CNN and the News: Stewarding the Public Interest
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CNN and the News:
Stewarding the Public Interest
C. S. Herrman1
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was
and never will be - Thomas Jefferson
[Abstract – News is defined and explicated with respect to the principles of stewardship, in
turn defined and explicated with reference to the journalistic profession and CNN in
particular. The stress is less upon the ‘need to know’ or even the ‘right to know’ but rather
upon what is worthy as valid journalistic content. The argument is advanced that, as a
profession, journalists occupy an office that requires stewardship, a canopy term
encompassing all aspects of ethics touching upon the obligations of and to offices.]
Recent data suggest that CNN is losing market share while reporting better than average
revenues. A cynic might suggest that decadence is alive and well—similar polls and financials
are commonplace where doctors, lawyers and politicians do a predictable day‘s work and
manage a substantial take—one has to wonder if anyone still worries themselves over excellence
and quality.
But just suppose that journalists actually did desire to discuss excellence and, well, stewardship.
Well, that‘s really great. Let‘s begin by asking what a steward‘s conception of the news might
be, and whether the folks at, for example, CNN, have experience with anything similar.
Functionally, stewards do stewardship, so first we ask what, in the context of the journalistic
enterprise, constitutes stewardship. Formally it has always denoted the care and upkeep of
another‘s property. For present purposes we permit a metaphorical extension so that ‗property‘
refers to the composite of interests and principles served by the care and upkeep of resources
under the authority of the office germane to the journalist‘s profession. In a word, a mouthful of
everything not learned, or at least not much stressed, in journalism school.
News, to a steward of the journalist‘s office, is more than mere reportage, and more merely than
reportage of events. Rather, news is the face of public interest. News is what interests us when
what interests us addresses journalistically valid interests. Money and sex may interest us but are
not newsworthy except when larger journalistic interests are involved.
The parallel with law is apt and worth repeating here. Law takes its interest in our interests only
on evidence of injury or harm meeting specific criteria. Journalism takes its interest in our
interests on evidence of meaning, which is only a code word speaking to both the relevance and
1
Author, The Office and its Stewardship (VDM, 2009) and The Steward’s Cauldron (forthcoming).significance of input data.2 Relevance suggests that which has bearing upon some matter;
significance suggests the importance of the matter in the larger scheme of things. What is
relevant should catch our notice; what is both relevant and significant should command our
attention.
Lots of things command our attention, individually and collectively, each and every day.
Obviously, not everything of interest to which we attribute meaning can qualify as news.
Ultimately, an additional sieve is required, a process of prioritizing information in accordance
with the criterion of topicality. ‗News cycles‘, for example, are so considered simply because
they are generated with reference to a topic. In reality, all news is so considered in one way or
another. The primary factors determining topicality are time or timing, happenstance or
circumstance, situation or conflict, and import or impact. Observe that these are actually just
correlatives of data, relevance, significance and meaning earlier introduced.
News is what a journalist considers worthy to command our attention, with the added provisos
that, as a professional, our meaningful interests be duly understood, including the factors adding
relevance and significance, and that the journalistic principles enabling the reported news to
reasonably represent those interests be dearly respected. To an Aristotlian, interests are the
formal cause of news, whereas what we colloquially understand as news (in whatever medium)
is the final cause. This is the high-flown way of stating a very important reality: news is not
news if it doesn‘t represent ‗formal causes‘—the valid journalistic interests carrying meaning for
the public. The errors on this head are legion, and are of both omission and commission.
What categories of news can be expected? Or, what are some handy rules-of-thumb for
discerning those ‗valid journalistic interests‘? Here are four qualifying circumstances: 1) when
the unexpected occurs with ripple effects for broad segments of society, it is news; 2) when
reality kicks our butts, or when we kick reality‘s butt, it‘s news; 3) when we develop or discover
resources bearing on (1) or (2) above, it constitutes news, and 4) when knowledge is translated to
actual understanding with significance for any of the above, it is news.
