transparency

Jay Rosen has an interesting idea on PressThink:

A simple example of a different approach: Sixty Minutes could publish on the Internet (as transcript and video) the full interviews from which each segment that airs is made. All interviews, every frame. Even the interviews that were not used. Producers and correspondents would instantly become more accountable for these interviews and the selections made from them. And in my view that would strengthen the journalism, make for better work; it would also be a revolution in accountability. CBS would be creating more value by publishing more source material, although it would also be more open to criticism and scrutiny.

Is it doable? I can’t say I know that. But no knows until someone determined and smart tries. I believe accountability journalism, which is the kind the professionals at CBS News still want to practice, won’t work any more unless the public can hold journalists themselves more accountable.

Personally, I hope that broken contraption “trust us, we’re CBS,” forces the network into the clear skies of a new idea: We used to do our reporting in a way that required the public to trust us, the professional journalists. It worked for a while, but times and platforms change. Now we have to do our reporting in a way that persuades the public to trust us.

I guess my first take is, I don’t see why this proposal should be limited to CBS (I guess I’m biased as I’m close to some people there, though. I feel bad for them). Anyway, it is an intriguing idea, but there are a some practical concerns:

• Magazine shows usually shoot on a 99:1 basis – shooting 99 minutes for every one that gets broadcast. So we’re talking about an enormous amount of material here.
• Publishing interviews that aren’t used might give a distorted view of the research that goes into a segment, since typically off-camera interviews with producers almost always precede on-camera interviews with the “talent.”

Still, this is probably a good idea in future for controversial subject matter. As a newspaper reporter, though, I don’t see I could apply the idea to myself as I rarely tape interviews. (I suppose the NYDN could publish my notes as JPGs … but ugh, my notes are chicken-scratches … that would be plenty embarrassing).