Every time Kentucky, my home state, appears in the national spotlight it's embarrassing.
Our idiot governor incited all sorts of bad press earlier this year when he released some 600 felons early to save budget money. A few weeks ago, the Miami Herald started another Kentucky brouhaha.
The Herald published a story casting suspicion on the Kentucky Derby's winning jockey, Jose Santos, due to a single photo. The image purportedly showed Santos carrying an illegal shocking device known as a "battery" to spur his mount to victory.
The allegation was so obviously false that it was preposterous, yet the Herald ran its charge, which received national attention and resulted in an official inquiry that eventually cleared Santos.
Courier-Journal columnist Bob Hill wrote that the story was "over-rushed and under-reported." Hill then went further, stating that incidents like this have corroded the public's trust of the media. Those points have weight.
Author Steven Brill once said that "when it comes to arrogance, power and lack of accountability, journalists are the only people on the planet who make lawyers look good." That scathing statement has a rash of recent incidents bolstering it.
The New York Times pink-slipped reporter Jayson Blair for fabricating and plagiarizing stories. Times columnist Maureen Dowd is under fire for blatantly misquoting President Bush. The Los Angeles Times is dealing with tribulations stemming from a manipulated war photo.
The Salt Lake City Tribune canned two reporters who sold info to the National Enquirer and lied about it. CNN news chief Eason Jordan stabbed his network's credibility in the neck when he revealed withholding pertinent information about Saddam Hussein's regime in order to keep a news bureau open in Baghdad.
The news organizations in the spotlight can't be enjoying the attention. When your sins have been exposed, it's never comfortable because you know somebody sees them and you're made to account for them.
Columnist Pam Platt noted that "credibility is our [journalists'] most prized possession" and that "it must be earned." Platt's comments nailed it considering news ratings can be attributed to the people's trust of the provider.
These incidents should be carefully observed by practicing journalists and journalism students at Ball State. Journalists are arbiters of information to the general public and bear the responsibility of disseminating relevant, factual news.
Accuracy is essential to the citizens who partake and trust those who inform them. Inaccuracy is tantamount to propagating a lie.
Journalism isn't about public causes, idealism or changing the world -- descriptors used way too often by those going into and in the profession. It's about facts and reporting what happens without prejudice but certainly with passion.
That passion should be making sure the truth is spoken. If not, people get unjustly smeared and tarnished, or in Eason Jordan's case, executed.
Jose Santos got tarred and was forced to fight asinine charges. Santos, to his credit handled it well, saying he it was like he had won the Derby a second time.
The problem is he should only have had to win once.
Write to Jeff at mannedarena@yahoo.com
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