Regardless of category, however, news can be said to arise principally from any action, state,
process or condition to which we collectively attribute journalistic meaning. 3 This is simply
another way of saying that valid journalistic interests are achieved when interests collectively
shared have taken on topical meaning by
2
Meaning obviously has as many interpretations as scholars to offer them. The present approach is
developed in this author‘s series of articles Fundamentals of Methodology, especially Part Three, ―The
Meaning of Meaning‘‖ downloadable from ssrn.com/author=510356.
3
Interestingly, these are the criteria defining the medical suffix ‗-osis‘ in an early edition of Stedman’s
Medical Dictionary. It is a generic idea indicating for one‘s well-being what news does still more
generally: whatever comes under the ‗-osis‘ rubric can be presumed relevant and significant in the context
of health.
21) kind, degree or amount of actions taken—by arsonists, lawmakers,
engineers, homemakers, etc.
2) states created, modified or destroyed—efficiency, effectiveness,
harmony, homeostasis, chaos, etc.
3) processes relevant to these first two—construction, travel, preparation,
growth and reproduction, etc.
4) or conditions consequent to any of the three—health, illness,
understanding, excellence, corruption, etc.
A final consideration treats of the functional categories of the news organization. After all,
reporting is rarely the only (though typically the central) feature. In some new stories research
and/or investigation is really the central focus; in other circumstances creating a market for news
is a prime consideration; in still others, developing a successful and marketable philosophy of
news helps to ensure that the organization remains unique, vibrant and at the top of its game.
Anybody can cough up meaning and report it as news. A news professional isn‘t just anybody,
however, not least because the journalistic profession presupposes an office to receive and
distribute a grant of authority without which it would not be possible to deliver a news product of
the quality that is at once necessary and expected. This grant is not given out of charity; it
carries obligations that the citizen-reporter might not think to be concerned about.
Every office ever conceived arose out of the needs for which a grant of authority was felt
necessary in order that sufficient resources be placed at the disposal of concerned individuals
whose felt duty it was to address said needs. Parents, civil servants and every professional you
can shake a stick at all answer to these criteria. The journalistic office entails, in common with
every other office, three cardinal characteristics: its officer(s) must join the task with honest and
open sincerity—scoundrels need not apply; second, the authority always includes a measure of
prerogative whereby independent judgment is applied and enforced; finally, every such grant of
authority presupposes obligations in the form of stewardship prior to and continuing throughout
the duration of the office, the object being to secure accountancy.
The journalist exercises the prerogative to ascertain topicality; to secure, nurture and protect
sources; to claim full legal access to appropriate news venues, and to select and develop a
medium for reportage and revenue. Because any prerogative carries the potential for abuse,
stewardship assures a zero sum game as between power and responsibility. Stewardship protects
the interests both of the grantors and beneficiaries, upholds the principles governing the conduct
of office, and defends and preserves the office itself—all that in addition to the care and keeping
3of the resources dedicated to the tasks at hand. Colloquially, we are able to say that we steward
interests, principles, offices and resources. Not a bad day‘s work for one word.4
In the context of journalism, the public‘s interest is in truth, honesty, integrity and substance via
journalists, from the offices of power, privilege and position, however defined. The principles to
be stewarded are of two sorts: those that are broadly understood as safeguarding and justifying
national values, and those which for any given office govern its conduct. Journalists understand
‗balanced reportage‘ as a principle, which in turn links with public principles when we bear in
mind that ‗balance‘ should reflect not only faithful and fair reportage of facts on the ground, but
also their context, some portion of which cannot help but interact with widely held (public)
principles.5
Under any definition of office or stewardship, the journalist is obligated to the care and keeping
of professional resources, which includes (but is hardly limited to): reporters and their sources,
expert and lay witnesses, and the factual foundation of the news itself. Sadly, saying so is not
always or everywhere doing so. Just as lawyers are supposed to serve the law as well as their
clients (they frequently fail one or both), so sources must be made to understand that they serve
both law and truth, an unenviable task belonging to every reporter.6
In stewarding the office of journalism, the news organization, and CNN especially, assume heavy
responsibilities—less to facts that can be presented anywhere by anybody than to their truth and
context, neither of which is nearly so available to the citizen reporter as to the professional. That
is why journalism is both office and profession, and why holding sources accountable is just as
4
Speaking of words, it may be wondered why I do not subscribe to the more common term ethics. As a
metaphysician and theorist (and an office-holder) my obligations to the reader include accessibility,
accuracy, clarity, concision, completeness, and, above all else, truthfulness. My issue with the term ethics
is that it disenfranchises several of the enumerated desiderata. In the real world ethics has become all but
meaningless because applicable to everything, and toothless because influenced by those desiring a
minimum of accountancy.
