Published in the Mountainview
An idea of which all journalists should be aware is a new
proposal for "news councils," or bodies which monitor news
organizations and the media for ethics and integrity. They are watchdog groups,
made up of members of the journalistic professions, which can investigate and
censure reporters or media which violate ethical guidelines.
Media censorship or regulation is a concept which should be
investigated carefully. It rarely does harm to investigate a solution to a
problem, but implementation of solutions should be done with great caution.
This is particularly the case when dealing with institutions so close to the
core of the American culture as its news gathering and dissemination
organizations.
Editorial content of one publication is already subject to
public scrutiny and to the challenges of other publications. Most publications
have a "Corrections" section where they admit their own errors and
provide correct information. This is a form of self-censorship which is
productive and appropriate; any newspaper which has a large amount of space
devoted to corrections is likely doing a poor job of fact-checking. Further,
should one publication fail to correct its own error, other publications are
free to (and ethically bound to) report the correct facts.
Outside monitoring (even by a formal intra-industry
regulating body) are threats to a free press. Press monitoring goes on all day,
all over the world. Individuals receive information from media outlets and
evaluate the credibility and usefulness of the information. Into that equation
they add their own self-interest, the reportage of the same situation by other
information sources, and their genera/ experience with a news reporting agency.
To formalize this implicit interrelationship between media
outlets is to formalize a threat to an essential freedom in the American
democracy. Left unformalized, regulation is on a low level, bound by ethical
considerations but free from the intimidation which a watchdog necessarily
imposes. Formalized, the regulation suddenly carries the weight of the world.
When developing a system of regulation, the question must
always be posed: "Who watches the watchmen?" As the information
dissemination system is currently in use, the answer is "They watch each
other, and are equally capable of reporting on violations of public
trust." A news council would be accountable to the public. That appears to
be a good thing, until we remember that the only effective watchdogs the public
has on its side are the media. Each individual cannot go out and research the
world and current events; that is specifically why we watch television and read
newspapers. With news councils in the system, the answer would be "The
regulators watch the reporters, who in turn watch the regulators. However, the
regulators, when they speak, speak with a more powerful and legitimated voice
than the reporters." This imbalance of power and of access to the public
mind is dangerous to freedom of information.
Freedom of information is so important to the American
public that we often fail to acknowledge its existence. We often exhibit
cynicism and doubt towards the media. Those are both good things. If we
inherently understand that freedoms are important, we are unlikely to abridge
them. If we question the sources of our information, we will always feel in
control of our own minds and opinions. However, if we take for granted that
freedoms will always exist, and begin to mistrust the media and suspect it of
threatening the public interest, we risk limiting the very instruments we rely
on for our own., participation in the wider world.
Imposing regulations on a necessarily free industry is a
mistake which must not be made now or in the future. Having bodies which meet
to design ethical guidelines is an excellent idea; all newspapers currently
have them, in the form of editorial boards. Professional journalists'
associations have codes of ethics to which all members must subscribe. The
ethics are already in place, and despite disparate sources are very similar
codes throughout the world's journalistic organizations. Regulating an industry
which is self-regulating and necessarily free is to deny freedom of information
and of the press.