The Crumbling of The Fourth Estate; The media foundation of ethics and trustworthiness established long ago has been badly cracked by slanted news and stories as fake as fairy tales by top reporters

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 11, 2004 | by Timothy W. Maier

Byline: Timothy W. Maier, INSIGHT

President George W. Bush recently turned to Brit Hume of Fox News and told him flat out that he prefers to get his "news" from White House and national-security staff, rather than as reports from journalists. Though that may have stunned the media elite, many ordinary Americans cheered. For two decades polls increasingly have indicated public dismay at the spin and fantasies of the press. In fact, a recent Gallup Poll says Americans rate the trustworthiness of journalists at about the level of politicians and as only slightly more credible than used-car salesmen. The poll suggests that only 21 percent of Americans believe journalists have high ethical standards, ranking them below auto mechanics but tied with members of Congress. More precisely, the poll notes that only one in four people believe what they read in the newspapers. Chicago Tribune Editor Charles M. Madigan may have put it best when he offered this advice: "If you are a journalist, you should probably just assume that you come across as a liar."

A 2004 study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of Columbia University's storied Graduate School of Journalism, underscores Madigan's observation. "Since 1985, believability of the daily newspaper has fallen by a quarter, from 80 percent in 1985 to 59 percent in 2002," notes the study, which includes data gathered by the Pew Research Center to form its conclusions. The study also points out that there has been a rapid decline in newspaper readership since the 1980s, with slightly more than half of Americans (54 percent) reading a newspaper during the week.

"The three television network news divisions and local news also saw significant drops from 1985, when they were all above 80 percent for believability," the study reveals. A 1999 survey conducted for the American Society of Newspaper Editors also points out that about 53 percent of the public view the press as out of touch with mainstream America, while 78 percent think journalists pay more attention to the interests of their editors than their readers.

Indeed, the recent humiliation of the once highly regarded journalist Jack Kelley of USA Today and former New York Times rising star Jayson Blair hardly shocked the public. About 22 percent told a Pew survey in 2003 that they thought the unethical practices of Blair, which included fabricating sources and events, occur frequently among journalists, while 36 percent said they thought wrongdoing happened occasionally. Another 58 percent believed journalists didn't care about inaccuracies.

A 2002 Harris Poll produced similar results. In the age of Enron and WorldCom disasters, even accountants scored higher on trust than journalists. That same survey said Americans tended to trust clergy, teachers, doctors, police officers and the president, while those at the bottom were Congress members, corporate leaders and journalists. "I never bought into the polls," says Ted Gup, a former Washington Post and Time reporter who is author of The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives. Indeed, that 2002 Harris poll noted that even 51 percent of the pollsters say they don't trust polls, so who is to be believed? "I think journalists play a very big role in the feelings about the world, and anyone who is that influential is going to attract criticism," Gup says. "But I still notice that when a politician and journalist walk into a room, [people] gravitate toward them. I don't think the public is going to run them out of town on a rail."

And yet, Gup observes, "it breaks my heart" whenever a journalist is outed as unethical. "You know, Janet Cooke was a friend of mine," he recalled about the disgraced Washington Post reporter who had to give back a Pulitzer Prize for fabricating a story in 1981. "Ten years after it happened, I bumped into her in a grocery story and she saw me and rushed into my arms and gave me a big hug. I couldn't remember her name. I blocked it out because the pain was so big." While Gup says he has no reason to believe the number of dishonest journalists is greater than in the ranks of politicians, stockbrokers or priests, it nevertheless deeply concerns him. "How we are perceived affects our credibility," he says.

In the last two decades nearly two dozen writers have been caught breaking the unwritten canons of journalism [see sidebar]. And certainly the recent DVD release of Shattered Glass, the gripping and frightening story of Stephen Glass, a serial liar at the New Republic, is not likely to restore faith in the craft. Glass' stories about computer hackers and drunken Young Republican orgies all fabricated are as legendary as the fictional notes, phony corporate Websites and bogus business cards he created to cover his fraud. To the public, Shattered Glass likely will reinforce the Hollywood stereotype of journalists as sleazy and insensitive attack dogs with no regard for the truth, but it also should be a wake-up call for journalists.

"For me, I think it's editorial leadership," says Adam Penenberg, the former Forbes Digital Tool reporter who helped expose Glass. Author of Tragic Indifference: One Man's Battle With the Auto Industry Over the Dangers of SUVS, he says that even "when I worked at Forbes, no one ever gave me a piece of paper to sign about ethics." Penenberg believes an ethics guideline on the dos and don'ts such as not altering quotes, avoiding use of anonymous sources, not holding positions that could be considered a conflict of interest for a reporter, and not owning or purchasing stock before or after writing about a company would clear up a lot of gray areas between reporters and editors. Creating an ethics standard of the sort that Fortune 500 companies require of their employees would "put the fear of God" into reporters, he says.