Longtime investigative reporter Tom Witosky reflects on “the essence of good journalism” and the “crisis of conscience” recent trends have caused in the media sector. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Two Iowa State students approached me after a campus news conference in 2003 during which Gregory Geoffrey, then the school’s president, explained why he fired Larry Eustachy, who was the school’s men’s basketball coach.

“You’re a Hawkeye aren’t you?” one of them asked as if to be let in on a big secret.

After all, the students suggested, that would be the only reason why someone would write a story and publish pictures of Eustachy drinking and partying with college students into the early morning hours while on road trips.

It wasn’t the first time that question or its corollary – “You’re a Cyclone aren’t you?”- had been asked. During my 25 years of investigative sports reporting for the Des Moines Register, many stories incurred the wrath of Iowa and Iowa State fans. This time my reporting on Eustachy’s on-the-road shenanigans had cost him his job.

The memory of that conversation 13 years ago remains a vivid one. It remains high in my recollections because it’s the same accusation that’s heard daily about media bias or lack of objectivity in covering the 2016 presidential campaign.

Last week, Donald Trump increased spewing his vitriol against various news organizations, particularly the New York Times, by going beyond his routine description of every newspaper as “failing” and every media organization as dishonest. A recent Tweet from Trump even branded reporters as the “lowest form of humanity.”

This attack coincides with August polling data nationally and in states considered vital to the outcome of the race showing the Republican’s campaign teetering on becoming one of the worst in U.S. political history. Like many politicians, Trump’s first response is to raise questions about reporters’ credibility – a move that is now apparently prompting his supporters to confront reporters at his rallies by calling them traitors among other things.

On the other side, Hillary Clinton’s refusal to submit to reporter questions during news conferences comes from the Clinton political machine’s playbook written back when the Clintons were dealing with the so-called bimbo eruptions of late 1991 and 1992. Some would suggest the attacks of the right wing justify it, but what is being interpreted as a refusal to be held accountable has raised justifiable questions about how she might perform if she wins the presidency.

With these kinds of attacks, the media’s role and its real and perceived biases in a presidential campaign are getting substantial attention. My friend, Laura Belin, recently answered whether Bleeding Heartland portends to be an objective news website. Her response was direct in that she rejected the premise of objectivity because “story selection, framing, etc. introduce some level of subjectivity” in a journalistic decision.

She acknowledged a commitment to gather facts accurately but concluded that by acknowledging her bias readers can judge the credibility of her work through that prism.

I frame the role of journalism differently by embracing the model developed by Bill Kovach, (one of my mentors), and Tom Rosentiel in their book, The Elements of Journalism. In that book, the two outlined 10 principles of journalism that reflect a common sense but principled commitment to excellence in journalism. Those principles can be found here: https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/what-is-journalism/elements-journalism/

In its principles, the two news veterans argue that the essence of good journalism is the discipline of verification – a methodology that requires reporters to subject information to rigorous testing for truthfulness and to acknowledge how that information has been tested so that readers can determine its validity. As Kovach and Rosentiel wrote: “The method is objective, the journalist is not.”

Last week’s controversy over Trump’s accusation that President Obama was the founder of the Islamic State In Syria (ISIS) and the controversy over e-mails showing communication between members of the Clinton Foundation staff and a top member of Clinton’s staff at the U.S. State Department provide excellent examples.

As Trump continued to insist on Obama’s duplicity with ISIS, reporters talked to Middle East and intelligence experts who pointed out that Trump’s assertion simply wasn’t accurate. Ultimately, Trump’s acknowledged his inaccuracy but then attacked reporters for taking him at his word and not accepting it as hyperbolic exaggeration or sarcasm designed to attract voter attention.

Meanwhile, reporters looking into the recent disclosures of Clinton Foundation took the story as far as they could at this point. Cheryl Mills, a top Hillary Clinton aide at the State Department, did meet with two candidates for an executive position at the Clinton Foundation, thus raising more questions about a symbiotic relationship between the foundation and the State Department.

