Tonight was the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington DC chapter awards ceremony, the “Datelines” (my “Journys” suggestion received no laughs), a well-meaning but overlong paean to a few journalists’ lifetime of service and an exercise in category domination by a hand-and-a-half-ful of D.C. outlets that cared to submit their work. We were our usual selves – long-winded, obliviously chatty while others spoke, and with the exception of the well-paid, ravenous in finishing the meal. But when the awards were finished, the shindig got political – and reminded me what happens when journalists take their self-appointed role of arbiters of democracy too seriously.
My organization attended because we knew we had won something and wanted to find out firsthand. Helen Thomas was in attendance, the only hack that anyone outside the hack community would recognize. The reception bar wasn’t open but the waiters at dinner poured wine freely, thus aiding the oblivious chattery on and off the dais. Plenty of amusing anecdotes but no jarring rhetoric to awake any of the yawning throngs by 9 p.m.
Until the thinly-veiled pitch for SPJ membership began.
The SPJ president described herself as the “heavy” and proceeded to browbeat the hacks into making a difference for their institution. She highlighted the secret hold that a senator had placed on a bill to update the federal Freedom of Information Act, strongly backed by media advocacy groups. It’s an issue I’ve covered irregularly that has ignited quite the firestorm among the reliably united grassroots activists on the right and left, folks on this site’s blogroll. They helped unmask the senators behind holds on bills several times before, and apparently did the same this time.
But how many media outlets covered the hold – placed on Memorial Day weekend – on an otherwise smooth-sailing bill? Just one, she said. The piece was written by a gal I know vaguely whose particular beat is government secrecy. That’s unacceptable, the president said, even if most of us are headed on vacation. The Society membership sprang into action to pressure the secret senator to step forward, she said, but the D.C. chapter in particular needs to be large and vibrant to counteract senatorial shenanigans in the future. The scolding riled me up, a call to “get off your lazy ass,” as I put it. A coworker corrected me: “More like ‘get behind my ass.'”
This presents a problem. Journalists are already distrusted by a majority of a diverse public, who think they’re biased, lazy, driven by money or some combination. They have views and generally vote, but they’re supposed to be able to take in multiple views and not just represent them fairly, but see it from the point of view of their subjects – even while digging for the facts and using their judgment on what and how much gets inches or airtime. I’ve been uneasy with coworkers who have vocally complained about the views of some person or entity they’re covering at that very moment – “can we keep it out of the office?” I think and occasionally vocalize. You can’t be distracted by your loathing for someone on deadline and expect to be fair.
Similarly I expect that media advocacy groups are going to take a position and get active on some issues, especially when it comes to their newsgathering ability. But rank-and-file journalists aren’t somehow exempt from the excesses and foibles that accompany any other group seeking to influence government policy, and unlike most, they’re in the business of giving the public a fair account of the people they’re agitating for or against. This is a tricky tightrope to walk especially if you rely on people in the government regularly for information, as I presume the bulk of the SPJ Washington chapter does. How am I supposed to get fair treatment from the senator’s office if I am myself unmasked as an activist against the senator? How can my readers trust my professionalism?
There are plenty of people concerned about government openness, and with the Internet they have a worldwide platform to informally collaborate and ferret out what isn’t made public. I use them almost daily to guide my reporting, and I’m far from alone among the rank-and-file reporters. If there’s a compelling reason for us who practice, as oppose to lobby, to shape the policy surrounding our craft, I don’t see it. So let’s not presume that the only thing standing between tyranny and liberty is the collective backbone of the media practitioners – or that our supposed monopoly on truth-ferreting excuses us from our professionalism.
I’m a tech journalist who’s making a TV show about a college newspaper.