11/18/09 Letters from Greenwich Time Readers - Journalistic integrity?

Journalistic integrity?
To the editor:

It has been most disconcerting lately to see the once vaulted Greenwich Time resort to sensationalism in an apparent attempt to boost its readership. The preoccupation with salacious material for the front page of the Time has dark and serious implications. That these two most recent tabloid stories involving local doctors appeared on the front page and dragged on with repetition ad nauseam puts into question the editorial staffs' perception of good journalism. These stories went well beyond the presumption of bringing pertinent information to the public. When a Time staff member was asked about their preoccupation for sordid stories I was advised that they were a product of the Freedom of Information Act which, I guess, puts all of us on notice that if there is a skeleton in our closet, some prying intern will make a name for him/herself, and the front page of the Greenwich Time is a likely place for that skeleton to parade its bones.

Freedom of Information does not absolve the editorial staff from exercising prudence, discretion and integrity in presenting a story in its proper context; and context does include its location and length of deliberation. The resolved but now revisited four-year-old insemination case was originally an accusation, but was presented with all the authority of fact to the readership and labored on for the unheard of length of two full pages.

The unsettling question that lingers, however, is, what is the value of any sealed, confidential or shredded court document when any reporter can get access to a resolved case and through supposition force you to be publicly haunted and relive the anguish? Journalists either revel in the stir they have caused or bury the consequence of a story gone sour on "journalistic integrity" as though the phrase itself was both a salve and absolution ... sort of like an assassin who claimed merely to be following orders.

In the midst of Joseph McCarthy's reign of terror and character assassination I am reminded of Joseph Welch's reply to McCarthy. "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" I wonder, has the phrase, "journalistic integrity," become an oxymoron?

Albert J. Repicci

Greenwich

==================================
Please send your comments, news tips and press releases to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com