Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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On credibility
Editors revise guidelines on sensitive subjects and
look again at the newspaper’s responsibilities in the community
Fresh from my first ASNE convention, I have been trying to wrestle some
thoughts about credibility into complete sentences.
First is our responsibility to write and photograph the truth. If we
say it is our job to print the truth, what happens to our credibility every
time we decide not to, for whatever reason?
I don’t think we should ask "How much truth should we tell today?" I
don’t think we should sanitize real life. Presenting the raw truth might
offend some readers and they would prefer a sanitized version. But I believe
intelligent readers want the world and the community presented to them
in real terms, or as close to reality as we can get.
In one Connecticut town, the parent of a senior in high school objected
to her son reading "Deliverance" by James Dickey because it contains a
homosexual rape scene. The teacher let the student read another book instead.
But the mother has insisted that the book be banned to all students. The
school board, in a divided vote, kept the book.
How can we defend the study of Dickey — even though some of his passages
might offend — if we ourselves censor a photograph of a grieving widow
because it might offend?
James Joyce, trying to publish "Dubliners," his first collection of
short stories, faced a publisher who asked him to "suppress" certain passages
because booksellers, librarians and "an inconveniently large section of
the general public" will object.
Joyce rejoined "I cannot alter what I have written. All the objections
... arose in my mind when I was writing the book... Had I listened to them
I would not have written the book. I have come to the conclusion that I
cannot write without offending people." Finally in 1914, after eight years
of haggling and not backing down, his book was published. Some readers
howled, others recognized truth and good writing.
Murder and mayhem are messy. Funerals are sad. Corruption is disgusting.
All of it can be offensive. Should we try to portray all this as it is,
or soften it into what it is not?
A family newspaper is not a James Dickey novel and we do edit how we
tell tales and take pictures. But I don’t think we should change the nature
of what we decide to cover because it would offend some of our readers.
We should take care to cover the world and the community in all of its
glory, not just what readers call "negative news." Wholeness, rather
than polar opposites, is a concept of coverage that ASNE has been effective
in promoting. Hold a mirror up to your community in the pages of your newspaper
and make sure the image you shine back is whole and true. Over time, intelligent
readers know when you are and when you are not giving the whole picture.
Our newsroom staff met recently to talk about coverage of sensitive
subjects and we revised our decade-old guidelines. Here is some of what
we came up with:
"Truth, accuracy, and fairness are the hallmarks of good journalism.
To get there, use the time-tested formula of who, what, when, where, why
and how. Some coverage will be offensive to some readers because the subject
of the coverage itself is offensive, for example, murder, rape, suicide
and other tragedies. Writing about, or taking pictures of a tragedy will,
by definition, be a tragic telling of the event. We would be unfaithful
to our profession, our very purpose, by doing less than the best we can
to tell the who, what, when, where, why, and how of what happened.
Our responsibility is to the facts, the truth or as close as we can
get to it. Our news judgments need to incorporate the fact that the Record-Journal
is a family newspaper with children as readers, and so we recognize some
parameters. We do not, for example, identify the victims of sexual assault.
We do not publish the private suicides of private individuals.
A photograph of a murdered state official in a parking lot is the truth.
So is the photograph of a murdered state official in a parking lot with
a sheet over the body. We need to discuss what is appropriate in the context
of each incident.
All coverage of a sensitive nature should be discussed among reporters,
photographers and editors.
Senior editors need to make final decisions before the press runs.
Readers get incensed at what they see as the insensitivity of the media.
This is answered best, not by diluting tough subjects, but by making sure
our coverage is whole — that we cover success as well as failure, what
is beautiful as well as what is ugly, what uplifts as well as what disturbs."
Smith is executive editor of the Record-Journal, Meriden, Ct.
