Greg Mitchell - Views On News Coverage

Views On News Coverage

Mitchell revealed what he called his own Jayson Blair moment in his E&P column in 2003. At age 21 and while working as a summer intern, Mitchell confessed to making up some quotes when asked by his city editor at the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) to gather quotes from tourists at Niagara Falls. The point of the column is that both he and other journalists learn from their mistakes.

In an interview on June 28, 2004 with the Echo Chamber Project, Mitchell discussed the duty of news reporters to be "skeptical" and not tilt coverage either to the right or left. He cited coverage of the build-up to the United States war in Iraq as an example of skewed coverage.

He said the tone of coverage by news media "all our coverage on all subjects—is not to be partisan or not to be left or right or anything like that. But we believe in the—what should be the main principle of journalism, besides being accurate and fair, is to be skeptical—to raise questions, to not take what officials say as the gospel truth—unless it's really proven—if there's documents."

Whether covering Washington or a small town, Mitchell said "the journalistic principle is the same: to be skeptical unless there's hard evidence and proof. And you report what someone says—"It's their claim." "It's what they say." "It's what they allege." "It's what they're trying to prove." But you don't present these things as fact if you're not sure they're fact. And what happened with the Iraq coverage was that too often newspapers—and especially television—went with stories that were based on official claims, and in retrospect, were really propaganda. Because in some cases, the officials were well-meaning. Maybe they thought that they had the evidence. But in other cases, they knew their evidence was incredibly shaky—or should have known—and yet went with the evidence claiming it was fact. And the press just, in most cases, accepted it."