Ethics should mean precisely what Swedenborg suggested: the means to enable and promote moral
objectives. Since the philosophical and legal communities have not seen fit to allow so plainspoken and
honest a view, it behooves us to locate a term that means what it says and says what it means. That word
is stewardship, and so that is what I shall employ until the powers that be realize that the ethics of office
is just that, stewardship. Stewardship, unlike ethics, is structured, metaphysically sound, eminently
sensible and amenable to legal interpretation if only lawyers, judges and legislators were just a tad more
accommodating.
5
Nazism, fascism and communism are not just other, as in valid alternate, ways of governing people and
addressing human needs. Were it otherwise, we‘d not have engaged ourselves in two World Wars and a
cold war on top of that. Were red and blue just different ways of life and living, the representatives of one
of those ideologies would not have declared war on the other and would not have imposed Rovian and
Norquestian tactics.
6
No moral or legal principle excuses a source from reporting to the judge when matters become public
property in lawsuits, any more than from a general civic responsibility to reveal truth to reporters.
Nothing here is black and white except the demand for truth from equal partners in its preservation: the
press corps and the courts.
4important as holding reporters and witnesses accountable. There is more at stake than merely the
facts, more to the task than merely a job.
* * *
News is really all about stewardship. So inherent, necessary and intimate is the nexus between
news, journalism and stewardship that information of and about stewardship is frequently news
in and of itself. Stewardship becomes news when, for example, in order to protect a source, a
reporter goes to jail in violation of a court order. At CNN, the prime-time program AC360
frequently recites a stewardship mantra: ‗keeping them honest‘. Keeping folks accountable is
the most basic manifestation of stewardship.
News organizations, and notably CNN, have not adequately kept accountable those most in need
of that condition. An ever-increasing segment of the public is increasingly aware of this
shortcoming, a fact which alone, forget anything else, will account for the widespread dissatis-
faction with journalism as indicated by numerous polls.
A new WeMedia/Zogby Interactive poll shows that 67% of Americans believe traditional
journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news. In addition, the survey
found that while almost 70% of Americans think journalism is important to the quality of life
in their communities…two thirds are not satisfied with the quality of journalism in their
communities.7
The few of us who have yet to dismiss civics entirely do still place stock in the notion that a free
press is essential to a vibrant democracy for the very reason that it and it alone has the power to
keep powerful positions accountable. When the profession of journalism fails of that
responsibility, those most in charge of holding others accountable have given the chicken coop
over to the wolves.
Today‘s journalism is held in ill repute even by dullards incensed at the pandering to politicians;
by liberals and intellectuals for pandering to ratings; and by the very officials most in need of
accountability, either because accustomed to gaining a platform for rhetoric, or because so often
able to avoid the ‗wrong‘ sort of interview. On top of everything else, journalism is in bad odor
with numberless scholars and even some conservatives for failing to stress the negative influence
of money on elections and legislation. For every single one of these claims the profession is
largely guilty as charged, and in each instance the failure is just as clearly of stewardship.
