Hearne: Training Wheels Journalism?

Far be it from me to school anybody on journalism…

And yet…

For 16 long years I turned out thousands of stories – week after week – in the most edited column in the Kansas City Star.

Trust me on that one.

Each and every column I wrote – which were largely collections of edgy, informative and at times humorous news items – was painstakingly gone over, word-by-word by the editor of the FYI section. On top of which I had to deliver the edited column to the  Star’s editor, managing editor and publisher.  All; of that more than a day in advance of going to press, so they’d have time to lodge a question or slam on the brakes.

And after those fine folks were done, a bank of highly skeptical and protective copy editors got to have their way with me – and did they ever.

It was a gauntlet…a very long gauntlet.

Then after the columns ran, a now antiquated position called the public editor, readers rep or ombudsman could tee off on me based on the reaction of from the general public or complaints by anyone and everyone as to the veracity of my writing.

Yet after 16 years and three to five columns week, I never had to fend off a single lawsuit – real or threatened.  Then again, as many of you either knew or suspected, by reporting standards of theday, I got away with murder!

That was then.

Based on the opinion drenched reporting standards of today, one can only imagine how much (or little) scrutiny or editing goes into today’s newspaper journalism.

Case in point, newbie Bryan Lowry‘s “news coverage” of Mo. Senator Josh Hawley.

Reporting that even my opinion-based writing would have had me called on the carpet for.

Think training wheels journalism.

Or as Lowry might put it, “Fox News contributor”

First of all, when reporting news, the object of the game is to deal mostly in specifics.

For example, the headline atop Lowry’s rambling hit piece on Hawley, reads that he’d been “served (a) subpoena after his CPAC debut.”

That being the Conservative Political Action Conference, an organization that describes itself as combining ideas “with action to leverage the strength of grassroots activists to break the resistance of Washington’s elites.”

In other words, fingernails on the blackboard for Lowry and his liberally bent editors.

Here’s the deal: in even-handed reporting days past, the Star tried to limit the proliferation of so-called “dog whistle” words in its news reporting..

No mas.

Aside from totally rambling completely past the headline, Lowry managed conjured every negative conservative stereotype he could think of.

For example, he pigeonholed syndicated “conservative blogger, political commentator, author and businesswoman” Michelle Malkin as a merely a “Fox News contributor.” Another woman at the event was a “far right activist and conspiracy theorist” who had worked for a “conservative provocateur.”

And at the end of Lowry’s “report” we are told that the “conservative provocateur” was the same dude who did Claire McCaskill wrong by infiltrating her campaign staff with “a fake intern” and releasing “damaging videos less than a month before” the general election showdown.

Forget that the damaging video busted McCaskill’s campaign officials for getting her to lie to the general public about her views in order to court conservative voters.

No harm, no foul; there.

Yet reather than focusing on McvCaskill’s disingenuousness, the Star took Hawley to task for being sneaky (kinda like undercover reporters pretty much everywhere).

So mission accomplishe…Lowry was able to throw Hawley under the bus pretty much every which way he could think to.

Under a headline that didn’t really come close to describing Lowry’s sprawling story…

As for Lowry’s reporting that a Democratic candidate for Missouri attorney general suing Mo. governor Mike Parsons was able to serve Hawley as he walked off there stage at the event….

“We got him,” the dude smugly told Lowry.

Nice touch, Bry Guy. Way to merge political leanings with what passes for straight news!