BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JAN 11

“Freedom to publish and freedom to speak are absolute…because there is no democracy without journalism. The strength of a nation depends on the quality of its information.”
— CBS News Anchor Scott Pelley on 1/9/15 editorializing about terrorist attacks in France.

“While these sources had been reliable in our previous reporting, the intel they passed along to us last night turned out not to be correct.”
— NBC News anchor Brian Williams on 1/9/15 apologizing for the erroneous information on the previous night’s broadcast regarding terrorist attacks in France.

We need to have a national discussion about the media. These quotations reflect serious problems in the way Americans get their news and information and it is having a deleterious effect on how we live our lives, how we are governed, and how we make decisions as a society.

This discussion has to take place on a track parallel to our introspection on race, immigration, campus rape, terrorism, or government dysfunction. No national discussion on such critical issues can be productive unless the information and knowledge driving it is relevant and reliable. The news media is an indispensable partner in any such conversation in the public square. But what is wrong with journalism today inhibits us from conducting a meaningful national dialogue about any other subject of substance, particularly those in which many of us disagree and especially those that engender emotional provocation.

We can start with the quotations above. One from Pelley, a respected dean of the American legacy news media who declared that press freedom is absolute, which it is absolutely not, and linked our national strength to the quality of the information we get, which is of questionable quality, as demonstrated by another exalted network anchor who, on the same day, apologized for the quality of information broadcast by NBC News.

Williams rare apology notwithstanding, media problems are largely ignored by the industry, which is thoroughly preoccupied with marketing its content rather than insuring its veracity, all in a frenzied effort to keep the bankruptcy judge at bay. The journalism profession is in denial, unable to face the harsh realities of a changing environment in which the once revered title of journalist has less meaning and little distinction from a mass of amateurs populating the Internet.

The failings of the media are numerous. They range from the collapse of the business model to the abandonment of ethical codes that date back to the journalism fraternity, Sigma Delta Chi’s code adopted by the Society of Newspaper Editors (I was once a member), in 1924 and 1925, according to the Society of Professional Journalists website.

It is worth noting that the SPJ website contains links to the codes of conduct of a number of news outlets ranging from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader to Al Jazerra but all of the sites I clicked on led me to web pages that could not be found, or websites that contained no discussion of ethics, except two, the SPJ and the New York Times.

There are four key failings that just in recent weeks profoundly demonstrated the need for change.

The first is a new version of advocacy journalism, which has been around since cavemen started carving on cave walls. I believe it is called “impact” journalism. Its purpose is not to inform or enlighten particularly, but, through creative story telling, to develop a powerful narrative in favor of or in opposition to an issue or cause or point of view. Among its contemporary reincarnations was a Rolling Stone opus about a student at the University of Virginia identified as “Jackie” who, along with the narrator, Sabrina Erdely, apparently concocted, in whole or in part, a horror story about a gang rape in a fraternity house. This new brand of impact writing does not require a factual narrative, but rather one simply compelling enough to elicit emotion and change minds.

The second is the new Arianna Huffington-popularized practice of letting the facts “self-correct” as the news unfolds. In a classic interview a couple of years ago, Huffington told Howard Kurtz, then the media critic with CNN, that her online empire did not worry so much about getting the facts right. The important consideration was getting the news out before anyone else did and “letting the facts self-correct.”

That seems to be the new standard. The Jackie journalism attacking the University of Virginia was repeated again and again without confirmation of the facts. NBC’s Williams reported the story, with no apparent collaboration, and then huffed about a prominent university having some explaining to do. The only thing missing was the Ricky Ricardo accent. In fact it was and is Williams who has some explaining to do.

The same pattern has occurred over and over again with stories ranging from the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, to the Boston marathon bombing.

House Majorty Whip Steve Scalise of LA just got treated to a lack-of-fact media root canal over a speech he may or may not have given to an organization that may or may not have been founded by white supremacist David Duke, and may or may not have had any clue as to who in the hell he was talking to or what he said. Nonetheless, Scalise was tarred and feathered immediately after a blog reported that he had addressed a room full of racists in a hotel 12 years ago.

In keeping with his character, convictions, and apparently sharp political instincts, he apologized without hesitation, regardless of the circumstances. The lickety-split, nano-second, in-your-face news cycle doesn’t afford time to collect facts or reflect on them. Pundits on the right and the left demanded the application of tar and feathers to not only Scalise, but House Speaker John Boehner and anyone else with whom Scalise has ever come in contact with, who the likes of Sean Hannity and Al Sharpton don’t like.

The third problem is the demise of the professional journalist. It used to be a title reflecting a commitment to high standards of reporting, particularly independence from conflicts of interest and bias, and the “right to know” of readers, viewers, and listeners. Journalists have had a colorful history in American news, with some eras more respectable than others, but through it all, even the muckrakers of the 19th Century, journalists have had definition, distinction, and specialized purpose.

Not so today.

There are no more blatant examples than Rev. Al Sharpton and Maria Shriver, two “journalists” who float freely and frequently in a sea of conflicts between being newsmakers and news reporters.

Mostly since the advent of Internet technology the profession seems to have abandoned the protection of its integrity in this new age.

The fourth is the use and abuse of anonymous sources. The original purpose of protected sources, at least as I was taught, was to impart information critical to the public’s need to know that could not be attained and published under any other circumstances. Not so today. They are used in all sorts of circumstances, seemingly without a lot of thought given to whether the information is available under other circumstances or whether the information is even critical to the public’s need to know at all.

Anonymous sources are permitted to defame individuals with impunity, advance their own agendas, distort or exaggerate reality, and otherwise influence legitimate journalism in a manner that does a disservice to the public.

There is no better example than the current media-sanctioned character assassination by the Justice Department of retired General and former CIA Director David Patraeus.

Anonymous sources in the Department have been granted egregiously excessive national print and broadcast coverage. The intent, presumably is to put pressure on Attorney General Eric Holder to bring charges against Patraeus for providing classified information to his mistress-biographer. The media’s complicity in this guilty-until-proven-innocent campaign against Patraeus is really irresponsible and makes a mockery of our system of justice. It just adds to the fuel of anti-law enforcement sentiment.

A cousin to the abuse of anonymous sources is the liberal access to the media given to anonymous opinions on website comment sections. Many of those comments are obnoxious, inflammatory, otherwise libelous, and contribute absolutely nothing to public discourse. In most cases they detract from it in a serious way by further inflaming public angers and isolating public opinion.

There are so many other problems with the media. I haven’t even touched on the infotainment and entertainment industries that, as the movie Selma has demonstrated, further distort realities and do a disservice to public education and enlightenment.

It is time that all of us who have a stake in them recognize that the media, one of the institutional pillars of our society and system of governance, are crumbling into a Pelley-style parody of itself. It is time for reform.

Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.