I wanted to share this posting
("Hello, Mom? What Makes a Source Reliable?") by the NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, in which he responds to a question about NPR's sourcing practices. In his reply, Dvorkin lays out a standard for sourcing that I would love to see endorsed by the mainstream media as a whole. (not holding my breath).
I am not a journalist, but a lowly grad student and instructor at an "R1" public university (big, highly-ranked, state-funded). Public universities, like public radio, serve the public as their primary function; my job is to help my students learn to think critically so they can fully participate in public life as citizens of a democracy. Beyond raising heartrates and ire, the Plame scandal has brought to the surface of our collective American consciousness some vital questions about information and transparency in our government and media (or more accurately, about disinformation and the lack of transparency). The question of "sourcing" is a reflection of these larger sore subjects.
One of the main difficulties I've encountered in teaching undergraduates is that many students have never been taught how to evaluate sources (and evidence in general), particularly in addressing current issues (i.e., anything not already "in the history books"). Many other students have expressed frustration at the seeming impossibility of ever accessing "the truth" about
anything remotely "political." Their confidence (and mine) has only been shaken more by the Plame scandal, which has (among other consequences not addressed here) made even more painfully obvious to all of us that most of the mainstream media is either complicit with the Bush agenda or too lazy to do their job (you know, reporting. the news.).
At any rate, I'm writing this -- my first dKos diary! -- because I wanted to say that I think that Ombudsman Dvorkin, and the NPR reporters and editors he quotes in his piece, get it exactly right. So I've decided to email emailing this posting to the editors of our so-called "papers of record," as well as to the major TV newsrooms. Not that they'll read it. But I hope you will.
Democracy can't exist without debate about issues. And debate -- real, thoughtful, difficult questioning rather than shrill and deceitful name-calling -- can't exist without free access to reliable information. The Orwellian legacy of the Bush administration scares me more than anything else they've done, precisely because most of what we know is that we don't really know all they've done.
And yes, I do blame the Judys and Bobs as much as the Karls and Scooters, because the Karls and Scooters never pretended that they were working for us.