brett florio

The media want to maintain their intimate relation to state power. They want to get leaks, they want to get invited to the press conferences. They want to rub shoulders with the Secretary of State, all that kind of business. To do that, you’ve got to play the game, and playing the game means telling their lies, serving as their disinformation apparatus.

Noam Chomsky, Chronicles of Dissent

I’m coming to believe that the best media is the that which views itself not as an ally with the state, but as the champion of truth and the exposer of secrets and lies. For the Obama administration to expect that a free press should be a friendly press betrays an underlying belief in the control of information and public opinion.

This is not a defense of Fox News. Nor is it an attack on the Obama administration; the Republicans and the Democrats both attempt to control the media in the same ways. This is, rather, my realization that a large media organization being critical of the current political powers should neither be ostracized nor ignored. It’s existence should be cherished as a symbol of the free press.

If you don’t believe that, try imagining eight years of Bush (W.) without a press critical of (almost) every action. Now imagine the same with Obama. Most Americans would imagine one of those two options catastrophic, yet wouldn’t be bothered by the other. The fact is that if either situation were allowed to exist, the end result would be the same. Power would be consolidated, the “checks and balances” we so cherish would slip even further into the make-believe, individual rights and freedoms would be trampled, dissidence would be tantamount to treason, and recovery would take generations.

Controversy? You can’t be any kind of reporter worthy of the name and avoid controversy completely. You can’t be a good reporter and not be fairly regularly involved in some kind of controversy. And I don’t think you can be a great reporter and avoid controversy very often, because one of the roles a good journalist plays is to tell the tough truths as well as the easy truths. And the tough truths will lead you to controversy, and even a search for the tough truths will cost you something.

Dan Rather, interview in Staff, “Dan Rather Interview: Broadcast Journalist, On the Frontlines of Breaking News”, Academy of Achievement, May 5, 2001.