William Katz has had a long and varied career, as an assistant to a U.S. senator; an officer in the CIA; an assistant to Herman Kahn, the nuclear war theorist; an editor at the New York Times Magazine; and a talent coordinator at The Tonight Show. He is the author of ten books, translated into 15 languages. He admits to degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia. When I asked him if he'd ever written about his various careers, he said that he hadn't but that he would be happy to do so. His reflections on his work for the Tonight Show are here and here. He took a look at the film industry in the posts "Hollywood, hurray for?" and "Hollywood, hurray for? The sequel." His most recent post is "A tale of two speeches." Today he writes:

The following is a secret transcript of a meeting held in the publisher's office of a major newspaper. I can't reveal which one. Let's call it The New Amsterdam Chimes, whose motto is, "All our views that fit, we print." The publisher is deep in thought with one of his top editors.

EDITOR: Sir, I need your okay on something.

PUBLISHER: Tell me.

EDITOR: You know the Duchess University case?

PUBLISHER: Of course. Three croquet players harassed the head of the Womyn's Center at a tofu party.

EDITOR: That's it.

PUBLISHER: The scum. Croquet always attracted that kind - rich white boys swingin' their hammers. I loved the way Duchess went after them, those 88 professors who signed that statement...

EDITOR: Uh, sir, there's been a reverse. The case collapsed. The boys didn't do it.

PUBLISHER: Oh, come on. They're jocks, they're male, their parents love Bush, they did it.

EDITOR: Sir, I hate to break it to you, but they've been cleared. The D.A. faked the case. We want to correct our stories.

PUBLISHER: Why? So we can be pummeled to the pavement by the pontificating Power Line police?

EDITOR: Sir, it's the right thing to do. We are The Chimes, the newspaper
of record.

PUBLISHER: Not a chance. Look, okay, maybe we missed some details. Guilty, innocent, you can get them mixed up. But we ripped bare the croquet establishment. I'm very proud. I'm talking Pulitzer Prize.

EDITOR: But we were wrong.

PUBLISHER: There is no wrong. There's only cultural difference.

Now, that meeting never took place. Let me rephrase that: I don't think it took place. Let me rephrase it again: Hey, you never know.

And that's the point. While the scene above is fiction, there are millions who think that something like it, with that point of view, could happen, and probably does. Sadly, the media provide ample fuel for their fears. Never, in my time, has trust in journalism been lower. More important, the kind of trust that's dying is something new, and dangerous for democracy.

A few days ago Richard H. Brodhead, president of Duke University, finally apologized for Duke's behavior in the rape/lacrosse case. The North Carolina bar has also acted, vigorously so, in punishing the behavior of the district attorney who brought the case, Michael B. Nifong.

That leaves one institution that remains silent over its sins in the Duke affair – the American media. In a recent Power Line post, Paul Mirengoff cited the fine new book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, by Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson. The authors are especially critical of The New York Times, which replaced its original writer on the story with one allegedly more in tune with the politically correct line. That line convicted the three players without any real evidence.

All of us grew up with the cliché, "Don't believe everything you read in the papers." We knew the term, "yellow journalism," which was not a valentine to accuracy. When I studied at the University of Chicago, the Chicago Tribune billed itself as "the world's greatest newspaper." Many dissented. And I recall when Newsweek, reacting to charges that Time was slanted, boasted that it "separates fact from opinion." Cynics added, "...and they print the opinion." We've always had sharp criticism of the media, and a loss of trust in specific publications or broadcasters.

The difference today, and it is stark, is a loss of trust in the calling of journalism itself. It is a belief -- you read about it, you hear it at dinner tables -- that the media no longer give us the news, but see its mission as changing us, influencing us in news pages, rebuilding the nation in its own image. I've written before in this space about the divergence of media and public that began in the sixties, a gulf widened by the influence of higher education on journalists. Add to that something called "the new journalism," which also emerged in the sixties. Part of that doctrine argued that there was a "higher truth," more vital than facts, that should govern the reporter's work, and that this truth had to be spoken to power. Of course, not many advocates bothered asking why journalists were more adept than others at finding this truth, and why people in power were assumed to be bad.

I once interviewed Charles Kuralt, who did the CBS "On the Road" series. Kuralt traveled the country speaking to Americans, ordinary and not. I asked him to tell me the single greatest impression he'd gotten from his years of travel. Without hesitation he replied, "I've always been impressed at how well informed Americans are." Kuralt was right. Yes, I know, there are these surveys that show Americans are short on calling up details, like the name of the chief justice. These surveys give aid and comfort to elitists who spend their lives being elite. But under the polls there's a wisdom, an understanding, that journalists demean. The proof: Kuralt's comments have more weight than any numbers, but note tracking polls during political campaigns. As soon as anything important happens, the polls move. Americans are watching. The great political scientist, V.O. Key, said it best: "Voters are not fools." And the non-fools today sense that something is wrong in media that must be corrected.

In future posts, I'll look back decades and try to define the things journalism must do to restore trust, to make sure that another Duke fiasco never occurs. In the meantime, let me recall a scene from the Rodgers and Hart musical, "Pal Joey," circa 1940. An exotic dancer -- ah, that term brings back the Duke saga -- is performing her routine, and sings, "Zip -- Walter Lippmann wasn't brilliant today." No, even the great columnist Lippmann wasn't brilliant every day. And maybe journalists now should paste that dancer's line over their desks, and say to themselves, as they begin work each morning, "I may not be brilliant today, and I may not be as brilliant as the readers I serve." It's not everything, but it's a start.

PAUL adds: If they pasted (and followed) this line -- I may not be brilliant today, but I won't misstate anything -- that would be enough.

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Posted by Scott at 5:57 AM  |    |