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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Social Studies: How Radical Islamists Will Take Over the World. Not. (December 4, 2001) Inside the international conspiracy of seriously cracked Islamic militants. A National Journal exclusive! By Jonathan Rauch. Legal Affairs: Military Tribunals Need Not Be Kangaroo Courts (December 4, 2001) There is still time for the Administration to specify credible fair-trial guarantees to protect against abuses. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: New Hope for Mideast Peace (December 4, 2001) Remarkably, Arab countries are hinting they may be willing to make unprecedented offers. By William Schneider. Legal Affairs: Ashcroft's 'Trust-Us' Routine Is Getting a Little Stale (November 20, 2001) Most troubling is his persistent refusal to disclose details about the people who are being detained. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: Bush, the Volunteer Coordinator (November 20, 2001) It's not clear that U.S. commanders need German troops or Italian warships. America wants political support. By William Schneider. On Books: Van-Loads of Campaign Fiction (November 20, 2001) Opinion columnist Tish Durkin reviews two books on pols and the pressies who cover them. More from National Journal. |
Media 
The Clear WinnerStill viewed with disdain by some knee-jerks, USA Today has been on top of the war like nobody else by William Powers ..... Browse the latest news about the news, and you'll find a lot of stories about TV ratings, especially the stunning wartime comeback of CNN and the surprising recent decline of NBC's Nightly News and Today shows. But barely a peep about another major news outlet that may be the biggest success story of the war. Not only has this outlet's coverage been timely and fair, it has also brought to the story a clarity and a focus that have been lacking in other national media, at a time when clarity and focus are exactly what's needed. Indeed, it's as if this media outfit was built for exactly this story at this time—one of those rare, perfect matches between a journalistic enterprise and its age. I'm speaking of the remarkable recent performance of USA Today, the paper that was almost laughed out of existence when it was founded nearly two decades ago. The national daily is still viewed with disdain in some elite quarters—for its colorful, graphics-heavy format, its upbeat populism, and its TV-shaped vending boxes, among other sins. But it has been on top of this war like nobody else. The first tip-off that USA Today was serious came before the war officially began. On September 28, the paper's Jack Kelly reported from Islamabad that U.S. military commando teams had been operating inside Afghanistan for weeks, since just a few days after the September 11 attacks. This was a real scoop, but also a dangerous one. In revealing covert operations, USA Today risked alienating a public that was foursquare behind the war. For a publication that styles itself "the nation's newspaper," the daily channeler of the common zeitgeist, this was treacherous territory. But as it has often done lately, USA Today read the national mood with great precision. Though some readers and a few pundits were outraged that the paper had reported war secrets, there was no real backlash. On the day the story ran, President Bush all but confirmed it, telling reporters with barely disguised glee: "Make no mistake about it, we're in hot pursuit." It was just the latest instance of a trend toward sharper, more hard-news-driven journalism, and toward stronger foreign coverage in particular, that began at USA Today in the mid-'90s. But the paper's recent success is about much more than being first. It's also about how it takes the deluge of war news that breaks every day, and boils it down into the tight, minimal style that it has been perfecting for years. One day this week, for instance, the front page had only one major headline above the fold. "U.S. Secures Afghan Base," it said, and the story opened as follows: "Marines secured the first U.S. foothold inside Afghanistan on Monday as U.S. warplanes skirmished nearby with a column of armored vehicles. President Bush said the presence on the ground of U.S. forces marked a new and dangerous phase of the seven-week-old war. " 'We're now hunting down the people who are responsible for bombing America,' Bush said. 'No President or commander in chief hopes anybody loses life ... but it's going to happen.' " The story was accompanied by a large photo of two American Special Forces soldiers, a small, extremely clear map, and a seven-paragraph sidebar on the Marines' mission. The sidebar began in vivid, colloquial fashion: "If the U.S. military has been tightening the noose around Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network, the Marines have just arrived to give the rope a good, strong yank." Both the sidebar and the main story ended on the front page. On the same day, The New York Times' lead headline read: "Vanguard of Marines Digs In and Directs Air Attacks." This was subtler and more detailed than "U.S. Secures Afghan Base," but in the end, it told you a lot less. The Times used the same photo as USA Today, but its story opened quite differently: "Just hours after establishing a base in Afghanistan, American Marines helped direct air attacks today on an armored column, inaugurating a new phase in the war that will deploy 1,000 American ground troops, Pentagon officials said." While the top of the USA Today account employed robust verbs that conveyed a sense of action ("secured," "skirmished"), The Times opted for the mushily abstract ("establishing," "helped direct," "inaugurating"). More important, USA Today seemed to get closer to the meat of the story. After all, isn't the fact that the Marines were securing "the first U.S. foothold" in Afghanistan a good deal more significant—and clearer—than the fact that they were "inaugurating a new phrase in the war"? Instead of using Bush's words about this "new and dangerous" phase in the war and the likelihood of U.S. casualties, the paper of record quoted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's assurance that the Marines "are not an occupying force." In other words, while USA Today cut straight to the question that's foremost in most readers' minds—Are we about to see body bags?—The Times opted to focus on what is, at the moment, a far more academic question: What are the political implications of this invasion? The Times story jumped inside and ran to 1,329 words, but they didn't say half as much USA Today's 487. This has been happening a lot lately. USA Today's journalism may not be as textured or elegant as that of the more prestigious outlets. But then, war is not textured or elegant. Clarifying events call for clarifying journalism, and so far, one undervalued newspaper has the market cornered.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Powers is media columnist for National Journal. He recently spent three months in Japan as a Japan Society Fellow, studying the role of reading in Japanese life. This column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||
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