Please Read This One

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that the vast, vast majority of the 1,145 posts that have gone up in this space are fluff. With the exception of the times I talk about how I have won life's lottery in every way that counts, they are instantly (and deservedly) forgotten. I try hard to avoid injecting my political views into this safe space.

Today I'm making an exception because I want to make a point. That point it this:

The legitimate news media is not your enemy. 

I would never have believed I'd ever have to write that sentence when I graduated from college with a journalism degree just after the Watergate era. Remember those days? When Woodward and Bernstein were heroes to all Americans, not just to me?

But then this happened:

And this:

Of all the ways I have been shocked by this president (and there have been many), this may be the worst because it demonstrates such a blatant ignorance of the purpose of journalism:

"The purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing." 

I didn't come up with that--it's the thesis of the classic textbook written by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel that was used in the introductory course in journalism I led at Small College last year. Kovachs and Rosenstiel went on to identify the essential elements and practices of journalism.  I won't list all of them here, but the very first is that journalism's primary obligation is to the truth, and the profession's first loyalty is to citizens.

Did you get that?

Journalists, true journalists, have a responsibility to tell the truth so that people can be free and self-governing, and their first loyalty is to citizens. Not to any political party, not to any politician, not to any corporation or special interest group, and certainly not to themselves.

The essence of journalism, Kovachs and Rosenstiel added, is a discipline of verification. Journalists absolutely must find legitimate sources and verifiable background for the stories they produce.

That's why I re-posted the placard shown above on my Facebook page over the weekend. While I would have worded it a bit more elegantly ("ick" to the non-agreement between subjects and verbs) its sentiment is spot on. And it almost immediately provoked this response:

"Not too many good journalists left."

I wanted to cry.

The response was from a dear woman in my church, one who's kind and thoughtful. One who believes there are not many good journalists left, because she has been told that in uninformed and dangerous tweets.

Journalists, real journalists, are committed to the truth in the same way doctors are committed to healing. What if the president had decided to turn his platform toward doctors? Would his followers give up modern medicine? Or if he'd decided to belittle pilots, would they quit flying?

Of course, I know that what may appear to be legitimate sources of news often are not. Just as there are quack doctors in the medical profession, there are irresponsible journalists in the media who need to be weeded out. Also, social media was a truth-killer even before the Russians got involved. But there are legitimate journalistic sources of truth that can help us be free and self-governing.

I am linking here a chart that is helpful in finding legitimate news sources, journalists who seek out verifiable truths. It is copyrighted, so I can't embed it, but please, please, please click over and find out if what you are reading is someone's opinion or real journalism. Not only does it analyze which media base their reporting on facts backed up by legitimate sources and information rather than relying on commentaries and opinions, it lists which news outlets skew conservative and which skew liberal so you can look for sources that don't make your blood pressure rise. (Husband is a Wall Street Journal guy and I am BBC and NPR so we have some interesting discussions, but they are based on truth.)

There was a reason the founders of our nation included freedom of the press among the most crucial elements of their constitution. They knew that power is seductive, and that speaking truth to power is the only way to keep freedom alive. They knew that the first thing potential dictators do is attempt to take control of the media. (One of the measures of a democracy is whether it has freedom of the press.) 

I can only imagine they would be aghast to see what we've come to:



It is sad.

It is scary.

And it is dangerous.