The topic for today's show is Journalistic Ethics. Our guest will beDale Jacquette, of Penn State University, who has recently published a book about the topic called,Journalistic Ethics: Moral Responsibility in the Media. I'm sure you can get a copy of the book atPowell's Books——现在是哲学讲座的官方赞助商。中国伊朗亚洲杯比赛直播

This will be a short post just to get my juices flowing before the show begins today.

The preamble to the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists states that "public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues."

These are certainly admirable sentiments. But it would be pretty hard case to make a case that in our times journalism, at large, lives up to the high ideals articulated in that preamble. Take, for example, propagandistic early coverage of the war in Iraq. That coverage provided precious little enlightenment and was, in my opinion, a complete disservice to our democracy. How has it come to this?

I have to admit to being pretty down on journalists as a class - especially the Washington Press Corps.

When I was very much younger, I thought of journalists as caped crusaders, daring truth seekers, who stood apart from the system and were willing to challenge it, and were even wililng to help facilitate its radical transformation. I thought of journalists as people whose job it was to shed the light of truth on the secrets cracks and crevices of government and society. I even toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist, for awhile, just because it seemed to me like one of the most noble of professions.

我想，那是因为我的政治和社会自我意识的第一次萌芽，发生在反战运动和民权运动的高潮时期。尽管战争逐渐平息，但水门事件很快就发生了。新闻业在结束一场灾难性的战争、促成一个更加公正的社会秩序、加速一位傲慢而腐败的总统下台方面发挥了重要作用。还有什么职业比这更高贵、更重要呢?我认为，我并没有完全自欺欺人地认为，那天的新闻业是对根深蒂固的、在其他方面几乎不需要问责的政治权力的有力制衡。

But it now seems to me that those were pretty singular times in the history of journalism. At any rate, things have certainly changed since then. Now, I look on the journalistic class as a whole with extremely jaundiced eyes -- though there are still a good number of nationally prominent journalists -- especially of the print variety -- for whom I have great admiration. The problem, I suspect, lies in the increasing "corporatization" of the mass media. A great deal of the media is controlled by a few huge and powerful corporations. And I suspect that huge media conglomerates have no more interest in challenging and shaking up entrenched power structures than GM or Exxon or any other corporate giant does.

Moreover, I hate to say this but I fear that many if not most journalist within these huge media conglomerates are more inclined to pursue the path of a corporate careerist than they are to pursue the path of a rabble rousing, truth seeking outsider.

The other day I heard Cokie Roberts make what superficially is a pretty benign statement about what her job, as a journalist, is. She said that her job as a journalist (covering Washington politics) is to explain politics and the political class to the American people. This was in the context of a question about whether she had ever thought about following her father's footsteps and running for political office herself. She answered that she didn't need to run for office to feel like a part of the system, since her job as a journalist was to explain the political class and their doings to the American people at large. That made her feel like she was an important part of the system, without having to take on the burdens of public office.

One can see some point to Roberts description of her job and the jobs of journalists generally. But there's also a trap there. Because ask yourself "In what terms" should the journalist explain the workings of the political class to the people at large. In terms that the politicians themselves would offer? In terms that are maximally revealing of the real dynamics of political life? Some politician is pushing some bill. He or she mounts a bunch of arguments about the good the bill would do. But the politician is also in the thrall of some lobby. Perhaps his or her real agenda is to serve the interest of said lobby. What's the journalist job here? To explain the arguments pro and con, taking at face value the things that politicians explicity say? Or to dig deeper, to ask who the real winner and losers will be if the bill is passed or not passed? Mostly, we get the former out of Washington reporters and hardly any of the latter.

Why? Because reporters these days seem to want, at all cost, to maintain access to the corridors of power. This is partly connected with their culture of corporate careerism. They seem always to be on the look out for that one leak, that one tidbit of information from some anonymous insider, that will lead to a blockbuster possibly career-making story. But if you play ball with insiders, then you have to play by rules that will serve the interest of those insiders. You have to frame issues in ways that will serve their agendas. Otherwise, they won't keep giving you access.

To be sure, inisders do compete with one another. And you never know who's going to be up one day and down the next. So you have to pick and choose your insiders well. Or you have to learn to play both sides of the street, as it were. But that just leads to what you might call more "He said. She said." reporting. Get a Democrat to say one thing, find a Republican who willl say something at odds with what the democrats says. And now you think you've been fair and balanced and objective.

But have you done anything, really, to ferret out the truth? Have you done in independent truth-seeking, fact checking, assessment of the strengths and weakness of arguments?

But perhaps that isn't the journalist's job. Perhaps the journalist's job is merely to let the elites speak and challenge one another. The media provides a platform upon which elites can compete for control of public debate and discourse, not any kind of independent check on the reliability of claims made, etc.

I once heard a journalist who was the Pentagon Correspondent for some major media outlet say in response to the question "Why don't you challenge Rumsfeld more?" that it wasn't her job to challenege Rumsfeld. Her job was to ask him questions and take down his answers. She also had the job, she conceded, of reporting what, say, the Democrats say in response to Rumsfeld's assertions. FInally, she said that she takes what Rumsfeld says and what others say in response and presents it all to her readers adn lets them decide what to make of it.

This is journalism? Seems to me little better than stenography. What if, for example, Rumsfeld is propagandizing, to put it mildly, through his teeth? And what if the Democrats are too cowardly and craven to challenge Rumsfeld's propoganda? What does our intrepid journalist cum stenographer do now? More he said, she said? But who does she turn to?

如果更多来自舞台中央以外的声音得到更多的发挥，也许就不会这么麻烦了。我的意思是那些在看台上大喊“这是谎言!它不会起作用的!共和党人被骗了!民主党人太懦弱了!”这些声音是谁发出的?通常是学者、激进分子、外国知识分子和政治家等。但新闻采访文化的一部分恰恰是，你不经常把坐在看台上的人带到舞台中央。他们是局外人。局外人不值得以同样的方式被倾听，尤其是当他们质疑、而不是证实更根深蒂固的内部人士的意见时。 Even if they have the force of the better reason, argument, and evidence on their side -- heaven forbid. Because, of course, journalists aren't really much in the business anymore of making independent assessments of the arguments offered up by competing elites.

他们称之为中立。但是，通过寻求真相和提供事件和问题的公平和全面的报道，这种必然性如何真正服务于启蒙公众的目标呢?我不这么认为，至少不是很多。

As you can see, I've grown pretty cynical and disgusted in my late middle age. Perhaps I over-react. Do I? I'm sure John and Dale will enlighten me if I do.

我要去做收音机。