But, the State Department and the Clinton campaign pointed out that Secretary Clinton was not involved in the meeting and that Mills paid her own expenses and used personal time to participate in the interviews. For Clinton critics, this is more evidence to justify their concerns of the Clintons established a pay-for-play scheme operated at out of the State Department; for Clinton supporters, this is just another round of right-wing criticism without any evidence of wrongdoing.

Those who are committed to verification understand these gambits, particularly in this age of spin — a euphemism for deception. Top-notch reporters are required to develop information for a story using as many sources with as widely divergent points of view as possible. In addition, that information must be vetted again and again to provide the context that makes the story understandable to the consumer.

Contrary to public opinion, most reporters come to their jobs every day looking for the best story they can do, not whether they can write for someone who agrees with their point of view. If there is solid evidence of a Clinton pay-for-play scheme, it will eventually be disclosed without hesitation. The problem for Clinton critics is that no smoking gun has surfaced as yet.

More than 40 years of reporting taught me to focus always on the precision of a story — the accuracy and depth of the information disclosed, putting the information into the correct context and making sure all sides in the story were treated fairly. Execution of a story is what matters to good reporters, not whether the content coincides with a viewpoint.

Over the years, some folks have suggested that kind of detachment is impossible. In response, I often quote a line from the movie Three Days of the Condor. “It’s quite restful,” Joubert, a professional assassin, says when asked if his profession is tiring. “It’s almost peaceful. No need to believe in either side or any side. There is no cause. There’s only yourself. The belief is in your own precision.” His vocation could be professional golf and the point remains the same. It’s precision that matters.

But this reporting task has become more difficult, particularly for local newspapers with circulations below 250,000.

Dramatic changes in technology have created a crisis of conscience within the journalism industry. The internet coupled with the purchase of most newspapers and television stations by publicly held corporations has prompted a change in the industry as profound as the invention of the automobile to horse-drawn buggy.

The result for newspapers has been huge declines in gross revenues, particularly classified advertising, and circulation. To maintain profit margins, these corporations have reduced staff sizes and, for most local newspapers upon which residents rely, those staffing positions have been cut almost in half, according to a 2015 job census by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Those deep cuts hit hardest on local reporting of the institutions that impact a community’s residents the most. Where a newspaper like the Des Moines Register once had multiple reporters covering City Hall, the county, the courts, the legislature, state agencies, often there is one reporter or no reporters covering them except when something scandalous occurs.

The result is to place heavier demands on the remaining reporters, who largely are less experienced than those whom they replaced, and are required to spend more time on tasks irrelevant to verification of facts but considered vital in a digital age – the shooting of video and maintaining a presence on social media.

Delving deeply into a tip or a hunch that could turn a major story becomes increasingly difficult because of those demands. As a result, potentially good stories that take time are not pursued or are placed on the back burner to wait “until we have time to look into it deeper.” Often, that time never arrives.

In its place, reporters by necessity go after low-hanging stories that generate more controversy than understanding and emphasize continual conflict as opposed to resolution. That is precisely what Trump has done since he announced his candidacy with his various outbursts – some of them accurate, some of them false.

Blogs such as Bleeding Heartland attempt to fill that void as best they can. Unfortunately, those efforts are dependent on individuals taking on issues because of their interest or a commitment to helping the community to improve. Those efforts are to be praised, but also should be analyzed on the basis of the commitment to verification of fact done ethically and transparently.

That is what the public should expect from journalists – a continual commitment to go after facts and to verify them accurately.

That’s why my answer to the two Iowa State students wondering about my school loyalty still makes me smile after all these years.

“Well, my Dad went to Iowa and my Mom went to Iowa State,” I told them as they leaned in closer for the big answer. “I went to Wisconsin. F*ck ‘em Bucky.”

Witosky retired from the Des Moines Register in 2012 after spending much of his 33 years as an investigative reporter in sports, politics, and business. He is also the co-author of Equal Before the Law: How Iowa Led America to Marriage Equality