This commentary was published today in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please consider subscribing to that publication to support my work. Learn more about my multimedia content and career experience at billschmitt.substack.com/about.

America’s mainstream news media cannot say “they didn’t get the memo.”

Lots of people will hold journalists accountable for some sense of balance in discussions of 2024 presidential election issues. But plenty of news consumers, and newsmakers, will want to define balance first. Reporters ultimately must decide how to be true to themselves while providing what subscribers want and what our polarized society needs.

Earlier this month, the White House sent a memo on this subject to top news executives in print and broadcasting companies.

You might say this was a “letter to the editor’s boss,” akin to a client phoning a firm’s customer service line and saying, “let me speak to your supervisor.” The complaint alleged faulty coverage of emerging investigations on Capitol Hill, and it probably received more attention than it would from any old supervisor.

A spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office called on the journalism world to “scrutinize House Republicans’ demonstrably false claims” and “to ramp up its scrutiny of … an impeachment inquiry based on lies.”

As reported first by CNN, and then by NBC News and others, the counsel’s office attached a 14-page appendix describing the inquiry as “all politics and no evidence.” The document provided rebuttals to a list of seven Republican claims.

I will presume that journalists have interpreted this memo as a species of press release, simply pushing one side in an ongoing political battle. Otherwise, it could be oddly framed as a high-echelon interaction, leapfrogging rank-and-file reporters to suggest policies on misinformation.

My purpose in citing this is not to take a stand in the battle; neither I nor the journalists, nor the Congressional investigators, currently grasp the whole truth or falsity of the matters being probed. I have no objection to the memo as a PR response to events or a reasonable contribution to the debate.

Rather, my goal is to highlight the rhetoric that dominates our culture across the political spectrum—the tendency to cast newspeople, and members of the public, largely as truth-claimers with a point of view, not as truth-seekers exercising their curiosity, even healthy skepticism.

Any document recommending the latter quality is welcome. But in today’s post-truth mind frame, skeptics tend to approach information as either friend or foe. Pieces of truth can become means instead of ends. Offering or accepting those pieces can brand people as malevolent or wrong-headed.

The Cambridge Dictionary says “post-truth” applies to “a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts.”

The arena of truth can morph into a battlefield of defensive and offensive narratives, where generals call the shots from a bully pulpit (an intentionally mixed metaphor). Those on the front lines in this democracy must reflect seriously on their own beliefs, on the types and quantities of information needed to establish useful knowledge.

News professionals must be courageous champions for comprehensive pictures of reality. They are storytellers gradually tilling the grass roots, the common ground a democratic society must maintain to make judgments and build consensus. They tell each story as it comes, either big or small, not knowing how the series will end.

Dogged inquiry, over a long period, is essential. This makes journalists public servants, not paid advocates as in public relations.

The primary principle guiding America’s news media, their core purpose, is “to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing,” as Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel said in their landmark 2001 book, The Elements of Journalism.

Think of their book, based on benchmarks professed by journalists active during that time period, as a memo reminding us of the meaningful work to be done.

Kovach and Rosenstiel concluded that their colleagues agreed on nine principles to help achieve their mission of service. These included:

• News professionals’ “first obligation is to the truth,” relying on independent verification.
• Journalists are watchdogs monitoring power on behalf of the citizenry.
• Terms like “fair” and “balanced” may be too vague for inclusion among the profession’s key “elements.” Even Fox News gave up on the catchphrase. But the authors insisted reporters must be “allowed to exercise their personal conscience.”

Separate principles of virtuous wisdom would dictate that one’s conscience be well-formed and well-informed, not centered on ideological dictates, secular dogmas, or private assumptions. The book nobly goes on to help its readers embrace such high standards.

The idea of virtue calls to mind another memo, or letter, worth reading as a complement to the White House’s suggested rules of engagement. Pope Francis, in his 2018 message for World Communications Day, envisioned “a journalism of peace.”

The pontiff’s reflection on the news media’s role said reporting should be “truthful and opposed to falsehoods, rhetorical slogans, and sensational headlines.” Journalism must be people-centric, “at the service of all, especially those … who have no voice.”

One contributes to peace, Pope Francis wrote, by “exploring the underlying causes of conflicts, in order to promote deeper understanding….” News should point out “alternatives to the escalation of shouting matches and verbal violence.”

These are times when all of us are called to accept our respective responsibilities to sort out what’s morally significant—to be true to ourselves, to our polity, and to values which transcend the incentives of power or greed.

We can draw upon a spectrum of guidance for properly programming our internal navigation systems, which function only when they are well-attuned to external realities and the big picture.

Notable resources include the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics, which embodies a respect both for the journalistic mission and human dignity.

Americans from every era should heed the resource which President George Washington issued as his public service drew to a close. He gave good advice about independence in a Farewell Address published on Sept. 19, 1796. We got that memo 227 years ago today.

Washington warned against a fractious “party spirit” with which advocates on each side go to extremes for their cause, using a pretense of principles in order to seize victory for a political machine. This is not an atmosphere for a peaceful, dynamic democracy.

As journalist John Avlon wrote in Politico in 2017, the president’s address tackled a concern that extends through this nation’s history: “The founding fathers’ suspicion of faction was rooted in the classical tradition that celebrated the virtue of moderation—and the subsequent independence of thought and action that moderation can create.”

We can appreciate all reminders that the best champions of truth make news, not war. Various declarations about reality will galvanize us in different ways, depending on whether we enjoy digging into it or ruling over it.

The liberty to use our own reason and judgment in order to understand what’s real—and thereby to grow as citizens and persons—is an American birthright. Our independent spirit of authenticity, in newsrooms as well as the public square, carries both privileges and duties. Ideally, we’ll carry them with freedom, strength, and balance.

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