I took the title of this blog from my desire to get the facts and not the narrative.

What's the difference?

The facts are the facts - the who, what, when, where, why and how of information gathering and dissemination. What used to be called serious reporting.

What we get now is the narrative - the overarching truth that the journalist wants us to understand is behind the story. At least, what the journalist believes is behind the story.
The slant that the journalist gives to the story so that we can feel what he feels about the world he sees and experiences.

I once saw an interview with Pete Hamill on the C-SPAN program booknotes. Mr. Hamill, a reporter and author, said that the newspaper business had suffered when reporters became middle class. Now that so many journalists have become personalities who aspire to be pundits, the damage to serious reporting must be severe.

Reporters once went to politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, engineers, and businessmen looking for experts - someone with an informed opinion. Today, the journalists are the experts. Watch the political shows and see how many people being interviewed are journalists. The interview each other more than anyone else. Are they talking about the what they have learned from experts or are they talking from their perspective, their view, their opinion?

I do not want a journalist who works for a paper that laying off other journalists to write stories about the economy. If he is afraid about losing his job, and he writes about the economy using his narrative, how can he not write about "the worst economy since the Depression" irrespective of the facts?

How else could a 5.1 per cent unemployment rate under one president being a sign of a great economy and a 5.0 per cent unemployment rate under a different president be the sign of a economic meltdown?

When have you ever seen a journalist get a story wrong, wrong, wrong, and was made to pay a price for his error or omission? Journalists have gotten into trouble for plagiarism - they stole from the works of others and one got into trouble for stealing from himself. No journalist has ever been called down for getting the narrative wrong. The press has a vested interest in burying their mistakes and pretending that they weren't wrong.

Examples:
Dan Rather and the Bush TANG memo - still believes that the documents have been proven to be fakes.

Walter Cronkite and the Tet offensive. He said we lost Tet, but the facts prove otherwise. Do you think he or CBS will ever admit he got it wrong?

When the press, which loves to serve humble pie, can learn to eat the same, then maybe more of the public might be interested in their product.