I Cogitate
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Charles Madigan (re)-defines journalism for the ethically deficient
Wouldn't it be nice to not only hear the following but see and read it in practice?
"...The first thing I would have tried to report in that case would have been that Cheney's office and some other administration characters were trying to spread a story that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was actually a spook and why that might be happening..."Journalist Charles Madigan simplifies it all in his article below. Rather than sickeningly ply for unearned pity a la Judy Miller, Madigan keeps reporting where it should be--upfront and on the straight and narrow. Unlike Miller, Madigan has no yearning for breakfast meetings at swanky hotels with high level Bush Administration officials, will never be receiving personal cards containing intimate messages from a news source, heaven help us if he ever questions the real-time strategy of military commanders in Iraq while declaring he knows where to look for WMDs. No, Madigan would not perform well as the unofficial stenographer for Ahmed Chalabi or Bush Administration lackeys because he possesses the appropriate reporting values--comfort the afflicted , afflict the comfortable and call bullshit rather than carry it.
"...I am not an instrument of policy..."
"....We are in business, in part, to inform our readers, watchers, listeners, our customers..."
"...Our first loyalty should be to our readers, not to "sources," even sources in government who are so intent upon using us..."
Not many recall the following that came with Miller's April 21, 2003 New York Times article titled “Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, An Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert":
"Under the terms of her accreditation to report on the activities of MET Alpha (which was a military unit assigned to hunt for WMDs]) this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials."Call it what you wish but it's dictation to me and one of the many times a violation of journalistic ethics appeared in the Times.
Readers, not sources, should come firstGo here for the rest.
Charles M. Madigan
Chicago Tribune
March 13, 2007
I was a terrible investigative reporter. I hated those "source" things that seemed to be such big menu items in the daily journalism diet.
You know about "sources," don't you, the people who provide information in exchange for anonymity? Sometimes it's cops, sometimes prosecutors, sometimes politicians, but always people who won't say what they are saying in the full light of day.
I'm not saying I never used them. I was just not very comfortable with it. It can be a good thing or an immensely sleazy process, and used in politics the way old Romans used poison, to wound or kill from a distance.
It can also plant thoughts of big scoop prizes in your head, which is not good for journalism.
(Charles Madigan, 57, is a veteran Chicago Tribune editor and correspondent who has been with the newspaper since 1979)
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