ASNE - Beacon of truth shines brighter than ever

On journalism

In a changing world of talk shows, diminishing audiences and attempts to squelch the facts, the press' vital role as watchdog and truth-teller is the same

The following was adapted from a speech Boccardi gave as part of the Edward W. Estlow Lecture at the University of Denver in May.

The media themselves are much in the news these days, and I don't think it's just because we have a morbid fascination with ourselves.

We live in a time of media intensity unrivaled in our history or in the history of any other society. And this explosion of omnipresent news, information and entertainment has come across a few decades that have been marked by sweeping social change and strain.

Should we be surprised, then, that it's easy to get an argument started about the media - whether on talk radio, at your next dinner party, at a campus dining hall lunch table, or in the bar of a hotel where the nation's managing editors are convening?

We have many issues to concern ourselves with.

Circulation woes

The Audit Bureau of Circulations' latest six-month figures show that the circulation of most metropolitan newspapers continued to slip.

Newspaper editors and publishers know they're in a battle for the attention of the American reading public with an ever-expanding array of news and entertainment media. And the folks who produce news for the broadcast networks know they're in a battle for audience, too, as their share of the viewing pie also shrinks.

Counterpoint: Every day, more than 110 million Americans read a newspaper. On Sunday, more than 125 million. As powerful a medium as television is, if you put the audience of all three networks' nightly news programs together, their audience averages 41 million.

If you were to eavesdrop on conversations at the managing editors' conference, the odds are high that you'd hear about concerns like these: The circulation issue. The attitude of the public toward the press. What impact will online databases have on print versions of newspapers? How do editors get enough money for their newsrooms amid all the other cost pressures? What do they do to reinforce the newspaper's important, critical place in the information mix?

Sensationalism

Strong voices from within our own ranks express deep concerns. These internal critics say newspapers are dumbing down the product, ignoring real news for lighter or more sensational fare that some say will sell better. They argue that this path risks the franchise.

Counterpoint: Who can argue against brightening up the newspaper, making its writing more arresting, more inviting, targeting its investigative efforts on issues of concern in the community it serves, making it easier to read - a more constant companion, if you will?

But it is a newspaper, a place where a community needs to be able to find a coherent focus on events of that community and on events elsewhere of concern to that community. It needs to be a place where the community sees itself and where it starts making sense of itself.

This takes brains and money, it takes a commitment to maintain the fairness and integrity of the news columns and it takes the insight to persevere when we're sure we're right and the courage to rethink when the newspaper may not be meeting its community's needs.

Surveys repeatedly show that people don't like us very much. Many doubt our credibility, they deplore our methods and behavior. In the trust and prestige standings, reporters and editors vie with politicians and lawyers for the cellar.

These debates have been present throughout my career. What makes this moment different is that, like other things happening in our society, they all take place at a higher decibel level.

What drives that? More intense economic pressures, a host of new ways for people to see news, frustration in the populace on many issues on which we are seen as not just message-bearer but instigator, the pervasiveness of our media.

But my counsel is to keep in mind that before cable, before the Internet, before "Geraldo," before "Inside Edition," before direct broadcast satellites, before photos by wire, before radio, some people didn't like us.

Communicating our role

In all the debate among editors and publishers over the reasons for the public's doubts about the press, one thread of self-criticism has been pretty consistent and, I think, pretty accurate: The press does not talk often enough or persuasively enough to the public about what we do, why we do it and what role is ours in a free society.

I suspect editors underestimate the public's appetite for substantive news and its understanding of the role of a free press in a free society. The most vocal and articulate of media criticism may spring not from ignorance and indifference but from high expectations.

One of the things we probably don't talk to our audience enough about is the constant battle we wage to preserve the full, free flow of information intended by the Constitution.

Freedom of the press

A recent survey by Freedom House concluded that only 22 percent of the nations of the world can be described as having a free press. AP operates across the globe under every conceivable system of press and government - free, half-free, not free.

I'd like to suggest two fundamentalist points about a free press:

Access to independent information about government and society is an important bulwark against abuses of power.
When governments are overthrown, the script does not vary much. Tanks in the streets, the government house is taken over and next stop - the newspaper and the radio and television station.
Whether you love "60 Minutes" or it makes you mad, whether you love the Post or the News here, or they make you mad, remember this:
A public that doesn't know or care about issues that confront it and its leaders cannot make informed decisions or choose capable people to guide its affairs.

In the United States, the free press been attacked at length for its performance. I'd like to offer some observations from the trenches on three frequently expressed criticisms of the press.

Those are: Too many anonymous sources, too much negative news and too much horserace coverage of politics.

Anonymous sources

This is a big problem abetted by government and institutions, but also by reporters and editors too willing to go the route of "informed sources said."

In Washington and other places, the no-attribution rule is a way of life. At times, especially whistle-blowing times, you do need to take and report information from people who simply cannot be identified. We all understand that. Sometimes it is the only way to get an important fact out - and I stress fact.

But the greatest abuse of all is to allow sniping from the shadows, expressions of opinion or argument for policy or attacks on others from people hiding in the darkness of press-granted anonymity.

We've put down rules within the AP on this and they help most of the time. Basically, we insist that our reporters and editors meet these tests for use of an anonymous source:

That the material be factual, not opinion.
That the material be both of major importance in itself and vital to the story.
That all other means to get information on the record have been exhausted.
And that we give the reader as much information as possible as to the source - both why the source should be believed and what interest the source may have in the story.

Some organizations go further. Some just say they will never use an anonymous source. We haven't found that possible. But we have found it possible to restrict the use of anonymity, to ban it for the expression of opinion or attack.

Negative news

This is not a new problem. Fifty-plus years ago, Will Rogers said, "I hope we never live to see the day when things are as bad as some of our newspapers say."

The fact is that an essential element of most news is that what happened deviated from the norm. You go home, your spouse or your child says, "What's new at the office?" "Nothing much," and you go on to talk, if the child is a teen-ager, about putting gas in the car.

But if two 20-year employees got fired, a longtime affair in marketing became public and the sprinkler system discharged randomly all day, you bet you'll tell your family, "You won't believe what went on in the zoo today."

Where this complaint about negative news does have a point, I think, is that we need to make sure that in our reporting of the litany of issues and challenges and problems that make up daily civic and personal life, we leave room for stories that report on things that are going well.

I've risked being called a Polyanna for this, but I don't feel that's fair. I don't mean that for every so-called negative story that we have to have a positive one. No, I simply mean that while we should investigate government's failures there needs to be space for a story about a program that accomplishes its mission.

Campaigns as horseraces

Some people are critical of us for covering the political race above all, content and issues be damned.

Well, I'll put it simply and briefly: Yes, we need to cover the issues in ways that readers and listeners and viewers can understand them and relate them to their own lives. Yes, we need to explore and contrast the positions of the candidates. And yes, we should be sensitive to which issues our audience wants to see explained and debated. And finally yes, there is too much polling and too much of it comes from tainted sources.

But elections are contests, and if we do all of the above, I don't see anything wrong with telling our audience where the race seems to stand, how that stance is changing through the campaign and how various issues seem to be playing into the outcome with the electorate.

That it can be, and is, done responsibly in the context of campaign coverage is, in my view, clear and regularly demonstrated by us and others.

Boccardi is president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press.