In the enterprise scheme of things any philosophy of journalism must manage to warp and woof
aspects that are not always good bedfellows. People being people, a stewardship endeavor is apt
7
The first item popping up when doing a keyword search (= polls showing dissatisfaction with
journalism): ―Two Thirds of Americans Dissatisfied With The Quality of Journalism,‖ by Jack
Loechner, Thursday, March 13, 2008, available online at –
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=78116
5to run afoul of criteria that naturally govern ratings, hence revenues. The publisher of Newsroom
Magazine believes, with many others, that—
Enterprises are created and managed for a clear and worthy business purpose which has
inherent profit potential. Managerial minions, most of whom are intellectually handicapped
by the MBA Think bubble, see the enterprise as an object in need of optimization absent other
any other purpose beyond earnings generation.8
People seek a level of comfort conformable with exigent standards of success, satisfaction and
contentment. Every religion and a good many so-called ‗ethical‘ systems have taught us that we
keep our business ‗edge‘ only when we maintain our weltanschauung ‗on edge‘—meaning, that
we must learn to coexist with a level of discomfort conformable with adaptability, hence
flexibility, wariness, and a mien characterized as ‗lean and mean‘.
One would have thought the concept of office to be preeminently suited to exactly such criteria.
After all, why do we require an oath of office for most professional positions? What really is an
oath? Permit me to suggest that it is in fact a publicly offered acknowledgement to accept the
conditions appropriate to an office: of living in the discomfort of the gaze and expectations of
others; of knowing that failure is not an option and that breeches of duty will be dealt with, often
harshly. The oath is best defined as follows:
A solemn promise that any breach of duty or responsibility is understood in advance as
meriting condign punishment on behalf of denied beneficiaries.
This is the kind of hard-hitting realism that we secretly believe is valid for everybody else‘s
offices. The greatest fear people ought to entertain is simply that the prerogatives of office might
lead to collateral damage; the reality is in fact far worse, for even basic norms of accountability
have been widely forsaken. The reason that oaths appear so uncompromising is that they must
be!
Oaths are crucial to every office for one reason above all others (though each of the others is
sufficiently valid): People come to believe that they deserve the comforts and securities so often
accompanying the prerogatives of power—all those various and sundry perks and privileges
intended as a mark of respect, a ‗thank you‘ for the willingness to live under the conditions of the
oath. Apparently too many office-holders do not consider a large salary and/or a healthy share of
community respect as sufficient compensation.
A Brief Foray, an Excursus, into the Pit of Truth
In today‘s world, and in America in particular, office-holders utilize their positions, their
power and their wealth to quash the very measures that enforce the conditions of their
8
Robert Butche, ―Perfect As The Enemy Of Good,‖ June 7, 2010. Online at -- http://newsroom-
magazine.com.
6sacred oaths. The reason, again pertinent especially to Americans, is the influence of
money on elections and legislation. Let‘s be brutal in our truthfulness, just this once: By
any measure of the actual effectiveness of such purchased influence, America is far and
away the most corrupt nation on the face of the earth, bar none. Mexico at least is openly
and honestly a buy-influence-as-you-go country. Only Americans have the puritanical
arrogance to preach purity while wallowing in hypocrisy.
Purchasing favors and conditions contrary to one‘s oaths is the mark of hypocrisy that a
fellow by the name of Jesus took as the signal, the clarion call, for his life‘s mission.
And the very people most believing themselves to be his perfect followers, those most
certain of American exceptionalism, those most certain that America is assuredly a
Christian nation, are the self-same group most deeply imbued in precisely the hypocrisy
he most disfavored.
There is no hypocrisy, lay or clerical, so profound in its violations of interest and
principle as that which we have adopted practically as a way of life in our democracy,
that which, by purchasing elections and favored legislation, disfavors the clear intention
of our sacred oaths. If Christ was, as Nietzsche wryly suggested, the first—and last—
Christian, George Washington was the first, and last, American.
