Don Meyers!

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to our guest speaker this past week and asking him questions. I am taking this class to fulfill a requirement for my minor, not because I want to be a journalist, but this particular class period sparked my interest in the subject more than ever before. There were many things that Mr. Meyers said that really rung true to me, I want to touch on a few.

One thing he said just before he left when someone asked why he doesn't do sports. He related a story about his friend Tony Loci (not sure if I got that name right) who was a sports journalist. They were at a basketball game together and all the sudden a player was thrown out. Something had obviously happened that had gone right over Meyers' head, but his friend tony was able to explain to him, moment by moment, what had happened. "He knew what he was looking for--I didn't" Meyers said as he explained why he was not a sports journalist. I liked that he recognized that as a journalist, he had strong points and week points. Incidentally I think that sports journalism might be one of the hardest types, at least for me. Not only would you have to know how to write, as all journalists, but you would have to intimately know every sport, players, coaches, leagues, etc. I don't think I could keep up. But there are men (and occasionally women) who do it well and love it. Here is a list compiled by Yahoo of the top 50 TV announcers of all time.

I really enjoyed the discussion we had about sources. Confidential sources specifically. When is it appropriate to use them, who should you disclose them to, what kind of guarantee should you give them? I had never realized what a delicate thing confidential sources can be. As far as using them Meyers said you should only print a confidential source when there is no other way to get the information. He also said that when he used them, he always would share the person's identity with his editor. (But tell the source that he would.) Which makes sense because the editor has to back the article just as much as the writer does. He also talked about disclosing confidential sources. He said that in his experience he has never been threatened with jail time, but there have been times when people wanted his sources. He was unable to give a clear answer on whether he would go to jail before revealing a source saying that it really depends, which I can agree with. But if I ever were in the position that I was using a source that wanted to remain unknown I would use Prof. Campbell's tactic which is to tell a source "I will protect you until the courthouse steps." Which brought us to the discussion of shield laws. Now I thought that it was pretty clear where Meyers and Campbell stood on the issue; the same place I imagine all journalists stand, which is on the side of a shield law. And the argument is pretty compelling. I even found myself, despite the fact that I have no intention on becoming a journalist, feeling very passionate about the need for a federal shield law. Although there is another side of the argument which is demonstrated in this article.

The thing I liked most about Meyers discussion though is the way that he explained the fundamental jobs of a journalist, and how to go about that job. He talked about laying down the facts just as they are, and letting the reader decide where they come down on the issue saying, "If a journalist has a bias, it's for the truth." He also talked about minimizing damages, (when asked about covering the Elder Packer talk given in the most recent conference) but not to eliminate them all together. And to sum it all up I am going to quote my favorite thing that he said which was that a journalist's job is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

I am going to add one more link here to the website of the Society for Professional Journalism which Meyers referred to a lot.

Group 4

I loved the idea of the wall. But it seems to me that it is just that- an idea. And contrary to the popular belief created by inception, an idea is no the most powerful thing on the planet. No, an actual wall would be much more efficient. In previous years of journalism it seems like they kinda had the concept down. I especially appreciated the example of the Chicago Tribune building where they had separate elevators for the journalists and the business man. I think that shows real integrity on the part of McCormick, the kind of integrity that is scarcely found in big business today. I was researching "the wall" and I came across a book excerpt by Davis Merrit. He was talking about the wall and how the idea is to keep things separate and then made a very clever analogy,

"The great majority of American newspapers today try to walk a slack wire across the abyss -- tricky stuff akin to trying to be a little bit pregnant. It is not certain how long and in what fashion that balancing act can be sustained, if indeed it can be sustained."

Here is a link to the whole excerpt http://www.criticism.com/md/knightfall.html

Merrit makes a very good point, you cannot be a little pit pregnant. You either are, or your not. The same things goes for newspapers. Either their business and journalism is separate, or they are not. And once you start mingling to two, the baby is only going to grow. The really difficult thing is that it is impracticle to tell each individual journalist that they have the responsibility to uphold this wall. Because in truth, these journalists have families, they have bills to pay and the editor is the one who signs the check. If the editor tells a journalist to budge a little on his or her article, no one can say that is wrong, the journalist is just trying to sustain a job in this time of economic hardship. So it is the entire establishment that must build this wall, in order for it to maintain stability, not just the individual journalist.

One thing that didn't strike me quite right was the idea that the first allegiance of a journalist is to the citizen, not the truth. How is it that this could be right? Does that mean that a journalist tells the citizens what they want to hear, or does the journalist write what he or she thinks the citizens need to hear? No, I would dare say that the only way to be loyal to the citizen is to be loyal to the truth first. The Society of Professional Journalists have put together a Code of Ethics that is posted on their website. http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp I think that this really sums everything up well, it only has five major points but it talks about acting independently which represents "the wall" and its very first point it "Find the truth and report it" Nowhere does it talk about "be loyal to the citizen"