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November 2, 1999 12:39 p.m. EST -- It has been a tough year for the media - image-wise, that is - and it doesn't seem to be getting much better.
Polls show that public esteem for the nation's "messengers" not only is at an all-time low but also that it falls behind even Congress, the normal leader as the institution people most love to hate. We have only ourselves to blame.
The latest episodes in irresponsibility have taken place in the last couple of weeks and the result has been an intensification of the condemnation of our profession that one hears wherever he goes.
The first of these was the utterly baffling decision by a respected first-line publishing house, St. Martin's Press, to throw out all the rules on ethics and fairness and release a book that included an anonymous, unsubstantiated allegation about Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Even to repeat the allegation would be to compound the wrong, under the theory that the more it is reported, the more it is out there.
It is enough to say that the chief editor of St. Martin's has resigned, protesting that he was bypassed on the decision to print it and wants no association with the entire affair. The company, of course, recalled the 70,000 books it had distributed and had them destroyed in a classic case of closing the barn door too late.
The second of the media's recent exercises in self destruction has stimulated an even more visceral anti-press response from millions of television viewers and baseball fans who witnessed it as they tuned into that most sacred of all American sports rituals, the World Series. And rightfully so.
Opening night was to be a salute to the century's top players, including the game's leading hitter and most controversial figure, Pete Rose, who had received a one-day reprieve from baseball jail to take part in the ceremonies.
No matter how one feels about whether Rose, nicknamed "Charlie Hustle," should be banned from baseball for life and remain forever ineligible for the Hall of Fame, one thing is absolutely certain: What occurred in an interview with a "reporter" (and that word is used advisedly) during the presentation shouldn't have.
NBC's sideline person turned Rose's moment of limited triumph into a textbook example of the ugly newsman, badgering him unmercifully to repent his gambling sins on nationwide television. This unprofessional and truly unfair display so enraged the New York Yankees that they refused as a team to talk to the reporter, one Jim Gray, the next evening, thereby negating his worth to the network.
Displaying just the kind of arrogance the public loves to accuse us of, Gray at first refused to apologize, justifying his bad judgment as necessary to get at the truth of Rose's indiscretions. Balderdash. The job of a reporter is to seek information. Since Rose has resolutely denied for 10 years that any of his betting was on baseball, including during a question-and-answer session earlier in the day, the reporter already knew what his response would be. There was no need to ask again.
Therefore, it is correct to assume that two things were at play here. Gray was trying both to embarrass Rose and to do so while making himself look like an aggressive professional who wasn't going to be a part of all this sentimental hero worship. The public outrage reached such a level that Gray has since backed off his unapologetic stance with a nudge from the network. The Yankees eased up with a push from George Steinbrenner.
St. Martin's Press, in what seems like a bit of face-saving, blamed the matter on a failure to do a proper background check of the author, not on the fact that its editors not only encouraged the printing of unverified information but also actually had it added to the manuscript. The author turns out to be somewhat less than reputable. The publisher just doesn't seem to understand that the author could have been Ernest Hemingway and the information still shouldn't have been printed.
Taken by themselves, these two incidents probably wouldn't have been as debilitating to the media's image if they hadn't come during a time in which newspapers are paying off huge settlements before anyone sues because a reporter broke the law and prominent columnists are fired for making things up and renowned television reporters are dismissed for their part in a bad story about nerve gas and on and on.
The cumulative impact has been devastating.
Dan Thomasson is former editor of Scripps Howard News Service.