One of the encouraging things about writing opinion columns is hearing from readers who don’t necessarily agree with everything I write.
Almost always they raise questions worth exploring. Sometimes they challenge assumptions. And sometimes they remind me that the problems facing journalism are considerably more complicated than any single column can adequately address.
That happened following my recent column about the Justice Department’s investigation of five major television news organizations after they temporarily suspended pooled coverage of President Donald Trump in protest of restrictions imposed on CNN.
Some thoughtful readers agreed that journalists shouldn’t be excluded from the White House press corps because the president dislikes their reporting.
But they also raised other concerns.
Haven’t many of America’s once-trusted news organizations contributed to their own declining credibility through political bias, corporate agendas and selective reporting?
Yes, they have.
What about the subtle ways bias enters news coverage through headlines, carefully chosen words, television graphics and decisions about which stories deserve attention and which don’t?
Yes. Bias can enter news coverage through headlines, word choices, television graphics, and decisions about which stories receive attention.
Why should Americans automatically respect institutions whose journalism sometimes falls short of the standards they claim to uphold?
Respect shouldn’t be automatic. News organizations need to do better, be better.
My response begins with an admission.
The news media have earned much of the criticism they receive.
I’ve spent enough years in journalism to recognize that the profession has serious shortcomings. Too often, news organizations have confused ratings with relevance, celebrity with credibility and attracting attention with serving the public.
Corporate ownership and commercial pressures can influence editorial priorities. Television news sometimes treats politics as entertainment. Commentary and reporting increasingly occupy the same space, leaving audiences uncertain where facts end and opinions begin.
And yes, bias can find its way into journalism without anyone explicitly stating a political preference.
Consider a headline that emphasizes one fact while minimizing another. Or a television graphic that characterizes a politician’s statement before viewers have heard it. Or an interview in which one public official receives aggressive questioning while another receives little more than an opportunity to deliver talking points.
Then there’s the matter of what doesn’t get covered.
Deciding which stories deserve attention is among the most consequential judgments journalists make.
Those decisions can reflect legitimate news values. They can also reflect institutional blind spots, commercial priorities and personal assumptions.
Journalists should be willing to examine all of those possibilities.
But there’s something else we need to examine.
Is journalism biased simply because we don’t like what it reports?
That’s an increasingly important question in a country where political identity often shapes what people believe about the news.
Consider two people watching the same report about the president. One believes the journalist is holding power accountable. The other believes the journalist is unfairly attacking the president.
They’ve watched the same story.
Does that automatically mean one of them is right?
Not necessarily.
Their disagreement, however, tells us very little about whether the reporting itself is accurate.
That’s why I believe we need to distinguish between political neutrality and journalistic objectivity.
Objectivity doesn’t mean pretending every argument is equally credible. It doesn’t mean giving equal weight to facts and falsehoods. And it certainly doesn’t mean journalists must avoid reporting something damaging to a politician because doing so might offend that politician’s supporters.
Objectivity is a discipline.
It requires verification, fairness, context, independence, skepticism and a willingness to correct mistakes.
It requires journalists to follow evidence wherever it leads, including when that evidence contradicts their own assumptions.
And it requires applying the same standards to everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
If one public official makes a demonstrably false claim and another makes an accurate one, reporting that distinction isn’t political favoritism.
It’s journalism.
Now, that doesn’t mean journalists always get it right.
Far from it.
News organizations sometimes publish inaccurate information, exaggerate developments, overlook important context or allow commentary to masquerade as reporting.
When that happens, the public should demand accountability.
Criticize the reporting. Challenge the evidence. Demand corrections. Question editorial decisions. Stop watching or reading organizations that repeatedly fail to meet reasonable journalistic standards.
Those are legitimate ways citizens can hold the news media accountable.
Holding journalists accountable differs fundamentally from allowing government officials to decide which journalists may do their jobs.
And that brings me back to my original column.
