Lehrer - Not in the entertainment business

[scandal 951]

Signing off of Friday's broadcast, Jim Lehrer outlined the journalistic mindset that has driven the program for 34 years and will continue to guide it when its fifth iteration relaunches Monday as the PBS NewsHour:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2009/1...journalism.html

JIM LEHRER: People often ask me if there are guidelines in our practice of what I like to call MacNeil/Lehrer journalism. Well, yes, there are. And here they are:

* Do nothing I cannot defend.

* Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.

* Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.

* Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am.

* Assume the same about all people on whom I report.

* Assume personal lives are a private matter, until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise.

* Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories, and clearly label everything.

* Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes, except on rare and monumental occasions.

* No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.

* And, finally, I am not in the entertainment business.

Here is how I closed a speech about our changes to our PBS stations family last spring:

"We really are the fortunate ones in the current tumultuous world of journalism right now. When we wake up in the morning, we only have to decide what the news is and how we are going to cover it. We never have to decide who we are and why we are there."

That is the way it has been for these nearly 35 years. And that's the way it will be forever. And for the NewsHour, there will always be a forever.

[thongd4me 69]

I agree, it's one of few news programs that are not "schools for scandal."

Sometimes I watch the BBC too.

Edited December 6, 2009 by thongd4me

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I rarely watch the News Hour anymore, but I enjoyed back in the days when Mark Shields and David Gergen would provide political commentary. One thing that always made me feel uncomfortable about the show is that it is sponsored by Archer Daniels Midland.

....

THE ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS scandal only cracks the surface of the extra-curricular funding of journalists and their ilk. The most common source of this funding is from large corporations with huge political agendas. Their money goes to the journalists through two primary conduits: sponsorship of television shows and speaking fees.

The former funnel is typified by the purportedly sacred Jim Lehrer Hour being supported by Archer Daniels Midland which has been constantly in trouble with the law. Edward Shanahan of Downstreet sums up the problem well:

"'The Informant,' written by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald, is not a novel, but a true-crime thriller about the long-running international price-fixing scheme orchestrated by the Archer Daniels Midland Co., which resulted in the theft of millions and millions of dollars from consumers around the world. . . In its advertising spots, ADM prefers to be linked to news programs, particularly the much admired News Hour with Jim Lehrer, viewed nightly by the so-called egg-head audience, which is made up of many of the nation's policy makers. . .

"The Informant" draws a detailed picture of a rogue corporation whose expressed position was that "our competitors are our friends, our customers are our enemies." The book traces in painstaking but precise detail the government investigation of ADM's price-fixing activities that began in 1992 and resulted in the company pleading guilty and paying a fine of $100 million. In addition in 1999, three of ADM's top executives, including Mark Whitaker, the psychotic informant who brought the company and himself down, were sentenced to prison for their role in the worldwide price-fixing scheme.

"And yet the myth continues to be broadcast to millions of listeners and viewers each day that ADM is a friend to the world's people, and as evidence of its goodness it enables us to listen to the important news of the day by its generous 'underwriting' or corporate sponsorship.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...ess=132x1497833