Business As Usual Strangles Truth

Business As Usual Strangles Truth, By: Jeff Jacobs September 29, 2006 Thomas Jefferson will not be quoted here today. Neither will Thomas Paine. Sully will be. "I'm in despair about the state of journalism," Sully said. So am I, and that's why I called my best friend Thursday. We grew up down the street from each other in Newport, R.I., in the 1960s. We wanted to be sports writers since we were 12 years old for the purest and most transparent of reasons. We loved sports and we loved writing. The journalism came later. You'd never catch us using the word "pure" with journalism. Not after one deadline, not after 10,000 deadlines. Journalism is the prickly old cactus we acquired along the way. The seed was planted with "All The President's Men," and it was watered over four years at the University of Missouri. It has been argued over more beers and vodka tonics than either of us would care to count. Journalism got our hands dirty, like the fresh ink of newspapers, and we grew to love it. Dirty hands kept us honest as long as we washed them off with clean intentions the next morning. Clean intentions to us meant being tough enough not to back down from the truth and fair enough to admit when you missed the target. "The truth is not grandiose," Sully said. You want to pick a fight? Tell us we work in the toy department of newspapers. God, we hate that. I've seen Sully, Jerry Sullivan, the sports columnist for the Buffalo News, stand up to the all-time NFL sack leader Bruce Smith, to linebacker Cornelius Bennett, to Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy. And if you've read these pages over the years, well, you may be familiar with a spat or two of my own. We like to kid each other how scared we really get. The truth is it's not the sports or the writing that gives us the backbone. It's the journalism. Good journalism gives us spine. And, now, we sit and watch as good journalism comes under a withering attack from the courtroom to the boardroom, from people who trade stocks to ones who, if given the option, would put good journalists in stocks. It is dispiriting. Last year, President Bush, who had made the war against steroid use one of his State of the Union goals, praised San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams for their "public service." Now those same two men are being threatened with 18 months in federal prison for not giving up their sources for the very body of work that had drawn White House praise. From Jason Giambi to Tim Montgomery to the possible perjury of Barry Bonds, their reporting in the Chronicle and in their book, "Game of Shadows," has done more to document the use of performance-enhancing drugs by high-profile athletes than anybody. Without them, the entire BALCO federal grand jury exercise is little more than a typical drug bust. Authorities gave users immunity while it exposed dealers, only in this case the users were great athletes tainting baseball records and the Olympic Games. Yes, the two used leaked grand jury testimony in their reporting and, yes, this pushed the journalism envelope. And, yes, the person who leaked it did commit a crime, although the laws are not absolute on whether Fainaru-Wada and Williams did. Neither are the reporters' First Amendment rights unlimited. In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled the need to protect sources is sometimes superseded by the need to protect the judicial process. But here's the bottom line: Fainaru-Wada and Williams gave names to the cheaters, cheaters who made hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of the ticket-paying public. The two men brought a greater truth. They enhanced the public good. They helped rewrite sports history. We can only hope they are helping our society get rid of this national plague. There was no need for the feds to go to the mat on this one. And although the two didn't face illegal disclosure charges, they were hit with civil contempt and Judge Jeffrey White intends to bring down an austere punishment of 18 months if they don't reveal their sources. This is appalling, considering Victor Conte, the architect of the entire BALCO mess, did only four months. The Chronicle case begs for a federal shield law for journalists, something 31 states, including California, already have. Consideration for a bill that Arlen Spector (R-Pa.) is co-sponsoring with Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) sadly was postponed the other day by the Senate Judiciary Committee after new objections from the justice department - specifically over issues of national security. Let's be honest, Bonds' head may be scary big, but it's not a national security risk. Even if it is approved by the Senate after the November elections, passage in the House is considered doubtful because of heavy-duty opposition from the Bush administration. How can this be? Except for outright repression of good journalism and the chilling effect it would have on whistle-blowers, is there one reason why a carefully considered compromise cannot be worked out? Especially since legislators on both sides of the aisle are willing to craft such a compromise? It is a depressing climate. And that's not nearly all of it. Every day we wonder how far publicly held media conglomerates such as the Tribune Co. will cut into our newsrooms. The Courant's newsroom has shrunk by 25 percent since 1998. The L.A. Times, also a Tribune paper, has shrunk 20 percent since 1999. The 20 percent profit margin remains. How can good journalism survive - whether it be print or cyberspace or wherever - if there aren't enough good journalists to fully and accurately report? Great newspapers, like great colleges and great hospitals, should serve their communities first. This isn't a call for bad business. It's a plea for a future more noble than business only. We have to be better than the stock price at the closing bell. L.A. Times publisher Jeff Johnson and editor Dean Baquet certainly are. They recently rejected demands by the Tribune Co. to further cut staff. Wow. None of us know what this will mean in L.A. just as none of us know what will happen next in terms of ownership at The Courant. But I know the truth and it's like Sully said, the truth isn't grandiose. It can be as simple as it is inspiring. In the face of extraordinary pressure, Fainaru-Wada, Williams, Johnson and Baquet have demonstrated considerable courage. They know what good journalism is. And they give me the spine to say it.

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Business As Usual Strangles Truth