the press is dead, long dead the press

The Press Is Dead. Put Them All in Jail.

Comment, by Cody Barstow, Ph.D., (and fence rider for the Barstow Ranch)

Mojo City, July 2, 2005 - I have been wondering why I am not just apoplectic ... not personally and absolutely aghast at the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case of the reporters who were not releasing the names of their sources. I am, after all, a First Amendment near-absolutist and I hold a master's in journalism.

I think I just figured it out.

For years, we've had this quiet deal between the law, the press, and the public - as long as the press is doing meaningful work, the people who do it should have a degree of extraordinary protection. So they do not have to reveal sources in situations ordinary citizens would have been forced to.

But the press is obviously and increasingly not doing its part in this bargain. The press dwells on meaningless stories at the expense of the meaningful (where is that girl in Aruba?). The press are patsies for politicians who spew obvious lies and are never challenged by the reporter on the other side of the microphone. The press asks meaningless questions (I just saw Fredrika Whitfield wonder is anyone has talked to neighbors of some guy who kidnapped a couple kids in Idaho - and what news would these neighbors bring to the party? But that's not really the issue. The very idea that interviewing clueless neighbors should be a part of the process of reporting a story is where the problem lies. ["Dunno," says the neighbor. "Never really spoke to him. He just kind of kept to himself." And yes, this kind of neighbor-perspective makes it to the air more times than not.]

But mostly, the practitioners of news have become a stupid and cowardly lot. The news takes reports from the military about 16 dead in Afghanistan in a chopper crash, and fails to work the story in a way that explains this has occurred in the midst of an ongoing battle that is now (I think) in its fifth day. I'm not sure the American press even has people in Afghanistan who can report on anything with any authority. The press reports that about half of the killed were Navy SEALs and, because it hasn't got the vaguest idea of why the SEALs are in a mountain battle because it doesn't have the reporters on the ground to cover the story, it does a fluff piece on how tough it is to become a SEAL. The press and its management are so damned scared one of its pretty people might get hurt, it actually sanctions the idea of them staying in their hotel rooms in Baghdad rather than follow the story where it's happening in the streets. And the reporters actually "report" about how bad it is in the streets to justify why we see them "reporting" from their rooms. Yes, smart reporters in Vietnam did the same sometimes. But that seemed to be relatively rare. Here's reality - if you want to cover a war meaningfully, you've got to accept the risk.

And then we have the news talk shows with a bunch of reporters in a sanctimonious, self-reflexive mood, wondering how their thumbs got that deep up their asses. When they do mumble a thought about something, it is as pundits, not as reporters. In this, they have failed to remember they are not the story (Hunter S. Thompson did believe he was the story, but his bad craziness had such incredible grace to it ... grace ... something none of these TV commentators ever were familiar with), and with this, they have become nothing more than another Hollywood entertainer and they are not worthy of that special place we put them in the past.

The press have become like us. They are fascinated by the weird, the sensational, and the meaningless. The press has become self-absorbed in its own business to the point of forgetting that the public is more than a number in the subscriber list, or part of a ratings point in the Neilsens. And the press has become fearful of the powerful and in this fail in their greatest mandate ... to challenge the politicians and force them to keep to their duty.

The press have become like us and we the public know they are not worthy of any more protection than we are.

The Supremes made a good decision not to hear the case. But it was not a matter of law. It was a matter of reminding the press of their promise to the public, and showing the press how soundly we believe they have betrayed our trust.