View From the Phlipside - Journalism Rant

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the Movies and more.  I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View From the Phlipside.

What follows is a rant.  An expression of personal outrage at a complete failure of the media in the last week.  Add my voice to those wondering just what happened with the coverage of the Shirley Sherrod speech.  Sherrod was the USDA official who was accused of racist comments during a speech before a chapter of the NAACP.  She temporarily lost her job because of the furor.

What outrages me in all of this was not the unthinking knee jerk reactions of the White House or the NAACP.  This is not a political commentary program.  My outrage is directed at the news outlets that failed to perform the most basic level of journalism in their coverage.  Journalism 101 teaches that you must always verify the story.  That single source stories are to be viewed with a certain scepticism.  That you always check the facts before you present them.  The coverage on this story was singularly lacking in this particular fundamental practice.

The first warning bells should have gone off with the name of Andrew Brietbart.  Brietbart is an advocate, not a journalist.  There’s nothing wrong with being an advocate but they operate under a different set of assumptions and rules than journalists.  As an advocate there is no call for him to verify whether the quotation was in or out of context.  It should have been the first thing a journalist should have done.  

Sadly journalism has descended to a place where it is more important to be fast rather than right.  There is much ballyhooing of the new age of “citizen journalism”.  Unless journalistic standards are respected and taught we must be honest and say that this is not a new age of journalism.  It is a return to days of “yellow” journalism and gossip mongering.  I truly fear for our republic if that is the best information available for our political discourse.

There is no excuse for what was presented as journalism in this case.  A woman’s life and career were very nearly destroyed.  All because no one at the White House, the NAACP or the vast majority of the media could be bothered to make a simple check on the veracity of their source.

Call that whatever you like, just don’t call it journalism.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010