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Not All The News That's Fit To Print

This story was printed in the NY Times. What's wrong with it?

Larry Langford, the former mayor of Birmingham, Ala., was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $360,000 by a federal judge after his conviction on bribery charges. Mr. Langford was convicted of multiple counts of bribery after a federal jury found that he had accepted more than $230,000 in cash, expensive clothing and jewelry as chairman of the Jefferson County Commission in exchange for steering $7.1 million in county bond business to a prominent investment banker named Bill Blount. Blount and a lobbyist, Al LaPierre, were sentenced to four years and four months and four years in prison, respectively. Some residents expressed sympathy on Friday for the former mayor's predicament. At a barbershop in a predominantly black neighborhood where the owner had hung a sign in the window reading, "We Support Our Mayor," Charles Hicks said he was disappointed by Mr. Langford's recent behavior but believed the former mayor was well-intentioned and was corrupted by wealthy businessmen.

Journalists were once taught to give the who, what, when, where, and why. All people want to know this basic information no matter what the subject. Writing teachers often tell students that they need to answer all the questions readers might ask. Every story may not have a who, what, when, where, and why, if it does, they need to be included.

So, Langford, the former mayor of Birmingham, Ala., was sentenced to 15 years in prison; Blount and LaPierre got about four. Langford was fined $360,000. Were Blount and LaPierre fined? Don't know. Langford was convicted of accepting more than (how much more than?) $230,000 in cash, expensive clothing and jewelry. Blount sold the county $7.1 million in bonds. What were Blount's commissions on this sale? Don't know. And did LaPierre get paid too? Don't know. If he did, how much did he get? Don't know. And who was the judge? Don't know.

Why is knowing any of this important? Well, what if Blount took home a cool million or more in commissions and wasn't fined? Langford took home $230,000 and was fined $360,000. Wouldn't that make you wonder about the fairness of this trial? And if so, wouldn't you like to know the name of the judge? Were the residents of Birmingham right who believed the former mayor was corrupted by wealthy businessmen? Did the judge aid and abet political corruption by issuing the heavier sentence and a fine greater than the accepted bribe on the corrupted official and issuing the lighter sentence and no fine on the corrupting businessmen? How many people would be quite willing to spend four years in prison if they could pocket a million?

When the legal system is unfair, justice is undone, and corruption is promoted. Is this why political corruption is so prevalent?

Mainstream American journalism has been subjected to the severest criticism by the American public. For instance, one recently posted piece states that there are five reasons that the mainstream media is worthless.

1. Self-Censorship by Journalists

As former Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin wrote in 2006: "Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. . . ." "If mainstream-media political journalists don't start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy— if not to the comedians then to the bloggers."

2. Censorship by Higher-Ups

The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said: "All of the institutions we thought would protect us -- particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress. . . . The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that's the most glaring. . . ."

3. Drumming Up Support for War

Bill Moyers criticized the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that the false information was not challenged because: "the [mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked."

4. Access

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post . . . offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and—at first—even the paper's own reporters and editors. . . . The offer—which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters. . . .

5. Censorship by the Government

Finally . . . the government has exerted tremendous pressure on the media to report things a certain way. Indeed, at times the government has thrown media owners and reporters in jail if they've been too critical. The media companies have felt great pressure from the government to kill any real questioning. . . . Dan Rather said, regarding American media, "What you have is a miniature version of what you have in totalitarian states".

To be sure, all of these criticisms are quite valid, but there are two more.

The mainstream media is not today and never has been exclusively devoted to "news." Newspapers have always been a hodgepodge of news, sports, opinion, entertainment, health, gossip, human interest, do-it-yourself, and even puzzles. When news went video, all of these were carried over. The evening news is not about "news"! And the temporal constraints of television news reduce reporting to nothing more than a series of sound bites.

Finally, there's just plain bad reporting as exemplified by the story that begins this piece.

No, not all the news that's fit to print by any means. Not at the NY Times or anywhere else.

©2010 John Kozy

About the Author

Retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer for various private companies. He's an active blogger. His pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/.

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