Judges for Journalism

The press judges everybody, but who judges the press? Unlike other professions and the business community, the press has no machinery for setting formal standards or evaluating accusations of unfairness or bad practice. One often proposed solution: set up an independent council to perform this sensitive mission. That idea, however, has always evoked opposition from those who consider the press in quite a different category from the professions or business and see it as a vital, independent part of the democratic system. Many journalists feel that a council would infringe on the freedom of the press, prove unworkable, or both. The question has become even more relevant in the past few years because of political attacks on the news media and legal disputes over reporters' rights to keep their sources confidential.

Now the council proposal will get what promises to be a thorough tryout. The Twentieth Century Fund, a small but prestigious nonprofit foundation, announced last week that it was creating a group with two missions: 1) to investigate and report on allegations against major news organizations and 2) to attempt to speak for the press when it is threatened by official restrictions. The project is the result of an 18-month study by 14 jurists, educators and newsmen.* They proposed establishment of a 15-member council comprising journalists and others yet to be named. The chairman will be former California Chief Justice Roger Traynor, 72.

The council will limit its investigations to national suppliers of news: the major wire services, weekly newsmagazines, TV networks, national newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, and the news services supplied by such papers as the New York Times. Journalists from these organizations will not sit on the council. A number of foundations will provide a budget of about $400,000 a year.

A small professional staff will be recruited to investigate complaints about specific reporting performances. If an allegation cannot be resolved by mutual consent or by a lower-echelon complaints committee, the full council will hear and rule on the matter. The findings will have no legal or binding force; the hope is that wide publication of council opinions will give the organization moral authority. These procedures are modeled on those employed by Britain's press council (see box).

Whether the scheme can be transplanted is questionable. There is little doubt that the U.S. press faces something of a crisis of confidence, and the Twentieth Century group obviously felt that the council could help overcome it; the task-force report argued that the absence of an independent appraisal process was a "barrier to credibility" for the press. But the council's own credibility and authority will be an issue, and will heavily depend on press cooperation. Some newsmen greeted the announcement with surprise, others with hostility. Though John Oakes, editorial page editor of the New York Times, was among the report's signers, his cousin and boss, Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, recently spoke out against the idea as "simply regulation in another form." A recent poll of the Society of Newspaper Editors also came down on the negative side. NBC said: "The press already has too many people looking over its shoulder."

CBS News President Richard Salant, one of the task force members, replied that "there simply hasn't been enough examination of what we [in journalism] do." Hence the need for "systematic, independent investigators." Commented Washington Post Publisher Katherine Graham: "If properly handled, it won't do any harm and might do some good."

*The members: Co-Chairmen Lucy Wilson Benson, president, League of Women Voters, and C. Donald Peterson, associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court; Barry Bingham Sr., chairman, the Louisville Courier Journal; Stimson Bullitt, president, King Broadcasting Company (Seattle); Hodding Carter III, editor, the Delta Democrat Times (Greenville, Miss.); Robert Chandler, editor, the Bulletin (Bend, Ore.); Ithiel de Sola Pool, professor of political science, M.I.T.; Hartford N. Gunn Jr., president, Public Broadcasting System; Richard Harwood, assistant managing editor, the Washington Post; Louis Martin, editor, the Chicago Defender; John B. Oakes, editorial page editor, the New York Times; Paul Reardon, associate justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; Richard Salant, president, CBS News; and Jess Unruh, a Democratic leader now running for mayor of Los Angeles.

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