The news media have done more than their share of navel-gazing throughout the years, but 2010 was particularly rich for self-scrutiny. Among other stories, there was extensive coverage of the WikiLeaks documents dumps, the Jon Stewart/Steven Colbert rally in Washington and several dismissals of prominent journalists. And there was extensive coverage of the coverage. Liane Hansen and NPR's David Folkenflik talk about some of the major media stories of 2010.
LIANE HANSEN, host: The news media have done more than their share of navel-gazing throughout the years. But 2010 was particularly rich for self-scrutiny.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is in New York. He's covered the coverage in 2010. Happy new year, David.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: Happy new year, Liane.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: There were individual stories. The Stewart/Colbert rally, the Wikileaks, I mean, different news stories that all had value individually. But if you put all of these stories in a cauldron, would you see some common ingredients?</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: I guess the one thread that I've been trying to tease out through the year involves the question of trust, or another way to describe it is authoritativeness. That is, where do people trust to turn to, to get the news? Where do they look to and say, that's information that I find useful, and that's information that I believe in. And I think we're seeing some transitions in how people define that.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: Let's start with a big story, the Wikileaks document dump. This really tested the bounds of what you call authoritativeness or trust. What were the issues at stake?</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: There are some competing interests at stake. Wikileaks, of course, has obtained a treasure trove, many hundreds of thousands of documents, official cables, that have been classified to varying degrees of secrecy. Earlier in the year, questions of videotape of American attack in Iraq several years ago, now a question of diplomatic cables being published more recently.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: And the question is, who controls this information? Is it the government that creates and classifies this information, or a website that says, hey, we can post it, and in this case, we can do it in concert with a number of very distinguished news organizations throughout the globe.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: Julian Assange, the leader of Wikileaks, actually spoke with our colleague Robert Siegel earlier this year. Here's how he described the usefulness of the documents they obtained.</s>Mr. JULIAN ASSANGE (Wikileaks): These raw facts can be interpreted by others who are trying to propose alternative policies - by academics, by journalists, and by the people concerned with the war directly, soldiers and the Afghanis.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: And Assange describes himself as the editor-in-chief, and that is, of course, a journalistic title. But people question, is he a journalist, is he a source, is he a conduit? He obviously himself does have an agenda politically in the sense that he's very much against American military action abroad.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: Several journalists actually made news in 2010 after being fired or disciplined for personal statements. Here's just a clip of some of the voices that you may recognize.</s>Mr. RICK SANCHEZ: I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah.</s>Mr. JUAN WILLIAMS: I mean, look, Bill. I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb, and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.</s>Rabbi DAVID NESENHOFF (RabbiLive.com): Any comments on Israel? We're asking everybody today, any comments...</s>Ms. HELEN THOMAS: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: That's longtime White House correspondent, Helen Thomas, preceded by Juan Williams, whose comments on Fox led to his dismissal from NPR. And we began with Rick Sanchez on CNN.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: David Folkenflik, their dismissals raised a lot of questions about how journalists should behave. Have the rules changed, and if they have, why?</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: Well, the rules may not have quite have changed, but expectations are evolving, and the nature of news organizations themselves are evolving. So, you know, you have somebody like Juan Williams, our former colleague here at NPR, which sees itself as a straight-ahead news organization. Williams was operating in a climate that rewards strongly held opinion and personal assertion, over at Fox News and on cable.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: Rick Sanchez, CNN says, you know, we're straight-ahead despite having critics from various sides. It says, you know, we can't be in the position of having our anchors create such controversy with statements that seem to us beyond the pale.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: Helen Thomas, you know, was a columnist, an opinion journalist by this point for Hearst Newspapers after many decades as a wire service reporter. Her comments were seen as very much beyond the pale as well.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: Jon Stewart also continued to make news. I mean, he calls "The Daily Show" fake news, but he made news for the way he satirically covered the news media. But when he was involved in the push to get the Senate to act on health benefits for 9/11 first responders, there was absolutely no mockery involved. Let's hear what he said.</s>Mr. JON STEWART ("The Daily Show"): This bill would provide $7 million in medical and financial benefits for Ground Zero workers who get sick, and they're going to pay for it by closing a corporate tax loophole. It's a win, win, win, win, just (bleep) do it.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: David Folkenflik, do you think the mandate from Jon Stewart's viewers has changed? I mean, do they expect him to take action now rather than just entertain them?</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: I think it's really about what Jon Stewart sees his role as in this kind of news culture and ecosystem. He says, look, I'm not a journalist, but he certainly does some rather serious interviews, or interviews that get at serious points with newsmakers and consequential figures. When he took this job over from Craig Kilborn, he said, I want to do satire with a point.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: And I think you saw that with that so-called Rally To Restore Sanity that he did with Stephen Colbert on the Washington Mall. They had a point to make, and they were talking about the hyper-heated rhetoric that we had that they both feel gets in the way of constructive political ends.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: He is willing to do satire with a point. And when no one else is paying attention, he's willing to make it quite pointed indeed.</s>LIANE HANSEN, host: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. Thanks a lot, David.</s>DAVID FOLKENFLIK: You bet.