Press Freedom Demands Responsibility

As a journalism school graduate and former newspaper reporter and editor, I’ve long been a supporter of freedom of the press.

So when President Donald Trump tried to go after CBS and get the network’s broadcast license suspended, I sided with the network. Making the president mad for quoting foreign leaders on 60 Minutes who were critical of Trump does not rise to the level of a capital offense.

Examining the actions and judgments of our leaders, no matter how powerful, is at the heart of the First Amendment. It is the job of the news media to air discussions about them, no matter how angry it makes those leaders.

As President Thomas Jefferson once said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Degenerating Standards

However, I’m not so charitable toward Barstool Sports and one of its commentators. While the digital media and blog site has attracted its share of past criticism, Barstool degenerated into a new low with its reporting during the NFL Combine.

Until I saw a report on NBC News about the incident, I had never heard of the college student or the scurrilous rumors that were spread online about her sex life.

The NBC snippet that caught my attention was the clip where the commentator attributed the claims to “everybody on the internet.”

Really? I thought. You are citing vicious gossip spread across the nation to the most unreliable of sources—the backyard fence multiplied wildly by electronic means?

Checking Reports

No doubt Barstool Sports will pay dearly for spreading the unsubstantiated (and untrue) gossip. But this incident merits larger discussion about the crying need for a return to old-school journalistic standards.

One lesson I learned in journalism school was the need to thoroughly check reports before writing (or broadcasting) a news story.

One person’s word wasn’t good enough. Their statements need to be corroborated with others, fact-checked through other reports, and investigated to ensure the story’s validity before it appeared.

Granted, mistakes occur along the way. They always do in any human endeavor subject to misunderstanding, misinterpretation and false statements that get relayed as gospel. (Of course, sometimes a reporter has to pass along a false statement when accurately quoting what a government or other official said.)

Fair Investigation

Given the scorn directed toward the media in general, sticking up for the press is a way to draw immediate pushback from critics.

But after the past two decades of surveying wildly inaccurate and unfounded statements circulated on social media and other online forums, I choose the press.

There have been so many claims lodged against the media for its supposed bias. Many people refuse to believe that most reporters go into a story with one goal in mind: to report what happened.

One time I wrote a story for a national magazine about a Christian college facing a challenge to a government grant it had received. As an interview with the college’s president concluded, he asked, “So, what’s your spin on this?”

“None,” I replied. “I’m just trying to let people know what this issue is all about.”

That was the truth. I had no axes to grind or preconceived notions to put forth. I just wanted to report the story fairly.

So do most much-maligned journalists. In my estimation, they do a much better job of reporting than those who casually repeat rumors as truth.