Abstract
This book is a collection of chapters by 11 media historians, and boy can they tell fascinating stories—even more so because they are all true.
Edited by Gwyneth Mellinger, Director of the School of Media Arts and Design at James Madison University, and John Ferré, Professor of Communication at the University of Louisville and co-author of the essential classic, Good News: Social Ethics and the Press, the volume’s chapters are arranged in chronological order, beginning with the first code of ethics by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) in the 1920s. Mellinger’s introduction sets the stage by discussing how the Canons of Journalism, as they were called, first focused on the rights of the press and then evolved in various ways toward serving the public, toward press responsibility in exchange for the special freedoms of the First Amendment, and finally toward an emphasis on conflicts of interest, both real and perceived. This chapter articulates the storyline that ties the chapters together, namely, the “evolution in ethical consciousness” of journalists’ thinking about their profession, roles, and responsibilities (p. xi). The events that became the crucibles for these reconsiderations were wide-ranging: government secrecy in World War II; the Hutchins Commission’s highlighting journalism’s responsibility to society; the Kerner Commission’s criticism of journalism’s orientation toward “a white man’s world” (p. xvii); and finally, the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which was the genesis of the “people’s right to know” movement (p. xxii).
From there, the stories range from the better known, such as the “debate” between John Dewey and Walter Lippmann (Chapter 3, by Tim Klein and Elisabeth Fondren) and the formation and role of the Hutchins Commission (Chapter 7, by Gwyneth Mellinger), to lesser known events, at least among non-historians. Chapter 4, by Patrick Washburn and Michael Sweeney, is a great example of the latter, as it deals with the Francis Biddle and Dean Jennings case about tensions between the First Amendment and journalism as a business. It tells of a San Francisco rewrite man who scheduled his vacation to attend the first national convention of the American Newspaper Guild, only to have his bosses at the San Francisco Call Bulletin tell him he had to work and thus could not go to the meeting that the newspaper’s owners worried would engender a labor union. He quit, went anyway, and then sued. As Washburn and Sweeny discuss, these fraught circumstances showed how journalism was—and was becoming—a profession in light of the vested interests of newspaper owners and First Amendment protections potentially bestowed on reporters. In the end, Jennings lost and the owners won.
But the story did not end there. Biddle, the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, had backed Jennings but capitulated to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt—that is, until the second show-down eight years later, when Biddle stood up to the President, this time in defense of the Black press’s right to criticize the government’s unequal treatment of Blacks, even in wartime, when FDR felt support for the war effort was at risk. I wished for more about this fascinating event, which is given less attention than the Jennings labor-relations episode.
Diversity is incorporated into most of the chapters in smaller ways, two of which are devoted specifically to these issues: one on women war correspondents in World War II (Chapter 6, by Carolyn Edy) and another on the failed “Goal 2000” of ASNE to diversify newsrooms (Chapter 9, by Gwyneth Mellinger and Erin K. Coyle).
Throughout the book, we see a common theme of journalism organizations such as ASNE, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Associated Press Managing Editors and the like, mounting efforts to assist journalists in their crusades for diversity, professionalism, press freedom, and credibility. However, not so for women war correspondents. In Carolyn Edy’s “War Correspondents, Women’s Interests, and World War II,” we see that female war correspondents had to make their own cases, fight their own battles, and devise clever ways around government dictates that they cover only the “woman’s angles” of war.
The writing is captivating and seamless considering that 11 different authors wrote the nine chapters. There is more inclusion of ethical theory in some chapters than in others; for example, John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” is nicely employed in the chapter “Blackening Up Journalism” by Gwyneth Mellinger and Erin K. Coyle. As the title highlights ethics, I was expecting a little more connection to ethical theories. I especially appreciated the stories that typically do not make it into Journalism History 101, such as Erin Coyle’s piece on Sam Ragan of the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer, an alma mater of mine, and his 1960s crusade (before my time) for the public’s right to know, especially concerning trials and criminal investigations, well before the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a First Amendment right to attend trials. As in this chapter, all the authors are careful to include the context in which government or society attempted to restrict press freedoms and the backstories that led up to the showdowns. In the case of trials, it was the press’s prejudicial coverage of JFK’s and Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassinations that critics felt jeopardized the safety and free trial rights of defendants.
Overall, this book’s fascinating stories and appealing writing qualifies as curl-up-with-a-good-book material more than academic fare. It would certainly make a secondary text to a history or ethics class that is welcomed by students.