Article on Russia in The New Yorker

[Novak, Susan S]

Regarding yesterday's comments about The New Yorker article: As a journalism instructor, I am truly concerned that the facts in that article are wrong; when one reporter fails, it misleads and misinforms the public. It also immediately reflects badly on all journalists. But as for what we are teaching in the classroom? We ARE teaching as much research and analysis as we can. We’re teaching the students how to distinguish between good and bad sources and how to critique the materials they find and how to report them as objectively as they possibly can. We’re also trying to catch them up on the grammar and punctuation that our state’s K-12 standards have eliminated in an effort to keep afloat in the ongoing “No Child Left Behind” fiasco. We’re teaching them ethics and law, and as we teach First Amendment we’re learning that more and more students have formed the opinion that the government should play a greater role in controlling and censoring what we publish—a mighty mountain indeed for teachers of the Fourth Estate to conquer.

But still we’re doing our best to make good reporters and writers of them. Do our lessons stick? Probably no more than a lot of the lessons Slavicists teach their students. Should media editors be sharper and more critical of what comes across their desks? Obviously--everyone can do better. You’ll never hear journalism instructors defending sloppy journalism. And yes, by all means, if you as consumers see gross errors, write to the editors of The New Yorker, or the New York Times, or even the weekly Podunk Prattler. Let them know so they can be on the lookout for these poor writers and for similar factual mistakes in the future. The good publications take these errors seriously, but they can’t address the problems if no one points them out. 

But I also think that equally poor research and analysis on the part of the public leads folks to conclude that all journalism schools, all journalists, all media have failed. I’m trying to teach my students the right way, and as I personally conduct research about Russian journalists and journalism, I am trying to be as careful and critical as possible so that my work will provide a useful and accurate contribution to both fields.

I think the idea about a cross-disciplinary “training” class is an excellent one, and I have forwarded that e-mail to those in my arena who make the administrative and financial decisions. Instead of finger-pointing in regard to each other’s deficiencies, I think we will accomplish much more for the students and for our respective fields if we work together to solve these types of problems.


Susan S. Novak
Coordinator, Bremner Editing Center
William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications
University of Kansas
110 Stauffer-Flint Hall
1435 Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence, KS 66045-7575
(785) 864-7623
novaks at ku.edu

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