WHAT'S IN A JACKET ?
At the beginning of October...
...this reporter was honored by the management of The Freedom Forum's Newseum, the Washington D.C. area's newest museum. The leather jacket I wore for a number of on-air reports during the Gulf War was taken into the Newseum's collection of tools, artefacts and keepsakes of the reporting craft.
It was a thrill to present my jacket to Joe Urschel, the Newseum's executive director, but this had to be a humbling experience for any current day newshound: the splendid displays and interactive exhibits include relics of many of the pioneers and giants of our discipline.Consider the company my jacket is now keeping. It's hanging alongside New York Times reporter John Burns' bullet-proof vest, which he wore in Sarajevo while pounding out Pulitzer Prize winning reports about the war in Bosnia. There's Peter Arnett's comrex voice-box from Baghdad, and the worry beads Life photographer Tony O'Brien worked through his fingers to keep his spirits up while in captivity under Afghanistan's former Communist government.
I was lucky enough to cross paths with all three of these heavyweights in the field, and it's truly wonderful to join them now at the Newseum.
But there's a broader purpose here. As Curator Cara Sutherland and public affairs officer Ann Rauscher explained to me, the Newseum is not a shrine to reporters and reporting. It's a place where the public -- the consumers of news -- can consider different ways of looking at the policies, practices and pretences of our industry. For instance, some people might look at the leather jacket and see it as a cosmetic device, a piece of wardrobe that smoothed one correspondent's way into the awareness of the audience. Or on the other hand, they might remember that I was wearing the jacket for more than just the SCUD missile attacks on Dhahran. I used it to ward off the desert's night-time chill when our unit did a special program on the under-reported, more troublesome issues of the operation known as Desert Storm, including a lengthy interview live via satellite with Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams.
During that exchange, Mr. Williams uttered the incredible statement: "There is no censorship in the Gulf." This remark, as yet unrecanted by the former Pentagon spokesman, stands as a symbol of failure on the part of our industry as a whole. That's because it is the very ability of any governmental, military or corporate authority to deny that it is enforcing censorship -- despite obvious, damning evidence to the contrary -- that is the oxygen of propaganda and disinformation. Censorship hides behind lies. It can't function without deception. We, as reporters, are supposed to be in the business of exposing these lies and the officials who employ them. But a meek, disunited and over-commercialized news media can't hope to compete with spin-doctors, censors and propagandists.
Along with the jacket, I donated to the Newseum a video-tape compilation of our unit's reports from the Gulf, including the Williams interview. I hope that both represent a contribution to public awareness and debate over the role and responsibilities of America's journalists.
During an interview by Kathryn Scott, the Newseum's broadcast producer, I reminded our audience that the airwave frequencies used by America's commercial television networks belong to them, the American people. The airwaves are not owned by corporate czars or journalists -- they are, in effect, loaned out by the people through their government to the broadcasting companies.
So although a conglomerate like General Electric owns the corporate body of a network like NBC, the license for broadcasting NBC programs can by law be revoked if the network fails to provide quality content in the best interests of the public. For example, transforming NBC's News Division into a G.E.-styled profit center concerned mainly with soft or sensational ratings-driven material is a clear violation of the standards and practice established by industry pioneers and their regulatory watchdogs at the FCC. The fact that the erosion of quality and public service at NBC and elsewhere continues virtually unchallenged by America's journalistic elite is another troubling situation we must, as a community of professionals, come to grips with.
Institutions like the Newseum can help encourage us to do so. For inviting me to help out (even with a somewhat questionably-styled garment in Italian leather) I offer my sincere thanks to the Newseum's management and staff.