By FASPE Chair David Goldman
The Trump Administration announced that reporters from the Wall Street Journal would not be part of the White House press pool accompanying the President on foreign travel this week, i.e., they were affirmatively banned from the press pool. Ignoring that the travel was in large part a US taxpayer funded boondoggle for the president to visit and promote his family’s golf courses in Scotland. This is, of course, not the first time that the White House has wielded the power of access; for example, the Associated Press has lost favor—meaning access—because it refers to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico.
One of the fundamental propositions of ethical journalism, the role of ethical journalism, is the responsibility to hold power accountable. Or, put differently, the responsibility to report both the news and what lies behind the news, what exists behind the curtains of power and privilege. The White House’s efforts to control access to the President of the United States is a flagrant violation of ethical journalism, let alone a possible breach of basic constitutional protections.
The above is not a revelation. That this White House and this president seek to interfere with ethical journalism (including by seeking control over content) is hardly news. We have seen this picture for years: the use of lawsuits, inflammatory descriptives, spinning anything critical as fake news, reducing or eliminating government funding, making threats to terminate regulatory licenses, etc.
Two thoughts:
(1). Normalization. We, the public, and they, the media, have normalized this behavior. Decrying responsible journalism as fake news, sowing distrust in journalists, denying access as a means of punishment—all this and more must not be normalized. It must not be ignored as a passing phase, as if this behavior is the equivalent of a child’s terrible twos.
We the consumers of news must not look the other way. We must not ignore it as fleeting but ultimately harmless behavior.
Moreover, and more importantly, the media itself must not stand idly by wringing their collective hands. Journalists, it is your ethical responsibility to remain assiduously and aggressively ethical; it is your ethical responsibility not to decamp into the left and right, the pro and con, and thereby feed the beast.
And, journalists, it is your ethical responsibility to stand together. Do you really believe that you will benefit from the Wall Street Journal’s absence from the plane or the Associated Press’s absence from the Pentagon or CBS’s payment of blood money to settle what by all accounts was a groundless lawsuit? Why are you, journalists, too often silent in the face of the attacks on particular news media; why are you silent when you see this or that media company responding on bended knee to the White House’s threats? Have some of you learned nothing from the ethical courage displayed by those law firms that stood up to the White House’s unconstitutional attacks on the fundamentals of legal ethics?
Journalists, it is your responsibility to lead in opposition to attacks on constitutional protections and on ethical journalism.
(2). Local Journalism. Here is a novel thought, even as economic and technological realities have decimated local journalism, as the local news outlets fly under the radar of the cynical anti-free press crowd, we can look to the local news to shine a light on important stories, look to them to hold power accountable. What is local is not merely small, what is local is not merely minor, what is local is not merely limited. What is local is both representative of the national and international. It is also, by its very nature, directly national and international.
We need local journalism, not just to report on the local but also to tell us what is happening on the ground, to report the truth about the real impact of what is being dictated from Washington and beyond.
There are important funding initiatives in support of local journalism–noting, for example, work of the MacArthur Foundation and The Knight Foundation. But, that is not enough.
Local journalists: now is your time. Even as you are economically at risk, even as your numbers dwindle, we need you even more. We need you to fill the ethical gaps created by your less willing, though seemingly more powerful, colleagues. Speak truth to power!
Consumers of journalism: look to local journalism for truly ethical reporting! Read and subscribe. Support your local journalist!
"Considering Professional Ethics" is a monthly essay shared in the FASPE e-newsletter.
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