Are you a Media Bully?
Notes for an Address
Dear ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
The question before you this morning is whether the journalistic profession is facing a credibility crisis. In a brief moment I will present a series of exhibits for your consideration, and then together we will discuss the evidence.
But first I want to table two expert witnesses on benefit of the punishing journalists for their errors.
Let me first call Ken Auletta, perhaps the most prominent of media critics writing today.
[slide 2]
Ken Auletta: “It's always better to be humble. Candidates learn humility by losing elections. Journalists learn humility by being shamed, which doesn't happen often enough.” (Columbia Journalism Review, Feb 2004)
Secondly, I now call on Robert Leitman, president of policy and media research, Harris Interactive, the big US polling firm:
[slide 3]
Robert Leitman “It may be necessary for the public’s disappointment [in the trustworthiness of news] to be expressed in a way that harms the media as a business – such as declining readership and television audiences, and loss of advertising revenues.” (Harris Interactive Poll, Nov. 2003)
Thank you Mr. Leitman. I will be recalling you to the witness stand later, to expand on the testimony you just provided.
And now I call on a uniquely-situated individual, whose opinion on the value of the news profession is significant. George Herbert Walker Bush is president of the United States. Mr. President, can you please take the witness stand and tell us honestly how much you trust modern journalism, and what is your advice to to news consumers everywhere.
I also call on Diane Sawyer to act as special interrogator of the President.
[slide 4]
George W. Bush to Diane Sawyer, Dec 16 2003:
DIANE SAWYER: First of all, I just want to ask about reading [the news]. Mr. President, you know that there was a great deal of reporting about the fact that you said, first of all, that you let Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card give you a flavor of what's in the news.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.
[slide 5]
DIANE SAWYER: That you don't read the stories yourself.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. I get my news from people who don't editorialize. They give me the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts.
Thank you Mr. President. And Ms. Sawyer.
I am now going to overturn centuries of jurisprudence and call on a witness not generally admitted into these hallowed precincts, my imagination. Ladies and gentlemen, you are free to disregard any testimony given by this next witness, my imagination.
[slide 6]
Unpleasant Fantasy #1
One of these days news consumers will get mad as hell, convinced the news they have been consuming is not just inadequate, but toxic. A growing realization spreads that widespread feelings of dread about the future, personal inadequacy and powerlessness, and social drift are caused by a daily news diet of crisis, catastrophe, and celebrity worship.
[slide 7
]
As in the French revolution, citizens will conduct their own trials of journalists who have been accused of crimes against the people.
In this fantasy, reporters are not executed but required to go through a process of public shaming, public confessions, and moral re-education, similar to what happened to intellectuals during the Chinese cultural revolution.
[slide 8]
These formerly reprobate reporters, now restored to moral health, will sign an oath of integrity, committing themselves to moral goodness in pursuit of the news.
[slide 9 ]
Unpleasant Fantasy #2
One of these days a news scandal will erupt on a scale never seen before. It spreads from one media conglomerate to another. The news profession itself will be incapable of reporting on it with any degree of independence. Nevertheless, comparisons are made to the scandals faced by corporations such as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and Adelphia.
[slide 10 ]
Then the Attorney General appoints a special prosecutor to investigate corruption within the large media conglomerates.
First the news executives are marched off to jail; and then the news managers and editors; and then…
[slide 11]
Unpleasant Fantasy #3
One of these days a new form of credible information about what is happening globally will emerge. The information is produced by a new class of trained observers who are on the watch for events and trends that require the participation of engaged citizens. They function from a strict algorithm that determines precisely the nature of their dispatches.
[slide 12 ]
The algorithm goes something like this:
Does this event or trend require the immediate attention of citizens in order to fulfil their responsibilities as caretakers of a democratic society?
If not, they don’t report it.
OK, thank you my imagination. You are dismissed.
Question: when does “sexing-up” cross the line and become inimical to quality journalism?
[slide 17]
There’s no doubt Jayson Blair crossed some important line. [photo Edward Keating/Newsweek]
Vancouver Sun singles columnist Angele Yanor denied she crossed any line because, she claimed, she wasn’t a journalist. "Plagiarism is plagiarism," editor-in-chief Patricia Graham responded.
[slide 18]
The CAJ says that Stevie Cameron crossed another line. "The fact is that she fed information, whether she regarded it as worthless or not, to the RCMP in their investigation of former prime minister Brian Mulroney…journalists must not be seen as proxy agents of the state.”
[slide 19]
But here the line seems to get rather faint. The CAJ code claims that when journalists uncover impending public risk, another line appears: “we are beholden as citizens to warn authorities…”
[slide 20]
So let’s step back a bit. With the exception of the Stevie Cameron affair, all the other examples are clear demonstrations of the failure of individual journalists.
