THIS IS ARCHIVED CONTENT FOR HISTORICAL REFERENCE ONLY

FIRST VOICES



Little things mean a lot at the Newseum
Indianapolis Star column
by Warren Watson

J-Ideas Director Warren Watson blogs regularly for the Indianapolis Star. Here are his latest offerings:

Landmark First Amendment Research
with School Principals launched at Ball State

Ball State’s First Amendment institute has launched a landmark research project with 5,000 high school principals nationwide.

J-Ideas, a 5-year-old effort to support student journalism and First Amendment awareness, is reaching out to 5,000 principals to gauge their knowledge level and support for the First Amendment of the Constitution. The research coincides with Sunshine Week, a national effort to support Freedom of Information, an important principle of the First Amendment. <more>

-Campus free-speech thrives

-Ignoramcer in Palin, Dowd free-speech remarks

-Plainfield pays respect to First Amendment

-Banned Books Week

-Palin-tology

-Author creates First Amendment 'primer'

-New President must revive Constitution

-Traditional news misses Edwards escapade

-Protesters' rights fenced off

-Social networking pitfalls

-Bad year for traditional news gatherers

-Baseball and the First Amendment

-Principals and the First Amendment

-Remembering a crusader

-Photo ID law bad for voters

-Thoughts from the annual U.S. editors convention

-Need for print journalism remains

-Sunshine:now more than ever

-Mean-spirited fans

-Peter Jennings' legacy

-The First Amendment at the Alamo

-A New museum for news

-Author creates First Amendment 'primer'

-Unlikely First Amendment hero

-Harrison represented Hoosiers proudly

-Online course wraps for the fall

-Religious freedom for all

-Reading is FUN-damental

-Nothing negative

-Blogs grow in influence, but beware of anonymity

-Parent rides the bench after blog posting

-Student journalist's actions serves profession poorly

-Examining free speech online

-Remembering the courageous Elijah Parish Lovejoy

-First Amendment protects unpopular speech, too

Student journalists scoop professional press

By Gerry Appel

In an era where student journalists are often criticized for poor decision-making, one student newspaper should receive praise after scooping its professional counterparts. <more>

-Principal wrong in pulling paper

Mile high with the First Amendment...

By Randy Swikle

We were north of the Mile High City near the Rocky Mountains. The principals were voluntarily descending—not from the tall peaks but from their position abutting the summit of school hierarchy. When they reached level ground, we could see each other more clearly. And clear sight leads to insight. <more > 

Warren Watson
First Thoughts
8/18/08

Traditional news misses the Edwards escapade

Since everyone in the Western Hemisphere seems to have checked in on the journalism ramifications of the John Edwards affair, I thought I would join in the fun.

Actually, it isn't fun to bash traditional news organizations -- online, in print and on television -- for their slow-to-the-draw effort in revealing the former Democratic presidential candidate's shameful antics in his brazen affair with Rielle Hunter, the erstwhile filmmaker. For a time, the story of his tryst was only reported by the National Enquirer, a questionable newspaper that gives supermarkets a bad name. The story, which Edwards steadfastly denied, was kept alive by bloggers until ABC-TV smoked out Edwards in a primetime report on Friday, Aug. 8.

The whole escapade showed once again the ethical dilemma faced by traditional newspapers and TV in the new digital information age: get it first or get it right. In the new paradigm, information sprouts forth online, often coming from individuals on their web logs. Often, the information is premature and unreliable. In this instance, many outlets just couldn't nail down the Edwards story, which has been in the wind – and in the blogosphere -- for more than six months. The more they got closer, the more a defiant Edwards continued to lie.

Traditional media organizations backed off, unwisely shunting aside the story and making only token efforts. After all, they surmised, the National Enquirer justly has a shoddy reputation for using second-hand sources and innuendo, and secondly, many bloggers shared a similar reputation for unreliablity. So why take it too seriously?

But, the story finally appeared, with Edwards, interviewed on primetime TV, confirming the account that had heretofore come from a questionable source. Suddenly the traditional media was at the end of darts of all shapes and sizes. And it was justified.

This was more than just a celebrity dalliance. Edwards was a serious presidential candidate who preached morality as the bedrock of his campaign. For him to demonstrate such hypocrisy in his own deeds elevates this matter into the realm of important public policy.

In a stinging rebuke of his peers, Clark Hoyt, the public editor of The New York Times, said on Aug. 10 his newspaper should have pursued the story harder. He criticized other newspapers as well. Only the big-city dailies in Charlotte and Raleigh had put any kind of effort in confirming the National Enquirer accounts.

Alex Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, said the story matters: “It showed John Edwards’ recklessness in having an affair and the issue of whether he lied about it. I fault the news organizations for holding their noses and burying their heads,” he told Editor and Publisher, a periodical that tracks developments in traditional media.

The blogosphere deserves credit for keeping the story alive in this instance, much as those bloggers -- journalist-wannabees on the Internet -- successfully kept the Swift Boat/ Kerry and Dan Rather/ Bush stories afloat in times past.

More serious reporting needs to be done in closing the loop on the Edwards story. Important questions remain unanswered, including the paternity of Hunter’s illegitimate child and the possibility that some hush money may have been doled out by others in the Edwards campaign.

Traditional news organizations –- usually important First Amendment watchdogs -- can do better. Let’s see if the well-resourced newspapers and television networks will work a little harder this time.
Where are Woodward and Bernstein when we need them most?

(Warren Watson, the director of the J-Ideas First Amendment institute at Ball State University, is a lifelong journalist. He teaches reporting and editing at the Muncie campus.)