He pauses and grins. "The thing I've never understood is, why would anybody want to give it up? It's such a good life. It gives you the ability to never be bored, to do interesting things, to have a significant role in the community."

Jones' preference for family-owned papers jibes with his experience. Unlike a lot of reporters nowadays, he has spent the bulk of his career with family papers. He made his name at the Ochs and Sulzberger-owned New York Times and is finishing, with his wife, Susan E. Tifft, a history of that family and newspaper, in the works for seven years.

A jovial server with a razor-line of beard brings our lobster salads; two cold, naked half-monsters on tossed greens.

The real problem in media today, Jones tells me, is depression among journalists, most of whom still start out in the business for other than financial reasons. The White House Correspondents dinner -- Jones hasn't attended in years -- "is a kind of self-hating. The thing that amazes me about it is, these are the elite journalists, many of them, but they have no sense of dignity about who they are or what they do."

This is because editors are becoming too business-minded, Jones explains. In the mid-1970s, the meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors "was like a union meeting, almost. The publishers were 'them' and the editors were 'us,' and we were trying to figure out how to be editors in the face of 'them' ... That's pretty much over." As a result, Jones tells me, "Journalists in America are extremely disheartened."

The thought makes Jones pensive. "I think journalism is a really honorable and important job. I think journalists need to feel that it's important. You asked me what the purpose of the show was. I guess it's to take journalism seriously."

Over decaf espressos I get in my last big-picture question: Isn't the public -- with access to ever more media outlets and electronic resources -- actually better informed than it was before? In theory, yes, Jones says, but in practice, no. "Not because there's not enough out there, because there's too much ... Television is a passive medium and news requires more engagement." On balance, many would rather be entertained, he says.

"The utopian flip side to that," I say, "is that if you want to, you can flip around, you can be your own editor."

"And you can download the New York Public Library," Jones says. You can't, so far as I know, but I see his point. You wouldn't even if you could -- it'd be too much to digest.

The Internet is one aspect of contemporary media Jones brightens at: He imagines it could become the grass-roots news source many local papers have stopped being and local TV never bothered to be. He doesn't read online much -- until he and Tifft wrap up the book this year, he's chained to the same computer he started it on in 1992 -- but he's excited about a Times article he's just read about broadband access. "I intend to get one of those fast deals," he says, eagerly. "It's like being in the stacks of a library. You could spend your life in there; it's very seductive."

Another source of encouragement for Jones are his students at Duke University, where he and his wife split a chair and he teaches twice a week. They're "smart kids, interested in policy and journalism." Still, a media gap occasionally surfaces in class. When the Starr Report was released, the class watched an NBC newscast, which Tom Brokaw closed with a little personal comment. "I asked them what they thought of that, and one of them said, 'You know, that's exactly like what Jerry Springer does.'" Likewise, in a discussion of Watergate, Jones says, the class went blank when the name "Deep Throat" came up.

Recalling the class as a bit of spring air wafts into the restaurant, Jones shakes his head over not one but two gaps in his students' cultural knowledge.

"They didn't even think it was a pornographic movie!" he laughs.
salon.com | May 14, 1999

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