Friday, September 26, 2008 Seares: Sleeping with the elephant By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
JOURNALISTS and news sources profess a common interest: public good. Yet they often clash on how that is achieved.
The journalist seeks a piece of information but the news source hides or tampers it. The news source wants a story to cast him in the best light but the journalist ignores whatever ugly shadows the story brings on the news source's person.
Thus, between them runs perpetual tension, which can lead to hostility and verbal skirmishes, even lawsuits.
News source and journalist rarely like each other. But then the journalist mustn't opt to be liked, only to be respected, for how he does his job.
When the journalist goes over the edge, he loses neutrality's cold eye and gains the cheerleader's passion. He might as well join the news source's p.r. crew. That would be more honest than staying as a journalist and abandoning his watchdog role.
Cheating
They call it sleeping with the enemy. There are journalists who do that without skipping a beat or showing any qualm.
One journalist screens the questions his colleagues raise at the news source's presscon. Another weaves in his story a helpful fact the news source didn't even say.
Who was it who wrote that a journalist can sleep with the elephant but he can't cover the circus? Still, only few journalists can keep away from the forbidden assignment.
Usually, the editor and the public learn of the journalist's cheating only much later.
A journalist sleeping with the news source confirms it when he later marries the news source or joins the news source's rah-rah band.
Guess what kind of stories he wrote about the elephant when he was still covering the circus.
