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By Harry Kirsbaum
enjamin C. Bradlee, 93, the former
editor of the Washington Post, died last
week, leaving an indelible impression
on old-school journalism, a type of journal-
ism that has almost disappeared.
Just one morning after his death on Oct.
21, the"most-read"stories on washington-
post.com were: his obituary; the Ferguson,
Mo., teen Michael Brown's autopsy; two
stories on actress Renee Zellweger's new
face; and a story about the Mormons'
"sacred undergarments'
The Post has changed since Bradlee
stepped down as its editor in 1991. Before
online editions, no one knew exactly what
the"most-read" story was on any particular
day. They only knew how many papers
were sold.
If there was a disconnect back then
between what the professional journalists
and editors thought was a front-page story
and what the public actually read, we'll
never know. But it's quite apparent now —
the data prove it.
It's the chicken-and-the-egg dilemma
paired with the tail-wagging-the-dog ques-
tion. Now that we can tell by Internet clicks
what the public deems"most-read" on a
newspaper website, has there always been
a disconnect? Or did the media devolve
undergarment store in
Georgetown?
I have an educated
guess that if the In-
ternet didn't exist, the
public would be so much
better informed.
A newspaper back in the
day — and there would be
several of them competing in
a large city — hired reporters to
cover beats and uncover stories
that provide the public with real
information. Find the story no one
knows about yet and explain it in con-
text that informs. That's what real news is.
Would President Richard Nixon have
been forced to resign if Carl Bernstein
hadn't been "working the courts"that day
and noticed the high-powered Washington
lawyers representing those small-time Wa-
tergate burglars during their arraignment?
Would Nixon have been forced to resign
if Bradlee had told Woodward and Bern-
stein to work the story, but don't forget to
keep covering the rest of your beat, and
don't forget to post your blog and send
tweets to your followers?
Almost every beat reporter across the
country has to file stories for his paper, file
into covering gossip and sensationalism
once it found out what the public wanted
to read?
If Renee Zellweger's facelift is that news-
worthy to the public, should the WaPost,
or any other newspaper, put a similar story
on the front page above the fold the next
time a well-known actress changes her
appearance?
Should newspapers lay off more city
reporters and hire more entertainment
reporters?
Should Mormons open an upscale
another story for the online edition, and
has a twitter account and a blog he has
to feed. That doesn't leave a lot of time to
think a story through or do some investi-
gative work. Reporters are usually covering
more than one beat as well because a
good number of their colleagues have
been laid off because no one buys the
actual newspaper anymore. Not if they can
read the same stories by the same report-
ers for free online.
According to the First Amendment,
"Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech or of the press; or the
right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances:'
In 1789, the press was guaranteed
freedom to investigate the government
as a way to show transparency — that
reporters wouldn't be put in prison or
shot for investigating wrongdoings by the
government.
And in 2014, one day after Ben Bradlee
died, two of the most read stories in the
Washington Post are about someone's
facelift.
What went wrong?
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