Last Updated: June 29, 1999
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First impressions
Last year was not journalism’s finest. So injurious were the scandals,
in fact, that I left San Francisco with one group’s examination of lessons
from a year’s worth of lapses.
The Freedom Forum report was presented as a wake-up call in hopes that
we would return home with a renewed sense of mission — to pursue accuracy
in the interest of credibility.
Credibility has always been the most important quality of newspapers,
and I returned home believing it will become even more important.
Never before in this Internet age have so many had the ability to send
so much information so quickly. Anyone with computer access can transmit
to anyone else with access. Millions can build sites that offer up fact
and fallacy alike.
In the words of Intel founder Andrew S. Grove: “Somebody ought to hold
us accountable.”
Our readers are seeking credibility and authority. That’s why 1998’s
infamous journalists lost their jobs. They violated fundamental standards
like those codified in ASNE’s Statement of Principles.
We rely on such principles and traditions. As we join the world of electronic
publishing we must take our traditions with us
A day doens’t go by that I don’t wish I could revise something that
we printed. But every day’s paper is published with a sense of mission,
standing on the journalistic traditions of building credibility and honing
reader trust.
Slaughter is executive editor of The Courier in Houma, La.
