Like many other journalists of my era, I was inspired to go to J-school by the drama of Watergate. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two low-level Washington Post reporters, followed the scent of corruption from a bungled burglary all the way to the White House. The press was doing its job: representing the people and acting as a watchdog on abuses of power, serving as an unofficial fourth branch of government to complement the checks-and-balances provided by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
How times have changed. Thirty years past Watergate, we have an administration that basically disses the press in every way, as Eric Alterman chronicles in this roundup of BushCo's contempt for the press. I'm thinking about this a lot as I prepare to speak on a Journalism Week panel at my alma mater, Ohio University, next week. Two decades ago, fresh out of journalism school, I'd often argue passionately about the need for journalists to be objective reporters. But today, especially under the current circumstances of disdain for the mainstream media and overt bias by such "news" organizations as Fox, I am not so sure objectivity is still such a good idea.
I've been a freelance writer for 13 1/2 years. I originally left the newspaper business so I could be more politically active, working on campaigns and such. I am glad I have the freedom to speak and write as I wish. But what about traditional journalists? Many, if not most, were asleep at the switch in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Many have been less than effective in chronicling BushCo's crimes against democracy. But blame can't be put on the media alone. Alterman and others have shown that this administration has made it harder than ever for legitimate journalists to report the news, and easier than ever for journalistic quacks and hacks to present biased or managed accounts of reality as Bush sees it - which of course isn't reality at all.
Fortunately, independent-minded journalists from the muckraking old school - buttressed by bloggers who have no charge of objectivity - are still doing a decent job of taking BushCo to task. The mainstream media now follows the blogosphere's lead on many stories, and that's a good thing. About the same time Watergate was unfolding in the U.S., Greg Lake of the prog-rock band Emerson Lake & Palmer penned a song called "Hallowed be Thy Name," with this lyric: "I don't see a man in a mansion that an accurate pen won't puncture."
Amen to that, and godspeed to all of us - with journalism degrees or not - who are using our virtual pens in the struggle to keep a little light shining during these dark times.
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