September/October 2000 | Contents

FRONT-PAGE ADS AND OTHER SUPPOSED THREATS TO CREDIBILITY

BY GENEVA OVERHOLSER

Credibility, we newspaper people like to think, will be our salvation.

In the vast, uncharted sea of new media, our work will be valued because this quality distinguishes it from all the rest -- credibility. Acquired by huge corporations, newspapers will be more than just another product because people seeking reliable information will value us above all -- for our credibility.

For a craft that puts so much stock in credibility, however, we're faulty at protecting it. Not that we don't fret about it. Indeed, we react with loud national fits of outrage to developments we perceive as undermining our credibility. But we take our stands over odd issues, it sometimes seems to me -- meanwhile leaking credibility like a sieve on more important ones.

For example, one thing we know is crucial to our credibility is independence from commercial pressures. The public must have confidence that our reporting grows out of our commitment to accuracy and fairness -- not someone's agenda for financial gain.

Now, if you judge by decibel levels, one of the greatest threats to this kind of independence today comes when a newspaper places an advertisement on page one.

Never mind that many fine newspapers -- a great many abroad, The New York Times at home -- have long had ads on their front pages. Never mind that no wall is breached, no news polluted. Such a hue and cry arises that it seems we must surely believe that one more paper has made a pact with the devil.

But isn't our indignation misplaced? Having an ad on the front page may look tacky. It may take away newshole. But it's not corrupting: It's straightforward, not deceitful. The public likes ads. They also like news, of course. And they want clarity about which is which. Beyond that, our conventions about where ads appear are just that: our conventions. Protecting them may suit our fancy; it doesn't maintain our credibility.

Meanwhile, we behave in ways that do raise public concerns about commercial influence. We have "issue" ads packaged to look like news, and "advertorials" whose authorship is vague. We report scantily on ourselves as a business. And more than a few of us pull punches when it comes to reporting something our owners or our advertisers might not like -- as a recent survey in this magazine confirmed.

No wonder then that the public has qualms about our commercial independence. As the American Society of Newspaper Editors notes, people a dozen years ago felt that the balance between journalism and business was about right. Now, ASNE adds, "Research suggests people have questions about what newspapers base their decisions on," with 63 percent pointing to "the profit motive" as "often improperly influencing" reporting.

They didn't get that idea from seeing ads on the front page.

Then there is another time-honored element of credibility, independence from sources. We all profess to operate according to that revered philosophy of reporting "without fear or favor." But do we?

Last May, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post accepted a deal from an airline publicist: They got exclusive details about a big story, so long as reporters promised to make no other calls for comment: the airlines didn't want any balance in the story. And the three newspapers accepted.

We are especially adamant about freedom from any kind of government manipulation -- a fervor that can drive us right into the arms of other sources. Thus did some Washington reporters lose their skepticism during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and allow themselves to be tools of the principal actors, -- particularly (though not exclusively) the prosecutorial side. The thirst for leaks, the unbalanced use of information from those leaks, and the widespread embrace of anonymous sourcing were corrosive. Indeed, news from the trial of Ken Starr's spokesman, Charles Bakaly, would indicate that some may have gone so far as to cooperate even in deceiving the public about whether individuals had been sources.

We are supposed to be the public's eyes on those in power. After the Lewinsky scandal, can the public's faith in our ability to keep an eye on prosecutorial abuses remain as strong?

On and on we in the media go, taking righteous stands just out of kilter from where they should be. We're all atwitter if Leonardo DiCaprio interviews the president: an appalling blurring of entertainment and news. Compared to what? The public thinks: the television news we see every day?

Too often it's clear that what we're protecting is not our principles, but our egos. Or our ability to get a story first.

We're protecting ourselves.

But the only way really to protect our credibility is to hold ourselves accountable to the public. After all, credibility isn't about what we think, it's about whether readers believe us. We've got to bring our outrage into better alignment with our impact.

Geneva Overholser (genevaoh@aol.com), a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group, writes regularly for CJR about newspapers. Among postions she has held are editorial writer for The New York Times, editor of The Des Moines Register, and ombudsman for The Washington Post. She also served nine years on the Pulitzer Prize board.