Sam Smith - One of the fundamental, and widely presumed tasks,
of the media is to report the truth. Yet we live in a time when a large
number of prominent figures - most strikingly the President - lie with
impunity and have their dishonesty reported as news.
One
of the causes of this problem has been the greatly increased tendency
of the national media to rely on sources of power in Washington as the
basis for their reporting. The informed professor or the
non-governmental expert has pretty much disappeared from the news.
The
media could moderate this problem if it more frequently contrasted the
statements of chronic official liars with alternative assessments by
more honest figures. For example, Thom Hartmann's show had someone who
suggested that the president's comments be withheld from the media for
an hour while the media investigated their accuracy. They could then be
broadcast on television with closed captions raising any issues with
their accuracy.
In any case, there needs to be lots
more public discussion of this issue. As someone who covered his first
Washington stories six decades ago, I can assure you that the degree of
falsehood in public statements has accelerated considerably and that the
media just acts as though its only job is to report them.
In fact, a reporter's first loyalty should be to the truth. not to power of a voice.
