I was chatting with a group of students the other day when one of them looked me in the eye and said, “You’re very tough on journalists.”
I had to plead guilty.
Of course I’m tough on journalists. Maybe even as tough on them as they are on politicians.
Our representative democracy depends on journalists doing their jobs. Why? Because it’s essential that citizens get the solid, accurate, fair information they need to make good judgments about politicians and public policy. Our system can’t work if journalists and the institutions they work for don’t shoulder the burden of serving as watchdogs, holding government accountable, shining a light on overlooked challenges, and thoughtfully exploring complicated issues.
Which is why, if you value representative democracy, you have to be deeply concerned about the once-over-lightly journalism that fills our media. Too often, reporters, commentators and online contributors focus on trivia, partisan posturing and political gamesmanship rather than substance.
Disruptive forces have laid waste to traditional journalistic organizations and gutted newsrooms that once produced in-depth journalism and investigative reporting. Yet the world we live in is so complicated and difficult to understand that the need is greater than ever for journalists to ferret out what really matters and convey solid information to the public.
I have no illusions about how difficult this is. Nailing down good information requires effort, persistence and time. A single story can take months to develop fully. And the prevalence of “fake news” and misinformation makes the search for objective truth ever more difficult and challenging.
Good journalism still exists but it’s not always easy to find amid the noise and clutter that fill our media landscape. This places a particular burden on us, as citizens, to work hard to find it and understand it.
For journalists, the search for truth means looking into every nook and cranny of government, chasing down what’s important and exposing what doesn’t add up.
For citizens, it means conscientiously seeking out reliable, fact-oriented media wherever it exists – not just a single, favorite source that serves up news suited to our taste.
Getting all of this right is essential to making our government work. The public must ask – and journalists must ask themselves – if the media are getting to the bottom of stories and giving citizens enough information to make good judgments rather than trafficking in trivia, entertainment and posturing.
It’s a complicated dance, but it comes down to one thing: Journalists need to provide, and citizens need to demand, the reporting that’s necessary to make the country work.
Lee Hamilton is a senior adviser for the Indiana University Center on Representative Government and a former Democratic congressman.