I’ve been writing seriously (writing for publication) for about two years. I’ve gotten a few telephone acceptances from editors before. But never have I gotten a telephone rejection.
After all, busy editors usually don’t take the time to call just to say, “No, we don’t want this article,” when it’s much simpler to reply to the e-mail you sent or not at all (which is typical). So why did I receive a rejection telephone call? Let me provide some context.
I occasionally submit my columns as op-eds to major newspapers, especially when I write something I think will have wide appeal. I sent my latest, “Stop the Presses!”, to several major newspapers, liberal newspapers. I wrote about a study called The State of the News Media 2004, which reports on several trends, including the public’s distrust of mainstream media.
I’ll admit that I don’t expect a piece critical of liberal journalists to end up in a major newspaper, but because I know that either the editor or his/her assistant actually reads submissions, I wanted them to at least know my opinion.
I sent the piece to several newspapers today, and when I returned from work, I had a message from the Washington Post.
An assistant called to say that the editor of the section I submitted to decided to turn it down because his newspaper already wrote about the study last month.
Now this is curious. Newspapers will cover an issue until it’s run into the ground, but when it comes to publishing the opinion of someone critical of their biased coverage, suddenly they don’t want to overdo it. Once is enough.
The assistant directed me to this article: “The News, Dear Readers, Is Not as Bad as You Say It Is”. This is how the Post covered the issue:
Once again, the news about the news media is bleak. Or so we are asked to believe . In a 500-page report released last week and grandly called “The State of the News Media 2004,” a Washington group called the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) found very little of excellence to celebrate. The report is an exhaustive compilation and analysis of hundreds of previous polls and studies detailing the media’s faltering vital signs. As such, the PEJ has catalogued the usual woes: rising superficiality and sensationalism in news coverage, declining circulation and TV news viewership, cutbacks in newsroom resources and, most distressingly, brimming public mistrust and disdain for the work journalists do.
A sad state of affairs, no? Actually, not really. The news media have certainly had their share of scandal lately, and the exploits of alleged serial fabricators Jayson Blair, of the New York Times, and now Jack Kelley, of USA Today, have done little to bolster public trust in the media. Still, reading navel-gazing reports such as the PEJ’s leaves me aghast not at the media — but at the public.
So there it is. The Washington Post is shocked that readers distrust them. And they didn’t even cover it as a news story. They wrote an opinion, which gives them lots of room to criticize the criticism leveled against themselves!
Paul Farhi, as a journalist, naturally takes a different approach to the study than I do. And he does so in the right section, the opinion section. But Farhi points a finger at the public for newspapers’ declining readership and suspects other factors might be in play: “People are too busy, too lazy, or just aren’t very interested in the world at large. Hard to blame the media for that.”
Obviously the editor wanted to make sure I saw their counter-point to my argument. I believe this is why I got a rejection by phone. But all this article does is confirm my opinion that the Post is a left-leaning newspaper. In a study filled with statistics and facts, produced by their own colleagues, journalists are still in denial.
I do want to give the Post a little credit for publishing an op-ed I wrote last year about President Bush’s school voucher plan for D.C. Just a little.
My strong viewpoint was deemed worthy of a personal rejection by telephone. Just to know that I’m getting the attention of editors is reward enough for now.
What do you think of the Post article?
