Highs and Lows for Journalism in 2017
BRIAN STELTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, I'm Brian Stelter. Happy New Year's Eve, and welcome to RELIABLE SOURCES. This is our weekly look at the story behind the story, of how the media really works and how the news gets made. It's the final day of the year and what year it's been for the news industry. We're taking a look back at screw-ups and successes of the year, but also looking at the sexual misconduct tipping point and where it's going from here. And as media allies continue to malign Robert Mueller's probe, Jeffrey Toobin is standing by to help us connect the dots in the Russia investigation. But, first, lessons from an unforgettable 2017. We've seen journalism at its very best this year, with papers and networks producing incredible investigative reporting, but we've also seen journalism at its worst with embarrassing mistakes and errors that undermine trust. The shifts in the media landscape really have been seismic, from media company consolidation, to a cultural reckoning that has caused newsrooms to clean house. On the business front, we've seen exciting new startups promising to improve the news business, but we've also seen very tough times for digital media darlings like "BuzzFeed" and Vice. The digital duopoly of Facebook and Google is soaking up so much ad revenue that they're squeezing publishers. We've seen layoffs and cutbacks and contractions both in digital and print due to add business model problems. But at the same time, subscriptions are on the rise at big papers, at "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post". People are hungry to understand what's happening in the world, especially in D.C. You don't need me to remind you that President Trump's media attacks went on all year long calling real news fake and fake news real. But think about all the turnover we witnessed. Sean Spicer, of course, mocked by Melissa McCarthy. He made it until the summer. Then there were the days -- only days of Anthony Scaramucci with Sarah Sanders taking over in the briefing room. And there were a ton of transitions in the media world as well more than an average year Bill O'Reilly out at Fox. Megyn Kelly moving to NBC. Matt Lauer fired from NBC. Also, a new head of the news division their. New editors at places like "Huff Post", Vanity Fair", "Newsweek", "Glamour" over at CBS, Scott Pelley, Josh Elliott, Charlie Rose all out all for different reasons, and just this month, ESPN president John Skipper, one of the most powerful men in sports and media suddenly resigned citing a substance abuse problem. So, many changes at so many newsrooms, so many media companies and tomorrow, January 1st, a new publisher at "The New York Times", Arthur Sulzberger, handing the paper over to his son A.G. We're going to break it all down for you in this special program starting with our panel of top editors. Sally Buzbee is the executive editor of "The Associated Press", John Avlon, the editor-in-chief of "The Daily Beast", and Joanne Lipman, chief content officer for "The USA Today" network and the editor of "USA Today". This was a year, John, where the push alert on your phone and either made you recoil in horror or shot with joy. You know, there were so many stories that surprised and shocked us. What were for you the highlights and lowlights?</s>JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: This is a year were insane became the new normal. I mean just so much packed into every week, really revolutions upon revolutions in our media and our politics in our industry. For me, I think one of the highlights was the reporting done you know at the same time by Ronan Farrow over at "The New Yorker' and "The New York Times" about Harvey Weinstein, other people jumped in as well Michael Daly. But that the impact of that investigation after the usual vociferous denials and attempts at intimidation with the details of which we only found out in subsequent reporting really broke down a whole edifice of intimidation not only in the entertainment industry but across all industries that it's still rippling today. That's the result of great reporting against enormous obstacles.</s>STELTER: I remember Jodi Kanter and her writing partner Megan Twohey at "The New York Times", Jodi's saying I didn't know how seriously people would take the story if it would be received by the audience or not. Now, you look at the most page views -- you know, most viewed stories of the year, it's right up at the top of the list. Joanne, you're about to leave 'USA Today", you have a book coming out called "That's What She Said" about this topic and you've decided to devote your energies to that that's another sign I suppose of how important this moment is.</s>JOANNE LIPMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, USA TODAY AND USA TODAY NETWORK: Yes, in fact, William Morrow, the publisher of the book, actually moved up the publication date because there's been this absolutely extraordinary flood of interest in this topic, the zeitgeist has completely changed. The fact that women are able to come up and talk about these issues, be heard, be taken seriously. And interestingly, I've been working on the book for the past three years --</s>STELTER: Predating all these current conversation.</s>LIPMAN: Predating all of this and the entire -- the point of the book is how do we close the gender gap by bringing men into the conversation. And when I started my reporting, there was some skepticism about saying, well, men are never going to want to be part of this conversation. Well, all of that has changed and I think that is all to the positive.</s>STELTER: We'll have more on this subject later in the hour. Rebecca Traister is here from "New York Magazine". But back to highlights and lowlights perhaps from Washington. I wonder, Sally, if you think there were some successes or screw-ups for the news business as it relates to covering the President Trump administration and all the changes in Washington.</s>SALLY BUZBEE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yes, I think just the drumbeat of reporting on the Russian investigation has which, you know, obviously there's a lot of skepticism I think at the beginning of the year if there was anything really there, and what the scope of the investigation was going to be. And I think that just the sort of everything from the scoops about Michael Flynn being caught on surveillance tape and then his eventual firing and just sort of that that is the sort of step by step of the story, to the point where I think that -- you know, it's a very important story. It is important to the future of the president's tenure in office and those sorts of things, and just that that kind of focus on what I think of as very nitty-gritty, very, very deep reporting --</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>BUZBEE: -- and how it has been built over the course of the year. I think even people who support the president have paid attention to that reporting. And I think what you really want in reporting when you really get impact like with the sex harassment story is to have the reporting so strong that even people who have ingrained opinions have to pay attention to it. I think that is what has been sort of exciting to me this year.