SPJ Convention Webcasts
David Carlson’s presidential installation speech
Remarks by David Carlson, Oct. 18, 2005
Thank you, Irwin.
Past presidents, Wells Key winners, Sigma Delta Chi Foundation board members, SPJ board members, award winners, distinguished guests, fellow journalists, and friends, I am privileged to serve as your president, and I am humbled by your confidence in me.
Just in case you haven’t been counting, I am the 89th president of this great organization. And I am about to do something that I suspect none of the 88 men and women who have gone before me has done. I am going to quote Bob Dylan in my first speech.
“I snuck through the door when no one was looking,” Dylan said when reflecting on nearly being booed off the stage at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966. “I was in there now and there was nothing that anybody from there on could do about it.”
The copy editors among us would be inclined to remind Bob that he “sneaked” through that door, not snuck, but that’s beside the point.
It’s the “in there now” part that matters here because that, my friends, is exactly the position in which you now find yourselves. I sneaked through the door while you weren’t looking (it was on Kelly Hawes’ watch), and now you’re stuck with me.
Perhaps this explains why Mac McKerral, not the most religious person I have known, appears to have developed a new fervor in the past few days. He’s been seen several times this week gazing reverently skyward and saying, “God help us all.”
Indeed, I hope He will.
There is another thing about me that is different from the presidents who have gone before me. It seems I am the first SPJ president in our organization’s 96-year history who makes his principal living as a journalism professor. I am honored to be the first.
Don’t worry. I’ll keep the lectures to a minimum. I do, however, tend to speak in 50-minute blocks. Just kidding.
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a journalist. I published my first newspaper at nine. It was after my favorite aunt and uncle, the ones who always gave the best and most ostentatious gifts, gave me a small, hand-crank printing press. It was a toy, but it really worked. I still recall the lede headline on the inaugural edition of The Brook Knoll News. It was, “Mrs. O’Neal gives birth.”
Retrospect, 20-20 hindsight, and about 30 years of newsroom experience help me realize that was not the greatest headline ever written. The professional head-writers among us might be inclined to ask a few questions about it, such as what the poor woman birthed, when she birthed it, why she bothered, and who was the perpetrator of the whole situation.
At least the head was in active voice.
I got to high school in my home town of Bedford, Ind., exactly 40 years ago this fall. Of course, I tried to get a job writing for the school newspaper. They required a tryout, and, I am sorry to inform you, I failed it.
You are, perhaps, now beginning to share some of Mac’s newfound religious fervor.
It was not because of a fact error. I promise.
Undeterred, I went off to college at Drake University determined to become a TV reporter. I soon learned, though, that I had a face for radio and a voice for print. I joined SPJ while a student, and somehow, I sneaked through the print door. Journalism has been stuck with me ever since.
I spent 20 years at newspapers of many sizes and shapes and in jobs ranging from photographer to executive editor. I discovered computers and online services in 1981, and I was fortunate to be on the cutting edge of some of the first newspaper online services. After that, I suddenly found myself a college professor traveling the world as an expert on “new media.”
I wish I could tell you that I won 17 Pulitzer Prizes along the way and invented the Internet, but that would be a violation of the SPJ Code of Ethics.
Everyone knows Al Gore invented the Internet.
What’s not so well known is that I was there telling him what to type.
It’s been a great life so far. For you students in the audience, I can’t promise that a career in journalism will make you rich in money, but I can promise that it will make you rich in experiences. SPJ will do that, too.
Irwin has a gift with words, and he said and did a lot of great things during his presidency. My favorite was when he arrived at a forum earlier this year and told the audience, “I’m glad you could be here tonight because we need to talk.”
We do need to talk because our industry faces significant, troubling problems, We need to talk about how Wall Street and its never-ending quest for profit is changing journalism. We need to talk about plagiarism and ethical lapses that have given us a black eye. We need to talk about the erosion of freedoms that are making it harder for the public to learn about the public’s business. We need to talk about our fellow reporters going to jail to protect their sources.
Journalism, to me, is about helping people. It’s about telling stories that get laws changed. It’s about telling stories that save lives. It’s about telling stories that point fingers at what needs to be pointed out. It’s about sending criminals to jail and setting the innocent free. Journalism is about seeking truth and reporting it.
But our industry has strayed somewhat from these principles. Too often and in too many places journalism has become about profits and ratings. Too often and in too many places it has become about political agendas and axe grinding, about entertainment disguised as news, about “spin” and saber-rattling. Too often and in too many places journalism has involved another “ism,” plagiarism.
In short, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve allowed our ethics to decay. We’ve come to think that it’s OK to hype a story to make it sound better than it is. We’ve come to think that it’s all right for the TV networks to treat promos for their prime-time entertainment shows as news. We’ve come to think that it’s OK to tell local listeners that “Bubonic plague breaks out! Details at 11,” when the story is about a cat that died 500 miles away.
