This year's duPont-Columbia Award winners demonstrate some important points about television and radio journalism: that it can report not only the breaking story but also the ideas, ideologies, and passions behind it; that it can bring the distant world closer and bring home our distance from the world next door; that it can report the most complex political issues, trace social and historical trends, and track scientific events and developments. One of the winners this year demonstrates journalism under attack in the legal system where, win or lose, journalism loses - if not legally, then financially and practically, by promoting fear and the loss of will to do investigative reporting. Finally this year's winners demonstrate electronic journalism at its best - in illuminating the human condition.
 It's ironic to reflect that while we gather to celebrate these triumphs of our trade, journalists are more and more seen in the public eye as not quite human themselves.

 Some of the hostility arises from the strange new world of megacorporations, megamoguls, and dazzling new technology that journalists themselves are just learning to live with. It used to be, in towns all over America, that the newspaper publisher was some guy whose last name readers recognized and, often, whose face they knew. Now the publisher/broadcaster is a distant bureaucracy whose last name is Incor-porated. It used to be, for people all over America, that "the news media" were some brash kid with a pencil and a notebook operating under the guidance and control of some green eyeshade, an experienced elder who caught errors, simplified prose, and guaranteed accuracy. Today the news media are viewed collectively by the public as a great, powerful behemoth - a seemingly faceless, mechanized, invulnerable, dehumanized Darth Vader reporting a reality in which ordinary citizens do not recognize themselves.

 Part of the problem with the public's unflattering perception lies in ourselves - and our own apparent lack of humanity. We're here to pick out the best, but there's too much of the worst kind of journalism going on out there, too. Too much reporting that is perpetrated by journalists who are insensitive or arrogant, self-righteous or sensational, unfair or unkind. And there is too much reporting which we may have the right to do but which may not be the right thing to do.

 Of course, journalism has to be aggressive. Journalists, working in the public interest, have to pursue the facts and the truth of the story. And often that takes courage, not only moral and physical courage but even the courage to be unpopular for revealing a story that is offensive to someone. Sometimes the truth leaves us uplifted and more often it leaves us furious.

 But there is a difference between probing into public corruption - and private pain. Between flashy exposure of wrongdoing - and flashy exposure of confusion and misunderstanding. Between telling a story that's important and pursuing a story that is simply sexy or sure to raise a ruckus - or ratings. That kind of journalism damages all of journalism.

 We're very good at defending all reporting by citing our constitutionally protected freedom. But lately I find myself wondering whether we try hard enough to come up with good reasons for self-restraint, for not telling a story. Sometimes we lose sight of the impact of our work on the human beings we're reporting about - from Admiral Jeremy Boorda to Richard Jewell to Vincent Foster. This is journalism that puts every journalist in the line of friendly fire. Some of the public mistrust and even some lawsuits are self-inflicted wounds - from mindless competition, questionable practices, and excesses of the trade.

 Being journalists who practice our trade professionally but who are not in the legal sense professionals, we don't have much recourse against those who wantonly and brazenly tarnish the field. We can't yank the licenses of incompetent journalists, as the medical profession can for incompetent doctors; we can't disbar unethical journalists, as the legal profession can unethical lawyers. Since journalism is the only line of work mentioned by name in the Bill of Rights, lots of dubious stuff can claim the same protection as the great and groundbreaking work we all admire.
 We gather at this annual ritual to renew our vows, restate our commitment to the public interest, and present models to which to aspire. Most important, these awards remind us of the essence of the best journalism: journalism crafted by thinking, feeling journalists who balance professional purpose with partnership in the human community.

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