A much more interesting question is this: how do our news corporations – and societal pressures - create an environment where individual journalists might be tempted to cross the line?
I now present…
[slide 21]
Exhibit One:
In the May issue of Atlantic Monthly, Howell Raines, the former senior editor of the New York Times, gives us an insider’s view about the events that led to his firing in the wake of the Jayson Blair fiasco, who as you know was a serial sexer-upper.
I am going to draw heavily on this article, and I encourage you to read it, if you have not already done so. Clearly, what happened at the Times – perhaps the zenith of journalistic respectability – bears close examination. So: What line did Raines cross?
In a very key paragraph, Raines writes:
[slide 22]
“As everyone there also knew, [Times’ publisher] Arthur [Sulzberger] had appointed me, in June of 2001, to be "our Patton," as he put it in my first annual evaluation, and from that day on I spoke openly about my mandate to "raise our competitive metabolism."
This I think is a very important admission – and his use of military analogies extremely revealing.
He writes, and here I quote him, that “editors and reporters make journalism in the same way that field-grade officers and line troops win battles.” Unquote.
[slide 23]
Let that one roll around in your mind for a moment, think about your own jobs and how you approach it, what happens when winning becomes paramount, and then bring in Jayson Blair into your mental picture.
Question: What do our codes of ethics say about the journalistic dangers inherent in news management’s interest in "raising the competitive metabolism” ?
[slide 24]
Exhibit Two: General George Patton, Jr.
"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
[slide 25 ]
Since Raines himself raises the militaristic comparison, it bears reviewing that his hero, General George Patton, Jr. was of course one of the most decorated of American soldiers and the most feared of all the Allied commanders by the Germans during World War II. If raising the competitive metabolism is your highest journalistic goal, you could not have a better role model. A famous Patton quote:
[slide 26 ]
“There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time."
You should know that Patton was nearly fired when his competitive metabolism reached the point where he lost the distinction between friend and foe.
In 1943 he was visiting wounded American soldiers in a field tent in Sicily. He came across a soldier who was shivering and sobbing in a bed, and asked him what the problem was. "It's my nerves," the soldier said, and he began to sob. Patton slapped him and the official transcript reported Patton shouted, "Shut up that Goddamned crying”. He then struck the man again, knocking his helmet liner off and into the next tent. "You're going back to the front lines and you may get shot and killed… I ought to shoot you myself, you Goddamned whimpering coward."
[slide 27]
In a personal letter to him following a secret investigation of this incident, his commander, General. Dwight David Eisenhower could barely contain his rage.
[slide 28]
“I must so seriously question your good judgement and your self discipline as to raise serious doubts in my mind as to your future usefulness. I assure you that conduct such as described in the accompanying report will not be tolerated in this theatre no matter who the offender may be."
Question: what limitations of management’s use of fear and intimidation are included in journalistic codes of ethics?
[slide 29]
Exhibit Three: Statement of Howell Raines in Atlantic Monthly article
So what of this corporate culture that says that “journalism is war by other means”? Certainly competitiveness is an important aspect of the news business. It fires us up and motivates us to do our best. That’s the theory.
Question: What are there unintended journalistic consequences of a militaristic approach to the news business?
[slide 30]
One of the unintended consequences of course, is on reporters themselves.
[slide 31]
To quote Raines again: “The New York Times is an environment that causes fear to fester in people. “
Now why would that be? Here it is – the pinnacle of journalistic achievement, a place where Raines claimed that once hired you had a job for life – and yet the environment is rife with fear? What are they afraid of?
[slide 32]
Exhibit Four: Fear Factor
A J-school prof who teaches an ethics course in the US writes in the current edition of the Poynter Ethics Journal, “Given that plagiarizing and fabrication are NEVER acceptable, there didn't seem to be much to discuss on those issues. But maybe those are just the symptoms and there's an underlying disease that does need to be discussed -- that's what I'm inclined to think, although I can't put my finger on what I think the disease is called.”
Question: What do journalistic codes of ethics say about vague, negative processes that may be underway in the newsroom?
[slide 33]
Iain Macwhirter, political columnist for the Sunday Herald in the UK writes,
“Paranoia and mistrust have become the defining features of life in the new millennium. As society has become safer and more materially secure we have become more afraid for the future. We have more access to information than in any previous era, yet we believe less and less of it.” He notes that according to the Harris polling organisation, 75% of people don’t believe what they read in newspapers any more. Quote, “They think most of what they read is exaggerated or biased.”
