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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, August 7th, 2012 - 8 Comments »
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Barry Eisler’s “Journalistic Compromise Metrics”

Barry Eisler gets into the issue of how journalists choose to compromise themselves and it is an excellent piece and an incredibly important conversation.

I am quoting Eisler’s list of 10 steps for the sake of simplifying… but please do read the whole piece.

Eisler writes…

1. Probably the first compromise will take the form of a rationalization. You’ll be pressured to do something you know isn’t quite right. But you’ll be scared not to do it — if you don’t, you’ll alienate someone powerful, your career will suffer a setback, your ambitious goals will suddenly seem farther away. At this point, your lesser self, driven by fear, greed, status-seeking, and other selfish emotions, will offer up a rationalization, and your greater self will grasp at it eagerly.

2. As the compromises accumulate, you’ll need a larger, more all-purpose rationalization to explain them away.

3. As your career progresses, you can usefully ask yourself if you can name a compromise of which you’re not proud. If you can’t… bad sign.

4. And: have you ever publicly copped to that compromise? If not… bad sign (see: “You’re only as sick as your secrets”).

5. Can you identify compromises you think have been made by any of your compatriots? If not… bad sign. It means you’re not even capable of projection.

6. Do you find yourself identifying more with the public figures you’re supposed to hold to account than with the readers and viewers you’re supposed to serve?

7. Can you identify a personal or career cost to any of your decisions? If not… bad sign. Who will you be offending, and what retribution are you likely to suffer? Who has the power to reward and punish you, and what are you willing to do to risk losing those rewards and incurring that punishment?

8. Here’s one you wouldn’t think a journalist should even need to ask (but you’d be wrong): are there any public figures you refuse to honestly, objectively, publicly criticize? If yes… it’s worse than bad. You’re already suborned. You’re not even a journalist.

9. Can you identify any scenarios, any potential compromises, that you would not make under any circumstances, that you would resign over before ever embracing? If not… bad sign.

10. Can you put yourself in the shoes of the organization/establishment/oligarchy and imagine how you would go about suborning yourself to get past your defenses?

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8 Comments »

8 Responses to “Barry Eisler’s “Journalistic Compromise Metrics””

  1. Don R. Lewis says:
    August 7, 2012 at 11:28 am

    My response to this comes in around 9 seconds in….
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ICWvJqVTLw

  2. Jason B says:
    August 7, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    Interesting and thought-provoking post. I think this could be part of a more general “integrity” list for any profession as some of the points could apply (or are similar to) any profession and not just journalists.

    It isn’t so much that people would make a conscious decision on this (though I am sure this happens), but rather they become lazy with the details. As one becomes more comfortable/has more experience with their profession, one could tend to rely on this comfort to complete a task/project (in the case of journalists, reporting a story) instead of approaching it as someone who is a bit unfamiliar or has little experience. In the latter instance, one would constantly question the process and question themselves – is this what needs to be done? Is this what my approach should be? Am I asking the right questions? The absence of this approach can lead to laziness and a decrease in quality. Overtime, this could affect one’s integrity. And in most cases, relying more on experience/comfort would be sufficient to achieve the task and at close to 100% quality. It’s those very few cases, maybe 1 in 100 where the individual needs to be on top of their game, with the highest integrity and if not – it slips through the cracks. An immediate example that comes to mind is Iraq and WMDs.

    Eisler rocks.

  3. Don R. Lewis says:
    August 7, 2012 at 8:59 pm

    Those are good points Jason but in the case of online journalism, I think these n00bs get so much “cool shit” thrown to them early on and they have no journalism or ethics background so the studios buy em out before they even realize what they’re doing is wrong. I feel sorta sorry for them but not really because rarely to writers of that ilk matter much. It’s the folks KNOWINGLY doing this stuff that is wrong and disturbing.

  4. christian says:
    August 8, 2012 at 12:03 am

    11. What kind of puppet best represents your journalstic high standards?

  5. LexG says:
    August 8, 2012 at 1:21 am

    Christian, give it up.

  6. christian says:
    August 8, 2012 at 1:54 am

    You first.

  7. Joe Leydon says:
    August 8, 2012 at 7:25 am

    Jesus, why don’t you two get a room?

  8. christian says:
    August 8, 2012 at 8:55 am

    Aw Joe. Don’t be jealous. Lex will love you long time.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon