U. of South Dakota seminar looks at news-media fairness
By The Associated Press
09.26.03
VERMILLION, S.D. — Whether the news media are fair or not often depends on the personal biases of the reader or viewer, panelists at a media symposium said last evening.
"It very much depends on whose ox is being gored," said Robert MacNeil, former host of public television's "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour."
The symposium at the University of South Dakota capped a two-day event to honor USA TODAY and Freedom Forum founder Al Neuharth. Earlier in the day, a new campus media center was dedicated to Neuharth, a South Dakota native and former Gannett Co. chairman.
CNN anchor Judy Woodruff said it was especially difficult for news outlets to be seen as fair in such tumultuous times for the nation. Events such as the 2000 presidential election, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq bring out strong emotions in people, Woodruff said. Through it all, journalists must strive to stay in the middle, she said.
"But sometimes we get it wrong," Woodruff said.
Some panelists sharply criticized CNN rival Fox News, accusing the network of pandering to people's patriotism to get ratings. Woodruff also said Fox's claim of being "fair and balanced" was adopted only as an attempt to counteract the perception that the network is sympathetic to conservatives.
"Do I think CNN's fair and balanced?" Woodruff said. "I don't think we need to use those terms."
MacNeil went one step further, calling Fox's claim of being fair and balanced "a con on the public."
Former Associated Press President and CEO Louis D. Boccardi addressed the oft-repeated criticism that news organizations are only interested in bad news. Boccardi told the audience that if he fell over dead in the middle of the discussion, that would be the first thing people would tell others about the symposium.
"Things that vary from the norm; that's an essential ingredient to what is news," Boccardi said.
Current AP President and CEO Tom Curley said another obstacle to fair reporting was the tension between traditional news values and the intense competition for ratings. It is important that reporters maintain a balance between good journalism and getting a larger audience, Curley said.
But it is nearly impossible to write a news story that everyone will think is fair, said John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center.
"All of us have faced this charge of unfairness at one time or another," Seigenthaler said. Someone will always have a problem with a story, especially when the topic is one that is divisive, he added.
"I guess I'm saying again that there's an awful lot in the eye of the beholder," he said.
Neuharth, a Eureka, S.D., native and USD graduate, retired as Gannett Co. chairman in 1989.
Curley, last year's winner of the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, is USA TODAY's former president and publisher. He became AP president and chief executive officer June 1.
Boccardi retired in May as AP's president and CEO. He was AP president for 18 years, joining the AP in 1967 as executive assistant to the general news editor after eight years with New York newspapers.
MacNeil has worked in radio and TV newsrooms in Canada, Great Britain and the United States. He also is an author.
Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., in 1991.
Woodruff, a 30-year veteran of broadcast journalism who joined CNN in 1993, anchors the network's news coverage on weekdays and hosts "Inside Politics."