What is the role of the mainstream media?

I've written here a bit before about responsible journalism, and what it looks like (and doesn't look like). In the wake of the Wikileaks situation (which I'm honestly still catching up on--but some of the responses to it have been downright scary), I think this issue has taken center stage. Witness this article from Gareth Porter, posted over at CounterPunch (emphasis mine).

A diplomatic cable from last February released by Wikileaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North Korea.

But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned those key facts about the document.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles - supposedly called the BM-25 - from North Korea. Neither newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the BM-25 from the U.S. side.

The Times, which had obtained the diplomatic cables not from Wikileaks but from The Guardian, according to a Washington Post story Monday, did not publish the text of the cable.

The Times story said the newspaper had made the decision not to publish "at the request of the Obama administration". That meant that its readers could not compare the highly- distorted account of the document in the Times story against the original document without searching the Wikileaks website. As a result, a key Wikileaks document which should have resulted in stories calling into question the thrust of the Obama administration's ballistic missile defense policy in Europe based on an alleged Iranian missile threat has instead produced a spate of stories buttressing anti-Iran hysteria.

Say what you will about the wisdom, legality, morality, or potential consequences of Wikileaks. The allegations that major news outlets have been making journalistic decisions based on input and requests from Obama administration officials is incredibly damning, and must make us wonder what purpose our media is now serving. In this case, who is less responsible as a "journalist"--Wikileaks or the New York Times? It's a difficult question to answer.

In an ideal world, our newspapers and other media outlets are our watchdogs, investigating and reporting to serve the public benefit. In a nightmare scenario, however, the media is the mouthpiece of government (or corporate) policy, spewing the biased propaganda of whoever may be pulling the strings. If we can't trust our press, the democracy suffers.

The freedom of the press is a fundamental right that has allowed our nation and economy to prosper, which makes these allegations of press complicity incredibly worrisome. A properly functioning democracy depends upon a well-informed populace; without it, a "perfect" democracy is impossible. To have that well-informed populace requires that our media outlets be unbiased, presenting balanced accounts of all stories. Regardless of whether we think the Wikileaks documents should have been released, once they have, it is the mainstream media's task to present the fairest possible accounts of their contents. Anything less must be considered irresponsible journalism.

Our government and media outlets ultimately both should be serving the public benefit, but this does not always mean that they will be working together (or toward common goals). When they are, we as the public should become very suspicious of them both--only in fascist regimes do the government and the media work in concert.

In fact, I believe that the Wikileaks situation would never have happened to begin with had not our media outlets begun to betray the public trust. When the collective believes that the media is serving its investigative purpose properly, there won't be any public desire (or need) for a site such as Wikileaks in the first place. But the founders of Wikileaks recognized that public distrust of the media was growing daily, and stepped into the void with an incredibly (and perhaps excessively) unfiltered version of the news.

Wikileaks is a symptom of a disease, not a disease itself. The mainstream media must recognize it as such, and respond properly.


[CounterPunch]