Let‘s see if we can‘t get a handle on the problematic of practicing stewardship in the context of
ratings- and profit-driven offices. Beginning with the obvious: Every category of news is apt to
bore some groups and only occasionally interest others. Given that news is what it is because
relevant and significant, ergo meaningful, journalists can reasonably consider stretching the
prerogative they enjoy in defining topicality to include qualities that may alleviate the dull drone
of evident intelligence in elaborating valid journalistic interest. Meaning is news, shall we
suggest, when the prospect for drama looms large. Two conclusions follow for a network
making news its specialty: 1) access all news categories, not merely those featuring events of
note; 2) use news itself to demonstrate the relevance and significance of data being introduced as
news.
Of course, major catastrophic events generate their own intrinsic drama. We are referring here to
humdrum matters such as gun-toting children or the latest charge of bribery. The chief difficulty
encountered in adding drama to bolster attention and ratings is the opportunity it lends those who
enjoy making heroes of their villains. It is a small, even trivial, price to pay, all things
considered. For the few who wish to enthrall the gutter, far more learn of important matters of
concern to all good citizens.
Drama is added when emphasizing importance with correlative news features. Thus bribery is
dramatized by stories illuminating the negative consequences of bribery; gun-toting children are
rendered dramatic with pictures of Columbine and the strewn corpses left over from drug or gang
wars. Driver education teachers once upon a time learned that gore sells itself while yet
7admonishing. Drama is emphasized occasionally with sarcasm, hyperbole or even humor.
Caricatures and Onion-ilk stories make dull facts interesting if only because slightly more
entertaining. Ask a teenage boy how he entertains himself in an adult world. If the answers are
shocking, they should also be revealing and useful. Adults are not so different from bored
teenagers when it comes to reading the newspaper or watching the six o‘clock news. Give them
drama, but give them news.
In a word, building interest is key. Interest, so long as it is kept truthful, honest and accountable,
renders stewardship dramatic by virtue of intrigue, fascination, humor, glamour, notoriety, and
the like—you get the idea. Interest is emphasized in addition by being paired with activities of
interest. Showing news on the internet has proven hugely successful in so small part because we
are learning to take a real interest in getting information via the computer screen.
Broadcast journalism is nowadays familiar with many of these techniques, but for all of the
wrong reasons and with many of the worst applications. Pet rescues remind one of an
advertising mnemonic. For every idiotic tear-jerker or cute clip a piece of real news goes
wanting. Next, I suppose, we will be showing soft porn; it works for commercials, no? When the
news department is lazy or uncreative and fillers are on the brain, try running old clips from the
forties, fifties and sixties, with intelligent commentary that illustrates in concrete terms the
importance of news. What were the take-home lessons of the McCarthy hearings or the
Nuremburg trials?
* * *
The news industry has fallen into ruts, but the one that is most onerous is not the one expected.
While it is wise, in fact a principle, to be alert to the public mind, the media have in general, and
journalism in particular, fostered a dangerous position, namely, that a widely held notion be
taken as sacrosanct—that the nation is neither red nor blue, but purple. All that this has actually
achieved is to standardize and sanction a willful misrepresentation of reality as well as further
ape the visage of politicians, whose first line of defense in a polarized atmosphere is to play
dumb. The journalistic profession has done them one better.
One does not excuse repeating untruths simply because the public permits it. Let us momentarily
recall what being a profession implies: journalists are not beholden to the public for a normative
philosophy of news—rather the reverse. It is the journalist who must inform the public how to
expose the appendix of discord. No differently from patients or any other species of professional
client, the public has a right and obligation to hold the professional accountable for acceptable
standards of performance. They have neither right nor privilege (except through their
representatives, whereat they are the effective grantors of the office) to dictate the principles of
the profession to the professionals until the latter are sunk so low as to have lost the right to
command the prerogatives of office. That point is admittedly dangerously near, however.
8A little fact-checking will confirm that the culture wars became official some forty years ago
when the reds declared war on the blues, a fact that must be reflected in whatever news touches
upon it—and reality, not opinions thereon, fairly demands that the culture wars be accepted for
all that they are—and are not. Ultimately, facts carry moral import, and though stewardship
must reflect established mores, it remains the case that not all facts are equal.
