Want to know Alabama's next coach? Well, don't ask the media

Friday was a bad day for journalism. Alright, this whole week was bad for journalism.

Throughout the entire week, and for that matter most of the football season, newspapers and television stations have been getting the Shula story wrong.

But why?

There are many factors.

Take a look at tonight's disaster from West Virginia. Early this afternoon, The West Virginia MetroNews broke a story declaring Rich Rodriguez and Alabama were getting close to a deal. The basis of the story were their own sources within the University of WV and a Pat Forde report on ESPN radio. You can listen to Paul Finebaum's interview with the writer Greg Hunter.

The only problem with the story? Forde didn't report what Hunter thought.

The problem here is simple enough (or at least easy to theorize about.) Hunter's sources within UWV indicated Rodriguez wants the Alabama job. So, Hunter knows on his end the deal could be done. All that was missing were facts from the Alabama side. He or his staff heard what they wanted to hear from Forde and, presto, a story was born.

The big problem here was the MetroNews based its report on someone else's report.

As if that were not enough to give West Virginia journalists a bad reputation along comes the State Journal. It reported a deal was close between Alabama and Rodriguez.

This report was based on a source close to Alabama. Unfortunately for the writer, he was also interviewed by Paul Finebaum.

The interview with Gannon was painful. Finebaum exposed several problems with the story, but none were as glaring as Gannon's admission the story was based on a single-source.

Why would the news organization allow such an important story out without additional sourcing?

I'm going to suggest an answer. Inexperience.

Being a weekly newspaper the staff probably deals with what most weekly newspapers report: the largest tomato at the county fair, the quilting bee and the chamber of commerce parade.

A single source will do when writing about the Christmas parade, but when it is something important like a coaching search, you would be better off getting some confirmation.

But why wouldn't the journalist seek confirmation? Isn't that common sense?

Perhaps, but there are significant problems with journalists, which impair their ability to do their jobs.

First, a post on the media critic blog at National Review from November hints at how the role of the reporter changed post-Watergate. The post explains how the decline of journalism coincided with the rise of college training. This blog entry posits, liberal excesses of academia created much of the problems in reporting: "The reporting jobs were taken from blue-collar types just trying to do a job and given to college-educated idealists on a mission."

I'm not sure this observation is completely accurate; however, the 'idealist' part is right, but only partially. Most journalism graduates are obnoxious know-it-alls who denigrate anyone who does not agree with them or their interpretation of the facts (on everything from politics, to restaurants, to the weather.) Good reporters are able to filter through the information, tell both sides of the story and always remember the truth is the most important element of the story.

But to be a good reporter, a young journalism student must be willing to learn--to soak in the knowledge and experience of those around them.

Today's young journalists come to newspapers filled with arrogance and are unwilling to learn from the senior staff. These graduates believe they learned everything in college. They studied Quark and learned how to use a camera; therefore, they know all they need to know.

This hubris handicaps young reporters. They lock into one interpretation on a story and then look for evidence to support that interpretation, rather than exploring the depth of the story. An article today is less a journey into truth and more an essay supporting the writer's preconceived notions. In other words, most newspaper articles today are merely commentary or analysis masquerading as news.

Second, writers are lazy.

Give a writer a 1,000-word assignment due in one-month and you'll get it in one month. Give that same writer the same assignment for a 1,000-word story due in one-week and you'll get almost exactly the same story with very little extra work done in the longer timespan.

That is not to say writing isn't hard. It is. I struggle with it.

But the mindset of many writers is to find the easiest way to get the story done. Some of that deals with deadline pressures. Some of it deals with bad morale in media organizations. But a large part of it deals with how writers are serious procrastinators. Naturally, quality suffers when writers aren't focused on doing a good job.

Good reporters are able to do their job without taking shortcuts. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer good reporters out there.