I know I am picking on broadcasters here, but you print journalists better not get smug because you’re next. Newspapers do it, too. We do it with story teasers on the front page; we do it with headlines inside and on section fronts, and we do it in the news columns. We do it, in a way, every time we write, “Smith was not available for comment” after making one phone call to Smith’s office – at midnight on a Sunday. We do it every time we write “many” when it was two. We do it every time we write “sources said” when it was one source.
These indiscretions are killing our industry. They are – no, they have – undermined our credibility to the point that journalists are nearly as hated as lawyers. Sorry Bruce.
Heck, journalists are nearly as unpopular as man-eating sharks, and that’s taking a serious toll with the public and the courts.
My challenge to all of us tonight is to make it stop. I challenge you to take journalism ethics into your own hands. I challenge each of us to become a force for ethical journalism in our own newsrooms.
In corporate America, we are far too inclined to do nothing about policy except wait for an edict from on high. It’s a top-down mentality. If the editors don’t send out a memo, it’s not our job. If the company lawyers take two years to vet an ethics policy, then we’ll just have to wait to be ethical. That’s not acceptable.
I believe ethical behavior is something that doesn’t come from the top. It can’t. Ethics has to come from each one of us. So bring it on. Next time write “how many” instead of “many.” Next time a piece of copy crosses your desk that says “Smith didn’t return phone calls” ask just how many calls were made. And next time someone suggests a headline that’s just a little bit too good to be true, call them on it.
This is the only way we can begin to rebuild the trust.
The cartoonist Walt Kelly, author of a wonderful old strip called “Pogo,” penned the following words for the first Earth Day celebration in 1970: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
I am afraid that is an all too apt description of media in the early 21st Century.
We are the enemies of journalism every time we look the other way and let another half truth, another sensational headline, another ethical lapse sneak through the door. Once they get past the door, we’re stuck with them. Just like Bob Dylan, only much, much worse.
Regarding Wall Street, there is no sin in profit. We all have to recognize that no matter how high our ethical standards, there will be no medium in which to disseminate our work, if our employers don’t make money.
Our companies face a serious, potentially fatal financial conundrum. Newspapers, in particular, are what economists call “a mature industry.” They are not growing, so the only way to maintain financial performance is to cut costs. That’s why newspaper staffs are shrinking, why the day’s editions are slimmer and the paper used for both broadsheets and tabloids is smaller.
The rub is that every time our companies lay off another journalist, remove another comic or column, trim the number of pages and raise the price of ads and classifieds, they make it just a little easier for customers – both readers and advertisers – to do without us.
It’s a spiral, and I don’t mean an upward spiral. There are few if any ways out of it. Our salvation just might be in the online world. If most production costs are eliminated, if we can stop using paper, ink, presses, trucks and all the rest, both profits and quality can remain high. I urge you to embrace this new world, not fight it.
Meanwhile, our nation and many other nations have become less free. Public officials, some of them well meaning and some of them not, have used terrorist incidents as an excuse to throw a blanket of secrecy over public policy. It was never shown that access to records – records that then were public but now are not – provided any aid in planning the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but Americans still lost their right to keep tabs on thousands of government activities. And those public officials had the gall to name that action the USA Patriot Act.
I remember our distinguished counsel, Bruce Sanford, telling the SPJ executive committee in the late fall of 2001 that it was hopeless to fight the Patriot Act, that we would only make enemies. But he told us another thing as well. He said we should view public policy, open records access in particular, as a big pendulum. “It’ll swing back,” he said. Being a lawyer, though, he didn’t say when.
Somebody, I don’t remember who, chimed in with the kind of typical, cynical remark that so endears journalists to me and to one another. “It’ll swing back when somebody gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar.” “No,” said someone else. “Both hands.”
It is possible that, of all things, Hurricane Katrina may be the impetus that starts the pendulum on its return swing. Even the government admits it bungled the response to Katrina, and this might provide what we college professors refer to as “a teachable moment,” a time when the public, and perhaps even some of those well-meaning public officials, are particularly ready to hear the other side of the secrecy debate, how access to information provides a check and a balance, how it actually makes us all safer.
It is a tremendous honor to stand before you tonight, and there are, of course, a number of people without whom I would not be, could not be, standing here.
First and foremost, I must thank my wife, Jeanne, for the many nights she has slept alone, and will, while I travel on SPJ business. She is my sheltering cove in this stormy sea called life.
I must thank my boss, Dean Terry Hynes at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, who has so generously made money and time available for my SPJ work. She has supported me in more ways than I can count.
