Reluctant Stewards: Journalism in a Democratic Society Michael Schudson Abstract: Journalists are reluctant stewards for democracy because they believe that democracy makes citizens their own stewards. They resist donning the mantle of moral guides on behalf of those who are authorized to guide themselves. Yet sometimes journalists do exercise responsibility for the public good in ways that are not subsumed under their professional duty to be nonpartisan, accurate, and fair-minded. Examining some of these exceptions, this essay argues that journalistic stewardship should be loosely de½ned, decentralized, multiform, and open to invention. In fact, today’s economic crisis in journalism (and the identity crisis it stimulated) has launched a new set of initiatives–from fact-checking to organized crowd-sourcing–that have each sought to address a speci½c problem of democracy, truth- seeking, or the public good. Pluralism, pragmatism, and decentralized invention may do better at stewarding democracy than a coherent philosophy of moral guardianship ever could. Journalism, for all its occasional lofty pretensions, sits awkwardly in a discussion about stewards of democracy. Journalism is not even supposed to be about stewardship–that is, a kind of trusteeship or moral management suggesting that stewards, like fathers, “know best” (with all the paternalism that this message implies). The premise of “objective journalism” is otherwise: namely, that the citizen knows best and that the journalist is only providing MICHAEL SCHUDSON the parts–pre-cut but un½nished–for citizens to , a Fellow assemble themselves. Journalists are reluctant of the American Academy since 2012, is Professor of Journalism at stewards for democracy because they believe democ- Columbia University. His publica- racy makes citizens their own stewards. tions include Why Democracies Need However, this philosophy of journalistic profes- an Unlovable Press (2008), The Endur- sionalism is riddled with self-deception, as the daily ing Book: Print Culture in Postwar practice of journalism regularly demonstrates. America (edited with David Paul There is a long list of exceptions to “just the facts” Nord and Joan Shelley Rubin, journalism, including not only disapproved excep- 2009), and The Sociology of News (2nd ed., 2011). His writing has also tions–advocacy under the guise of objectivity, appeared in the Columbia Journal- say–but highly respected ones, too. These range ism Review, The Wilson Quarterly, and from avowed advocacy on the editorial page to The American Prospect. analysis that, without endorsing speci½c policy © 2013 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 159 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00210 by guest on 27 September 2021 Reluctant conclusions, is more substantially inter- It was again the case in 1986 when The Stewards: pretive and context-providing than a Washington Post learned of a secret U.S. Journalism in a straightforward news story. There is also underwater mechanism code-named “Ivy Democratic a widely shared view among mainstream Bells” that had successfully tapped Soviet Society journalists that their coverage should be cable communications. The Post also inclusive of women as well as men, young knew that the operation had been com- as well as old, racial minorities as well as promised by the efforts of Jack Pelton, a whites, and non-heterosexuals as well as low-level technician for the National heterosexuals. Today, news organizations Security Agency (nsa) and spy who sold seek diversity in the newsroom as well as information to the Russians. Newsroom in news coverage not to reach a larger executives at the Post met with nsa Direc- market in quest of pro½t, but to realize tor Lieutenant General William Odom, ideals of social justice, even though they who urged them not to publish anything. fought the employment and advancement Odom contended that any story about of women in the 1960s and 1970s.1 Ivy Bells would be dangerous to the coun- Patriotism is also part of the package of try, revealing to the Soviets something exceptions. In Europe, it is commonplace they did not know. But they already know, in the charters of public service broad- editor Ben Bradlee countered. Neverthe- casting organizations to acknowledge less, Odom said, it was unclear precisely and af½rm an obligation to serve the needs which Soviets knew about Ivy Bells. of national identity and national af½l- There might have been internal Soviet iation even while also meeting statutory secrecy or a cover-up. A story in the Post requirements to provide programming would set off a general alarm in the Sovi- for recognized minority populations. The et Union, increasing Soviet anti-espionage bbc, at its beginning, was dedicated to measures–a bad outcome for the United promoting a sense of “Britishness” that States. Odom’s