With their most recent undercover video investigations, independent journalists James O’Keefe and Lila Rose have set a new standard of transparency in the field of journalism — a standard I call on all media outlets — print, online, and broadcast — to adopt and to institute immediately. Within hours of releasing what the AP called “heavily edited” video footage of a high-powered NPR executive’s troubling statements with respect to the Tea Party, conservatives, and Jewish control of the media, Mr. O’Keefe then released to the public the full, unedited two-hour video of the entire conversation. Another New Media pioneer, Lila Rose, also released the full video of her undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood.
While the biased AP apparently only whips out the term “heavily edited” when the institutional left is under fire, it’s difficult to disagree with them on principle, especially when we live in a world where on a daily basis the network nightly news programs, Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, and every facet of the MSM broadcast and publishing world release reports no less “heavily edited” than Rosa and O’Keefe’s initial video releasse. However, unlike Rose and O’Keefe, the mainstream media never allows the public to view the full, unedited material in order to judge the full context for ourselves.
This can and must end today.
With New Media once again leading away, let’s start a new era of responsible journalism that we’ll call The Rose/O’Keefe Standard of Journalistic Transparency, where the insidious practice of “heavily edited” interviews and reporting finally comes to an end. If the mainstream media is as devoted to transparency, truth, and context as James O’Keefe, here are some examples of how it can work….
Within hours of a “heavily edited” broadcast report or interview on the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric and CBS will release online any and all video used to compile that report. Within hours of the Associated Press or Politico releasing an article quoting an interview subject, the AP and Politico will release the notes and/or audio recordings of the full unedited interview. The same with Rachel Maddow, and because he’s The New Murrow and awfully concerned with how the media behaves — Jon Stewart himself should lead the way with the release of the full video of any and all interviews within hours of his wacky editors making the latest “Daily Show” target look like a fool.
Because Mr. O’Keefe and Ms. Rose have led the way in journalistic transparency and taken the first step, as a show of good faith from the MSM in accepting this offer, we call on Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric to release every frame of video involving their 2008 interviews with then Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.
Veritas, anyone?
Big Journalism
