ABSTRACT
The most obvious medicines for news media ailments are prescriptions for rules of behavior, written into codes of conduct for the press. Most news organizations now have such guidelines. The Westmoreland documentary violated CBS's News Standards. Lawyers have enforceable codes of ethics and committees of the bar to carry them out. Television is both reported on and criticized in almost every American daily. In the past it was mostly covered as an entertainment medium, or a business or with a focus on celebrity newscasters. For both print and television, imagine the not farfetched notion of reviewing and analyzing news coverage and news organizations the way the stock market, politics, sports, restaurants, business, books, movies and other subjects are critically scrutinized. The New York Times rejected an interesting report by one of its reporters on how White House correspondents court sources by taking them to expense-account dinners.
