A Few Good Words on Journalism
TODAY’S WORD ON JOURNALISM—Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007
Canary in the Mine:
“(W)hile the newspaper is expendable, the tradition it represents and the information it supplies are not. The evolution from Gutenberg to Gates may be irreversible, but as new media replace old ones there’s no official passing of the torch of responsibility, no automatic transfer of the sacred trust the First Amendment placed upon the free press and its proprietors. In fact the handoff, such as it is, has been fumbled very badly. As newspapers are eviscerated, marginalized and abandoned, they leave a vacuum that nothing and no one is prepared to fill—a crisis on its way to becoming a tragedy. When railroads and riverboats began to go the way of the passenger pigeon, no one was harmed except the workforce and a few big investors who had failed to diversify. If professional journalism vanishes along with the newspapers, this thing we call a constitutional democracy becomes a banana republic.”
A “Today’s Word” from 10/17/2007:<
First Amendment health report:
“Media-industry reports seem to be telling us that many Americans don’t need the press, and this survey seems to be telling us they don’t trust it, either. While more than 9 of 10 do say the right to be informed by a free press is essential or important, significant numbers want to limit that freedom. A third think the press has too much freedom and 60-plus percent believe the press is biased in its reporting or, worse, falsifies or makes up stories. These responses are far too chilling for a healthy democracy.â€
—Paul McMasters, journalist and free press advocate, on “State of the First Amendment 2007†survey
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