Falling short

When I chose journalism in 1971 at age 22, it was with the belief I was entering a meaningful calling of sorts.

Slogans I admired at the time said it all: It’s journalism’s role to report truth fairly and accurately, while comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable across society.

Put another way, under protections of the First Amendment, journalists were expected to become a voice for those who lacked one while seeking truths that exposed governmental corruption, lies and malfeasance.

The absolute last thing we were to become in the minds of the public were apologists and propagandists for government and the wealthy powerful who influence its function.

I even had reminders of my beliefs hanging in my offices that said things like: “Fairness, objectivity, clarity,” alongside a quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than 1,000 bayonets.” On a corner of my desk sat a small framed Biblical passage from Ephesians 5 that summarized a significant part of every journalist’s responsibility: “Have nothing to do with fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”

Intelligent officials who chose to become “public servants” on the public dole came to understand that any corrupt practices they might undertake in office could be exposed by an assertive reporter and his or her supportive publisher. That sense of awareness and resulting fear of revealed shenanigans helped keep politicians relatively honest in most of their actions. Who could fault them? It was either that, or prepare to possibly risk trial in the court of public opinion.

All that borderline innocence began to change in journalism probably 20 years ago. Today, my chosen career and its overall performance is justifiably facing historic levels of disrespect and dissatisfaction in the eyes of millions of Americans.

Sadly, that bodes ill for preserving our democratic republic that must rely on fair, accurate and trustworthy information to survive.

The First Amendment gives journalists the freedom to report honestly. Its intent was to determine and report truths for all citizens to see and evaluate for themselves.

This freedom was not approved to ensure journalists could become activists or apologists for (or eager promoters of) a particular political party.

George Washington tried warning us about this very thing and an inevitably corrupt two-party system in his Farewell Address.

And yet here we are in 2021 being continually fed ugly partisanship by a so-called mainstream, corporately owned media that largely favors—and continually pushes—one leftist political ideology. They turn on opponents of their favorite party with relentless and mean-spirited onslaughts of criticism, often over relatively minor issues made to seem like enormous transgressions.

Many Americans have witnessed this shocking decline of honor in my field that many tend to believe is more akin to a craft than profession. I suspect most aging journalists share similar feelings as together we watch the lapse into obvious favoritism and assaults day after day.

So where did the standards of objectivity and fairness go? When did bully-boy activism instead of honest journalism become the standard? And pray tell, what happened to those crusty gatekeeping editors who insisted on high standards of reporting?

I’m not alone in my observations. This paper on Dec. 12 published a well-conceived opinion by Newsweek’s deputy opinion editor, Batya Ungar-Sargon, who wrote an extensive article on how far journalism and its standards have sunk in recent years.

Included in her story, “Upper-case type,” Ungar-Sargon wrote: “If journalists once fought the powerful on behalf of the powerless, in 21st century America they are the powerful. … [J] ournalists now have social and cultural power and are overwhelmingly the children of economic elites. …

“Once working-class warriors, the little guys taking on America’s powerful elites, journalists today are an American elite, a caste that has abandoned its working-class roots as part of its meritocratic climb,” she continued. “And a moral panic around race has allowed them to mask this abandonment under the guise of ‘social justice.’”

Earlier in the piece, she observed: “Journalism has become a profession of astonishing privilege over the past century metamorphosing from a blue-collar trade into one of the occupations with the most highly educated workforce in the United States. …

“[I]nstead of experiencing economic guilt about rising inequality … members of the news media—along with other highly educated liberals— have come to believe that the only inequality that matters is racial inequality; the only guilt that matters is white guilt, the kind you can do absolutely nothing to fix, given that it’s based on something as immutable as your skin color.”

Before you try to dismiss Sargon’s views as conservative, you might also find it interesting that her political views were described in her article as a “left-wing populist.”

All the better for the objectivity and credibility of this lady journalist.