It has become pari passu that the two parties to the conflict be treated as equal, as if the principle
of balance dictated the same time, spin and consideration be given to Stalin and Roosevelt
equally. It was one thing for private citizens to go to the Soviet Union as a protest against
something they saw wrong with America, and for journalists to report their trip as the news it
obviously was; it is today a very different thing for a profession to be equally as brazen simply to
avoid losing a small market share. Parents can play the game of ―let‘s just not bring that up for
discussion,‖ whereas professions require to meet their stewardship obligations, which in this case
do not permit little blue lies on behalf of marital concord. This is not a ‗purple‘ country and the
media do no favors in aping public delusions to the contrary. Politeness does not score
professional points when it hides a requirement to be truthful. Citizen journalists can get away
with that kind of malarkey, but not professionals.
The fact that the majority of the South9 favored discrimination against blacks did not give their
position equal news value in the sense of suggesting equal truth content as to the dignity of black
people v. white. Had the Supreme Court taken the position of many journalists and politicians,
we would still have slavery. What the media did do of real consequence was simply to report the
events, which themselves, regardless how presented, made aspects of the truth apparent in ways
even the media might well have preferred to avoid.
Given that there is much the same discrepancy now as then between what red voters say about
themselves and the votes they cast (and the votes cast by those they elect, who in turn deny any
correlation between motive and plain fact) should again suggest that not all facts are equal as
between Reds and Blues. Journalists do not have the liberty to play it safe simply because it is
convenient. When the facts of an argument so tip the balance of dignity as at present, there is no
choice in the matter. The damage done (with all of its implications) becomes valid news.
9
By which of course I mean the majority of counted votes that elected the legislators whose laws would
have maintained Jim Crow, etc. ‗Red‘ approximates the groups whose votes assure that minorities remain
minorities, that the powerful remain powerful and the wealthy wealthy; that 25% of adult male blacks are
better off in prison, that good children should be educated away from ‗bad‘ children, and on and on and
on—CNN permits this reality to persist as ‗just another political posture‘. What barn were they born in?
Once politics extends its reach beyond its internal and inherent mechanics and willfully declares war on
dignity, that is when the gloves come off, when political parties are no longer offering just another mode
and manner of governance.
9A good steward of the moral value of fact and truth is sensitive to balderdash and rhetoric for
what they are, especially in politics. It would be a poor bet to count on today‘s media to
demonstrate the difference. Members of both major political parties are interviewed with kid
gloves as if hard questions would spell the loss of these folks as news sources. This is only an
added insult to the public, when it is recalled that journalists can always indicate on the air every
time a selected member refuses to be interviewed. Once that becomes scandalous that member is
no longer a member and no longer needs to worry what questions will be asked.
It is commonplace on CNN to bring in roughly equal numbers of talking heads from the two
parties to comment upon a variety of current issues. There is effectively no interview, just an on-
air opportunity for party stalwarts to sell their ideologies. It is one thing to do as did PBS and
install a program devoted to such antics (Firing Line), but it is idiotic to interject such nonsense
into serious news and comment. Journalism that so patently plays to the base constituents of
political polarization while refusing to acknowledge the selfsame polarization in the news itself
only adds further fuel to the discontent over professional conduct. Whatever became of
thoughtful, if also contentious and ideological, debate?
And whatever became of network commentaries on CNN that offer the attempt at actual honesty
and truthful overviews? The network has pitifully few journalists of the Bill Moyers stamp
regardless party affiliation. Despite in-party contentiousness for which liberals are justly
famous, Moyers bared it all and so risked it all. He was so effective that Republicans cited his
influence above all others in their arguments to suspend funding.
‗If we have programs like the Moyers' program, that tilt clearly to the left, then I think
according to the law we need to have a program that goes along with it that tilts to the right,
and let the people decide,‘ Tomlinson said, adding that the only Republicans or conservatives
who appeared on Moyers' show agreed with the host on the issue.10
The Reds declared the war, and continue to wage it fiercely using any ruse that stands the
slightest chance of winning. But Moyers, to those with the facts in hand, was 85% on the money
over-all, a very high figure by any standard. All the more reason for ideologically pure
Republicans to wage war—a war the media barely notices, as if it were not only not news, but as
if it did not so much as exist. And these omissions count as—journalism?
