Journalism and patriotism

Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, delivered this address at the annual meeting of the Organization of News Ombudsmen on April 30, 2002, at Salt Lake City, Utah.

A lot of very important things came into focus on Sept. 11 last year. Before 9-11 or after 9-11 has become one of those universal markers, a way to date things without explanation, without elaboration.

But for the future of journalism in the public interest, one of the things that occurred on 9-11 was that — for millions of Americans — timely, accurate and abundant information suddenly became important …

Bias on the church scandal? …

Even the reporters and editors at the epicenter of the Globe’s pedophile priest coverage are stunned at how the story has reverberated around the world.

What began in January as a Spotlight Team account of one errant Roman Catholic priest and the Boston Archdiocese’s failure to contain him has unleashed similarly embarrassing stories in dioceses across the United States and in at least three foreign countries. Every major newsweekly has put the story on the cover, and international media attention has been intense since the ripple effects reached the Vatican.

For the Globe, it’s the …

Practicing restraint and good news judgment…

Funerals for victims of high-profile tragedy inevitably draw news coverage. The public expects it.

However, the public also tends to look disapprovingly at the contingent of reporters, photographers, TV news trucks and the like gathered at such a solemn occasion.

It doesn’t matter that the journalists represent hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t attend but, almost like a vast extended family, care enough to want information about the event and to find their own sense of closure.

Still, some view the situation as exploitation of a family’s loss. They believe that a family …

Readers do a turnabout on picture…

Readers denounced The Times-Dispatch after this newspaper published on Page A1 a photograph of a dying American soldier being tended to by a medic and a priest.

In phone calls and letters to the editor, readers said the picture was insensitive and intrusive and the decision to publish it was wrong.

Whether to publish the picture was the basis of Case No. 2 in the annual you-be-the-editor exercise offered in this column April 14. Readers and T-D editors were invited to decide between two options in each case.

The cases were based on actual news …

Health news stories score big with all kinds of readers…

The importance of health news, even the smallest stories, was dramatized last week by two readers.

A woman had read a brief item about an experimental vaccine being tried on patients with urinary tract infections. Her daughter has had so many infections that permanent damage is a possibility. The mother wanted more information on the experiment. Could we help? Yes, we found information on that test and e-mailed that information and Web site contacts to her. Now the reader has information to bring to her doctor and will try to get her daughter involved in …

Balance is often in the eye of the beholder…

There’s an old axiom among reporters and editors: If what you write makes people on both sides of a controversy mad at you, then you probably reported it fairly.

I don’t hold to it because it’s a cheap response to valid criticism much of the time. Our goal as journalists shouldn’t be to divine the middle ground between warring interests and track a straight line of facts that both sides would agree on. Some days the facts overwhelmingly weight coverage in one direction or the other.

Still, I can’t help but think about that old …

Newspapers adapt to the Internet Age…

The demise of newspapers, thanks to the Internet and other media, has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, the Internet has become an important tool in bringing readers the immediacy of breaking news and in making newspapers a part of their lives all day long.

Rather than competing with each other, newspapers and their Web sites such as The San Diego Union-Tribune’s SignOnSanDiego.com (also reachable at www.uniontrib.com) are engaging in partnerships that enhance and supplement news delivery to readers beyond the printed page.

“When the newspaper arrives, it is the most complete package of national …

Should Beacon name juveniles? Readers divided…

Kids and crime have been in the news a lot lately.

Robert Vandyne, age 16, and Gregory Evans, age 17, last week were charged with beatinga Green High School student until he almost died.

Before that, Deonte Griffin, age 12, and Rayshawn Robinson, age, 14, were charged in the rape of a 14-year-old girl. Aaron Stitt, age 14, was convicted of killing his father.

All of them kids. All of them at a confusing age, full of emotional chaos. All of them in court. All of them named in the Akron Beacon Journal.

And …

Sin of omission: Star erred on Israel rally story…

Sometimes it’s not what’s in the Star, it’s what’s not there.

Children’s dentist Jeffrey DuBois, D.D.S., watched TV coverage of Monday’s pro-Israel rally in Washington, D.C., but didn’t see a word about it in Tuesday’s Star.

Supporters says 100,000 people attended, and called it the biggest pro-Israel rally ever in Washington, D.C.

The New York Times ran a photo on its front page and a story inside. The Star ran nothing, despite stories from seven different wire sources and 16 available photos.

The story wasn’t included in news or photo summaries that top editors …

From my corner, The Chronicle erred on rally coverage…

When my phone rings these days, it’s a good bet I’m about to hear one of two things: The Chronicle’s Mideast coverage is pathetically pro- Palestinian, or The Chronicle’s Mideast coverage is pathetically pro-Israel.

One reader demands to know: “Why do you call Hamas a militant group when President Bush says they are terrorists?” Another reader, equally fervent, can’t abide the fact that we refer to Israeli soldiers as soldiers at the same time as we call rifle-carrying Palestinians “gunmen.”

In the superheated atmosphere of the Mideast crisis, every word, paragraph, graphic and image …