In taking Congress (admittedly a hotbed of hypocrisy) to task for holding the news media accountable for their tragicomedy of errors election night, Steve Chapman argues that the cardinal rule of journalism is telling the truth (“Who asked Congress to serve as editors?” Commentary, Feb. 18).
That may once have been so, and I’m sure that for many fine journalists and editors (including those at the Tribune), that remains their guiding principle.
But the facts of what happened that night lead one to a new guiding principle, at least at the corporate level.
The major broadcast organizations, in an effort to save money, abandoned independent polling and collectively financed a voter polling service used by all.
Having done that, there was still a perceived need to get the edge on the competition by independently analyzing the data (incorrectly, as it happened) and being first with projections. Those were the two major factors in the election-night fiasco, and neither of them involved putting the truth first.
Instead, they reveal the new cardinal rule of journalism: become a profit center for the corporation. Cutting costs and getting a bigger market share are the primary means to that end.
To the extent that the pursuit of truth doesn’t have a negative impact on profits, or create controversy with the potential for hurting profits, telling the truth remains a useful product–but the cardinal rule? When even “60 Minutes” can be silenced in the interests of protecting a corporate merger, pursuit of the truth has been replaced by pursuit of profit.
But after all, what’s the market value of the truth?
