WHY DOES DRUG REPORTING SUCK?

Whenever I fall into a funk over the press corps' abysmal coverage of
illicit drugs, I console myself with the knowledge that, as awful as
the coverage is, it's always been that way. Then, to confirm my
cynical sentiments, I pull out a monograph from 1974 titled "Major
Newspaper Coverage of Drug Issues" from the drug section of my
library and reread it.

Robert P. Bomboy wrote the monograph for the Drug Abuse Council, a
1970s project of the liberal Ford Foundation that assessed the impact
of illicit drugs and made policy recommendations. Bomboy found drug
coverage to be moralistic in conception, gullible in sourcing, and
formulaic in execution.

"Today's headlines and news stories on drug abuse often echo those
found in newspaper stories of the thirties, when Harry J. Anslinger,
the stern and energetic foe of drug use, took over the Federal Bureau
of Narcotics," writes Bomboy. Anslinger was an original exponent of
the "reefer madness" school of drug education. "Hemp Around Their
Necks ( http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/murd3.htm )," a
chapter from his 1961 book The Story of the Narcotic Gangs, provides
a taste of his rhetorical style, one that survives in today's
coverage of illicit drug use, especially methamphetamine use.

Bomboy interviewed reporters and editors across the country during
his research and came up with these drug-coverage axioms that are
truer today than they were in 1974:

A great deal of drug reporting on [sic] major newspapers reflects
ignorance, fear and false preconceptions.

Nothing that happens to a journalist will shake him of his false
ideas about drugs and drug users when he begins his reporting, Bomboy
asserts. "His editors and colleagues, having the same mental picture,
are not likely to challenge his story," he writes. "So the old myths
are perpetuated in the public's mind."

Newspapers continue to be most strongly interested in the sensational
or dramatic aspects of the drug abuse story.

For confirmation, please see the recent press treatment of "meth
mouth ( http://slate.msn.com/id/2124160/ )."

Acting out of a lack of interest at best, class bias, racism and fear
at worst, newsmen take pains to disassociate themselves from addicts.

"Newsmen still too easily accept conceptions of drug abusers as dope
fiends, 'crazies,' uncontrollable animals, the leading contributors
to urban crime, objects of fear and loathing," he writes.

Reporters too seldom attempt to cross-check official information with
sources on the street.

And if they do interview street sources, it's generally to confirm
what the official sources said in the first place.

Major newspapers often don't have "drug beats."

At many papers, general-assignment reporters write the stories and
fail to develop any expertise or alternative sourcing that would
improve their pieces.

Drug abuse coverage is warped by regional points of view.

To put the contemporary spin on this, the regional press tends to
believe that the entire nation must be captive of a meth epidemic
because they've observed meth in their own back yards. But even the
federal drug warriors don't fall for this line. About 18 months ago,
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy ventured (
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/news/testimony04/020604/scope.html
): "[A]ccording to the National Drug Intelligence Center, in some
areas of this country, methamphetamine use and production is not
classified as a significant problem. Yet in other regions, it is a
significant threat."

Bomboy's critique can't be universally applied. Obviously, not every
reporter is a dupe of the "just say no" crowd. The Oregonian (
http://www.oregonlive.com/special/oregonian/meth/ ), for example,
has produced a methamphetamine series over the last nine months that
doesn't rely on meth-mouth distortions. (In fact, a Nexis search
indicates that the newspaper has never published the phrase.) While I
don't agree with the paper's assumption that meth can be eliminated
by locking up the chemical precursors used by clandestine labs to
manufacture methamphetamine, there's no denying the Oregonian's
journalistic accomplishment. The editors better build their trophy
case for all the awards they'll win.

And as long as we're handing out drug-coverage awards, how about one
for Alec MacGillis of the Baltimore Sun (
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-pe.md.addicts07aug07,1,5190214.story
)? In last Sunday's (Aug. 7) edition, he vigorously debunked the
estimate of "60,000 addicts" in Baltimore, which had become a
national object of faith.

But such skeptical, substantive reporting remains rare. The majority
of journalists in 1974 had a good excuse for producing hysterical and
hackneyed crap: Drugs were a thousand leagues outside their comfort
zone. Your average pressman had never met a heroin user, had never
smoked marijuana, and mistakenly believed that some college kids on
LSD had gone blind ( http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/lsdsun.htm )
from looking at the sun.

But today's top editors are all young enough--or old enough,
depending on how you look at it--to have observed illicit drug use
firsthand, and I'd wager that most have partaken of recreational
drugs at some point in their lives. They know that police officers
exaggerate drug menaces, that not every drug user turns into Charles
Manson, and that not all drug use constitutes drug abuse. Such
personal familiarity with drug lore and legend should have better
prepared them to cover the subject.

What's their excuse?