George Sontag
Journalism
is broken and we can't agree on how to fix it. The
theme that you hear constantly is that 90% of the media identifies as
Democrats, Progressives, or Socialists and slants all news towards a
Leftist philosophy and the other 10% that are not, are ignored.
Consider the contrasting views of former New York Times reporter
Linda Greenhouse and Emmy Award-winning former CBS reporter Sharyl
Attkisson. Each has written a book detailing her experience as a
journalist and their thoughts on where the profession is headed.
In
Greenhouse's book, "Just A Journalist: On the Press, Life and
the Spaces Between," she writes: “a
journalist doesn't just have the right
to express opinions but the obligation to do so.”
This is the definition of “fake news”
I.E.
“Fake
news is news reported with opinions and speculation. It is when a
journalist selectively chooses and ignores facts, and interprets or
paraphrases those facts to reach an unwarranted conclusion that
conveniently validates his own views.”
Attkisson
sees things differently.
As she spells out in "The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives
and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You
Vote," she thinks the media is in a mess of its own making. The
public doesn't trust the media anymore, she says, because journalists
have violated their own standards. "We in the business of
journalism have exempted ourselves from the normal rules that used to
govern us, and so the most egregious kinds of reporting errors are
becoming more common." She added that most Americans "want
their news straight up," and they're not getting it that way.
Why
is it this way? Is true journalism dead? Is tabloid journalism now
the norm as Dan Rather has stated or is what we have today deliberate
propaganda? The reasons for the descent into so-called fake news can
be attributed to our own failings because....
- We've broken our own rules. Reporters are supposed to keep their opinions to themselves. Anchors are supposed to tell you the news, not tell you what to think.
- We're surrounded by the like-minded. Many journalists are white and come from the same socioeconomic backgrounds and live in large urban areas.
- We've become too comfortable with hypocrisy. The recent wave of sexual harassment scandals involving media figures — Charlie Rose, formerly of PBS and CBS News; Mark Halperin, formerly of ABC News and NBC News; and Michael Oreskes, formerly of NPR and The New York Times, etc. — shows that journalists don't do a good enough job of policing their own backyard.
- We try to be social workers and social engineers. We've gotten sidetracked into the idealistic mission of making better people and building a better society. That's not journalism.
- We take our cues from Washington and New York. These big cities have been given free rein in shaping the national discussion, while paying too little attention to what matters in small towns and rural areas.
- We let our bias show. Most all of us are anti-Trump and pro-Democrat. We don't even bother to hide it anymore. In fact, many of us seem proud of our activism and partisanship, which has no place in journalism.
- We tell ourselves that the ends justify the means. This is especially true in our battles against "deplorables," including the one in the White House. We cannot or refuse to be objective.
- We don't differentiate clearly the difference between editorials, columns, and news articles. Television viewers confuse reporters, anchors, and commentators. We've mixed it all together.
To
get back to real journalism we need to look in the mirror and
confront what we've done wrong. We have to stop being defensive, be
more introspective, and admit we have a problem. If we can do this,
in time, the public may begin to believe us again.
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