</s>STELTER: And yet, there's been some errors as well. I mean, there's been some errors and the coverage, mistakes that have been used to tarnish the press this year.</s>BUZBEE: And that's totally true and I think each one of those errors has been very difficult and dangerous for journalism.</s>STELTER: Dangerous?</s>BUZBEE: I mean, there's no room for sloppy reporting. There is no room in this world.</s>AVLON: But it's important also to say that that none of what we've seen that we've been able to determine to date was malicious in nature from major news organizations.</s>STELTER: Right, despite what some of the president's supporters claim that these were not lies that were made up to hurt him.</s>AVLON: No, there are mistakes because this is a human business as Carl Bernstein is fond of saying. This is the best available version of the truth. Sometimes facts are wrong, and the critical thing is incredible. Organizations, they are corrected. Accountability occurs. Sometimes it's in layoffs, sometimes it's in suspensions. But there's a larger environment, these drumbeat of people really viewing press with a sense of conflict really -- you know, gunning for reporters in -- from partisan perspectives that I think further muddies. And I think for me, it's -- we've almost taken for granted the ugliness and fundamental dishonesty of hyper-partisan media that hate news and fake news has really proliferated and muddied the waters of our cultural conversation.</s>STELTER: You said fake news. What is fake news?</s>AVLON: Hyper-partisan news sites that have explicit agendas that go well beyond "The National Reviews" and "Weekly Standards" or "Mother Jones" that have a forthright philosophy. These are places that are viewing political debate as a form of war and sometimes they function as propagandists and there are no rules in this. They are ugly and they will unleash forces against critics in any way, shape or form.</s>STELTER: I remember a news executive saying to me early in the year that Steve Bannon who was at the time the president's chief strategist, that he wants a grand divide between Trump and the media.</s>AVLON: Yes.</s>STELTER: He wants the world to never trust the media because he would benefit from that.</s>AVLON: Absolutely right. This is part of a business model. In some ways, it's -- the ugliest extension of the fragmentation we've seen where people try to appeal to niche audiences with -- and keep them addicted to anxiety and anger at the other, and the whole programmatic environment in the way social media works, they were able to prop up numbers and get real profits for a time from creating this ecosystem aided by donors who buy into their vision. It's a very specific ecosystem. It's incredibly dangerous to the civic fabric.</s>STELTER: Talking about the ups and downs of the year, I've got to imagine, Sally, one of the downs, one of the lowlights is when a competing outlet beats you a story. What's it like when "The New York Times" or "The Post" or CNN or other outlets break something first, what's that feeling like for you in your newsroom?</s>BUZBEE: Well, that's what journalists trying to do is always make sure that there are the people who are breaking news at first, and if you're not the first person to break a news, you break some sort of you know news on some big trending story.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>BUZBEE: You fight your way into it, right? I mean, there is a lot going on in our world and there is a ton of interest in it particularly in the Washington story. The competition in Washington both for people and for scoops has been extraordinary this year. Some of it is actually a competition for people probably, you know, not the greatest thing for our industry in the sense that it can, you know, cause a lot of distractions and things like that. But I think the competition for news, the competition for scoops makes every news organization better. It absolutely makes people do their best work, work their hardest and has resulted in some fabulous journalism.</s>LIPMAN: I actually think the competition has helped every news organization up its game this year.</s>BUZBEE: Absolutely.</s>LIPMAN: I think we have seen some extraordinary journalism across the board. I'm seeing among our competition, some really, really tremendous efforts throughout this year.</s>AVLON: And I hope some of the flow through for industry is this: quality matters, journalism and original reporting matters, because conventional wisdom for a time has been that we go for scale and click-bait and that's the future of journalism. But, you know, differentiation is the soul of a news brand, and if we all follow algorithms and we all simply become content farms and engage in commodity news, you kill what's unique, you remove the value.</s>BUZBEE: Absolutely.</s>AVLON: So, that's what we need to remember as an industry, is that quality matters, influence matters, original reporting.</s>BUZBEE: Absolutely.</s>AVLON: Original reporting matters.</s>BUZBEE: And then some of that has actually been heartening. I know that much of this year has been very bad. We had as a credible piece of work in the last couple weeks about the aftermath of the Islamic State regime in Mosul, and the people who are there and the lack of help for them to rebuild, and how many people were actually killed. And that sort of reporting that actually says what is going on in this world, it's been astonishing to me how much those stories actually -- how much attention they get, right? Not just in America but globally, and how people really are hungry to figure out what the shape of the world is. And I do think one of the problems this year has just been, we must keep our attention on the Trump administration which is fabulous, but make sure you are doing that other type of reporting. Don't neglect the rest of the world. Don't neglect the rest of America I fundamentally believe.</s>AVLON: Yes.</s>STELTER: Quick break here. Much more with our panel. Think about your New Year's resolutions. We're going to come back to that later in the program. But up here next, the Mueller investigation. The fight for truth versus the pro-Trump media's fight to discredit it all.