The greatest threat to American journalism: the loss of neutral reporting | TheHill
"Over the past several months, I’ve watched, read and heard much about the potential Armageddon facing the profession of journalism.
I’ve watched colleagues proclaim that “fake news” attacks by President Trump, crowd chants of “enemies” and the expulsion of CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House press room pose the greatest threats to news reporting in history.
I respectfully disagree.
...We journalists have more freedom, more reach, and more ability to inform today than ever before. But with those advantages comes an even greater responsibility to the public, one I fear is being denigrated by
journalists who substitute opinion for facts and emotion for dispassion.
Beyond the killings, the threats, and the vitriol, what most threatens journalism today is the behavior of its own practitioners.
We have
become too full of our own opinions, too enthralled with our own celebrity, too emotionally offended by warranted and unwarranted criticism, and too astray from the neutral, factual voice our teachers in journalism school insisted we practice.
...The traits that have made journalism great and respected and impactful for most of the past century are sorely lacking in many of today’s practitioners.
- Instead of facts, many journalists today trade in supposition and opinion.
- Instead of dispassionate neutral coverage, many have offered emotional rants that border on disrespect.
- Instead of covering all sides of the story, entire news organizations have chosen to pick one side over another.
...Fox News anchor
Shepard Smith declared: “President Trump stands with Saudi Arabia. Today the president insulted the murder victim and sided with the Saudis, who said our CIA is wrong.”
On
CNN, anchor Brianna Keilar suggested there was
little difference in Trump’s annual rite of pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey and his treatment of Saudi Arabia...
...My old Irish aunt once admonished me in a slightly different, but equally effective, way. She used to say, “If you want to have people listen to your opinion, become a politician.
Otherwise, just stick to some damn facts, Mr. Reporter.”
