Just what is happening to the professional standards of American journalism? Within a 24-hour period two news stories were reported about American journalists. One was the scandalous admission by Armstrong Williams that he was paid $240,000 by a public relations firm to promote the “No Child Left Behind Act” and the other was the report by the CBS News panel that the program on Bush’s guard record was rushed and faulty.
Some Congressmen are calling for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Williams’ scandal and he has lost the support of Tribune Media Services, who had distributed his weekly newspaper column. Viacom, the parent company of CBS has demanded the resignations of the three news executives who had overseen the controversial “60 Minutes” segment about Bush’s service record. Still, the damage has been done and punishing a handful of journalists does not address the core issue of a growing lack of confidence in journalists.
The United States once stood as the pinnacle in both print and media reporting. During World War II, journalists of the caliber of Walter Cronkite and Edward Murrow reported the news from the front lines and the death camps to audiences that believed their every word without question. Newspapers in developing countries and television stations that emerged around the globe all patterned their formats and set their sights on the “American journalistic standard”.
No longer. US journalists have become “personalities” that have more in common with Hollywood than they do with any newsroom. The polarization of the political atmosphere has greatly contributed to this progression. Many journalists have decided that the road to recognition is to define their positions on every issue either to the far right or the far left.
During the recent presidential election this became so obvious that the media in and of itself, appeared as nothing more than an extension of the Republican and Democratic campaigns. It is not surprising that some of these journalists then cross over lines that should in the very least have passed a simple test in journalistic ethics. Armstrong Williams has admitted that he made a mistake, which is to his credit, but this does not dismiss the fact that he received money to promote a policy that he presented to his readers as his unbiased and qualified opinion. The news executives at CBS were in a hurry to scoop what they believed was a political “bomb shell” just a few days before the election but their own experts warned them that they could not verify that the documents being used were authentic and they proceeded with the story regardless.
The results of these actions, combined with a number of other discredited journalism stories has eroded what once was a proud profession and turned it into a circus media atmosphere which the American public considers entertainment, not news.
Edward Murrow once said that, “The line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one”. He was talking about McCarthyism, an issue that he stood up against and influenced the American public to stand with him.
It took courage for Murrow to take that position and it did nothing to enhance his career opportunities.
In fact, it hurt them. But he was a journalist and he knew that was his job. It is interesting to note that Edward Murrow left television in the late 1950s, primarily because too much emphasis was being placed on entertainment-based programs and not enough on the news.
— Adrienne McPhail is an American journalist based in Yokosuka, Japan.