CNN needs to find the Moyers-equivalents for its debates and roundtables. Moyers regularly
featured Republican commentators who variously adopted rational propositions. Why does no
one on the right do likewise? Because they declared the war and are still happily waging it. The
rules of war and discourse, as of civility and decency, do not apply to those who must be correct
(thus they did not apply to Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin or Milosevic). What is it about elementary
10
―Tomlinson Defends Decision-Making for PBS,‖ Tuesday, July 12, 2005. FoxNews.com. Online at --
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162173,00.html
10common sense11 such that professionals with college degrees require to be instructed by a
metaphysician? The very fact that these remarks sound shrill is owing to a prior fact: the media
haven’t done their homework, nor their duty.
CNN had no difficulty whatever reporting, without remark, observation, or context, the Senate
Minority leader‘s attempt to whitewash the President for one-sided favoritism. It is all just
standard operating procedure; which in this instance meant omitting what had already loomed
large as the real story—Obama had been siding, in policy as in philosophy, with Republican-
favored positions from the get-go in both the heath-care and business-crisis legislative processes
(an interpretation which more than one Democratic Senator publicly declared and which
commentators had previously reported on Bill Moyer‘s Journal). For whatever the reason, CNN
(and other outlets) have too often conflated fact with truth where the former so misrepresented
the latter as to be plainly misleading or simply false. And intelligent folks are supposed to
respect this as journalism? It may well be what the corporate bosses want and expect, but a
profession is not permitted to adopt such views and never to defend them. Perhaps it is time
CNN looked for a bevy of donors instead of sponsors—after the fashion of C-SPAN.
Stewardship is broadly non-partisan and politically neutral, thank heavens. Think of a
conservative writer, say, Philip K. Howard. Much of his objective is stewardship-colored, and
much of that in a reasonable, balanced and serious manner (The Death of Common Sense).
Think of Buckley‘s Gratitude and his position on legalization of drugs, or George Will‘s position
on recent wars. Think of the conservative position on liability and tort reform, much of which
makes good sense from a stewardship viewpoint. Think of the broadly Republican understanding
of stewardship as related to charity and philanthropy (misguided in some ways but correct in
other ways without question). Think of the late French conservative journalist-philosopher Jean-
François Revel and his sociologically justified view that our guilt tends to blind us to actual
evil.12
But why do Republicans, in making war with liberals, presume that the vast majority of us have
no care for these issues of overlap? They are throwing out babies more than bathwater, and
media reportage bereft of solid standards abet their nonsense and so further worsen the polarity
even as they claim to be above the fray. CNN presents as a picture-perfect example of Revel‘s
thesis: guilt over the risk of unequal treatment permits worse evils to hold sway.
I don‘t mean to say that CNN does nothing good, far from it. What CNN lacks is the ability to
consistently, as opposed to sporadically, demonstrate and sell a passion for what the public
deserves but manifestly does not get. To have but select programs that deliver the goods at but
select times and under select circumstances just doesn‘t cut it. It has become something of a
commonplace that the only times a media outlet risks truth-telling is when a crisis requires
11
See note 8 for an explication with examples.
12
Howard‘s work published by Random House, 1994; Buckley‘s by Random House, 1990. Revel‘s
classic How Democracies Perish, by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984.
11showing some portion of the truth. That is not good enough. The problems that are America, that
are relevant to what it means to be an American—and are therefore valid news—exist with us
between crises and are no less worthy as news for being out of the news cycle or out of topicality
because not splashy or sexy or dramatic.
Why is it that PBS does so much of the Frontline type of reportage? I applaud CNN‘s recent
efforts in this direction, to be sure, and they are significant by any standard, for which, thank
you. Why not orient such in depth reportage to other issues that are even more relevant as news?
