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It is a delight to be with you this morning.
So for the first
35 years of my career I worked in broadcast news – I began in 1970 as producer,
then a White House producer during the Carter and Reagan administrations, later
I was the CBS News Washington Bureau Chief and then the Executive Vice President
for CBS News in New York. In 1995 I was
recruited by Rupert Murdoch to become President of Fox News, before the cable
channel was launched, and I left a year later when the newly appointed Chairman
of News, Roger Ailes, told me he wanted to create and “alternative news
channel.” I told him I don’t do
alternative news, and quit. But I later
founded and ran Telemundo’s news division.
The Spanish language network is based in Miami.
I was inspired to become a journalist by two great CBS News
broadcasters, Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. I would later work with Walter at CBS News,
then the “most trusted man in America.” I learned that a free press is important for a
democracy because it enables the public to make informed decisions. But news organizations were even then under
attack from government leaders for their quote “biased coverage” of the Vietnam
War, for fanning the flames of the Civil Rights movement, and soon for making
up the Watergate scandal, which would bring down President Richard Nixon. These were not easy times for the news
media—in fact the Nixon administration ordered illegal wiretaps on reporters,
and one of its members told the head of CBS News, “We will break your
network.” History would show that the
journalists had it right, and their coverage changed public opinion.
One of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, once wrote,
“The only security of all is a free press – the agitation it produces must be
submitted to. It keeps the waters
pure.”
But today we see great polarization in America, not only in
the public debate, but also in the consumption of news and information. The
explosion of social and online news sources, and the impact of 24-hour news
channels that are filled with political opinion, has created communication
silos. For instance, the conservative
Fox News Channel (Trump’s favorite), or the liberal MSNBC news channel are
examples. Many people consume only information
that reinforces their own biases, and they seldom hear other views.
Moreover, President Donald Trump is waging an unprecedented
attack on the media, as are many of his supporters. Trump calls the media “the
enemy of the American people,” or, "among the most dishonest groups of
people I have ever dealt with", and he regularly decries what he
calls “fake news.” His attacks are meant
to distract Americans, and to deter and discredit journalists. Regrettably, these attacks are having some
impact on the American people as polls show distrust in the media
increasing. Worse, The Radio Television
Digital News Association reported that there were 44 physical attacks on
reporters in 2017. Thirty of those
attacks came during the civil unrest in Charlottesville Virginia.
And the consequences of the president’s attacks on the press
are felt around the world. The Committee
to Protect Journalists says these attacks are “Undermining press freedoms
everywhere.” The Committee reported that
262 journalists were in jail at the end of 2017. They
report that 33 have been killed so far this year. Some of the toughest world leaders on press
freedom are Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping in China and Recep Erdogan of Turkey,
all leaders Trump greatly admires.
Dean Baquet, the Executive Editor of the New York Times, this
past April said, Trump’s attacks “hurts
the media. //And I think this is debilitating.”
Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron has often observed the
attacks have a “corrosive effect on democracy.”
In an interview earlier this year he said, “Trump certainly is
trying to undermine confidence in our reporting. But we know what our mission
is. And our mission is to try to find the truth, to get at the truth. And
that's what we try to do every day.” CNN’s President, Jeff Zucker, who is a
frequent Trump punching bag, told a business conference earlier this year, “The one thing I know for sure is that Donald
Trump has made American journalism great again.”
In fact,
the Washington Post, The New York Times and many other news organizations have
done award-winning journalism on the Trump administration. The Washington Post regularly tracks Trump’s
penchant for lying. So far they have
recorded more than 3,500 false or misleading statements by the president since
he’s been in office, that is about seven each day. The problem is: Trump’s core supporters
don’t care; they know he lies. Another
problem is that members of the president’s Republican Party refuse to correct
or challenge his lies. The problem is:
that the Fox News Channel peddles the president’s misleading statements as fact. Its viewers are fed alternate facts and live
in an alternate reality. And Trump
plays to the biases and fears of his core supporters.
Former
Trump adviser Steve Bannon told author Michael Lewis, “The Democrats don’t
matter—the real opposition is the media.
And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with (crap).” There has never in U.S. history been a
shrewder president when it comes to dominating the day’s news, and getting his
unfiltered message directly to the people.
By
contrast, I remember dealing with President Reagan and his administration while
I was a White House producer. Their
communications operation was very sophisticated, and they were very successful
in driving the day’s news agenda. There
was a tension, of course, between the media and the White House, but there was
a great deal of respect both ways. President Reagan called Freedom of the Press
”a fundamental tenet of American life.”
What can
the media do to respond to Trump’s endless attacks? News organizations should do what they do
best, provide original reporting in search of the truth, to hold the government
at all levels accountable, to inform the public and to serve as our Founding
Fathers intended. News organizations
must be open and transparent about their processes; they should immediately
correct the record if there is a mistake.
For
sure, journalists cannot become the political opposition to Trump—that is a
losing strategy. That also runs against
the fundamental standards of fairness and transparency that most established
news organizations live by. In Marty
Baron’s words, “we’re not at war, we’re at work.” And that seems to be a successful approach
as subscriptions for both the Post and Times are up.
But the
long-term solution is, in part, to educate young students about the essential
role the free press plays in America, and to give them insight into how a
quality editorial process works.
Another
step would be to get thought leaders and politicians to defend the role of a
free press, to explain that mean-spirited and frivolous attacks on the press
only undermine a core value of this country. Republican Senator John McCain in his op-ed
piece in the Washington Post earlier this year wrote, “While (Trump) administration officials often condemn
violence against reporters abroad, Trump continues his unrelenting attacks on
the integrity of American journalists and news outlets. This has provided cover
for repressive regimes to follow suit.”
Today,
the media is experiencing rapidly changing business models that have resulted
in a dramatic shift of subscribers and advertisers to other news platforms. Meanwhile technology has made it possible
for users to access content anywhere and at anytime, and for anyone to be a
publisher. We now live in a 24-7 news
cycle in which the news deadline is right now!
No wonder everything is now labeled “Breaking News” as outlets compete
for viewers in a media environment saturated with choices. Each of these is a serious challenge for
the news media, and must be met head-on.
But nothing would be more devastating than the loss of a free
press.
