WATCHDOG OR LAPDOG?

The News Leader

Editorial

Saturday, September 25, 2004

After a week in which CBS' Dan Rather was raked over the coals and his ratings sank, it would seem that everyone should now understand that not only must stories be accurate, but also that journalists absolutely cannot give the appearance of being in bed with a presidential campaign.

Seems simple enough.

But instead of enforcing some sort of celibacy, four well-known television journalists have decided to rumple the sheets with both sides equally.

They have signed on to moderate four upcoming debates and signed away their fig leaf of journalistic integrity in return for a hot little leather number guaranteed to keep them hamstrung and gagged through the entire "debate" process.

The pledge they will sign will make these journalists the sworn upholders of guidelines painstakingly crafted by the Bush and Kerry camps to keep their candidates in the best possible light while they're on stage doing their quadrennial song and dance around the issues.

The same guidelines guarantee everything from the mundane -- what is the perfect lectern height, anyway? -- to the ridiculous -- the impromptu "town meeting" questions in one debate will have to be cleared in advance of the telecast, lest a candidate be caught flat-footed (or maybe it's flat-tongued).

But what if there's an obvious misstep, a dangling follow-up question, a bald-faced lie, a flip, a flop or a claim of a mission accomplished begging for a follow-up? No matter. The bound and gagged moderator will be scripted to move along and keep the dance number -- err, debate -- moving. Everyone will look mah-velous, darling.

The names that have signed on to this bipartisan loyalty pledge are Bob Schieffer from CBS, Charles Gibson of ABC, Jim Lehrer of PBS and Gwen Ifill of PBS.

Journalism ethicists are aghast.

"When you raise questions about your independence, it affects your credibility as a journalist," Aly ColÛn, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, told USA Today.

It is "ludicrous," Alan Schroeder, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and author of Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV, told USA Today on Wednesday. "These are journalists doing a service to their country. They cover these guys. How can they climb into bed with them?"

But in bed -- or beds -- it appears they will be, at the insistence of both campaigns. Neither seems worried about the arrangement, or at least they failed to mouth any disappointment through their spokesmen. After all, it's only a problem if a journalist is on the other guy's side yapping at your candidate. If both campaigns can work together to muzzle the journalist, no one gets bit. Except maybe the voter, and they're the folks the journalist is supposed to be working for in the first place. Remember?