COLUMN: The unbiased world of journalism

From Yoni Slonim's, "Ink Blots," Fall '97 From Yoni Slonim's, "Ink Blots," Fall '97Oh, what a summer. My idea was to gain some experience by interning for a small but somewhat significant newspaper that barely anyone had ever heard of. I thought covering stories on the street, putting my ear to the pavement and all that jazz for a New York weekly would be pretty exciting. Shows how little I knew. To get some idea of how exciting this job could be, one of the highlights was meeting Geraldo Rivera in person; he's taller than you think. Through all of the sarcasm though, I did learn a great deal. Especially on why I don't want to become a journalist. After a week or two of intern grunt work I finally got my break on a story nobody else wanted. The paper wanted me to cover a relatively new summer camp that brings together children from different warring factions such as Arabs and Israelis, Serbs and Croats. After making a few phone calls I was able to set up an interview with the camp's director who happened to be a retired world-renowned journalist. I picked up my pad, pen and tape recorder and headed out the door before anyone could ask me to file some more old photos. The director, we'll call him Jon, was very cooperative. He spent a great deal of time with me explaining why he left the world of journalism for what he saw as the world of action. He was sick of being "a fly on the wall," reporting what others did. While I was conducting the interview, Jon got a telephone call from an associate who started to discuss the plans for the upcoming summer. I felt a little uneasy because I was overhearing a personal conversation, but he never asked me to leave so what was I to do? During this conversation and Jon's follow up explanation of the phone-call it "slipped" out that Chelsea Clinton would be attending the summer camp. Jon quickly told me that everything I had just heard about the president's daughter was off the record. He explained that Chelsea would not attend the camp if word got out about her involvement. They (Chelsea and the president's handlers) understandably did not want her summer to be interpreted as a political statement as well as the desire to protect the first-daughters privacy. Fine with me, I thought. After completing the interview I returned to the newspaper's offices and started working on my piece. I interviewed fascinating children from different Arab countries and Israeli's who had attended this camp in the past. Even though the camp got somewhat mixed reviews, it was definitely inspiring to me that Jon's vision of peace was worth a shot. It shed a positive light on an ever-darkening prospect. Over the next few days I did some more research on the camp and spoke to some of the counselors and other people involved in the program. I then sat down and started to write the article putting together the different pieces. That week during one of our in-house infamous late-night Tuesday dinners, I brought up my article in response to a "what are you up to?" question from one of my editors. In between discussing the different aspects of burritos the editors sort of pooh-poohed my article as another one of those family pieces with no punch. So I decided to tell them about the Chelsea twist not expecting much to come of it. They pounced on it. One started to give me Hillary Clinton's secretary's number in order to get a confirmation. But, I argued, isn't this just a little unethical? "He did tell me it was off the record," I argued. They told me the overheard conversation was not printable however, I should try to get another source to confirm it because it would then be fine. Just to double-check I asked another editor and he told me the same thing encouraging me that I had a good story in my hands. It was as if they had they had tasted blood and were going after the kill -- that's how it is they explained, Jon knew the rules. Thankfully, no one would confirm the report so it remained unprintable. The whole episode left a bad taste in my mouth. Were we so starved for news that we had to go against the wishes of a very cooperative, friendly and well-meaning man? Was that what it meant to be "objective?" The kill, the scoop was the aim -- let the cards fall where they may. My feelings were only further confirmed when I saw how articles were formed. There was really no such thing as an objective question. Yes, one could ask for facts. But even then the reporter would pick which facts to single out and which to ignore. Reporters and editors definitely had their pre-conceived notions of certain people and ideas, which was clearly reflected in how they formed their questions and which quotes they chose to include in their articles. On one of my last days working at the paper, the editor-in-chief asked me how my summer had been -- if I had learned anything. I told him that I now understood how non-objective the news really is. He replied with a knowing smile, "It looks like we didn't do such a good job."