Yellow Journalism
Doug Clifton, the editor of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest daily newspaper and the 21st largest newspaper in the nation, attempted yesterday to burnish himself his own martyr's halo, but the public wasn't buying the act.
While politicians, political analysts and the average voter increasingly decry the sharply partisan nature of contemporary politics, it's the media that's been stoking the fires while breathlessly extolling on it -- but the flames have licked a bit too close for comfort in the Valerie Plame case, and journalists are now scattering like frightened 12th century villagers who've just spotted the approaching Dragon (and there's no Supreme Court on white horses charging in to the rescue).
"When you promise someone anonymity, you need to be able to keep that promise," Rick Rodriguez, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors said last week in an interview with the Sacramento Bee, but that was before journalists came to their collective discovery that "keeping that promise" might mean going to jail, considering that refusing to reveal a source of illegally leaked information during the course of a federal investigation is considered obstruction, which cheeses your local judiciary right off.
"Take away a reporter's ability to protect a tipster's anonymity and you deny the public vital information," Mr. Clifton wrote, in his best sotto voce, one imagines. He then continues (and this is where it gets good): ""As I write this, two stories of profound importance languish in our hands . . . the public would be well-served to know them, but both are based on documents leaked to us by people who would face deep trouble for having leaked them. Publishing the stories would almost certainly lead to a leak investigation and the ultimate choice: talk or go to jail. Because talking isn't an option and jail is too high a price to pay, these two stories will go untold for now."
Oh, I see. The stories are of "profound importance" that would offer the public "vital information" -- but let's not go to jail over it, oh, heavens no! I mean, scandal sells papers, but lord, we have to draw the line somewhere, and my paycheck is waaaaay more important than delivering vital information of profound worth to the public.
Our boy Clifton moves on to complain that there's been little public reaction to his (drum roll, please) earth-shattering announcement that The Cleveland Plain Dealer has stifled two of its own news stories over fears of potential repercussions because of its use of unnamed sources leaking sensitive information. What he neglects to mention is any shred of a clue as to just why the public might have a vested interest in this supposedly squelched information, or, really, why anyone should get worked up in the first place over a newspaper's voluntary suppression of anonymous stories fed by corrupt sources illegally leaking sensitive materials in order to extract political revenge against their opponents.
Earth to Clifton -- the general public isn't falling for your We're Your Champions, Really! routine because the general public knows better: "Americans remain critical of the professionalism and ethics of the people and organizations that deliver the news . . . 61 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that "the falsifying or making up of stories in the American news media is a widespread problem."
I think the following, by Rosa Brooks in the Salt Lake Tribune, sums it up best: "I'm as big of fan of the First Amendment as anybody, but I don't buy the new (Judith) Miller-as-heroine story . . . if the knowledge that (journalistic sources) can't always hide behind anonymity has a ''chilling effect'' on political hacks who are eager to manipulate the media in furtherance of their vested interests, that's OK with me."
Amen, to that.