Jed Pressgrove is a graduate student in sociology. He can be contacted at [email protected].The New York Times executive editor Bill Keller could use a refresher course of journalism ethics.
The Times ran a story last week that suggested an affair had occurred between presidential candidate John McCain and a female lobbyist whose name isn’t important. Sources were provided for this suggestion, and they were all anonymous. McCain denied the affair, expressing disappointment with The Times‘ report.
As a journalist who has always heard overwhelming praise for The Times, I am disappointed in Keller’s un-journalistic justification for running the article.
According to CNN.com, Keller said: “We publish stories when they are ready. ‘Ready’ means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats. This story was no exception. It was a long time in the works.”
It shouldn’t matter whether “the facts have been nailed down to our [journalists’] satisfaction” or if the story “was a long time in the works.” This field isn’t about our satisfaction with the facts, and I hope it never becomes such a blatant self-interest cause.
Yes, I love searching for the truth as much as any journalist, but you shouldn’t run a story about an affair between a presidential candidate and lobbyist unless you have sources willing to release their names. And even then the issue could be irrelevant (i.e., unworthy of precious publication space).
Anonymous sources should be used only when totally necessary. For example, the Watergate story couldn’t have moved forward without anonymous sources. And information that links the president of the United States to criminal activities is something Americans need to know.
On the other hand, we don’t need to know McCain had sex with a lobbyist. In fact, many of us would rather not know. It’s the type of pornographic story that shouldn’t make it to home video, and if it did our culture should be doomed by the gods.
Keller also said “the story speaks for itself.”
Again, incredibly wrong and misguided. How can the story speak for itself when some of the sources are anonymous? If anything the invisible people are speaking for themselves (if they were ever real in the first place).
Moreover, the story, being a treasure chest of crap, also speaks for people like Keller. It tells us he doesn’t care about what we need to know and is instead enamored with what he can tell us.
As if suggesting an affair between McCain and a lobbyist with anonymous sources wasn’t enough, The Times article babbles for numerous paragraphs on McCain’s previous controversy with Charles Keating. Why did the article rub this old wound? To open a new one. Unfortunately, the affair doesn’t become any more believable by treading over an old scandal. The Times was truly desperate.
To conclude, I share this particular sentence from The Times article: “Even as he [McCain] has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.”
Ironic that an article published with virtually no consideration of obvious ethics seeks to illustrate the unethical sins of another.