Let me now submit a series of opinion polls regarding public confidence in the news media, for the record:
[slide 34]
Exhibit Five (a): Attitudes About the News
Public confidence in the media, already low, continues to slip
“Only 36%, among the lowest in years, believe news organizations get the facts straight, Trust in the media has dropped from 54% in mid-1989 to a low of 32% in December 2000, and rising marginally to 36% in mid-2003.”
(July 2003 USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll )
[slide 35]
Exhibit Five (b):
Ipsos-Reid Public Poll AUGUST 26-28, 2003
Do you trust what you hear, read and see in the news?
All or most of time ........................…..34%
Half the time......................…………...46%
Less than half or never.......................19%
[slide 36]
Exhibit Five (c):
36% of Americans Say News Reporting Has Declined
Harris Interactive Nov/2003
[slide 37]
Exhibit Five (d): some key “confidence numbers” according to “State of the News Media 2004” Committee of Concerned Journalists:
Between 1985 and 2002:
The number of Americans who think news
organizations are highly professional declined from 72 to 49 percent.
[slide 38]
Those who think news organizations are
moral declined from 54 to 39 percent, and those who think they are immoral rose
from 13 to 36 percent.
[slide 39]
Those who feel news organizations try to
cover up their mistakes rose from 13 to 67 percent.
[slide 40]
The number of Americans who think news
organizations generally get the facts straight declined from 55 to 35 percent.
[slide 41]
Those who feel who feel news organizations care about the people they report on declined from 41 to 30 percent.
I want to return to an analysis of one of those polls, the Harris Interactive poll which in November, 2003, found that 36% of Americans Say News Reporting Has Declined.
I call on Mr. Robert Leitman from the polling firm Harris Interactive to come to the witness box again.
[slide 42]
Mr. Leitman, you earlier said , and I quote, “It may be necessary for the public’s disappointment [in the trustworthiness of news] to be expressed in a way that harms the media as a business – such as declining readership and television audiences, and loss of advertising revenues.” Can you elaborate on that?\
[slide 43]
Mr. Leitman: “The news media is one of several industries or enterprises which may be considered both a business and a public service.
Mr. Schneider: Does this come directly out of your polling data, or are these personal opinions? Or, let me put this another way. Are you saying that the data shows that the public understands that the news business has two distinct and conflicting priorities, one as a public service, and another as a business, and that the declines in confidence are due to the business priorities taking precedence?
[slide 44]
Mr. Leitman: [“Yes, of course], what these data show is that, as a public service, news reporting is seen by the American public as moving backwards.
Mr. Schneider: I find this absolutely shocking. Harris Interactive is, I assume, an organization in business for the purpose of making money, and yet you are asserting that the business of making money is harming the credibility of the news business. Mr. Leitman, given this shocking revelation, do you have any advice on how this situation might be corrected?
[slide 45]
Mr. Leitman: “For any improvement, it may be necessary for the public’s disappointment to be expressed in a way that harms the media as a business – such as declining readership and television audiences, and loss of advertising revenues.
Mr. Leitman, you are dismissed, with this court’s gratitude.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, let us contemplate the significance of this damning testimony. Mr. Leitman essentially has testified that if a news organization – through an excess of “competitive metabolism” errs on the side of business – that is – if it crosses some moral line dividing its public service responsibilities from its corporate interests, the strange consequence is that the public may “punish” the organization to redress the balance.
Finally, it might be helpful to widen the spectrum of our deliberations today to consider that journalism might not be exempt from a wider sociological phenomenon where all public institutions are suffering from a loss of public trust.
In his column I have quoted previously, Iain Macwhirter talks about this, and suggests the glimmerings of a solution:
[slide 46]
“Why did this collapse of trust happen? Is it a by-product of the increasingly mercenary and individualist culture that has grown up in the last 20 years? Or could it have to do with the breakdown of religious values and belief systems? However, it might be useful to look back at a time when, in terms of personal behaviour, honour and trust were very real factors.”
I now rest my case, and shortly will turn these witnesses over to you for cross-examination.
But before I do, I want to summarize some conclusions that is your duty to refute:
[slide 47]
1. The news business is in the middle of a dead-stick dive
2. Paradoxically, it got there by hyper-competition
3. Reporters reflect this with unethical behavior, which might include plagiarism and bullying
4. The public will punish the news business by withholding its trust
5. And the public will ultimately look for other sources of critical information, as does George Herbert Walker Bush.
So what is to be done?
I believe that journalists need to create a moral buffer to protect themselves from news management’s desire to “raise the competitive metabolism”.
