Getting It Right

As a professional journalist in the years from post-Watergate to the birth of YouTube, I’ve seen speed mow down accuracy and too much dabbling at the expense of diligence. Thanks to digital media at the speed of fiber optic light, it’s way too easy for so-called “news” to be regurgitated over and over and over in a “Groundhog’s Day” nightmare – without a shred of independent reporting, fact-checking or corroboration.

Even in the electric shock world of instant headlines, amid the tweeting, blogging and blather, it’s still about getting it right. Or it should be.

I’m teaching a course this fall at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism called Online Media. (The school has been getting a lot of awards and the students are getting jobs so they must be doing something right.) Together, my students and I will explore the latest technology tools available to reporters – digital image and video editing, webcasting, and online publishing – and the inherent implications for journalistic method and ethics.

Sadly, I never got to meet the school’s namesake and mentor. Walter Cronkite died shortly after I received my faculty appointment. It was “Uncle Walter” and his contemporaries Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (whom I did meet) who embodied my earliest perception of electronic journalism. Aaron Brown has posted a tribute that nicely expresses my feelings as well.

Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Linda Ellerbee were the industry icons I tried to emulate as I began my professional career. Sam Donaldson gave the administration hell in his relentless quest for truth and we loved it. Bob Costas is still one of my favorites, one of the best at live interviews, tough but fair.

These giants are a hard act to follow. I only hope we can do them justice.

(image credits: slashgear.com, asu.edu)