Forum: News consumers must demand ethics from news outlets

Published 1:30 am Saturday, August 31, 2024

By Ron Friesen / Herald Forum

I am so embarrassed by the news media in the United States. Our standards for news have virtually sunk to the level of “yellow journalism” that dominated newspapers during the Industrial Revolution of the late-1800s and early 1900s.

And guess who understands this and manipulates the news better than anyone in our history? Donald Trump.

“If it bleeds, it leads”: This is still the foundation of news reporting, which William R. Hurst discovered with his newspaper’s sensationalist reporting of crime as he was competing with Joseph Pulitzer and his New York paper at the end of the 1800s. He capitalized on peoples’ primitive reaction to danger, which is fight or flee. Of course, before fighting or fleeing, we have to recognize the danger. And that is exactly what yellow journalism of the time did.

Headlines proclaimed danger from criminals, weather, illnesses, other races and cultures and warned us that this could all happen to us at any time. A lot of the “news” was exaggerated or made up. But who cared? Newspapers sold by the bundle! Profits went up. Publishers got rich!

Things began to change in 1910 when the Kansas Editorial Association adopted a strict code of ethics which required stories to be accurate, corroborated and truthful. Note that this was prior to the impacts of radio and television. By about 1955, this code of ethics was almost universally adopted by newspapers. Though radio and television did not officially adopt the Newspaper Editor’s code, the standard was set, and the big three networks, CBS, ABC and NBC continued to be reliable news sources.

This all changed with the introduction of cable television and independent news channels. What the public did not realize was that “independent” actually meant independence from any code of ethics. The prime directive for journalism was no longer ethics. It was money. Again.

Journalism’s prime directive is to hold our government accountable and tell truth to power. This mission is protected by our Constitution, but not by our economy. So the true prime directive is first to make a profit, and then, maybe, hold our government accountable, unless the rich, or the powerful, or the rich and powerful are offended.

And now, here we are. Newspapers that have done the best holding government accountable, are struggling to survive. In Marysville, we have lost the Marysville Globe which reported local events, spotlighted local community events, and kept track of our local government. It is sorely missed, and Marysville is worse off for its loss. The paper you are reading has done a good job trying to fill the lost local news space. But we have seen The Herald shrink in size and coverage at the same time.

Reporters may try to put news and community affairs first, but editors, publishers and owners, now more than ever, have to put money as top consideration. So the first evaluation of a story is, “Will it help sell newspapers?” instead of “Does it meet our ethical standards?” And then the ethical standards become less and less important, because survival is now the prime directive.

Not ethics. Not journalism. Not holding government accountable. Not telling truth to power.

What needs to happen is a long shot at best. All media must adopt the same ethical standards newspapers embraced a century ago. Most importantly, there must be strict separation between news and opinion. Electronic and social media sell opinion as news. It’s the greatest ethics heist of all time.

All news needs to be bound by ethics. All opinion needs to be clearly labeled and promoted as such (just like what you are reading now). And any news or opinion hat repeats and promotes falsehoods need to be carefully and ethically weeded out as the news poison it really is.

Everyone has a constitutional right to their opinion, and the right to share their opinion with others. But there is no constitutional right to promote falsehoods. These are the poisons in our daily diet of alleged “news.” This poison is killing us. Ethical standards for all media is the remedy.

Do we, as a country and culture, have the moral character to do this? I hope so. Or the poison will kill us.

Ron Friesen is a longtime Marysville resident, a retired music teacher and community and church musician and is committed to community improvement.