By Bill Barth
Good journalism is usually unpopular, because it drags into the sunshine things those with vested interests prefer to either keep secret or spin into a favorable narrative.
Yet our Framers believed news reporting was so important they made it a foundational building block of the republic.
Journalists either learn to live under attack or get out of the business. Those are the only options. In a career spanning 50-plus years I’ve experienced death threats, bomb threats at our building, assaults on our reporters, and had liberals call me a right-wing fascist and conservatives call me a lefty communist. Goes with the territory.
Journalists make mistakes. Plenty of them. Criticism is often deserved. The only time I saw journalism under this kind of relentless attack, though, was at the height of the Watergate crisis. Let’s look at some issues facing journalism today.
Start here. What’s the difference between news and opinion? The lines have been blurred, and we’re all the worse off for it. This piece is opinion, not news, because I am expressing my own views, which are no more or no less important than yours. The purpose of opinion writing is to spark discussion and debate. It should be clearly identified. Real news should be presented without opinion.
That model is turned on its head with how many people consume information. Examples abound. Talk radio slants left or right. Fox News and other outlets on the right always support the conservative narrative. MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) and other liberal outlets always take the progressive line. Podcasts look to persuade based on political points. This is not journalism. It is advocacy. If that’s where you get your news, well, you are not getting news. And don’t get me started on the unreliability — and worse — prevailing on social media.
Challenges in reporting today can be blunt and rough. Consider the arrest of Don Lemon for accompanying demonstrators into a Minneapolis church. Clarifier: I am not a Don Lemon fan. His record is mostly as an advocate, not a journalist. Yet he was recorded telling both protesters and congregants that he was not part of the group invading the church but rather was there to ask questions and report.
Should he have stayed outside the church? Probably. We always made sure our reporters understood the difference between reporting from a public space and entering private property without invitation, and the risks involved. Lemon may have exposed himself to a trespassing charge. Being accused of more serious crimes — and the risk of prison — seems not only absurd but intended to intimidate. Expect a judge to throw out the charges at the earliest opportunity.
Likewise with execution of a search warrant for the home and devices of a Washington Post journalist, accused of obtaining leaked information from government officials. That’s how journalism works, whether in Washington or Beloit. Many of our most successful and award-winning investigations relied on leaks from inside local government organizations. The same is true of national scoops — think Watergate, think Clinton and Monica, think Benghazi. Officials never like it, yet the public is usually better off for knowing than not knowing. Again, this is a new tactic, and its purpose is to intimidate.
The White House pressroom removed privileges for a number of legacy media and replaced them with friendly, often obscure, agencies unlikely to ask unwelcome questions. The Pentagon told reporters they had to sign a document promising not to release information without permission or lose their access to the building. All legacy media refused — including Fox News — and their space was reassigned to friendlier reporters. Think about this. Would the Pentagon Papers have been reported under this restriction? The My Lai massacre?
Here’s some good news. Two Republicans — State Sen. Eric Wimberger and Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk — sponsored the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act. The intent is to discourage nuisance lawsuits, commonly referred to as SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits against public participation. Plenty of those are taking place these days. Usually, it involves deep-pocketed individuals or institutions suing journalists or citizens to bury them in risk, stress and legal fees to make them give up and back off. The legislation would allow a court to find the lawsuit frivolous and toss it out quickly. A key provision would allow the judge to order the offending party to pay the legal fees of the victimized journalist or citizen. Wisconsin needs this protection.
It also needs to rein in the heinous practice of government agencies trying to bigfoot public records requesters with onerous and unjustified fees. The law is clear. Records belong to the public, not to the government. The cost tactic is intended to discourage requesters. And it’s wrong.
Back to the part about journalists being unpopular. Good journalism steps on toes. Indiscriminately. To the left. To the right. The best journalists do not want or need your love. They do want you to have facts, including the facts you might prefer not to see or read. The Framers thought that was how self-governing people could preserve their liberty. They were right then and they’re right now.
Be a smarter news consumer. Start by accepting that your own narrative is an opinion, not a fact, and open your mind to the possibility that your side — left or right — can be wrong.
Bill Barth is the former Editor of the Beloit Daily News, and a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame. Write to him at bbarth@beloitdailynews.com.