[slide 48]
This could possibly be done through professional organizations, such as the CAJ. You do have a very vague statement in your Code of Ethics that reporters should ACT INDEPENDENTLY, even if “This sometimes conflicts with … our duty and obligation to an employer.” Of course, you don’t have a big stick to bet employers with, should any of your members foolishly decide to take this seriously.
It is difficult imagine how a code of ethics could arm a reporter with sufficient courage to resist the kind of activities that result in the exhibits I have presented this morning.
Because I do think we are talking about courage. What does it take to resist doing something wrong?
There are a collection of antique words that we have largely banished from our conversations, often for very good reasons. I am going to recite some of them and I invite you to pay some attention to your reactions. These are words that make me uncomfortable too:
[slide 49]
Honour.
Character.
Virtue.
Courage.
Conscience.
Compassion.
None of them appear in the CAJ Code of Ethics, which is not at all surprising. Because they don’t belong there. But clearly, they do belong in the pursuit of journalism. We can go through these words one at a time, and see that they are indispensable to the work.
Yes – these are indispensable to all work; but they are not particular to the work of journalism.
And yet, given the role of the news business in these days – as the planet’s indisputable neurological network, the eyes and ears of some 6.5 billion people, the unique source of credible, independent information about what we all need to know to prosper, to avoid harm, to reduce the sort of ignorance that leads to war and famine – what sort of special qualities do you think attend to this incredible responsibility?
Now a long time ago, long before there were codes of ethics, people tried to formulate personal standards of conduct that would provide support individuals in difficult situations
For example, doctors. They had unusual responsibilities that required a high level of moral rectitude, and for their patients who needed to trust their skills and knowledge.
The Hippocratic Oath
Here’s the original Hippocratic Oath:
[slide 50]
Here’s a newer version:.
[slides 51]
“I do solemnly declare, that I will honestly, virtuously, and chastely conduct myself in the practice of physic and surgery, with the privileges of exercising which profession I am now to be invested; and that I will, with fidelity and honor, do everything in my power for the benefit of the sick committed to my charge.”
1807 oath Medical Society of the State of New York
The Oath of Maimonides
[slide 52]
Do not allow thirst for profit, ambition for renown and admiration, to interfere with my profession, for these are the enemies of truth and of love for mankind and they can lead astray in the great task of attending to the welfare of Thy creatures.
The salient aspects here are that professionals were required to swear themselves to honor, integrity, moral character. In fact, the very swearing process is what absolutely defines what a professional is – someone who swore, or professed. The word comes from a Latin word which meant “bound by an oath.”
[slide 53]
[Middle English professen, to take vows, from Old French profes,
that has taken a religious vow (from Medieval Latin professus, avowed), and from Medieval Latin profess
re, to
administer a vow.]
Professionals are simply those who are personally bound by an oath. No swearing of an oath means you cannot be one who professes – that is, a professional.
[slides 54]
All of this I have discovered from reading the works of Prof. Robert Baker, the acknowledged world expert on the history of codes of ethics and oaths. I've corresponded with him and here is what he wrote me back: "The core moral strength of an oath lies in its affirmation of personal commitment to some higher standard of conduct."
[slides 55, 56, 57 ]
The hard-working words here are affirmation - a promise, really. A special kind of promise that is personal. and irrevocable, like a blood oath. And to make sure it's of sufficient gravitas, it's inextricably bound to a lofty standard against which one judges one’s own actions.
I have to tell you that Prof. Baker is no fan of oaths. He thinks they are incapable of dealing with the complexities of modern society, which is why the medical profession has largely migrated away from oaths and toward codes of ethics. Oaths reinforce the notion of individual autonomy and defeat collective social action. Ethics are corporate tools to enforce conformity to a set of moral behaviours.
[slides 58]
In fact, the first recorded code of ethics was written by a medical administrator in Britain in 1792 in response to a strike by doctors at his hospital. Shortly after the strike began, a virulent influenza struck, but the doctors refused to treat the sick. The administrator, Thomas Percival, was horrified that these doctors, all of whom had taken an oath, lacked any sense of corporate responsibility.
Afterwards, Percival wrote a medical code of ethics which banned the use of words like, “I swear”
It’s all so hopelessly out of date, the idea of an oath of honor. It seems so corny and adolescent.
The squirm factor is incredibly intense.
Which is partly why the idea intrigues me. Is it true, that questions of personal integrity make us squirm? and if so, what would our audiences think if they knew it was true?
So what would an Oath for Journalists look like? and who would take it? Just to give you a taste, there are examples of oaths in modern times.
[slides 59]
Here’s Joseph Pulitzer’s 1907 oath, in which he personally swore that his paper would
"... always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty. "
How may of you would be willing to stand, and swear this oath? It is a difficult thing to do.
