The Trump presidency and the proliferation of fake news is an assault on good journalism, and this should be resisted by funding even more investigative reporting, the New York Times managing editor, Joseph Kahn, has told a black-tie dinner in Sydney.
“Attacks on the press by the president, the fake news phenomenon, and the shift of eyeballs and ad dollars to the big tech platforms are serious challenges,” Kahn said in his Andrew Olle Media Lecture at the International Convention Centre in Sydney.
“Our publisher, Arthur Sulzberger jr, and AG Sulzberger, the deputy publisher and his successor, have told us that we should put our boots on and jump into action — improve our product, refine our tactics and cultivate a much larger audience nationally and globally than we once thought possible.”
Non-partisan reporting and healthy scepticism should be the tools in every reporter’s kitbag in an era where the business model for journalism has been undercut by the dominance of Facebook and Google as platforms for advertisers.
Kahn, who with Jim Yardley won the Pulitzer prize for his coverage of China in 2006, has been key to the restructuring of the Times’ newsroom to end the old model of print desks.
Kahn said reporting that was even “harder, deeper and faster” was more important than ever in 2017, and the Times was investing in more reporters following a bump in subscriptions since Donald Trump became US president.
“Investigative journalism is by nature proprietary,” he said. “It is hard to do well, and even harder to scale. But in this target-rich environment, it is rewarding, both for readers and for the news media that develop a strong reputation for delivering it.
“Investigative still means teams of reporters taking weeks or months to uncover something big. Teams like those that exposed a raft of sexual harassment cases and secret settlements that led to the downfall of two of the biggest personalities in American entertainment, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News and Harvey Weinstein, the film mogul.”
Kahn said partisanship was the enemy of good journalistic practice.
“In this political climate, there is tremendous pressure on us to become part of the opposition to President Trump,” he said. “That pressure comes partly from some of our own readers. They want us to more forcefully confront a president they see as a threat to democracy and American power.
“The other side also wants us to become the opposition. That would suit their narrative that there is no such thing as nonpartisan media or nonpartisan facts, only support for or opposition to their positions.
“Some media companies see it as in their journalistic or business interest to more formally take sides in this struggle. We have decided it is not in our journalistic or business interest to do that. We’re convinced there is still a big audience for nonpartisan journalism, in the United States and around the world, and that the polarisation of much of the media makes that potential audience larger.”
The lecture, which raises funds for the Cure Brain Cancer Neuro-oncology Laboratory at the University of NSW, is held in honour of the late ABC broadcaster Andrew Olle, who died from a brain tumour in 1995. Previous speakers include former Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, the late ABC broadcaster Mark Colvin and journalists Laurie Oakes, Ray Martin, Kate McClymont, Lisa Wilkinson and Helen McCabe.
The lecture is screened on the ABC News Channel at 2pm on Saturday and on iView.
