Editors should set, enforce standards
Commentary
By Charles L. Overby
Chairman and CEO, The Freedom Forum
03.15.98
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Media coverage of Monica Lewinsky has focused new attention on media excesses and First Amendment freedoms.
Some reporting has been excellent. Other reporting has been prurient, inaccurate or questionable.
Who knows the difference?
No detail about Lewinsky's life, it seems, is too trivial. No photo opportunity is too remote.
Is this what the First Amendment has come to?
Yes, of course.
We know that the First Amendment gives the media the right to be irresponsible.
But this absolute right has caused many journalists to look the other way when excesses occur.
The failure of responsible media to criticize and ostracize tabloid practices has allowed tabloidism to creep into many mainstream newsrooms.
The right to publish has overtaken our standards to publish.
The time has come for responsible media leaders to separate themselves from irresponsible practices.
The First Amendment will be enhanced, not threatened, if responsible newspeople speak out against irresponsible journalism.
In London, where the threat of government regulation hangs over the media, responsible editors are more likely to be critical of media excesses.
The editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, recently gave a major speech assailing tabloid journalism practices.
Rusbridger is one of Great Britain's most aggressive editors. He has led The Guardian to top-notch investigative reporting. He and The Guardian won The Freedom Forum's first Freedom of the Press Award at the London Press Club this year.
Yet, Rusbridger offered this admonition: "I would happily sacrifice the freedom to expose the love life of a BBC weather forecaster to 11 million prurient eyes if it meant that the courts would give greater protection to papers or broadcasters reporting corruption or dishonesty in public life."
Journalists in the United States are not saddled with oppressive laws such as those that threaten the British press.
It is not necessary to revoke First Amendment freedoms in order to advocate higher standards.
And that is all the more reason for U.S. media leaders to do more to censure irresponsible journalism.
The unwillingness even to define what constitutes bad journalism is contributing to the lowering of standards by mainstream media.
The reluctance of editors to speak out has caused the public to lump all media together. If editors won't draw distinctions between good and bad journalism, how can we expect the public to understand the differences?
It is unlikely that the American Society of Newspaper Editors or the Radio-Television News Directors Association could or even should agree on what defines good and bad journalism.
But definitive standards should not require collective agreement.
The Freedom Forum has begun discussions with local editors, news directors and the public as part of its "Free Press/Fair Press" initiative.
Local media leaders have a bully pulpit to explain good journalism and to denounce examples of bad journalism.
Too many local news leaders fall back on the premise that everybody else is doing it. "Me-tooism" threatens to further the decline of public trust in the media.
There has never been a better time for responsible news leaders to distance themselves from shoddy practices.
It is not enough to voice platitudes about a free press.
The line should be drawn between good and bad journalism, newspaper by newspaper, broadcast station by broadcast station.
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