You can see how an oath operates in a vastly different territory than a code of ethics.
Not to be judged by a disciplinary committee, not to be hauled up before a tribunal of one’s peers, but to continually ask oneself, Is this the right thing to do? Does this deal have integrity? Do I have integrity? What’s going on in the small clearing of my heart?
Finally, there is a chance that our very codes of ethics may be doing more harm than good, because they shelter us from the consequences of our actions.
I now want to address the serious topic of “media bullies”.
I used to be a media bully. Some of the tactics I learned from my mentor, Jack Webster, and some I invented myself.
For example: if someone refused to give me an interview, I would say:
“OK, I will take that as a no-comment. But I need the tape. Will you appear on camera saying you have no comment? No? OK, then I will stand in front of your place of business (or your home, your place of work, your practice, etc) and say, “Mr. So-and-so refuses to comment. We leave it to you to guess at his motivation.”
I used an abusive technique during my stint as a bureau chief in Ottawa to harrass Brian Mulroney. I would stand at the top of the stairs outside the chambers of the House of Commons to shout a question at him. This way I didn’t have to compete with the scrum at the bottom of the stairs. Mulroney hated my guts and would refuse to answer my question, no matter what it was. We shot this wide so we could see the PM brushing by me, refusing to answer. I then ran the tape and ended with the words, “I guess the PM doesn’t have anything to say to the people of BC.”
I learned how to intimidate by lurking outside offices, even though I had nothing really to gain. At one point, Sven Robinson asked for my parliamentary credentials to be revoked because he was convinced I was harrassing him
I often implied I had information which could be damaging, and used this to extort an interview from someone who was unwilling.
At one point in the late ‘80s, David Anderson, the current federal environment minister who was then out of politics and out of a job, had been promised a federal appointment. When it failed to materialize, he threatened to sue. I began to prepare for a story that would have crucified him for greediness. When he announced he was not going to pursue that course of action, I prepared a story which essentially castigated him for his lack of courage in filing his suit.
There were many instances of this sort of behaviour, for which I still feel regret. But I was rewarded handsomely for my “competitive metabolism.” And nothing I did could have been prevented by the existing codes of ethics. Indeed, these codes would have provided me some comfort for this kind of unacceptable behaviour – because technically, I was not breaking any of their provisions.
What I needed, I now realize, was some sort of commitment to some concepts that at the time were unfamiliar to me.
[slides 60]
How about these, for starters:
Honour.
Character.
Virtue.
Courage.
Conscience.
Compassion.
It would not be difficult to compose an oath based on these (and other) standards – and then to profess them publically.
I am not going to do that now. Perhaps we can discuss that later. The more important question for now is this:
Are we willing to profess ourselves to an oath of personal integrity – as opposed to corporate codes of ethics, or do we wait to be forced into it by angry news consumers who are mad as hell and won’t take it any longer?
Questions? answers?
(end of address; the following are topics that I might use in the discussion that follows)
[slides 61]
On what are oaths based? Plato deals with this in his Socratic dialogues. Socrates asks a young man who has charged his father with murdering a slave on what he based his actions upon. And Euthyphro responded that he had a holy duty to rat on his father. Socrates asks him how he could be certain what is holy:
'EUTHYPHRO: Well, I should certainly say that what's holy is whatever all the gods approve of, and that its opposite, what all the gods disprove of, is unholy...
SOCRATES: We'll soon be in better position to judge, my good chap. Consider the following point: is the holy approved by the gods because it's holy, or is it holy because it's approved?'
In other words, what good does it do to advert to supreme authorities? Either way, the role of personal responsibility is diminished in favour of the gods. This is the problem with codes of ethics.
[slides ]
Kim Walsh-Childers, a J-prof at the University of Florida in Gainesville, recently wrote in the Poynter Foundation’s “Journal of Ethics, that she was troubled by the series of news scandals in the US, and could not put her finger on the cause:
“There's an underlying disease that does need to be discussed -- that's what I'm inclined to think, although I can't put my finger on what I think the disease is called.
What would drive a reporter to plagiarism? Fear. I have seen it so many times in my 28 years as a journalist, and experienced it as a daily aspect of the news environment. We are driven to succeed by our fear to maintain our jobs; we no longer have a sense of safety in just doing our best.
Our best is no help anymore in deciding how valuable we are to our news consumers; we are learning to mistrust our basic competence. What is matters is how valuable we are to our news managers. They have become our standard of performance.
And likewise, our news managers themselves have given up on relying on their best, and instead live and die by the judgement of corporate exeuctives.