Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Attacks and assaults on the media:
[1]A William & Mary journalism ethics professor denounces an "assault"
on journalists' "commitment to do [their] best to determine and tell
the truth," an "attack," a "compelling danger." What is that fearsome
danger?
It's hard now even to write for publication without being
uncomfortably aware of just how thoroughly what you say is going to
be inspected for any trace of undesirable political tilt and
denounced by a free-floating cadre of rightist warriors.
If that's apparent to me as a mere columnist, I can only imagine
the current mind-set of supervising editors: If we give prominence
to this story of carnage in Iraq, will we be accused of
anti-administration bias? And -- here it gets interesting -- will
we therefore owe our readers an offsetting story, perhaps an
inspirational tale of Marines teaching young Iraqis how to play
softball?
Now, both stories may well be integral to news of Iraq. If so, both
should be told. The problem arises when the softball story is
nothing but a Pentagon publicist's brainstorm seized on by
right-wing bloggers -- and the pressure to tell it comes not from a
principled desire to deliver a factual account that is broadly
emblematic of significant happenings in Iraq, but from a gutless
attempt to buy off a hostile and suspicious fragment of the
audience base. . . .
Good heavens! There are people out there ("a free-floating cadre of
rightist warriors") who actually have the temerity to "inspect[]"
stories "for any trace of undesirable political tilt." And when they
think they find such tilt, they shamelessly "accuse[ the newspaper] of
anti-administration bias." Not only that, but they have the chutzpah
to be "hostile and suspicious."
How dare they? Don't they know that newspapers never have political
tilt or anti-administration bias, so any such accusations are
obviously falsehoods or attacks? Or if it's theoretically possible --
just indulge this wild speculation for a moment -- that newspapers
might conceivably have political tilt and anti-administration bias,
might it be actually be understandable if readers and commentators
inspect newspapers for such tilt, point out such bias when they see
it, and even be suspicious about it or hostile because of it?
If I'm not mistaken, the media tend to take the view (generally quite
a correct view) that part of their job is to scrutinize the actions of
powerful institutions (such as the government), and sometimes to
criticize those actions through their opinion pages or point out
factual problems with those actions in their news stories. That way,
the media become an important check on possible abuse of power.
Now readers and commentators in other media are doing the same to the
media. But that's completely different of course -- an attack, an
assault, a compelling danger, all because some people are criticizing
a powerful institution.
References
1.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/edward_wasserman/9592078.htm?1c
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