What kind of dog...

As Thomas Jefferson once said the press is supposed to be the watchdog of the American government. But as my dad often likes to say in this post-Watergate era the press has become the lapdog of those it favors in government and the attack dog of those it dislikes.

This criticism of the press isn’t limited to one of my father’s favorite sayings. There are many people who don’t trust the press, which they see as all too often conforming to a liberal agenda.
In a 1997 interview in the Columbia Journalism Review (March/April 1997) endorsing news councils, Mike Wallace commented about the state of American media.

“There is growing skepticism, it seems to me, about all our credible institutions. There’s been skepticism about the press for two-hundred odd years since we became a nation. But now there seems a different quality, at least from any that I’ve understood in my lifetime There seems to be a genuine anger toward the press that I’ve not seen previously,” Wallace said.

Although some debate this criticism, in the newsrooms I’ve been present in the agenda of the editors is often clear. This agenda may not be the agenda of the American people, but what the editors, who are far more “educated” by their own standards, than the average public. The public distrust of today’s media can be attributed to the perceived bias and the belief that journalist are out for their own interests not the interests of the public.

Ten years later, Wallace’s vision of the news council has not been achieved and the sentiment of the American people toward journalists is very much the same. Recent crises such as those of Jason Blair have reinforced negative opinions about journalists from the public. Wallace’s assessment of the media also mentioned the increasing divide between journalists and the public.

“I think that we are dismissive of public concerns. I think that there is a certain degree of arrogance. There is a certain degree of elitism in the press that didn’t use to be there.”

Minnesota and Washington have established news councils to battle this problem. In Washington the news council’s mission is “to help maintain public trust and confidence in the news by promoting, fairness, accuracy and balance, and by creating a fourm where the pubic and the news media can engage each other in examining standards of journalistic fairness and accountability.”

At first the idea of a news council did not appeal to me, but after some contemplation I realized the positive role they could play for newspapers today. News councils provide an opportunity for the public to gain trust in the media, as well as to serve a more active role in the media. The Washington News Council emphasizes that though media organizations' participation is voluntary, it helps to promote trust of the media.

It is unclear whether or not news councils are the answer for the lack of trust that people possess in today’s media, but it is one of the viable solutions being presented. It is clear that the public does not have the degree of trust in newspapers they once did. The accountability of news councils could both help the cause of journalists and help the public they serve.