protest was enough to included celebrating a distinctively British make the Post cautious. Successive drafts heritage and even an allegiance to the prac- were written, each with less detail than tices of the Church of England. Steward- the one before. Bradlee repeatedly asked ship indeed! For many Americans and for his colleagues, “What is this story’s social most American journalists, such an openly purpose?” In the end, the Post published tutelary mission is not only not part of the story–over the objections of the ad- their creed–it would turn their stomachs. ministration–after a back and forth that Still, American journalists also act in lasted months.4 ways that express obligation to and af½l- The Post has made similar decisions iation with the nation-state.2 When Amer- much more recently. In 2009, as editor ican journalists have a story they think may Marcus Brauchli recounts it, longtime reveal secrets that bear on national secu- investigative reporter Bob Woodward rity, they customarily notify the govern- received a copy of a con½dential report ment ahead of time and even negotiate produced by General Stanley McChrystal the content of the story with the White about the war in Afghanistan. The Post House or relevant executive agencies. This informed both the Pentagon and the was the case in 1961 when The New York White House that it planned to write Times got wind of the impending Bay of about the report and to publish the com- Pigs invasion and voluntarily modi½ed its plete document on its website. The secre- story on the strenuous urgings of the tary of defense, national security advisor, White House.3 and vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 160 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00210 by guest on 27 September 2021 each asked the Post to reconsider. Brauchli, Any decisions that introduce other mat- Michael in telling this story, has said: “We should ters, even if they are considerations that Schudson pause on that word, ‘ask.’ . [I]t is a curi- journalists are committed to–social jus- ously American phenomenon that the tice or community pride or national secu- most powerful of½cials in the world’s rity–are uncomfortable. They compli- most powerful country have virtually no cate or pollute the purity of the journalis- power to do anything but ask an editor to tic task. In 2003, Dean Baquet, who is weigh the national interests against the today managing editor of The New York impulse to publish and then leave the edi- Times but was then managing editor at tor to make his decision.”5 But note that the Los Angeles Times, was involved in a by conceding to the government the op- decision about whether to publish a dam- portunity to do the asking, the Post, as an aging story about Arnold Schwarzeneg- institution, recognized obligations beyond ger, then a leading gubernatorial candi- journalism in deciding what to publish. date in California. The paper had gath- These practices express a sense of stew- ered a half-dozen credible allegations by ardship with regard to the public inter- women in the movie industry that est–in this case, a public good jointly Schwarzenegger had sexually harassed guarded by the press and the govern- them. With the story ready to print just ment. This coguardianship is most notable days before the election, the editors won- in times of war or other moments when dered if they should delay running it until national security appears to be at risk. In after the election. Would the article not the United States, but also in France and seem to be a “hit piece” sprung on Britain, the news media and the state Schwarzenegger? Would the timing not share in what media scholars Daniel make it dif½cult for him to respond? Hallin and Paolo Mancini term a “na- Baquet later told a reporter (after the tional security culture” in which govern- Times went ahead and published the ment of½cials and journalists “both in story): “Sometimes people don’t under- some sense represent a common public stand that to not publish is a big decision interest” and therefore institutionalize “re- for a newspaper and almost a political lations of trust and mutual dependence.”6 act. That’s not an act of journalism. You’re During the war in Iraq, there was great letting your decision-making get clouded controversy among journalists about the by things that have nothing to do with advantages and disadvantages to fair- what a newspaper is supposed to do.”7 minded reporting brought about by the Baquet’s is a revealing and representa- system of embedding journalists in U.S. tive statement: journalism is journalism, military combat units; but no one raised not politics, and it should stick to that role. the question of whether reporters should Journalism is making information public; also be embedded with Saddam Hussein’s choosing not to publish for any rea- forces.