How to Restore Integrity to the American Media

Media outlets in the United States (except for Bush-friendly FOX) are under attack from their government. As the Bush administration vows to bring the hammer down on journalists who dare defy them by printing the actual truth of the secret activities of a cabal of politicians who have no regard for laws, either domestic or international, I believe there is one very simple tool in the media's collective arsenal that they can use to fight back: stop protecting anonymous sources of Bush propaganda.

The Bush administration has a huge communications budget and each department has its own spokespeople and shills willing to leak all that is good about whatever it is they are doing. The fact that mainstream newspapers and other media outlets allow these sources to remain anonymous, when there is absolutely no reason to do so, is beyond me. There is no justification for papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post to quote anonymous 'senior administration officials' when the news they are printing only attempts to bolster that administration's public image.

The only sources who require and deserve protection are the true whistleblowers - people who would be persecuted and/or prosecuted by Bushco for releasing information that contradicts the government's agenda or its willingness to conduct covert operations that harm the American people as well as global citizens seriously affected by damaging US policy decisions, such as those who are still being kidnapped by the CIA and rendered to other countries to be tortured in secret prisons.

The complicity of the media to simply play along as administration mouthpieces while decrying actions by that same administration that has declared war on them for publishing the truth that the public sorely needs to know and which Bushco refuses to otherwise allow access to is a dangerous game.

If the media really are serious about their concern for the integrity of their precious fourth estate, they need to take concrete action - quickly. By refusing to cover for administration officials whose only purpose is to try to cause Bush's approval numbers to rise again, the media would show that they're no longer willing to be the puppets they have been to this point. If any case is a statement for such action, it is that of the NYT's Judith Miller being used as a very useful and willing pawn for the claim that Saddam had WMDs.

If the NYT and other media sources have learned anything during the tenure of this administration, it ought to be that their pandering to anonymous sources has been detrimental to their country and the world. Raising objections through editorials is not enough. It's time to prepare for battle and to go on the offense instead of continually reacting from a defensive posture.

Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.
Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)