Panel discusses news credibility
"News: Believe it or not" was the title of a symposium held Thursday which drew Forrest Boyd, White House correspondent, and Dick Rosenbaum, bureau chief for ABC television in Chicago. They were members of a panel at Baker University at Baldwin which discussed the credibility of news reporting.
Also speaking in the symposium were Carl Larson, a member of the Emergency Committee for a Re-appraisal of U.S. Overseas Information Policies; Willard Walbridge, chairman of the board for the National Association of Broadcasters; and McDill "Huck" Boyd, publisher and chairman of the Kansas Board of Regents.
Speaking first on "News Believability from our Nation's Capitol," Boyd listed several reasons of non-credibility in news coverage.
Boyd said there is a purposeful lack of clarity in statements from the White House. He said reporters might then reach unjustified conclusions from vague statements.
"When President Nixon says 'let me make one thing clear,' look out because it will likely be obscure." Boyd said.
Boyd said there are mistakes within the media itself, such as misleading headlines, unsupported assumptions and instant analysis.
A reporter's ego and conceit, Boyd said, also interferes with accurate news reporting, and he said he was tempted to write a book entitled "Forgive Us Our Press Passes."
Dick Rosenbaum spoke on "News Believability in Saigon and Mayor Daley's Chicago." He said he could be quite critical of reporters in Viet Nam because news reporters there are sometimes inaccurate.
Speaking about the news believability of the "Chicago 8" trial, Rosenbaum said, "Everyone reporting was fed up with the trial."
Oliver senate passes resolution
The Oliver Hall Student Senate passed a resolution Thursday evening which called for either the abolition, reduction or at least re-evaluation of the language requirements for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Bill Sniffen, Shawnee freshman, said.
Sniffen said he hoped other living groups would follow the example and pass similar resolutions.
"It was a circus in the courtroom; it was too bad cameras were not let into the courtroom," Rosenbaum said.
Larson spoke on the role of the United States mass media in shaping attitudes in foreign countries.
"The U.S. image abroad in recent years has suffered a marked decline to perhaps its lowest point in a half century," Larson said.
"The character of the American people is increasingly described as sick, violent, stupid and arrogant."
"I think it is unwise to veil the negative attitudes of foreign nationals as distortions or misperceptions of reality." Larson said.
"In order for the media to respond adequately to criticism and at the same time maintain its credibility, it must give adequate coverage and perhaps more than average coverage to the critic's arguments," Larson said.
From the critics' point of view, he said, the Agnew blast leveled at the mass media could not have come at a better time.
"As I personally remember the events leading up to Agnew's blast," he said, "it seems to me there had been a definite tendency on the part of the media that I was exposed to to present a one-sided, if not out-right biased, representation of Agnew's activities."
McDill "Huck" Boyd, Republican national committeeman from Kansas, said there is an inherent danger of concentration of power in the media.
Boyd said later that the corporate ownership of newspaper chains made it possible for a columnist to be in 500 papers. He said this destroyed the balance of 500 different opinions.
But he said there should be freedom from censorship, and the responsibility for news coverage should be with the reported.
Willard Walbridge spoke on the influence of broadcast news on community events.
He said the effect of the local news media is profound and alerts the people to danger. The news media created community action, he said.
Walbridge said the thesis of the northwest dominance of the news was false and there was no conspiracy among the media.
"The freedoms of the public are one with the freedom of the press and the media." Walbridge said.
The media had established credibility with the public because of their trust of the media and the media's trust of the public, he said.
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