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Gold9472
01-23-2008, 07:31 PM
Sandra Duffy: Journalism's first loyalty is to citizens

http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonianopinion/2008/01/sandra_duffy_journalisms_first.html

Posted by The Oregonian January 23, 2008 10:23AM
Categories: Sandra Duffy, The Oregonian's Community Writers

In December, I wrote in the Community Writers' online forum that FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds offered to violate her court order to reveal high government corruption that seriously threatens American interests. I called upon journalists to write Edmonds' story.

On Jan. 6, 2008, the London Sunday Times wrote her story. Nuclear secrets are being stolen from every nuclear agency in the United States and sold on the international black market to countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. U.S. Congressmen of both parties are involved, as well as high-ranking current and former Pentagon and State Department officials. While the article does not "name names," Edmonds has provided Internet access to pictures, without names, of those she accuses, which are now identified on Web sites. For example: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5521#comments

This is explosive news of global importance, but American news organizations are not writing or talking about it.

Edmonds provided the file number of an FBI file that would corroborate some of her claims. A Freedom of Information request to the FBI resulted in a denial that the file existed.

Based on a document from an FBI official proving the existence of the file, the Sunday Times ran a second article on Jan. 20 that accuses the FBI of a cover-up intended to protect corrupt U.S. officials who were promoting nuclear proliferation.

Where are the U.S. headlines and news program promos? The silence is downright eerie. Who is it journalists work for? According to Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, in their seminal work, "Elements of Journalism," journalism' s first loyalty is to citizens. They tell of a young Adolph Ochs who bought a struggling New York Times in 1896, and published this promise the first day of his ownership: "to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interest involved."

And in 1933, Eugene Meyer, after buying The Washington Post, adopted the following principle: "In pursuit of the truth, the new newspaper shall be prepared to make sacrifices of its material fortunes, if such a course be necessary for the public good."

The key role of journalists is that of being an independent monitor of power. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, in writing of that watchdog role, said: "Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."

The silence on federal government corruption must end, and telling Edmonds' story in America should begin in Oregon with The Oregonian.