Teamwork

Get with the program. Be part of the team.

   Corporate and political types, like football coaches, want and expect people to give up their own needs and beliefs and subscribe fully and without question to the goals and strategies set up by the boss/coach. By definition, then, anyone who disagrees is an enemy.
   Many of these folks, however, have not learned that journalists are not team players. They march to different drummers and never jump on a bandwagon.
   To expect the same subservience from journalists that coaches and bosses get from team players is not only to misunderstand the function of journalism but is also a serious mistake.
   Journalists are more like scorekeepers than players. Even within a given news organization, reporters often go their own way, with sometimes grudging acceptance of guidance from a managing editor.
   Perhaps that explains why so many managing editors are straight out of central casting for roles like Lou Grant, Walter Burns or Perry White.
   Remember them? Lou Grant was the managing editor on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" on television. Walter Burns was the ME in the movie, "The Front Page" (remade as "His Girl Friday"). Perry White was the news editor of The Daily Planet, where Clark Kent worked in the "Superman" comics, TV and movies.
   Want a real-life example? Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post, as portrayed by Jason Robards in the movie, "All the President's Men," documenting the Watergate scandal investigated by Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.
   Or you can ask some journalism friends how many Lou Grant types they have met in newsrooms. A good managing editor recognizes the tendency of reporters to follow their own instincts in digging up stories, and encourages that by assigning reporters to beats where their skills are most productive.
   To the extent that reporters are team players at all, the corporate and political types should keep in mind that they are part of a different team. But those who may indeed know that too often believe this is a team to be defeated.
   Journalists are more like play-by-play announcers and sometimes commentators. And when they do write an analysis, it is clearly marked as such, usually with an inset box or an overline above the headline. In addition, newspapers typically set analysis pieces with ragged-right margins, not justified type.
   Call it adversarial journalism if you wish. Reporters are used to criticism and don't let it get under their skins. Their job is to get past the political propaganda and find truth, then pass it on to the general public and voters.
   A free and independent press is just that. To demand that journalists become part of government's information machine is a failure to understand American democracy.