The Gene Kelly character in the classic movie
"Inherit the Wind" said the role of the reporter is "to comfort the afflicted
and to afflict the comfortable." The role
of the free press in a democracy is to mediate between government and the
people,
especially during an election season. When
political corruption exists, the media should expose it, so the people
can base
their choices of candidates on knowledge of all
the available information. Thomas Jefferson said that the only way
for
democracy to survive is for the public to remain
fully informed.
Media shouldn't be neutral but should serve as
advocates for the people. Too often today the press serves to protect
powerful political figures and keep their secrets.
For example, the press has allowed George W. Bush to get away with
a large number of false assertions and cover-ups.
The issue isn't whether the media should take
the side of Democrats against Republicans or vice versa. Instead,
this is a
question of the media's taking the side of the
people versus the powerful any time anyone in power commits serious misdeeds.
On the whole, the print media and alternative
journalists have done a far better job of exposing Bush's deceptions than
have
the TV pundits. Here is one example: In
the October 19 LA Times, Click
Here journalist Robert Scheer writes,
"the Bush administration is suppressing a CIA
report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names."
According to Scheer, some of those names include
"very senior-level officials." He describes the cover-up as "shocking."
Some members of the CIA disapprove of the Bush-appointed
CIA director's decision to conceal the information.
One CIA official told Scheer, "no previous director
of CIA has ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing
a report to the Congress." He also said,
"the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because
it
makes it look like they weren't interested in
terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible
afterward."
This is a critically important news story, and
the media should report it often enough to make it known and well understood
among the entire electorate - something they
haven't done. To determine whether the primary media outlets have
done a
good job conveying all the public needs to know
about any given news story, we should ask, "is that story fully understood
by most Americans? Do most Americans know
the story's meaning and significance?"
TV pundits spent large quantities of time airing
the deceptive claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and discussing
whether John Kerry should have mentioned Mary
Cheney's sexual orientation in the third presidential debate. Surely
they
can give equal time and energy to the monumental
story of the CIA director's concealing the names of the individuals
mentioned in the new CIA 9/11 report.
The media should also join the public in pressuring
the Bush administration to insist the CIA director release the report now.
Hiding the new CIA 9/11 report may influence
the election by helping the Bush administration, but it won't serve the
public.
Withholding the report prevents the people from
being fully informed and from casting their votes based on accurate and
complete information.
If revealing the truth would hurt Bush's chance
to win the election it logically follows that the public wouldn't be well
served by
his winning in the first place. In any
case, the American people, especially the families of the 9/11 victims,
deserve the truth,
and they deserve to have it before the election.
Three thousand people were killed in the September 11 attacks. Don't
our
elected officials and our intelligence agencies
owe the families of the 9/11 victims the truth? Don't members of
the news
media owe them that much?
Scheer says the Bush-appointed CIA management
seems to think it can "engage in a cover-up [of the new 9/11 report]
with impunity." He adds that the Bush administration
and CIA management will get away with this cover-up unless the
public insists on the report's timely release.
However, unless the public hears enough about this story from the media,
including (and especially) TV news, they won't
likely know enough to push their elected officials or the CIA director
to release the report.
The press has a responsibility to sort facts
from lies. In an article for the Village Voice, Click
Here, "The end of democracy,"
Rick Perlstein laments the fact that certain
politicians and media pundits seem to think political lies during a campaign
are like
the weather - that they're something beyond our
power to change. When Perlstein asked TV pundit Jeff Greenfield what he
thought about Republicans making specific false
statements, Greenfield said, "I just regard this as what happens in a campaign."
As Perlstein points out, this is a defeatist
attitude, and it prevents journalists from making an effort to improve
the situation.
Greenfield's lackadaisical attitude about the
media's responsibility to correct lies in a political campaign is misguided.
The press is obliged to edify and protect the
public. Journalists need a stronger sense of civic obligation in
order to
help fulfill Thomas Jefferson's vision of maintaining
democracy through a fully informed citizenry. The media's ethical
obligation is to act as watchdog for the people
and foe of political corruption. That's the function and very definition
of a free press in a democracy. It's worth
the effort.
For more thoughts on the news media's obligation
in a democracy, see my essay,
"An
open letter to the mainstream news media,"