I had four different majors as an undergraduate and three more in graduate school before I finally discovered and fell in love with Sociology and made it my life's work. But my very first major, as a 17-year-old freshman at the University of Arkansas, was journalism. I suppose I was attracted to it for the same reasons that young people are attracted to a variety of things; journalism appeared to be a very exciting, even glamorous way to make a living. I have always enjoyed living on the edge and I thought sniffing out a story, following up on leads, and getting scoops that no one else had would be a fascinating way to make a living. Although I changed my major to education my sophomore year, the idea of seeing one's words appear in print or one's face and voice on a radio or television broadcast remained something I would think about from time to time. I never expected anything to ever come of it, until I was given the opportunity to write a newspaper column, first by Mike O'Dell, editor of the now defunct Weekend, and then, for the past seven years, the McCook Gazette.

But journalism isn't what it used to be. Journalism took a turn a few years back and many are concerned that it wasn't a good turn. Media outlets began being swallowed up by the giant media conglomerates and something was lost in the process. In too many instances, the things lost were the very things that attracted me to journalism in the first place. At some indiscernible  time in our recent past, far too many journalists and editors stopped searching for the facts, stopped sniffing out stories and following up leads and, instead, were forced to settle for "news" that was being determined by Boards of Directors at company headquarters, often by people who had no media or journalistic backgrounds at all. Instead of providing objectivity, detail, and factual findings, journalists were being encouraged to promote a particular point of view, to ignore or downplay stories the parent company decided was not in their best interests, to not ruffle feathers or alienate potential advertisers and, even worse, to become the mouthpiece of the very people and organizations journalists used to investigate.

 I'm always struck by the contrast between war reporting during the Vietnam War and the later war coverage of the Gulf War and now the Iraqi War. The first time I heard that journalists were "embedded" with certain military units, the use of the term literally sent chills up my spine because I knew without being told that meant the people who journalists are supposed to serve (the public) were only going to get the information the military wanted us to have; a particular point of view that may or may not reflect the reality of the situation. Journalists were being turned into "cheerleaders" for the war, the reasons for the war, and the personalities involved in the war and this could never be in this country's best interest.

 

The desire, even moreso, the very CHARGE that journalists have always labored under has been to search out the truth; regardless of what it is, regardless of who it offends, regardless of whose toes are stepped on. We may have never known the truth about Watergate had it not been for the dogged persistence of Woodward and Bernstein when the truth was being held hostage by the Nixon administration. They were relentless in their pursuit of the facts that existed; not the "facts" the Administration wanted them to print, until the whole ugly truth was unmasked and delivered to us, the people. Only then, after we found out the whole truth, were the American people able to hold those people responsible and accountable for the many misdeeds that had occurred. In the same light, I can't imagine how much longer the Vietnam War would have been prolonged had journalists been "embedded" with the military and only told what the military wanted them to know.

 

Countries typically don't lose their freedom in one fell swoop. They lose it a little piece at a time, bit by bit, until they wake up one morning to find most of it gone. People lie, people deceive, people shade the truth, people hide the truth and people act in their own self-interests, whether it's your next-door neighbor or people at the highest echelons of power, authority and control. People will tend to do just about whatever they can get away with and, historically, it has been the role of journalism to keep them honest. When journalism abandons the time-honored search for the truth, we all suffer.

 

And we lose just a little more freedom every time it happens.