The Trump administration restricted CNN’s participation in certain presidential television pool assignments. Other major networks temporarily suspended their pooled coverage in solidarity.
The Justice Department subsequently began examining whether that coordinated action violated federal antitrust laws, according to an October 10 report in The New York Times.
There are legitimate questions about whether competing businesses can collectively restrict a service, even when they claim a noncommercial purpose. News organizations aren’t automatically exempt from antitrust laws.
There’s also a legitimate concern that suspending television coverage of presidential events can deprive the public of valuable information.
Those questions deserve examination.
But so do the circumstances that prompted the networks’ protest.
Why should a president’s dissatisfaction with a news organization’s reporting determine its access to government events?
And what happens to independent journalism when government officials can use regulatory or investigative authority in ways that may discourage news organizations from challenging those decisions?
An investigation alone does not establish retaliation or misconduct by the Justice Department. Evidence matters, and the government must explain the legal basis for its actions.
But the First Amendment implications cannot simply be brushed aside.
Here’s the distinction I believe we must never lose sight of.
A news organization doesn’t have to deserve our respect to deserve constitutional protection.
Think about that.
You may believe CNN is politically biased. You may believe Fox News is politically biased. You may believe CBS, ABC or NBC have abandoned the standards that once made them trusted institutions.
You may have legitimate evidence supporting those criticisms.
But none of those judgments gives the president the authority to determine which journalists may cover his administration based on whether he approves of their reporting.
And that principle must apply equally to Republican and Democratic administrations.
There’s another dimension to this debate.
Powerful news corporations themselves have sometimes been accused of using their economic leverage and regulatory threats to pressure local affiliates.
Such allegations deserve scrutiny, too.
If corporate executives use their power to intimidate smaller news organizations or discourage legitimate competition, that behavior shouldn’t be excused simply because the companies are in the news business.
Corporate intimidation isn’t acceptable.
Neither is government intimidation.
One doesn’t justify the other.
Today’s debate about journalism too often becomes trapped in political loyalties.
People defend questionable reporting when it supports their preferred politicians and condemn similar reporting when it challenges them.
News organizations can fall into the same trap.
And politicians are often eager to exploit that division.
We should judge journalism not by whether it helps Republicans or Democrats, but by whether it helps the public understand what is happening, why it matters, and whether those in power are telling the truth.
That is the standard I believe we should teach in news literacy classrooms, demand from professional journalists and apply when evaluating the information we encounter every day.
There’s a reason freedom of the press is protected by the First Amendment.
The founders understood that government officials would not always appreciate being questioned, investigated or criticized.
They also understood that citizens cannot hold their government accountable if the government controls the information citizens receive.
That principle doesn’t depend on whether the press is popular.
It doesn’t depend on whether journalists are likable.
And it certainly doesn’t depend on whether the president believes the coverage is fair.
I worry about journalism’s declining credibility, shrinking newsrooms, the disappearance of local reporting, the commercialization of information, and Americans’ growing difficulty distinguishing credible reporting from propaganda.
Those are serious problems.
But I worry just as much about the possibility that public dissatisfaction with journalism can become an excuse for government interference with an independent press.
These concerns matter because they represent two distinct threats to an informed society.
One comes from journalism failing to fulfill its responsibilities.
The other comes from government potentially exceeding its authority.
We should be capable of recognizing and challenging both.
So, to the thoughtful reader who questioned whether America’s major news organizations deserve the public’s respect, I would offer this answer.
No news organization is entitled to our trust simply because of what it calls itself.
Trust must be earned through accuracy, fairness, independence, transparency and accountability.
But constitutional protection is another matter.
Journalists don’t have to earn that protection by pleasing the president, satisfying a political party or winning a popularity contest.
They already possess it.
And the government has an obligation to respect it.
Journalists must earn the public’s trust. They do not have to earn the government’s permission.
That’s not a contradiction.
That principle is the foundation of a free press.
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