An Interview with Sissel Mc Carthy: Are these “journalists” behaving badly or unethically?

1)     Professor McCarthy, first of all could you tell us a bit about yourself, your training and what you do in terms of journalism?

While I have always been a news junkie, I did not start my career in journalism. After graduating from Dartmouth College with a degree in government and romance languages, I worked on Wall Street as a foreign exchange and bond trader for Bankers Trust and Lehman Brothers. When I was 29, I left Wall Street to return to graduate school at Columbia University to study international relations and journalism. Columbia offered a joint degree program in two years, which I completed in 1992.

During graduate school, I worked as an intern at CNN New York and after graduation, they hired me as s writer for the show Moneyline and then as a producer of Headline News Business Updates. My big break came in 1994 when I landed my first on-air job with CNBC in London. After two years with CNBC, CNN hired me back as the anchor for its flagship business program, "World Business Today" based in London. This was a fabulous experience, which afforded me the opportunity to interview both corporate and world leaders.

After the birth of my fourth son, I retired from CNN and we returned to the United States, settling in Atlanta. I realized after a few months how much I missed the world of breaking news and deadlines and soon worked as a freelance journalist for the PBS business program "Nightly Business Report" and Georgia Public Television's "Georgia Business Report". The work was very spotty and in 2004, I taught my first course on News Writing and Reporting at Emory University. I was an adjunct professor for three years until 2007 when I received a full-time appointment. I now teach the entry level course on News Writing, Advanced News Writing, News Video, and the Internship course, which is really a misnomer because students take this course after they complete their required 400-hour internship and we work on getting them ready for the job market.

2)     One of the goals of education is to teach students to look for facts, data, evidence, knowledge, and to examine information objectively. How do YOU teach your students to do this?

We try to instill in our students the importance of critical thinking as well as thorough reporting. We highlight the importance of confirming everything and looking at a potential source's motivation. We also talk about the myth of the "objective" reporter which may surprise you. Let me explain. We all bring our personal values and experiences to our jobs. A journalist, like any other person, has opinions, political views and religious beliefs. What we tell the students is how important it is to acknowledge these views so that when you do report on a story related to your personal opinions, you will know to bend over backwards to present the other side as fairly as possible.

So the goal is to report objectively, not necessarily to be an "objective" reporter. The New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse visited Emory some years ago and made a similar point when she described how she had to report and write stories about Roe v. Wade many times in her career even though she was publicly known to be pro-choice. Knowing that going into the story, she worked extra hard to present both sides fairly and completely.

3)     Recently, with the presidential campaign, there seems to be a lot of journalists who seem to "favor" one candidate or party. Are these "journalists" behaving badly or unethically?

I think journalists are entitled to have their political views, but that their reporting must still be objective. I think you are referring to a whole new subset of personalities who aren't traditional journalists, but more opinion makers. It's hard for the public though to distinguish who is really a journalist trying to get the truth out and who is really presenting selected facts to the audience to bolster their opinion and view.

4)     Do you think some interviewers are somewhat biased? It seems that some ask hard questions and others "easy" or simple questions.

I think there are definitely interviewers who are biased and do ask "softball" questions of a candidate on "their" side. But I've also seen a FOX news personality grill a Republican and an MSNBC host do the same to a Democrat. So many times, media outlets with a reputation for a certain slant defy expectations. The ABC daytime show "The View" is generally considered a "softball" venue and a place where you would expect easy questions, but Sen. John McCain faced some the toughest questions of the campaign when he appeared a couple of weeks ago.

I read some reviews that said Joy Behar, the stand up comedian, looked more like Edward Murrow than many of the journalists covering the election now.

5)     In your area- broadcast journalism, what do you see as the current concerns in terms of training reporters, interviewers (such as myself) and other individuals?

We have the same concerns as print reporters: getting the facts and reporting the news fairly and accurately. No matter what the platform-print, radio, t.v. or online- these are the values we must instill in our journalists. Journalists play an essential role in a democracy by getting information from people who have it to the people who need it to make informed decisions about issues and the people who will govern them. This is a sacred trust and journalists must preserve their credibility by presenting the facts without bias.

6)     Is there a difference between t.v. journalism, and radio journalism, and newspaper journalism, and now we have e-journalism, if you will.

The main difference is in the style of writing—the news values are still the same across all these platforms. Without boring you too much with the details, print affords the reporter time and space to go into greater detail and description. Radio and t.v. reporters write much more conversationally and must be more selective in the facts they choose to report due to time constraints. They also use the strengths of those mediums to highlight the immediacy of a story, the visuals/sound and the emotional element. Online reporting is a 24/7 beast that must be constantly fed by adding new developments to the original story. The writing is less formal than print, but not as conversational as broadcast.

7)     What are the challenges in terms of training journalists to be fair, neutral and impartial?

One of the most important skills Emory emphasizes is critical thinking. We hope the students will become life long learners open to new ideas and different ways of thinking. That is the goal of a liberal arts education and a big challenge in this partisan world.We also emphasize the paramount role of the journalist in our society and how important it is to have a free and unbiased press in a functioning democracy.

8)     What should we do about Charlie Gibson? I would write a letter to him or the network, but what would that accomplish? Do you feel his interview of Sarah Palin was "fair" or balanced?

From your question, I can tell you don't think the interview was fair. I would counter that both sides actually criticized Gibson for being too soft or too hard on Palin and that's usually the sign of a balanced interview.

9)     How does broadcast journalism currently try to train students in terms of objectivity?

I feel like I have answered this.

10)  What question have I neglected to ask?

I really do feel for the public because there are so many sources of "news" out there and it is very difficult to know if you are really getting the facts and not just some of the facts or no facts at all. This is especially the case for blogs which anyone can write. These bloggers in many cases don't have any formal training in terms of confirming information, evaluating sources, learning to present all sides of an issue and when their work gets lumped with real journalism, it hurts the press' credibility.

Published October 28, 2008