Journalism

On July 6, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs issued a scathing report detailing what the Committee characterized as a seething epidemic of classified information making its way into the press. Titled, “State Secrets: How an Avalanche of Media Leaks Is Harming National Security,” the 23-page document cites “at least 125 stories” between Inauguration day and May 25 “with leaked information potentially damaging to national security.” That last part is debatable.

While the report does include a handful of truly astonishing disclosures—things like FISA warrants and transcripts of private phone calls with foreign leaders—most of the document essentially reads like a chronology of what the public has learned about the interlocking investigations into the Trump administration and its potential ties to Russia. The bylines of New York Times and Washington Post reporters are especially prolific. “Listing individual reporters who allegedly harmed national security is something that illiberal nations do,” the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote in response. Trump’s election was not a total sea change. Those who spoke with me agreed that the previous administration laid the groundwork for the current leak jihad. But his very public war on the press, along with his suspicion of his own intelligence agencies, has significantly raised the temperature.

A federal judge on Aug 29 dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin against The New York Times, saying Palin’s complaint failed to show that a mistake in an editorial was made maliciously. “What we have here is an editorial, written and rewritten rapidly in order to voice an opinion on an immediate event of importance, in which are included a few factual inaccuracies somewhat pertaining to Palin that are very rapidly corrected,” Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan said in his ruling. “Negligence this may be; but defamation of a public figure it plainly is not.”

[Commentary] Three days before Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, President Trump told Americans that most journalists are “bad people” who “don't like our country.” As the media covers the devastation in Houston and the surrounding area, however, even Breitbart News has begrudgingly acknowledged that the president's characterization might not be entirely fair, reporting that “journalists are helping to direct emergency crews to save stranded drivers rather than encouraging enraged mobs to riot against the police.”

In all seriousness, the response to the storm has showcased the best of elected officials, first responders, next-door neighbors and, yes, even reporters. The media's reputation is hardly the most important thing at stake in the midst of a natural disaster. But my job is to write about the press, and it is impossible not to view the work of reporters on the ground — disseminating vital information and relaying the stories of victims and heroes — against the backdrop of Trump's ceaseless campaign to undermine the media's credibility.

[Commentary] Government and corporate control of the press is certainly not new but has gone in a new direction, exacerbated not just by the rise of right wing populism but also by digital technology and the far reach of the internet. It’s hard to remember now how many people thought the internet would secure the reign of independent journalism by boosting the flow of information. Instead, the loss of advertising revenues for traditional media has created a cascading effect that in some countries has left the press fighting for its life. This collapse of the old business model paved the way for media capture to take hold. Finding solutions to the problems of capture, or at least ways to limit its effects, is one of the crucial challenges of our time. Government regulation of cross-ownership, digital taxation, and financial support for quality media are just a few much-needed solutions.
[Schiffrin is the director of the Technology, Media and Communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.]

[Commentary] The "era of objectivity", grounded in the once-sacred ideal of Journalistic Objectivity, may be over. But before we decry the end of an era, we should actually celebrate this moment—and the accompanying crucible of the industry’s restructuring—as an opportunity for democracy. Journalism, and those who love it, can now turn the page to a new ideal: legitimacy.

If you remove the self-delusion of Objectivity, you still have a legitimate product, appealing to a discernible audience. Anything from a blog to an international news network has to earn its legitimacy by practice, not through inheritance or the money to buy a local TV station. Legitimacy is an ideal separate from the simple crucible of market demand. Market success won’t be a shield to help carry you through unpopular reporting, or even a mistake, but legitimacy will. Legitimacy also fosters credibility, considered the coin of the realm by journalists. While credibility can be episodic (a single report of something previously unknown) or personal (a doctor reporting on medical news; a well-connected political reporter), legitimacy is more institutional and also typically assigned to the management or ownership of a news organization.

[Commentary] Democratic governments concerned about new digital threats need to find better algorithms to defend democratic values in the global digital ecosystem. Democracy has always been hard. It requires an exquisite balance between freedom, security and democratic accountability. This is the profound challenge that confronts the world’s liberal democracies as they grapple with foreign disinformation operations, as well as home-grown hate speech, extremism, and fake news. Fear and conceptual confusion do not justify walking away from liberal values, which are a source of security and stability in democratic society. Private sector and government actors must design algorithms for democracy that simultaneously optimize for freedom, security, and democratic accountability in our digital world.

[Eileen Donahoe is Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University, and former U.S. ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council]

[Commentary] I found that most of Sinclair’s news-producing stations were as mainstream as the Mississippi River. And if you believe that mainstream is synonymous with liberal (I don’t), then Sinclair will be, upon closing of the Tribune deal, the nation’s leading purveyor of liberal news and views in broadcast television. In my diligent research, I found many damning news reports about President Donald Trump, his populist agenda and his apparent collusion with the Russians during the campaign. On top of that, I found biting satire aimed at Trump and the GOP leadership just about every day in late night and heaps of scripted entertainment programming that make a mockery of traditional family values. Many of these stations, I would note, are not in blue states where the out-of-touch elites dwell, but in solidly red states that generally back Republicans and supply Trump with his he-can-do-no-wrong supporters.

I believe that Sinclair’s national news is much more conservative than the networks’ are liberal. But, for the foreseeable future, the networks will be pumping out far more national news than Sinclair is. As Sinclair said in its filing, the Big Three “dominate the national broadcast news offerings in most local markets.” Right now, it all kind of evens out. So, the next time you hear someone say that Sinclair will destroy America by broadcasting politically driven news, you should ask: What news — ABC, CBS or NBC?

President Donald Trump ramped up his anti-media rhetoric this week during a rally in Arizona, leaving some observers to question whether journalists should be concerned for their safety. President Trump took numerous shots at the “truly dishonest people” in the media during the Aug 22 rally, including calling the industry “pathetic,” “dishonest” and “liars.” Syracuse University journalism professor and media historian Robert Thompson thinks that journalists should absolutely be nervous on the heels of Trump’s speech. “I think it is a legitimate concern. We’ve certainly seen people who have been inflamed by rhetoric who have gone out and done horrible things,” Thompson said.

[Commentary] Yes, mistrust of the media was growing even before President Donald Trump emerged on the political scene. But this much is unmistakable: The president is significantly adding to what is, without question, the worst anti-press atmosphere I’ve seen in 25 years in journalism, and real, chilling consequences have surfaced, not just in the United States, but around the world.

What seemed to particularly sting on Aug 23 was the way that Trump had impugned journalists’ patriotism. “Claim bias. Fine. Claim elitism. Fine,” Jim VandeHei, chief executive of Axios, wrote on Twitter. “But to say reporters erase America’s heritage, don’t love America, turn off cameras to hide truth, are to blame for racial tension, is just plain wrong.” Anyone with a passing interest in history knows that the founders viewed an independent press as essential to democracy. Talk about heritage.

[Commentary] President Donald Trump’s caricature of journalists as dishonest is hypocritical, and it insults the courage and professionalism of my colleagues who sometimes risk their lives trying to get a story. I’ve lost reporter and photographer friends in war zones all over the world, and have had other friends kidnapped and tortured. When Trump galvanizes crowds against reporters in the room, I worry that we may lose journalists in the line of duty not only in places like Syria but also right here at home. Trump will get people hurt.

This is an extraordinary moment in our nation’s history, for we are enduring an epic struggle over the principles on which our country was founded. These include the idea that a flawed free press is an essential institutional check on flawed leaders. So may I humbly suggest that when a megalomaniacal leader howls and shrieks at critics, that is when institutional checks on that leader become a bulwark of democracy.