The big media-twitter debate this week has been whether or not it's ok to criticize one specific reporter.

It went kinda like this:

She normalizes!
She has scoops!
She makes self-serving deals with sources!
She has a LOT of scoops!

But, there is a deeper issue.

1/

The critics (I'm very much one of them) are frustrated with systemic issues within journalism.

There are a ton of norms in DC-based political coverage that really, really need to be rethought.

But twitter is really bad at doing "systemic". We (very much me, too) tend to

2/

focus our wrath on specific people at specific moments.

And then the typical defensiveness kicks in: how dare you attack this one person at this one moment!

I think the bigger issue is that journalism has a very hard time processing criticism, reviewing its practices,

3/

asking fundamental questions about who is it serving and how have its norms metastisized.

I was a daily journalist for 30 years at some of the top places in the US. I can't think of more than one or two times where there was real, instiuttion-wide introspection.

4/

At NPR around 2008 or so, there was a real rethink of both-sidesing climate change.

A bunch of institutions asked some questions after Trump won. But it was fairly shallow and didn't look deep enough or last long enough.

5/

Then there are a few nonprofit groups and conferences and lots of academics who discuss the ethics of journalism. But it's all far removed from the daily practice.

That's my big question, these days.

How can journalism take in criticism, assess norms, make changes?

6/

I'm, personally, all for calling out individuals who do stuff that deserves being called out.

But the problem is bigger than any one person.

The simplest way I can define the problem is this: who is being served by any individual article or an entire news report?

7/

If a significant chunk of the choices made about what to cover and how to cover it was done to please sources and a reporters' own needs, then that is a big problem.

If the norms of journalism -- e.g. source deal-making -- reduce the flow of useful info to the public, then

8/

how can you stop it?

Even more basically: how do we just have the damn conversation? How do we create some way for hacks to ask the fundamental questions about the field. And look at the daily practice and change what needs changing?

9/

I'm really asking.

How?

I find it fun to attack someone who I think is doing bad. It's exciting and feels dramatic.

This work feels harder, sloggier, less exciting but more important.

What do we do?

10/end