The ethics of “Got-cha” reporting

I found a recent article in our local newspaper amusing at first then somewhat troubling as I recounted the history of the issue being reported.

The issue being discussed was the state standardized testing mandated by the federal government under No Child Left Behind legislation. There were a number of computer glitches experienced by nearly every district in the state during the 2009 – 10 testing cycle. The superintendent of public instruction at that time, which is an elected office, applied for and received a waiver from the U. S. Department of Education (DOE) to not have the test results be counted for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). 

As you might well imagine this story was heavily reported not only by our local newspaper but also by every news-reporting agency in the state. It was also a prime talking point by all the candidates vying for the office of superintendent of public instruction during the 2010 campaign. On November 2^nd a new superintendent of public instruction was elected to the office and seated on January 1^st, 2011.

The staff at our local newspaper was utterly shocked and clearly disappointed that their preferred candidate was not elected even after an attempt to discredit and smear the successful candidate one week before the election. A story in itself. 

On November 6^th, 2010 news broke that the state test scores showed improvement despite the difficulties experienced during testing. At the same time it was reported that the writing portion of the test indicated a remarkable growth but that was due to changes made in scoring.

Previously, the writing test was scored in six skill areas: idea development, organization, voice, conventions, word choice and sentence fluency. The last two skills were folded into the first four, which changed how writing tests were scored. Points awarded changed from a maximum of four points to a maximum of three points per skill, lowering the maximum number of points from 48 to 24. This too was extensively reported in the media and in great detail and clarity by our local newspaper.

This brings us to the recent article, which prompted this post. The superintendent of public instruction held a press conference to talk about the standardized test results among other things. The education reported, who reported all the stories mentioned above, was there. Rater than focus the line of questioning around current test scores, procedures and curriculum changes the reporter decided to grill the superintendent about the decision of the previous superintendent to request a waiver for the previous years test results. After that the reporter asked why there is apparent disparity in the writing scores between the previous year and current year results.

The reporter’s obvious bias is reflected in the line of “Got-cha” questioning and the way the article was written. Do reporters believe their agenda is masked or that their customers are so naïve to miss their prejudice? Could this be one reason why print media is suffering loss of circulation and marketing impact? Has journalism been sacrificed to advance a political agenda?