Forget the suits and bean counters, truth matters
The watchdogs are hungry, scratching at the door.
They can smell something in the fetid air.
Some have been unleashed.
Others remain chained by the oppressive corporate mindset of bean counters. Others are secured on a leash held taut by fearful suits who express a certain expertise without any practical or formal training.
And that is why there is so much distrust of the media these days.
Those of us with high mileage were raised up in newsrooms that understood the difference between “dog bites man” and “man bites dog.”
We were taught to be skeptical and eschew cynicism.
We were trained to have the courage to start a conversation that matters.
We cut our eye teeth on the editorial platform of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, as handed down by publisher Joseph Pulitzer in his retirement speech in 1907, who has remained on the newspaper’s editorial page since November 1911: “…always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”
We held the business of news as a sacred trust.
But, sadly, trust is like a shattered mirror. Once broken, it can never be repaired.
The bean counters shattered our trust when they backed away from the hard-hitting brand of news reporting that was pioneered in this country and most famously conducted by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward when they told the world about a deviant, crooked politician so self absorbed and devious as to sit upon a pyramid of felonious behavior that history remembers as the Watergate Scandal.
They are cowardly, steering away from the watchdog responsibilities bestowed upon their news-gathering organizations because those responsibilities might offend the sensibilities of advertisers and readers, which could render lower profits for investors.
The suits?
Usually, they have backgrounds in business. Unfortunately, selling widgets and gizmos or managing the day-to-day nuances of a small business gives no remarkable insight into the complex business of putting together a cogent, credible daily news report. So they listen to an unqualified inner voice that whispers that they narrow their parameters to a much safer place that does not offend anybody.
So they squelch the greater conversation, the conversation that matters, because “people can get that anywhere.”
Maybe, maybe not, but there is nothing like a conversation with somebody you know or can identify with in some small measure.
Most importantly, if you are afraid of offending somebody in this business, you are not doing your job.
I gauge a lot by what I see on social media.
It’s where I go to touch the public pulse.
Right now, that public pulse is racing like that of a meth freak with AFib.
The issues are that compelling.
The nation is on the verge of a constitutional crisis that could chart a new and potentially hazardous course.
To ignore those issues is to stifle the conversation, which is the essence of censorship.
While we still hold our most important guarantee of liberty — the First Amendment — it must be remembered that the grunts doing the heavy lifting are only as unfettered as their boss allows them to be, and it may not be in their best interests to make waves.
That counters the purpose of a free press.
Since Oct. 25, 1896, The New York Times has pledged to publish “All the news that’s fit to print,” a lofty promise.
The Gray Lady has kept her word, even though she is now considered “an enemy of the people” by the guy who took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which includes, of course, our cherished First Amendment.
I have pondered lately about what would happen if Woodward and Bernstein came to a modern-day editor with the Watergate story. They were fortunate to work at The Washington Post, which had good resources and Ben Bradlee, a fearless executive editor who took no prisoners and knew how to support a good story.
I will always consider myself blessed to have worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for a couple of editors like Bradlee who were fierce warriors in the battle for truth — the inimitable Jim Bellows, who inspired his staff with his greatness, and the indomitable Don Forst, who nurtured the careers of Jimmy Breslin and Pete and Denis Hamill.
After all, that’s what this all comes to: the battle for truth.
I once had a publisher who took me aside and said, “The thing I like most about you is that when you are writing a piece, you have no friends.”
I took it as a compliment and thanked him because, as anybody who has followed my career knows — particularly in southern Utah — compliments are difficult to come by. Of course, that is a result of cultural and political separation from the masses.
Look, I’m at an age where I’ve been around the block a time or two.
I know the game and how to play it.
I simply refuse to do so.
I am also at an age that has given me some historical perspective, and what I see today is incomparable to anything before, at least in my lifetime.
That says a lot.
I’ve seen political leaders and social icons murdered.
I’ve seen a nation betrayed.
I’ve seen the faces of young men marching off to war, wondering if I would ever get to look them in the eye again.
I’ve seen the national discourse deteriorate from “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” to “I am not a crook,” and now a vulgar derision of the president’s political opponents, who he claims are trying to take him out with “bullshit.”
It’s time to turn loose the watchdogs.
It is time to ratchet up the conversation, even though it may not be comfortable or all neat and tidy.
And it is our responsibility as the political analysts and commentators to initiate those conversations.
That’s why I am happy to be here at The Independent where, for the first time in my career, I feel I am not moored to the dock.
Peace.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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