1998 has been the year of non-stop speculation in reporting.
In part (but not entirely!) because of the rise of 24-hour news channels, journalists have turned themselves into fortunetellers. Instead of "all news, all the time," most offer all speculation, all the time.To justify the 24-hour format, reporters must take stories and expand them to fill the available space. And facts alone are insufficient.
Especially in a case such as the president's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, it can be months before you get many facts. The fear is, if you report nothing but the same old facts hour after hour, your audience will turn to some other channel.
This fear drives reporters to speculate.
Suddenly, everybody forgets that Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" is not a how-to video. In that movie, an over-zealous news producer (Faye Dunaway) declares that it's not good enough to tell people what HAS happened -- she wants to tell people what WILL happen. She hires somebody called Sibyl the Soothsayer to report news of the future.
Rampant speculation has infected every newsroom I know, including my own. Whether for cable, broadcast, print or Internet, every American news organization this year succumbed to one degree or another. Speculation, once confined to reporters' watering holes, is now journalism's grossest national product.
Which leads us to the other outstanding trend in journalism this year: Overwhelmingly, the speculation was WRONG.
Please note: The president didn't resign in February -- or March, or June, or October. He didn't rant and rave in his videotaped deposition. Republicans didn't coast to a filibuster-proof majority in both houses in November's elections. The impeachment drive didn't run out of steam after those elections.
Every one of these predictions was made. Every one turned out wrong. Amazingly, there's been no equivalent of a malpractice lawsuit against the reporters who made these wrong diagnoses. You'll find them all making more predictions next time.
Here I must inject a word of sympathy. Part of being a better-than-average reporter is the ability to ANALYZE the news, to help people understand the context, the impact and the importance of your reporting. And, yes, part of that sometimes entails making educated estimates, based on facts and history, about possible consequences of current events. Many of the most respected names in journalism, from Walter Lippmann to Eric Sevareid, specialized in news analysis.
So, when somebody asks a reporter what's going to happen, it's nigh on irresistibly flattering. You want to sound well-informed and far-seeing, like the great ones.
But a little goes a long way. Most of us are not Lippmann or Sevareid. I, for example, have learned through repeated and painful experience that I am neither fellow.
That's why I'm making the following resolution: I will avoid speculation in 1999.
When somebody asks me what's going to happen, I'm going to try -- really try -- to answer, "I don't know." Because the truth is, I don't know. Nobody does.
Swearing off speculation will be tough. It may be like quitting smoking: I may need to taper off gradually. I may even need a patch.
But somebody must recognize that all this speculation is a cancer in our credibility. People may indeed buy the paper or turn on the TV or radio just to see what fool notions we're peddling today. Hard to believe some of the things we say.
But tomorrow, it may be impossible to believe what we say.
That's not speculation. It's a warning.
The journalist who lives by the crystal ball will be forced to eat a lot of broken glass.
King Features Syndicate