What’s News?

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. - Edward R. Murrow

 

Journalism, as it is known today, should be a four-letter word. (But, wait. The word I have in mind has five letters [or, ten, depending on whether you want to use a word considered more acceptable in mixed company], so that sort of nullifies my opening statement, there, doesn't it?) Why would I say such a horrible thing? Well, let's face it. journalism is no longer (hasn't been for a long, long time) about reporting current events. It has become all about directing and controlling public opinion, based on whatever political axe the publisher has to grind. As long as the publisher has aligned himself with sorry excuses for human beings, liars, thieves, crooked politicians, big money greed, and so on, then journalism will most definitely be about covering the truth, as opposed to reporting it. Some of what we read today tries to make us believe that print journalism is dead because of electronic media, but that is not the truth, either. Print media is taking a back seat to electronic media simply because people have become too lazy to learn how to research for themselves, or for that matter, too lazy to worry about verifying anything.

    It is not like I don't blame electronic media for the eminent demise of print journalism, because we could see the writing on the wall (to coin a phrase) as far back as the 1950's, when folks began to turn to Ed's boys, on CBS, and followed up with Walter Cronkite, when he stepped up. Once people were willing to accept the TV talking heads as experts, they and their ilk slowly, but inexorably began to take the news out of the news, and now, they not only manipulate the news itself, but the ever-forgetful-suffering-from-terminal-short-term-memory-loss public in general, through that manipulation.

    Think about it. If my TV watching is interrupted throughout my TV watching day by commercials that tell me what is going to be on the 'news' tonight, with teasers designed to make me curious enough to tune in, then what has TV journalism become? If you told me 18 times during the day what I'm going to see tonight, then by the time I see it, it is no longer news, right?! And, maybe that is part of how they want it to be. We've become so jaded to the horrors of real life (think CBS Evening News & Viet Nam), that we no longer react the way we, as human beings, should react.

    I found an online definition for journalism, at this URL:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/journalism?show=0&t=1283560749

1

a
: the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media

b
: the public press

c
: an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium

2

a
: writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine

b
: writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation

c
: writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest

I really don't see anything in there that indicates that journalism is supposed to represent any particular special interest, or political party, or rich publisher's agenda, do you? Nor, do I see anything in there that indicates any need for a journalist ever think about injecting him/herself into any news report, less any call to blackmail the subjects of a news story (more about this later).

Then, I found some formal principles of journalism, at http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles:

 

A Statement of Purpose

After extended examination by journalists themselves of the character of journalism at the end of the twentieth century, we offer this common understanding of what defines our work. The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.

This encompasses myriad roles--helping define community, creating common language and common knowledge, identifying a community's goals, heros and villains, and pushing people beyond complacency. This purpose also involves other requirements, such as being entertaining, serving as watchdog and offering voice to the voiceless.

Over time journalists have developed nine core principles to meet the task. They comprise what might be described as the theory of journalism:

1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth

2. Its first loyalty is to citizens

3. Its essence is a discipline of verification

4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover

5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power

6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise

7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant

8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional

9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience

 

This information was also found at that same web site, to offer an explanation of the above declaration:

In 1997, an organization then administered by PEJ, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, began a national conversation among citizens and news people to identify and clarify the principles that underlie journalism. After four years of research, including 20 public forums around the country, a reading of journalism history, a national survey of journalists, and more, the group released a Statement of Shared Purpose that identified nine principles. These became the basis for The Elements of Journalism, the book by PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel and CCJ Chairman and PEJ Senior Counselor Bill Kovach. Here are those principles, as outlined in the original Statement of Shared Purpose.

    So, taking their points in order, I'd have to say this about these people and their idea of what journalism is and does:

1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth
   

   I have to agree, and only wish that this were carried out in their activities.
   

2. Its first loyalty is to citizens

Wow. Can't argue with that, with the caveat that those citizens means others outside the news reporting organization.

3. Its essence is a discipline of verification

Yes…..they certainly should not print something that they have not verified. But, why must this be the 'essence' of journalism? Shouldn't the essence be simpler than that, like maybe one word: truth?

4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover

OK, but also (and, more important), independent from those who pay them to do that covering!

5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power

Yeah, separate from ALL outside influence.

6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise

As in (just a thought, here), maybe letters to the editor should be carried separately from the Editorial page (in newsprint), and since there has never really been such a forum for the public to respond, I think there should actually be some kind of forum for the general public's input on broadcast programs.

7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant

Ah, but who is to determine what is significant? Surely not only the so-called journalists?

8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional

    Yeah, and that means striving for objectivity, better than they currently do.

9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience

Up to a point. If we're talking about protecting sources for truly relevant reporting. And, then, only as far as not allowing their personal conscience to dictate what they report, and what they leave out (in other words, not if they have put anybody's personal slant on the story).

Now, you know what? I took a couple years of journalism in high school (granted, that may have been back when type was set by hand), and we were taught some very simple principles that can pretty much be summed up like this:

There is no 'you' in any news story, and 'I' ain't there, either.

Tell the reader these things: who, what, where, when, and that's it!

I was taught that you, the reporter/writer do not interpret the words of the people involved. (Actually, I still have trouble writing anything using that pronoun - you). If they said, "xyz," then you may quote them, but you, as the reporter/writer, do not make any effort to explain what they might have meant, or intended to say. Again, keep yourself out of the story!

As for reflecting the opinions of those who pay you, forget it. You answer only to your Editor, and let him answer to the publisher. The fact is that as long as truth is told, freely, it cannot hurt anyone, including the publisher.

Think about this (and, I know I'm going off on a tangent here): if all the nasty little secrets of any given individual were no longer secrets, then who or what could hurt them? Obviously, if we didn't harbor any dirty little secrets at all, the same sentiment would apply (nothing could harm us). Giving into blackmail such as fear of exposure via a news report is akin to the kind of misguided thinking (thanks, Hollywood) that goes like this: Let's say a gunman has a gun pointed at a hostage's head, and the gunman says he'll kill the hostage if he doesn't get what he wants. In the movies this always leads to acquiescence on the part of the cop, or other good guy, right? But, what Hollywood always ignores is the simple fact that if the good guy shrugs, and says, "Hey, go for it." Then, the gunman (being stupid to begin with) shoots his hostage. Now, what has he got left? NOTHING! Not a single damn thing! Likewise, if I have a secret, and I expose that secret myself, what harm can any blackmail do to me?

What a roundabout way to make my point that journalism now has that power, and for too long too many people have given in to the blackmail that is implied in the current attitude of most so-called 'journalists' today. In short, for the average person, there should never be any possibility of being afraid to talk to journalists, nor of any "power" of the press, because if we are all open, and if reporters (journalists) only report the truth and the facts, then who can they hurt? Sure, if you are a crook (synonymous with politician?) of one kind or another, you don't want that truth to come out. But, what I think journalism has become is this evil instrument that implies a threat with each and every encounter. The threat of exposure is there, yes, but it is an exposure of innuendo, lies, or implication, rather than simple facts.

    Now that I have cried about what I believe journalism has become, I am left with the question of where do I go for current, truthful reporting of the news?