I must thank my academic mentor, Ralph Lowenstein. He took a chance on me, and I will be forever grateful. I must thank the Cox Foundation and the Palm Beach Post, which funded the endowed professorship that I am honored to hold.
I have to thank my dear friend Ed Barber, general manager of the Independent Florida Alligator, for the countless ways he has helped me be a better person, a better journalist and a better teacher.
I also must thank the headquarters staff. Terry, Julie, Chris and all the rest are the ones who really run this Society, and they make this job survivable. I hope.
There are so many more people who have been my teachers and mentors at SPJ and elsewhere. Each of them has taught me much. Irwin taught me grace and patience and how to stay cool when others are hot. If he were a drink, he’d be a fine, old red port, one to be savored.
Mac McKerral taught me a different kind of patience. Any of you who know him understand exactly what I mean.
But Mac also taught me many other things, too. He is a gifted teacher of people young and old, and he taught me by example how to be a better mentor. He taught me to think about who would sit on my personal board of directors. He also tried valiantly to teach me how to handicap the ponies at many an OTB parlor. If he were a drink, he’d be a shot of tequila.
From Jim Highland I learned how a soft, unpretentious Southern drawl can be a weapon capable of bringing college presidents, provosts and deans to their knees.
Robert Leger taught me consensus building, golf and graciousness under fire. Nobody I know can drink more Korean boilermakers without throwing up. He tried, bless his heart, to teach me the virtues of single malt scotch, but I just never got it.
From Al Cross, I learned the genteel grace of a Southern gentleman. I learned the joy of bourbon and branch water and the beauty of Parliamentary procedure. How does it go, Al? “Hearing no objection, it is so ordered?”
Each of you has a seat on my board of directors.
There are many more – Steve Geimann, Fred Brown, Kelly Hawes, Paul McMasters, Kyle Niederpruem, Mark Scarp, Howard Dubin and at least a dozen others. Thank you all for your friendship and patience.
As I assume this office, it is my pleasure to report to you that our Society is strong and vigorous. We have turned the corner financially and in membership. Our financial position continues to improve, and while our bank accounts are not fat, they are not on life support either. Membership, once threatening to drop below 9,000, is now around the 10,000 mark and growing. The growth is slower than we might wish, but it is growth nonetheless. Our thanks go to Membership Chair Mark Scarp and our staff membership coordinator, Kevin Schweikher.
The Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, our charitable, educational, supporting foundation, has assets of more than $11 million. That money, thanks to the great stewardship of its officers and board, help SPJ and SDX conduct educational activities all over the nation.
The credit for this improved outlook does not go to me. It goes to my predecessors and the headquarters staff. Our executive director, Terry Harper, is the one who is most responsible for our improved financial picture.
What’s more important than money is stature. The Society continues to be the leader among journalism organizations in each of our core missions. Our Code of Ethics continues to be the most quoted document of its kind in the world. It’s been translated into at least seven languages. Our freedom of information efforts continue to set the standard for all other organizations. Our professional development programs continue to grow. Next year, we expect to hold a seminar every 2½ weeks. We have begun reaching out to journalists in Korea, Taiwan and other countries. We can learn from them and they from us.
I could stand here now and give you a laundry list of the things I intend to accomplish as your president. I could talk about the federal shield law, about Quill and the SPJ Web site, about launching a five-year plan to build chapters in states where we have none. I could tell you that I believe we should change our governance system to let each and every member vote in our elections. And I could point out how important diversity, in all ways, is to our organization.
But I’m not going to do that. I’ve been on the SPJ board since 1996. That’s long enough to know that SPJ presidents largely are victims of circumstance. Many have laundry lists, but few accomplish them because a year is a very short time.
Instead, let me say this: I want to make a difference. I want SPJ to make a difference. I want each and every one of you to make a difference.
SPJ, and each of us by proxy, is out there on the front lines every day working -- fighting -- to improve and protect journalism. That is something of which we all have a right to be proud. That is something we each should take every opportunity to inform our colleagues about. I like to tell people that an SPJ membership is much more than “Quill and a bill.” It’s an investment in peace of mind. The Society does the things working journalists don’t have time to do.
This organization does great things. We fight the good fights and sometimes the bad ones. We intervene where no one else does. We convince college presidents to back off on censorship. We weigh in with the courts. We lobby on Capitol Hill. Sometimes people even listen.
We get jobs back for fired advisers. We give legal help to journalists who have nowhere else to turn. We bring sunshine to government offices where there once was darkness. We provide an ethical framework in which news organizations can operate and in which they can be held accountable.
Let us leave here tonight with a vow, a vow to make a difference – an even bigger difference this year – a vow that each of us will slam the door on ethical lapses, a vow that the enemy will no longer be us.