There is journalism. And there is the pretense of journalism, that which has been co-opted by the very power structures and social forces journalism should be monitoring and holding up to the light for all to see. There is a measureless difference between the two. The first is a profession and a (necessary) service and benefit to society. The second is a propaganda/PR/political tool in the service of particular economic, philosophical and political interests. The first requires of its practitioner's depth, independence of thought, and boundless respect for and curiosity about both the details of facts and the living truth they represent. The second requires loyalty of its agents.
Armstrong Williams, for instance, might be called "loyal," or he might be called something else; but when the conservative talk-show commentator and newspaper columnist took $240,000 of taxpayers' money from the U.S. Department of Education to promote the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" act, he could not be considered an honest, independent journalist. Maggie Gallagher, a syndicated columnist, took $21,500 of tax payers' money from the Department of Health and Human Services to promote Bush's 'Marriage Initiative." There will be more loyal flacks disguised as journalists who will lose their cover soon. A spokesman for the Department of Education said the Williams matter was a "straight" public relations contract. When the Department of Education is able to use the word "straight" to describe hiring a mouthpiece to pose as a journalist it is an indication that American education is confusing cows with horses. It also means that "straight" in the Bush administration is not to be confused with "integrity," or even "straight talking," or "straight shooting" or "playing it straight." Perhaps, or perhaps not, or, maybe, with enough political capital to squander, or not, it could be, under the right circumstances, that the meaning of a word is, sometimes, possibly, optional. Or not. Depending, probably, on how "quaint" or malleable is the word. "Freedom," for instance, is just another word up for sale, grabs or utilization in the Bush dyslexicon, a word he used more than 20 times in the coronation address.
Loyalty is not the same as integrity, any more than a cow is not the same as a horse. In journalism and elsewhere these two (loyalty and integrity) are sometimes confused, but the question arises: which one is "straight?"
I recently ran across an old, familiar quote from James Agee in as essay about him in the Columbia Journalism Review. Agee, one of America's great if largely ignored writers, wrote "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," "A Death in the Family," and the screenplay for John Huston's "African Queen." He died at 45 in 1955, three years before "A Death in the Family" won a Pulitzer Prize. I had not seen the quote in many years, though I first read it in 1960 and included it in a 1969 manuscript of my own in which I wrote the following. "We of modern civilization and culture are to some extent journalistic products, and one of the better descriptions of journalism was given to the world by James Agee: 'Who, what, where, when and why (or how) is the primal cliché and complacency of journalism: but I do not wish to appear to speak favorably of journalism...Journalism can within its own limits be 'good' or 'bad', 'true' or 'false,' but it is not in the nature of journalism even to approach any less relative degree of truth. Again, journalism is not to be blamed for this; no more than a cow is to be blamed for not being a horse. The difference is, and the reason one can respect or anyhow approve of the cow, that few cows can have the delusion or even the desire to be horses, and that none of them could get away with it even with a small part of the public."
The primal cliché and complacency of journalism. There is good journalism that is objective and true, and there is bad journalism that is false and misleading. Neither of them can "approach any less relative degree of truth," and it is the primal cliché and complacency of journalist and reader alike to miss that point. The nature of good journalism is to point out the rough facts—who, what, where, when and why (or how), but it is incapable of making comprehensible the living nature of those rough facts. Good journalism is like a first draft, an outline, a starting point and a compass on the long road to understanding. The nature of bad journalism is the same as anything that is bad: it is a failure of the journalist who produces it and of the reader who accepts it. The cliché and complacency of both (journalist and reader) lies in the easy acceptance of the illusion that complex matters can be grasped in a few (or a few hundred) words on a printed page or in a TV newscast. The difference between good journalism and bad journalism is the difference between a healthy cow and one with mad cow disease. The former will provide a meal, sustenance, something to chew on, but any less relative degree of truth requires a non-complacent burning off of its energy in the effort to understand more than clichés. The latter, of course, has holes in its brain and will put holes in yours if you buy it.
In this time when the Bush administration has spent more on public relations efforts than any administration in history, it is worth remembering that the difference between journalism and public relations is the difference between a cow and a horse. As Agee wrote, "The difference is, and the reason one can respect or anyhow approve of the cow, that few cows can have the delusion or even the desire to be horses, and that none of them could get away with it even with a small part of the public."
We can only hope Agee was correct on this last point.
Dick Dorworth
