Duquesne aims to increase trust in the media
Journalists have had reputations throughout history as pamphleteers, soothsayers, educators and scoundrels.
Never has the press been perfect, but it has played a central role in the dawnand the continuance of our democracy. In fact, Thomas Jefferson, a founding father, wrote that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
That protected role was vandalized when we started living in a wildly undisciplined digital environment that spawned platforms used to underwrite domestic terrorismand dangerous falsehoods.
The past few years have shaken whatever faith citizens may have had in the efforts of a free press to inform our citizenry as we have been battered by literally anyone using the open and unregulated platforms to post blatantly false credos and turn accepted facts into “fake news,” the most frightening phrase uttered by those in power when a true but unfavorable story is reported.
The lesson of the last several years is that the truth is more important than ever. In our 24/7 news cycle environment, we have disparate media outlets offering vastly divergent views, each claiming to represent the truth without adhering to agreed-upon facts. Our debate has been debased with lies and conspiracy theories. The result is that the print press and air waves are not only contaminated, they are distrustedand even held in contempt.
Politically motivated disputes over election results have thrown an unnecessary shadow over how Americans cast their votes and how they are counted. This goes to the very heart of our democracy and howwe elect our leaders.
Underground digital conduits and social media have given a megaphone to outlets posing as sources of legitimate journalism. And, finally, the Covid-19 crisis in the U.S. has been prolonged, with a tragic number of deaths, because of the spread of demonstrably false information that has mostly affected theunvaccinated.
Troubled by this trend, worried
about our democratic institutions and frustrated by the tone of our public discourse, I went to my alma mater with an idea. Working with Duquesne University President Ken Gormley, I provided the seed money to create the Duquesne University Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism.
In my professional life, I strove for integrity alongside many respected journalists and communications professionals and understand just how crucial it is to have people of integrity shaping how we understand the world. At the same time, it is also more critical than ever that we restore the public’s trust in journalism.
The institute just started this summer. In announcing its creation, Duquesne said “the institute will serve as a resource for faculty in the journalism and media program at Duquesne. The institute will assist Duquesne to enhance internship opportunities; strengthen relationships with local and national media; mentor students; and provide programming for students to interact with professionals who exemplify the best journalistic values of civil discourse, truthfulness, balanced reporting and respectful interviewing.”
The result, I hope, will be to promote fair, accurate and effective journalism as new generations find mentors at Duquesne and learn how to be practitioners in the field.
The institute will hold its first event at 3 p.m. Wednesday Nov. 17 for students and the public called The Importance of Local Journalism inan Age of Declining Trust in Media. The program, to be held in person at Duquesne and online, will begin a conversation about how the press goes about its work and why that work is so essential to our democracyand our beliefs.
Panelists from the local media and alumni who are professional journalists will talk about the current state of journalism, how they do their jobs, and why the public’s sense of whether it can trust legitimate media must be restored. Walk-ins are welcome but registration is encouraged at https:// form.jotform.com/ 212764579603059. More information is available at duq.edu/about/centersandFollowing the event, the public is invited to tour Duquesne’s new state-of-the-art broadcast center in the student union, located in the center of campus and just across the sky bridge from the Power Center.
The vision of this institute is clear: To help bring clarity to how the press does its work, to examine the reasons for the decline in the quality of our public conversation and to elevate publictrust in the media.
Pittsburgh Duquesne are ideally suited for this effort. We live in a diversemedia environment in this region, but we luckily lack — most of the time — the daily barrage of constant toxic negativism and division that characterize the broader debate. We have the twin advantages of a national outlook and a local orientation.
You can expect Duquesne to emerge as an important forum for perhaps the most important question facing our democracy: How we preserve, protect,and defend the freedom of the press enshrined in the First Amendment as we try to protect and defend the democracy the press exists to cover.