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How To Stop American Journalism's Slide
| Article
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20623 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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10 / 1992 |
2,497 Words |
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Ted Smith
Ted Smith is a professor of journalism at Virginia
Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. |
The deterioration of American journalism has persisted for so long that the process has acquired an aspect of inexorability. One result is that critics of the press have found it increasingly difficult to rally support for reform. In the last year or two, however, the rate of decay has accelerated so dramatically that even those long resigned to the outcome have been shocked into renewed concern. Among thoughtful people from across the political spectrum, there is a growing sense that the press has crossed some ill-defined but vital line and has now become a predominantly destructive force in society.
The acceleration began during the 1991 Gulf War, when all of the major media asserted a preciously unknown right to report, as straight news, hostile and often blatantly mendacious propaganda from an enemy capital in time of war. This was coupled with the unremitting (and sometimes stunningly uninformed) hostility to their own armed forces displayed by many U.S. journalists in the various daily press briefings, and with the refusal of others to abide by quite reasonable reposting restrictions designed to protect the lives of American servicement and the success of allied operations.
In political reporting, the American public was treated to no less than three sex-based "feeding frenzies" in the space of half a year. It began with aging beauty queen Tai Collins baring her soul about her relationship with Sen. Charles Robb before baring her body for the "readers" of Playboy. It ended with former lounge singer Gennifer Flowers selling her dubious revelations about Democratic front-runner Bill Clinton to the tabloids. But the piece de resistance was Anita Hill, whose bizarre and unsubstantiated allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas were leaked to a complicit press by Partisan sources trying to defeat his confirmation.
Other journalistic initiatives eliminated some of the few remaining conventions designed to protect individual privacy. Despite extraordinary efforts to mask the identity of the plaintiff during televised coverage of the William Kennedy Smith rape case (which introduced the promising new infotainment genre of celebrity rape trials), NBC and several other mainstream media joined the tabloids in reporting her name. A few months later, USA Today used information from an anonymous informant to force retired tennis star Arthur Ashe to reveal that he is suffering from AIDS.
Court Interference
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