Editor & Publisher’s, Dave Astor writes today about columnist Cal Thomas’ comments on Fox News a few days ago, where Thomas stated that the media censoring itself regarding the war might be something he’d agree with.
Thomas said voluntary censorship “might force some in the media who believe anything they know or can find out is deserving of publication to realize that not everything is — and to focus on their responsibilities as citizens as well as their privileges as journalists, which in my view, are linked.”
The first thing that comes to mind after reading this passage is the whole “flag pin” issue that came up in the journalism world shortly after 9/11. If you don’t remember, many journalists were instructed to remove pins that a lot of Americans were wearing while they were on camera, because it was believed that wearing the pins took away objectivity as reporters and broadcasters.
As for the first part of the statement, about determining what is “deserving of publication,” I have a little bit more agreement with it. A lot of people have complained about Fox News going bonkers with “news flash” items, with every single story deserving a headline at the bottom of the screen. That’s probably a good example. Another would be the constant reporting of WMDs and other items all throughout the “major fighting” portion of the war - when none had actually been found. Fact checking wasn’t exactly being done everywhere, was it….?