Attempts to legislate campaign finance date to 1867.13 From at least the first Roosevelt,
Presidents have bemoaned the influence of money on legislation and elections. Barack Obama‘s
efforts are typical;
It's not that the games that are played in this town are new or surprising to the public. People
are not naive to the existence of corruption and they know it has worn the face of both
Republicans and Democrats over the years.14
From a study released by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in conjunction with McKinnon
Media for Common Cause, Change Congress and the Public Campaign Action Fund: "A
majority of voters strongly favor both requiring corporations to get shareholder approval for
political spending (56 percent strongly favor, 80 percent total favor) and a ban on political
spending by foreign corporations (51 percent strongly favor, 60 percent total favor)." 15 The
sentiment has bi-partisan support though one would not likely glean that from reportage on the
major networks or CNN.
The Fair Elections Now Act, which would set up a publicly-financed campaign system, is
favored by a two-to-one margin (62 to 31 percent), according to the survey. Fifty percent of
Republicans support the proposal compared to 40 percent who oppose it.16
One has to be a news junkie to have heard from the media that the only realistic opportunity for
meaningful reform is now at the level of a Constitutional Amendment thanks to Republicans on
the Supreme Court (but oh, it just isn‘t nice to state the facts in such a snarky, mean-spirited
manner given the vaunted principles of our esteemed news organizations).
Americans are, as a practical reality, strongly critical of Congress for preserving the present
methodology of lobbying. When CNN can treat the influence of money on legislation as ‗just
13
Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_in_the_United_States
14
Speech delivered at the Lobbying Reform Summit in Washington, D.C. on 26 January 2006.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Remarks_at_the_Lobbying_Reform_Summit
15
―Support High for Strong Campaign Finance Legislation: Poll,‖ Sam Stein, February 8, 2010. --
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/08/support-high-for-strong-c_n_453666.html
16
Ibid.
12another way of doing business‘ one must wonder just how free and open the journalistic
profession actually is in a country where profits and corporations dictate (where they do not
merely influence) the content of everything. CNN might just be surprised at what intellectual
honesty enables. PBS has been successful for a reason. Hint: they present the reasonable side of
liberalism, a side so distressing to ideologically pure Republicans precisely because those who
have made PBS successful do not share the extreme views of those who prefer to legislate both
morals and rights in their group-think image.
Stewardship needs to be ‗in the news‘ in both senses of that phrase. A few of my own
suggestions follow:
1) Consider how, when, where and why GOOD things constitute news. What does ‗good‘ mean
in the context of stewarding power and truth? How can news be both interesting and
newsworthy?
2) Consider letting the culture wars be waged in full battle-dress. Rather than knee-jerk efforts
at equal time, news should feature the best intelligence available without regard to affiliation—
political, professional or otherwise.
3) Give conservatives what they want in targeted programming specific to their interests,
rationally treated so as not to place stupidity on a pedestal. Current efforts to present business
news are absurd. Between dumming down and failing to offer rational explanations it is small
wonder that the vast majority still have little clue why derivatives caused recent problems and
how they were little other than deliberate and knowing violations of stewardship responsibilities.
4) Advances in knowledge happen not only in academia, but in the business community as well
as in the general community of lay people, not just a few of whom are smarter than the general
run of academics or business-types. Why do we wait for a crisis in order to hear from a
motivated movie star interested in the environment—in cleaning up oil spills, for example?
5) If ethics is chiefly about ensuring moral objectives (prosecuting principles via offices), and
stewardship comprises the ethics of offices, what might that mean to the journalistic profession?
How might that influence how CNN values and compares facts with facts, truths with truths,
facts with truths?
6) If all else fails, consider becoming a subsidiary of an ethically-minded consortium of funders,
corporate and otherwise. Federal funding needn‘t be the answer for CNN any more than for a
financially struggling PBS. Better yet, Congress can pass a mandate requiring all companies
with off-shore tax-havens to pony up the expense (since they are clearly unwilling to explode the
havens themselves or seriously squeeze the beneficiaries).
13You can also read
