PressEthic

In a week wrought with heart wrenching memorials to September 11, President Bush reasserted through a myriad of public appearances, and a public address, his administration’s aim to preserve democracy at all costs.

This same week, New York magazine ran a cover story titled, “Times Under Siege” which chronicles the struggles of New York Times’ executive editor, Bill Keller, to maintain the standards and quality of the newspaper in a changing era marked with scandal and fear.

This task has proven particularly daunting during an age in which America is hungry for news about an administration that is reticent to divulge - under the guise of national security. While the President spent this past week touting his love of democracy across the nation, the story chronicles now notorious attempts by the Bush administration to stifle democracy’s greatest component, free speech, in the name of national security.

The New York Times’ struggles with Washington bureaucracy are well-noted and the article details the historically unprecedented meeting between Keller, Times’ publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and White House officials in which the White House attempted to prevent the expose of the NSA’s efforts to monitor phone calls without court approved warrants, an article that the Times had already held back for a year.

After stiff pleasantries, Bush issued an emphatic warning: If they revealed the secret program to the public and there was another terrorist attack on American soil, the Paper of Record would be implicated. "The basic message,” recalls Keller, “was ‘You’ll have blood on your hands.’ "

Days after meeting with the President the Times ran the story and in turn waged war against the White House. According to the article, attacks on Keller for allowing the release of the story went so far as to declare him “unpatriotic.”

How is the most trusted news source in the country to react when pressed by our nation’s own government to keep controversial information under wraps, under the pretext of protecting national security? And how effective can the media remain under such scrutiny? Fears of grand jury investigations could threaten the closure of a newspaper already riddled by new media and rising costs.

Senior reporters at the Times told Keller they thought the paper's coverage of the Bush administration was weak and frightened….The difficulty of navigating the paper though this historic period can hardly be overstated. The Bush administration has masterfully eroded the press’s ability to do its job.

On the other hand, the Vice President said it was “disturbing” that “the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs.”

The question remains, is the White House motivated to silence the New York Times and other media out of a sincere concern for national security or out of the government’s own fear of being disgraced? Does media have our interests at hand in exposing these stories or are they more interested in improving the bottom line?