Is Dan Rather right to accuse Katie Couric of dumbing down and tarting up the news?

Yes

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by Morgana Reno-Tahoe

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Our Right To Know
Why? Because freedom can't blog itself

R. (Robert) Crumb (of Keep on Trucking, Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat fame thought it was absurd that so many people walk around giving free advertising to corporations. He was talking about people with a corporate logo on their hat, shirt, shoes, belt, bag, car, etc. R, Crumb thought their identity is solely their drama identification with sordid celebrities, insatiable corporations, etc. He thought it was weird that these types of people have no identity of their own beyond that. That explains though, the addiction to entertainment by many.

That means media more and more wears the face of a person that's been on a long and difficult journey that tops their last rise and looks down the road running straight and empty to the place they have been striving to go. It now gives people with their own sense of self, people with their identity of the moment, and even the pretend people, the means and opportunity to behave in the way appropriate to each ones' nature.

Corporate media is built on plenty of shrewdness playing well on this lack of individual identity and the entertainment addiction of consumers. It does give those clamoring consumers their identity of the moment. It also gives slices of news to targeted audiences that "see the world a particular way. And they're very grateful to have someone who finally tells it like it is."

In my story Who Is A Reporter, Given The Millions Of Bloggers?, I questioned why Nevada (D) Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader, was holding up the Federal press shield law. The Federal shield law I just finished reading Off the Record by Norman Pearlstine. The author was Editor-in-Chief of Time Inc. from 1995 to 2005. Before that, he was the Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal. He wrote about the need for a Federal Shield law. "A shield law should protect anonymous as well as confidential sources. Any shield law must deal with a couple of pesky issues: who is a journalist, and who should be protected? Congress can limit the shield law to so-called mainstream media, but it shouldn't. There weren't any big media companies when the First Amendment was passed. It was designed to protect the "lonely pamphleteer" of the eighteenth century, and it should protect the blogger in pajamas today.

The courts are already moving in that direction, at least in California, where a state appeals court ruled in May 2005 that on-line reporters are protected by the same confidentiality laws that protect traditional journalists. In doing so, it ruled against Apple Computer, which had hoped the courts would force bloggers to disclose who had leaked confidential company data to them.

The need for public-interest journalism has never been greater. An imperial presidency is waging war on any institution that might challenge its authority. We must continue to dedicate ourselves to holding government and other powerful institutions accountable. "

Watergate again demonstrated the power of the press to expose corruption and wrong. Uncovering another Watergate remains the goal of many investigative reporters as they seek stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep quiet.

The Washington Post's coverage, and its publisher Ben Bradlee and owner Katherine Graham's resistance from government pressure, was public service journalism and American democracy with its independent press operating at its finest. That was still in the face of the ominous White House attacks on the credibility of The Washington Post, and the White House's petty slights, favoring of the competition and interference with public licenses of The Post.

I for one am not interested in other people's private lives. I am interested in political, economic, social, cultural, educational, environmental, etc. issues. I am not a consumer of news in the guise of entertainment. I vote with my dollars.

From the media I want to be informed with quality reliable data that I can form my own opinion out of. I prefer that sources be named and be credible but I also understand whistle-blowers can not always afford the luxury of being named. With their Watergate reporting, The Washington Post was keeping the then faith that news can be objectively reported. Thirty or so years later, it is the happy harmony of corporate media to News With A Point Of View. Can the use of the Internet join the stage for the real show of Time bringing all news into the light? Yes. Is Citizen's Journalism lining up with the soreheads and hacking away at the substructure of a brooding corporate media machine that is doomed? Doubtful.

Internet media has the ability to present new, or previously suppressed, news. As Ben Bradlee said, newspapers are here to stay as they are much better than "anybody else" at doing "investigative reporting," which he defined as a "reporter or editor who gets a bee in his bonnet [becomes motivated] and decides to look into something in a major way."

With news, every story's lead has its own set of preconceptions and prejudices. Even so, every lead must be aggressively pursued. Quotes and documents must be authenticated, and sources' biases and agendas evaluated to arrive at the truth. Then the story must be published. The reason, as Justice Potter Stewart wrote, is that Watergate showed it is "the established American press performing precisely the function it was intended to perform for those who wrote the First Amendment of our Constitution."

Not every story is a Watergate though. Reporting all the stories that expose corruption, self-aggrandizement, waste, law-breaking, ethics failures, egos above the law, and duplicity, is paramount for the public interest and the public's right to know. Why? Because freedom can't blog itself. The opportunity is here to break out the windowpanes painted closed by fear, censorship, and corporate and government pressure, and let the fresh air of the news in.

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