"The pursuit of truth is a noble goal of journalism. But the truth is not always apparent or known immediately. Journalists' role is therefore not to determine what they believe at that time to be the truth and reveal only that to their readers, but rather to report as completely and impartially as possible all verifiable facts so that readers can, based on their own knowledge and experience, determine what they believe to be the truth.
"When a newspaper delivers both news and opinions, the impartiality and credibility of the news organization can be questioned. To minimize this as much as possible there needs to be a sharp and clear distinction between news and opinion, both to those providing and consuming the news."--From this newspaper's statement of core values, published regularly elsewhere in these pages.
The boss did not command that I open today's column with the excerpt above from the official core-values statement of the paper.
I feel confident saying he wouldn't. For years now, he's made an electronic donation to my needy checking account every other Friday. And he's done so in exchange for my writing an opinion column that presumably engages with readers but offers political and cultural observations with which he often--I'd say usually--disagrees.
But what if--for purposes of discussion--he had ordered me to begin the column with that corporate statement? Would I have obliged or balked? Would I have revealed the essence of myself in that choice?
You should bear in mind that this is an entirely hypothetical exercise for purposes later to unfold.
I find nothing in the statement with which I disagree. Its principles are basic. I proudly embrace them.
I would have resented the bully-ish imposition of being forced to quote them, but I need to eat, though not quite so much, and I have bills.
I would have obliged. But I might have begun thinking about other employment. I have experience in this area, having quit practically every media outlet in the state at one time or another. But I have never quit one until I'd lined up work at another.
I'm luckier than the anchor people at KATV, Channel 7, which is part of the vast national media behemoth called Sinclair that is known for funneling conservative political views from corporate offices in Baltimore through the local television stations it owns.
Years ago, Sinclair ordered its local anchors to read statements of political support for George W. Bush. Last year Sinclair ordered its local stations to air as regular commentary in their local news programs certain opinion segments produced at central headquarters featuring a guy named Boris.
Fresh off President Trump's White House staff, Boris' essays are poorly disguised promotional spots for Trump and his policies.
Then, just the other day, Sinclair sent its local stations a statement decrying "fake news" that it described as rampant in contemporary media. The statement vowed that the local station would never engage in such things.
It was a fine statement reflecting a noble principle. It was flawed only in the context of its flaming hypocrisy. Sinclair is not only an active Trump advocate, but one that bullies and exploits its popular and capable local personnel. It orders them to air Boris and, in this case, read on-air themselves a statement that only sounds neutral if you don't know that Sinclair speaks for Trump and uses his codes.
A free press means that whoever owns the press is free to abuse the freedom. It's up to individual viewers whether to embrace or reject KATV based on what the bosses in Baltimore sometimes force it to do.
Here's what I think: Bullies are almost always more to blame than pawns. And pawns are almost always ultimately more valuable than bullies.
That Sinclair is a Trump advocate becomes less important in assessing KATV's worthiness if a tornado rages up Interstate 30 toward my house and Ned and Barry and Todd are tracking it live on the air. Sully's energetic work on "Friday Night Touchdowns" during Arkansas high school football season is infinitely more important to local television than the biased mumbling of a distant guy named Boris.
Some social media partisans are saying that the three Channel 7 anchor people who read the corporate blather are culprits, not victims, and should have resigned in protest.
Local anchor people also must eat, though apparently not much. They have bills.
I don't know the politics of these three. I'm not supposed to know. They're not supposed to say.
If they had spoken up on their own, either to quit or to agree with the statement, then they'd be defying individually the neutrality their corporate masters destroy institutionally.
Let's be frank: Reading what's put before them, usually in the form of news copy rolling on a teleprompter screen, is their job.
Testing the working condition of mute buttons everywhere--that's Sinclair's.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at [email protected]. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 04/05/2018