Essays on Imperfection

For a decade American journalism has been the target as well as the generator of criticism. It has been accused of being first too complacent and then too alarmist about Viet Nam, of being insufficiently sensitive and too gullible concerning the counterculture of the '60s, of being first casual and then over-zealous about Watergate. Such indictments have come from within and without the craft, often at a pitch intended to shatter glass.

A welcome change is provided in a new book by Thomas Griffith, How True: A Skeptic's Guide to Believing the News.* With witty epigrams and cogent commentary, Griffith avoids knee-jerk assaults on both the press and its critics. Rather he wants his readers to understand what journalism is and is not--and why. He points out that publications are often trapped by their own style and history ("The last time an editor is a free spirit is the day he puts to press volume one, number one"). Publishing economics is an ever larger concern ("Somewhere in the background can be heard the ring of the cash register, or else the clang of an alarm bell over the cash register's silence"). He insists that newsmen keep their heads even when dealing with mind-boggling events ("Journalism, like a teapot handle, is presumed to be able to remain cool while transmitting the hot").

Griffith's form is a series of essays interspersed with "memory cells" from a distinguished 38-year career. It started with a cub reporter's job in Seattle and took him to major assignments for Time Inc. (Griffith was successively a writer, senior editor and assistant managing editor of TIME, senior staff editor of all Time Inc. publications and the last editor of LIFE.) Now 58, he contributes articles to TIME and FORTUNE.

Submerged News. Like many newsmen, Griffith retains a large measure of idealism about journalism--"an exciting way to do good"--and he regrets that some people feel threatened or ill-served by the press. One of the problems lies in expectations. Journalism, and particularly television news, purports to be a reasonably accurate mirror of the world. Yet it is rarely that. Readers expect--and editors eagerly seek to provide--a full report on what is new and different from last week, yesterday, ten minutes ago. So journalism often shows "the world with all the banality, the ordinary, the uncontroversial and the unchanging left out." In a period of war, domestic turmoil and change, "good news" is even more easily submerged.

Griffith believes that the press, like other U.S. institutions, did not cope well enough with the upheavals of the '60s. It fell too readily for the glib and the dramatic, and was slow to understand the "voice of Archie Bunker's America." Griffith also worries about the "artificial momentum" of major stories: "Once a theme to the news emerges-that McGovern vacillates, that Lyndon Johnson has a credibility problem, that Nixon has much to hide--then any small fact, otherwise inconsequential, can be tied to the theme and made to seem news."

Theme journalism often appears to be biased reporting. But Griffith believes that bias is less prevalent than it used to be, at least among "straight" newsmen (as opposed to the underground press and New Journalists who "live at the intersection of fact and fiction"). In any event, Griffith is no preacher of bland impartiality. He argues that newsmen should have a sense of commitment and responsibility, provided that their general convictions do not cloud their judgment in handling specific stories. He urges readers to "suspect an indifference that calls itself impartiality; it is the pedestrian asset of secondrraters."

As a TIME editor, Griffith sometimes disagreed with superiors and colleagues when he thought their judgment on particular stories was skewed by political loyalties. ("A good journalist is an unreliable ally to any cause he believes in, as his friends in public life soon learn.") His relationship with TIME'S founder, Henry Luce, was warm, close and difficult. "He wanted to prevail," Griffith recalls, "but respected independence, disliked trimmers and was bored by those whose opinions suspiciously echoed his ... He was something like a tennis player who wants a victory, but only after a hard-fought match." Griffith had some good matches with Luce and won his share.

Moving Silt. In How True, Griffith proposes no radical solutions for the profession's problems. He does urge that the press make itself "answerable" to critics -that it admit errors freely and fully and that it be willing to have its performance judged by independent outsiders. Specifically, he favors the concept of a news council that reviews complaints about particular stories and renders findings (such a national body, consisting of six press people and nine leaders from other professions, was formed by the Twentieth Century Fund last year, to the displeasure of some editors and publishers).

More broadly, Griffith says that the function of the newsman should not be to purvey final answers and finished philosophy: "He is neither defender of any faith nor prophet of new orders, nothing so grand as that. His role in society is more like a dredging engineer, whose job it is to keep channels free and clear." He will not always succeed because "imperfection is the journalist's working climate." And newsmen are mistaken if they expect universal applause even when they do the dredging well. There are always those who like the silt as is.

*"Atlantic-Little, Brown; $6.95.

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