. Anderson Cooper and the producers earned a good deal of praise. The questions did, for the most part, seem to represent a cross section of the country’s most pressing concerns. It did indeed seem like we were talking in America’s living room. Congrats to Senior Vice President David Bohrman and CNN Political Director Sam Feist — not to mention YouTube — for giving a voice to individual.

Of course, some of those individuals are political types, playing the game, working the system. So be it. It’s a free country. Expect it and live with it.

The way this format works — if the American people want honest answers — is to reward those answers. For example, when Joe Biden keeps hammering on the fact that you can’t physically get the troops out of Iraq for a year, and gets others to reluctantly concede that fact, then Biden’s numbers need to move in a positive direction.

For the public’s role, they need to appreciate that an honest answer is likely one with which they might not agree. And the manner in which we reach these conclusions needs to be one of mutual respect and civility. Only then will candidates and the political machine take notice and change. If not, then this format runs the risk if further trivializing the election cycle circus.

A couple of questions were, well, questionable. For example, reparations for descendants of slaves. I thought, “Where did this come from?” There are plenty of other significant ways to get to the issue of race: police brutality, predatory lending practices, and so on. But reparations? Maybe the question-selection team wanted to get questions that would allow for a clear split among the candidates instead of the lip service usually applied to those issues.

CNN needs to be careful on questions like the snowman talking about global warming and the gun toter. Stick to the substance; we can handle it. The format is engaging enough without dramatizing the questions, too.

Other questions were priceless, like the gay marriage question asked by the two women from New York. Great timing gals. The best question of the bunch was the one that attempted to separate BS from real deal on the issue of “working together,” the current politically tested phrase that means nothing. The question went something like this: If you are so good at working with Republicans, which one would you pick as a running mate if you could only pick a Republican? Nice answer from Biden on that one.

I hope the format underscored that we are all Americans, and it’s not about Democrats and Republicans. Statistically, one side can’t be wrong all the time and visa versa.

The media tries to play that “you’re wrong, I’m right” game, as well. Anderson tried to get Edwards to say yes or no about whether he is better on women’s issues than Hillary. To Edwards’ credit, he did not take the bait. Why? Because that’s the bait that leads to unnecessary, mindless conflict. It might be good for TV in the old model — the “Hey, fight in the schoolyard!” sort of dribble — but the country needs more substance.

Perhaps this format will teach the media that lesson.

Image courtesy of CNN.com.