THOMPSON: Journalism standards blurred and ignored nowadays

How journalists do their jobs has changed significantly in my lifetime…and unfortunately not for the better. Standards that used to exist are now blurred…or simply ignored. 

Cultural and political shifts account for much of the change including a president, his political party and supporters who have tried to re-define truth and facts. More on that later.

I have been a professional writer since 1960…almost 66 years. That’s when Bert Dosh, managing editor of my hometown newspaper, the Ocala Star-Banner, paid me for the 330-word front-page article I wrote about Alan Shepard, the first American to travel in space as an astronaut aboard Freedom 7.

I didn’t know much about journalism at the time…I was just 10 years old. I called the editor the week before the historic launch and suggested an article from a kid’s perspective. You do bold things when you’re 10. 

I remember my surprise at learning after the fact that reporters are paid to write. But even as a kid, I knew writing was something special and my entire life would revolve around my ability to not just put words on paper…but to tell a story. 

Writing always came easy to me…it was not so much effortless as fluid. I have never experienced writer’s block. I see a blank page – or today a blank screen – and the words I need come without straining. 

After a stint in the U.S. Air Force, I was graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism. I won two Summer internships while studying at Florida…one with the Orlando Sentinel…and the other with The Associated Press.

Those Summers offered an opportunity for me to experience day-to-day life as a working journalist. I liked the pace…the realities of meeting deadlines for morning and afternoon editions.

Just two weeks into my internship at the Sentinel, a couple renting the apartment next to mine complained about their water and sewer bill doubling. Beyond my assigned work, I made phone calls and found that throughout the county, renters paid twice as much as homeowners. I interviewed city officials and wrote my first by-lined article.

I observed experienced reporters and editors at the newspaper that I admired…noting not only what they did and how they worked…but their dedication to seeking truth…making sure their writing was accurate and fair.

Good reporters have obvious skills…an ability to write clearly…an ability to ask questions that don’t leave much wiggle room. But I discovered that listening is the most prized talent or skill. If you listen well you hear what you didn’t know before.

Watergate fuelled Right Wingers’ hate of good journalism. They wanted a partisan press…propaganda to counter what Conservatives saw as a Liberal news media bias. An evolution of Talk Radio, Right Wing Cable Shows, Fox News, Internet Bloggers and Podcasters have diminished journalism over time.

So, what to do if you’re a journalist today? Keep a watchful eye and when lying and secrecy seem prevalent, start looking for the truth, because it’s being covered up by those with a vested interest in the public not knowing it. Yes, money makes the world turn, and reporters should be willing to follow the money. But look for secrecy and follow the lies, as well, and eventually you’ll find truth.

Truth in any story is more than a litany of facts. Sources – people who offer their version of facts and context of what happened in any story – aren’t characters in a novel’s plot. They are people with knowledge and feelings and insights…and sometimes their perspectives are not completely accurate. 

That’s why any good reporter needs sources…the more the better. And sometimes you go back to those sources with different questions aimed at getting a single fact or clarification. That’s why Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had more than a thousand sources – from secretaries to Mark Felt – a deputy director at the FBI, then known only as “Deep Throat.”

Felt was one of the many unnamed sources on Watergate. Today, as during the Nixon years, the Trump White House rails against unnamed sources. But that’s how journalism works…if you want the truth.

As a reporter, when you find a unnamed source’s information doesn’t line up time after time with the preponderance of truth from other sources…he or she is no longer a source on that story. The sum of all this digging is “the best obtainable version of the truth.” That’s what journalism once was…and needs to be again.

There used to be a line between publisher and editor that was never crossed. Now, publishers dabble with how things are covered…how things are written…almost daily. Jeff Bezos of the Washington Post is a good example. 

Bezos kept his fingers out of the pie – even though it was his – for more than a decade. But by 2024 he ended presidential endorsements. A year later, he refocused the opinion page on free markets and personal liberties…and clearly started playing to Trump and the Post took on a definite Right Wing stance.

Even the so-called Liberal media started adopting methods that on the surface seem good for finding the truth and uncovering the facts behind stories…but really served as barriers to those goals.

Take, for example, the term “fair and balanced” reporting. Until the last decade that meant getting all sides of a story and reporting the truth. Multiple truths are a fallacy…it doesn’t exist.

Increasingly, cable news shows interpret “fair and balanced” as a question of equal time. Let one side tell their truth and the other side their truth…with little regard to the fact that some’s lying.

Past journalists used to challenge politicians on the spot when they lied. Today, few challenge the obvious lies of Donald Trump and Republicans. Until journalists reclaim their rights and worry more about truths and facts – and less about the appearance of “fair and balanced” entertainment – the Fourth Estate isn’t fully serving the interests of a free and democratic society.