It wasn't that long ago that I heard a Politician Who Should Know Better dismiss negative articles that ran about him/her several years ago as a ploy to sell newspapers.

I am not revealing the name of the Politician Who Should Know Better because our lunch was off the record. But, I promise you: He/she is not the only one with misguided notions about what we do in the media, why we do it and how we get it done.

So, let's talk media today. I'll address some common questions and misperceptions.

You write nasty stories just to sell newspapers.

As a daily newspaper reporter, I always got the same paycheck, regardless of how many copies of the paper were sold. I used to laugh when people would say that. But after a time, I noticed editors "scoring" Sunday papers to see which front-page stories sold better in the racks. Somebody does care what sells, but I haven't seen it drive the news.

Television people, however, routinely play stories up or determine timing based on what will attract viewers.

You are all a bunch of liberals.

Well, that's a real crock. Reporters span the spectrum of liberal, moderate and conservative viewpoints. But, almost every paper I've worked at has had an editorial board dominated by unpleasant, painfully conservative opinion writers who decide what the paper is going to stand for and against.

Reporters are always pouncing on victims of tragedy like vultures and asking, "How do you feel?"

That doesn't happen much these days because reporters are too embarrassed to ask that question. It's embarrassing. Usually, it's reworded. Something like, "How are you getting along?" Every reporter I have ever known has absolutely loathed going after those stories, which are among the most read in the paper. There is a lot of pressure to get the grief first. After being sent six times to find the parents of a 6-year-old killed in a drive-by shooting, I requested the unthinkable — to be excused from the assignment. While my wishes were respected, I always felt opting out marked me as less dependable than the other reporters.

But I didn't care. I couldn't stand it any more.

You only report bad news.

First of all, that's not true. If you counted the number of "positive" feature stories placed throughout the paper, you'd see a good balance. When I first started reporting, the schools' superintendent complained publicly that I would only write about what he was doing wrong. My city editor — a really great journalist — got all riled up and said: "You tell him that he is a public servant working for us. We expect him to do a great job. That's what he is getting paid for. It's status quo. When he's not doing a great job, that's news.'"

I agree.

How are broadcast and print media different?

Daily newspaper staffs are larger and reporters have specific beats that they are responsible for covering. They have a better grasp on what is really happening. Television reporters are constantly thrown cold into stories, which means they may miss the point, get it wrong or, more normally, just do a superficial story.

Still, television people actually have it much harder because they rely on technology. The news comes on at 6 p.m., period. At a newspaper, a busted deadline will make people mad, slow delivery down and cost money, but the paper will still come out. You bust a deadline on television and you have dead air. If a machine dies, you die.

Advertisers control content.

There is supposed to be a firewall between advertising and editorial departments. But I have seen big advertisers put on the pressure and seen changes made to accommodate them. Usually, the influence is less direct. The publisher ends up making friends with advertisers and players in the community, and then starts suggesting new ways to cover things, which will ultimately impress the people he or she is trying to impress.

How has corporate ownership of the media affected the quality of the product?

Stockholders aren't investing in media companies because they want to help defend the public's right to know. They are there to make money. Great editors and publishers find a way to balance competing objectives, but poor ones readily sacrifice altruism for profits.

How has the news business changed in recent years?

The attention spans of readers have gotten shorter, so stories have gotten shorter. Management started worrying about the "mix" of stories on the front page so that there'd be a balance of light news alongside the hard news. Sometimes, this happens at the expense of real news stories that deserve real attention.

Whenever the paper runs a story about circulation, it sounds a little confusing.

With good reason. Newspapers have their own way of interpreting and manipulating circulation statistics so that it sound like they have made huge gains, when they have suffered devastating losses. It is like saying, "WE'RE NUMBER ONE (in Temple Terrace), WE'VE GAINED TWICE AS MANY SUBSCRIBERS AS OUR COMPETITION (on the 1400 block of North Boulevard) AND WE'VE GOT THE FASTEST READERSHIP GROWTH RATE (for transsexual mountain bikers) IN THE UNITED STATES. The real way to tell how well a newspaper is doing is to look at how thick it is, and how many ads it has.

Contact Columnist Fawn Germer at fawn.germer@weeklyplanet.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 134

This article appears in May 2-8, 2002.