by Tracy Picha, graduate student

Have you heard the one about the press coverage of Clinton walking on water? The next day's headline reads: "Clinton can't swim."

Suzanne Braun Levine began the School's 21st Ruhl Lecture with a joke about accuracy in the news but proceeded along a more serious line in her examination of "What's Really Wrong With the Media."

Levine, former editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and editor emerita of Ms. magazine, suggested that the problems, the causes, and the remedies for improving the relationship between the public and the media are to be found not only through scrutiny of media practices, but by addressing the public's expectations of the media as well. She argues that addressing these issues is more urgent now than ever in light of the advent of the "Cyber Era."

"This sorry state of affairs--a press in need of reform and a public feeling betrayed by the media -- coincides with a deluge of undigested, unverified, unreliable information--the 'Cyber Era'--that will put our culture in more need than ever before of the values and safeguards of journalism," she said.

She cited the recent case of the Food Lion food chain that was awarded $5.5-million in damages after an ABC news show fabricated information on job applications to go undercover inside the chain's food processing plant. Levine pointed out that "Meanwhile, the shocking health violations that the reporter uncovered -- and that were never denied -- were lost in the shuffle."

Levine said that this backlash against the media may be inspired by what the public interprets as violations of the privacy of ordinary citizens such as Richard Jewell, falsely accused of being the Atlanta bomber; Dallas Cowboy players falsely accused of rape; and the press's unauthorized release of Arthur Ashe's diagnosis with AIDS. But she pointed out that ethical reporters are always in a struggle to serve the greater good. "[T]he process is not so simple," Levine said. "It is not simply a question of gathering true facts and sharing them. The journalist has to be the mediator between the event and the public.... A journalist is always weighing harm and benefit."

The mediator role is precisely the role that journalists are failing to fulfill, according to Levine. She argues that, in light of the misinformation perpetuated through new media such as the internet, it is crucial that journalists maintain their responsibility to "help the public connect to new ideas, to explain and clarify, to foster understanding as opposed to outrage and conflict." But she also addressed the reasons why this approach is increasingly difficult for reporters to achieve.

Due to corporate ownership and media conglomeration, more and more reporting is done haphazardly for companies that have no journalism background.

"Fewer reporters are covering more stories and accumulating less expertise.... They take shortcuts, such as working from press releases issued by interested parties, telephone interviews with people in authority, and other reporters' work," said Levine.

Levine charges the media with covering most topics in terms of conflict and argues that "polarizing" issues does the public a disservice.

She points out that when complex topics are reduced to "good guys and bad guys, winners and losers, horse races, power plays," the public is ultimately left with less information than it deserves.

"In its single-minded pursuit of conflict, the press [misses] an important opportunity to document and participate in an enormous social and economic change and [leaves] the public no place to learn where compromise might be.... After all, conflict is the growth medium of power, and therefore, groups that don't have a power base -- children, most shamefully -- are rendered invisible," Levine said.

She proposes, therefore, that both the public and the media adopt an approach that is based on fairness. The media must continue to commit to supplying the public with the information it is entitled to, and the public must rethink its demand that the media be objective."I have always maintained that when a piece of journalism with a point of view is really good, it gives the reader enough information on all sides of the topic to come to a conclusion different from the one that the writer advocates. The best reporting is inclusive, not objective," she said.

Journalists need to do their part to mend their relationship with the public and, as Levine emphasized, to preserve the media's role as watchdogs for that public. This can be achieved by considering what is fair, "not only toward the subject of the reporting but toward the public for whom the reporter is doing research."

"If the compact between news gatherers and news consumers that is sealed by the First Amendment is reinvigorated, if the press allows itself to be guided by -- indeed, fight to protect -- the principle of fairness to the public, then the public may rally to protect its eyes and ears, the watchdogs of our democracy, and reward them with the respect and gratitude that all hard-working reporters deserve," she said.

Levine spoke in May to a capacity crowd in Gerlinger Alumni Lounge. The annual Ruhl Lecture series is funded through a gift established in honor of the late Robert W. Ruhl, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and publisher of the Medford Mail Tribune.