Ethical Reporting & Journalist Backlash
Story and Header Photo by: Sofie “Finely” Dhar
During an Oval Office press briefing on Wednesday, June 3, Trump called CNN a “very corrupt organization,” and that it was “crooked as hell.” This statement, along with others, mostly directed at CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, comes after she asked him a question regarding anti-weaponization fraud at the Oval Office.
Journalists, such as in the case of Kaitlan Collins, have always faced backlash from public officials, who often strike at their reputation and attack their organizations credibility. Such a thing happens at all levels of journalism—from school newspapers to well–respected newsletters and broadcast agencies, often anytime they publish an article that, in some shape or form, makes someone or something look bad—as everyone wants to put themselves in the best light. As a result, in just about any news report covering the wrong doings of just about any entity, backlash is a guarantee.
Public backlash can have varying effects, but, for the most part, it winds up a journalist’s reputation being damaged, public mistrust in the figure, and, including everyone’s favorite part: lawsuits. These effects also reach deep into the organization that said journalist works for. Such lawsuits are led by everyone and everything from tech billionaires to corporations, and, of course, political figures.
The result is almost the same; free speech becomes limited speech, constrained to what won’t wind you up with a pile of legal paper on your desk, or a comment section poking their knives through your screen.
This sort of stigmatism is common not just in upper level news reporting, but also infects things as simple as high school run newspapers. “I’ve toned down my writing so as not to offend anyone explicitly—if I wasn’t in school, I might have been more honest,” Mercy Wisecup, the former editor-in-chief, now a rising freshman at the University of
Michigan, of the student-led newspaper Ernest W. Seaholm said. “People I have interviewed have chosen to remain anonymous or refused to even give an interview. In a high school environment, it mostly stems from insecurity and fear of being judged from their peers.”
Within high school settings, writing about your school’s subpar performance in its yearly homecoming football game, or your district’s amounting debt isn’t what typically makes you look good in the eyes of your fellow students—or your school’s principal. But the stakes are low; so, no matter the course of action, the consequences are low. However, even the peer-induced censorship provides a similar, albeit lower stakes, example to mass forms of censorship.
On a mass level of forced censorship, though, things look a little different. A key example is Nazi Germany, which, like every totalitarian regime, tried to control intellectual freedom. In 1933, there were 90 book burnings across 70 cities of works deemed to be “harmful,” and “undesirable.” The Nazis also regulated newspapers, magazines, art, theater, music, film, etc. This, of course, is a radical example, where the press bent its knee to an authoritarian government. While such a thing is naturally unlikely, it also can come with devastating consequences. For a more recent event, in 2024, soon after Trump was elected president, he sued CBS news for $20 billion dollars, claiming that “60 Minutes,” a foundational newsmagazine broadcast, had deceptive, edited answers given by then Vice President Kamala Harris, airing during the 2024 presidential race. The suit ended with CBS agreeing to pay $16 million to settle. Then, in early June of this year, CBS’s longtime correspondent Scott Pelley was fired. This, along with other dismissals came along with many other changes at CBS under its parent company, Paramount Skydance, headed by David Ellison, a known Trump supporter. Pelley’s dismissal came after he criticized the new editor and chief of CBS news, Bari Weiss. In response to this, Pelley stated that David Ellison was trying to curry favor with Trump, who has more than once criticized Pelley, calling him a “stiff” and that he was “part of this gang of stupid, crooked people that don’t care about our country,” during a podcast interview with New York Post reporter Miranda Devine.
Trump’s vocal disdain for CBS news, along with other outlets, has led to internal chaos, dramatic changes, and further damages to their reputations as in the case above.
Joseph D. Bryant, a longtime reporter based in Birmingham, Alabama, who writes for AL.com recalled a story where he was covering the Birmingham Water Works Board, and he was able to obtain an internal masonry report detailing things going on the in system: what was going right, what was going wrong, how money was being managed, how money was being mismanaged. From that report, he wrote three stories.
“The chairman of the board did not want to talk to me, and he said I was against the agency, that I was against the people, I was against the city,” Bryant said. “But was the article accurate, and did you have a chance
to respond to the article? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative as ‘yes,’ then I don’t owe you anything else.”
Bryant continues to cover the water board and the Birmingham city government, which includes the water board.
Reporting under pressure of potential backlash is a common aspect of journalism, and, in some extreme cases, it has the result of journalism leaning more towards biased journalism, catering towards public figures to shine them in a better light, rather than a truthful one. This, of course, works its way into the minds of readers who now believe said information.
“I believe in the freedom of speech and of course that applies to the press. We need journalists to be pressing the government on issues and campaigning for honesty in reporting,” Wisecup stated. “Look at Nazi Germany—state controlled mass media is never a good thing.”
This phenomenon, when biased news arises as a result of fear of backlash—lawsuits, loss of press, being discredited, scrutinized by the public, getting arrested— from political and public figures, dubbed the “chilling effect,” is often something that intimidates reporters from covering a specific story in the way they would have, or from covering it all.
Furthermore, it’s nearly impossible for readers to tell when publications are self-censoring—its invisible to viewers since you can’t know what you don’t know.
“Sometimes, our job is to shame people and let people know, not have an opinion, but show what’s going on,” Bryant said.
According to the Pew Research Center, in a study of around 300 journalists, about one-quarter of both local and nationalist journalists said that they have avoided reporting stories and have softened their tone to benefit their news organization. From the 206 reporters and 81 news executives (150 from local news outlets and 137 from nations organizations), widespread concern was found over competitive and commercial matters that often led to good stories simply not being pursued. Around 35% said that if the news would hurt the finances of their newspaper, the story then often goes unreported, and 29% said the same about stories that would affect advertisers.
Of the local reporters, 32% have softened their tone for the sake of their news organization, and that number is around 15% for national reporters.
A survey of investigative journalists from the Interactive Reporters and Editors (IRE) found that 61% believe that corporate owners exert a fair amount of influence on which stories are covered, with 51% of local, and 30% of nationalist journalists agreeing with that sentiment. About one-in-five (20% local, 17% national) reporters say they have faced criticism from their supervisors after producing a piece that was seen as damaging to the organization’s economic interest.
This climate of self-censorship has only intensified. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) found that, on a global level, freedom of expression has faced a dramatic decline while self-censorship among journalists has risen sharply. UNESCO also reports increasing physical attacks, digital harassment, imprisonment, and legal pressure among journalists.
“Inherently in my job, I want to make somebody uncomfortable with the things I ask and the things I write about,” Bryant said. “My job is to be an agent for the public, not a PR person for the government.”