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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 9/24/2008 11:42:08 AM
Title: Journalism should treat itself fairly for a change
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From PERRY PARKS: I admire Alexandra Kitty's eloquent response to Jay Rosen's provocative question: Why should the New York Times continue to legitimate a candidacy that refuses to legitimate the Times as a news source? I'm generally convinced by Kitty's principled admonishment against launching "campaigns for or against a candidate," but I also think we need to attack the root of Rosen's concerns, and we can start by honoring traditional journalistic practices.

When the McCain campaign levels charges against the Obama campaign, the press usually calls upon McCain to substantiate the charges -- or at the very least, Obama gets plenty of room to rebut and redirect the accusations. And the other way around.

But when one campaign (usually McCain's) goes off on the press -- The New York Times, NBC News, whomever -- modesty tends to get in the way of practicing basic journalistic fairness, which demands that the assaulted news organization receive ample time or space to aggressively defend its practices and explain its constitutional role in our democratic system.

When a candidate chooses to blame the messenger for asking questions or reporting information that might help voters decide whom to vote for, the remark should not be shrugged off as a common political strategy and left unanswered. The following paragraphs or sound bites should be from the appropriate news executives, who talk about what they do and why they do it, how their work helps people understand the vital issues of our time, and how the candidate's efforts to undermine this role are a form of distraction and evasion. A generic asault against "the liberal media" or "the corporate media" should rate a response from a national expert -- representing The Poynter Institute, The Project for Excellence in Journalism, etc. -- again explaining the role an independent press plays in the electoral process. We know that only a consistent message, repeated at every opportunity, has the strength to penetrate the public consciousness, which is why every effort to de-legitimize the news media must be met with an immediate, unambiguous response.

Kitty's right that the news media have enabled the very candidate behavior that is doing so much harm to our national discourse and the institution of journalism. One way to reverse the problem, in addition to giving much more weight to substance and much less to literally cosmetic issues, is to vigorously defend journalism that holds candidates responsible for their words and actions. If the candidates want to make journalism part of the story, journalism should rise to the challenge -- and treat itself fairly for a change. [Permalink]

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