Newseum sheds light on journalism highs, lows

I am dangerous; watch out for the likes of me. At least that's what the speaker at a meeting I attended last week would tell you. \nHe spoke to about 40 people about legislation in the works related to polling practices and ended his spiel with a serious warning: Don't let the press get their hands on this; we need to take some time before they reduce it to soundbytes and twist it around. \nWhoa, buddy. Was he serious? I looked around the room to see if anyone shared my shock at his adversarial rhetoric, only to find blank stares. This attitude toward the press comes as no surprise, but it was highly unsettling to feel like a sticky-fingered child in a room full of wrathful librarians. \nIn the interest of shaking off the slimy, wrongly accused feeling, I visited the Newseum, a museum that commemorates big stories and the people who reported them. The first exhibit I saw put a microscope to the blind eye that the New York Times turned to the Holocaust, highlighting a lighthearted story that ran on page one in 1942. It was an account of the governor of New York giving away his tennis shoes for scrap rubber, while a brief story about 700,000 Jewish deaths was buried on page six, marked with a headline barely larger than the rest of the newsprint. My effort at saluting the flag of journalistic integrity was failing miserably. \nShuffling through the Newseum, I came across another account of a flagrant wrong, and this one had wings. There was a huge reproduction of an engraving of flying bat-people frolicking on a spacescape. The blurb said it was printed in 1835 in a four-part series that detailed life in outer space that had been observed by an "all powerful" telescope stationed in the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. The journalist later admitted (over drinks) that he'd made it all up. All I could do was shake my head to think this lunatic was allowed to grasp a press pass. \nMy quest for validation started to shape up when I scanned accounts of progress that had been launched by the truth gathered by journalists -- abolition of slavery, women's voting rights and freedom from monopoly power. One exhibit was about a journalist who uncovered the fact that Ford had left an $11 part out of its Pinto model -- a part that would have prevented sometimes-fatal explosions after rear collisions. After the story ran, Ford recalled the Pintos and fixed the cars. So there; I wished the man who'd painted journalists to be a group of deviant rogues was there to see that. \nConsidering the bat-martian stories, I can see where Mr. "Journalists are evil" has a grievance. There are bad journalists in the mix, and when they shatter one person's trust they are inviting the cynicism and distrust that makes it harder for the public and journalists to proceed normally. But he isn't considering the legions of journalists who are driven by the idealism of their noble crusade for the truth. Many see their work as a service. How else could you explain the million journalist hours spent in town council meetings every year?\nMy personal distaste for the "us" versus "them" attitude held toward journalists probably goes back to the idea of a sticky-fingered child amid hostile librarians. The only difference is that the child I see is naive, and largely wants to observe the world, ask a thousand questions and try to paint the most accurate picture possible. Some journalists never want to grow up, preferring to live vicariously through everyone else, from the notable to the notorious. Indeed, once profit considerations are thrown in the mix, things get a bit more complex, not to mention the shades of gray that "truth" often comes in. \nAll considered, Mr. "Journalist-basher" would benefit from a trip to the Newseum. It would give him a chance to see the profession the way journalists view it, not from the perspective of a few isolated wrongs. He would see that journalists are dedicated to admitting their mistakes and trying to learn from them. He'd see memorials to journalists who died trying to gather news. He'd get a sense of the pride journalists have for paving the way to change and giving a voice to those who would otherwise be silent. He'd relive the moments that are stamped in the nation's collective memory, brought to radio, print and screen by journalists. He'd probably be a bit jealous that journalists get to be the fly on the curtain near the stage of history, and it would serve him right.