Bergman talks about future of journalism

Be prepared, says Bergman, for continuing changes in the industry.

Bergman offers insights on industry at SD-SPJ banquet

By Lori Weisberg, San Diego Pro Chapter

Staff Writer, San Diego Union-Tribune

A veteran investigative journalist and producer of the recent PBS documentary, “News War,” Lowell Bergman probably knows better than most what the future holds for journalism. While the industry is in turmoil and cuts loom at every turn, Bergman is not necessarily pessimistic.

Take the TV news business, which he says is still lucrative, especially during political campaign season when television advertising is bountiful.

“The news business has always been part of the public interest in this country. That is why the most lucrative licenses granted are broadcast licenses,” Bergman told journalists attending SPJ's awards banquet in June. “They're still generating a lot of money. This is a very lucrative industry because there are no regulations anymore.”

It's a different story for the print side, he acknowledged. Witness, he said, the staff cuts at the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle and the staff protests at the Wall St. Journal over the paper's takeover by Rupert Murdoch.

“When the news industry was under attack in previous times, it was growing and very profitable, but now, 35 years later, the establishment news industry is in deep trouble,” said Bergman, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

But it doesn't have to be that way, he added. “How do we create a new model to go out and do public interest reporting, which is why we get into the business?”

The Internet, of course, is where journalism is headed, and Bergman said he foresees nonprofit-funded operations on the Web “doing real reporting.”

Think about it, he said.  The New York Times is attracting millions of online readers every month, and much of the news on the Web is simply re-purposed newspaper reporting.

Bergman, who as a young journalist helped start an alternative weekly in San Diego, was portrayed much later in his career by Al Pacino in the movie “The Insider,” the story of his fight as a “60 Minutes” producer to expose the tobacco industry while protecting his sources.

The nature of journalism has changed since his days in San Diego when he was investigating C. Arnholt Smith and John Alessio, two prominent San Diego businessmen who were indicted for tax evasion.

“People now have standards, and that's what's being undermined by the dissolution of the (industry's) economic base,” Bergman said.

He reminded his audience of the stirring words spoken by the late journalist David Halberstam during an October 2003 speech.

“We are very lucky in what we do,” Halberstam said then. “We get paid for being part of the public process. ...We get paid to ask questions and to learn... But blessedly we never have to be popular.”