UP FRONT
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The Stoning of the
American Me d ia
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It has been hard to stomach the stoning of the
American media . Once afforded favorite freedom
status, the right to observe and report on momentous
human events , to keep the truth of them in plain and
publi c vi ew , is being roundly assailed. Americans have
an swer ed polls , called radio talk shows, and railed to
ea c h other in overwhelming agreement: President
Reagan ' s decision to disallow the American media to
report on the American military incursion into Gre-
nada was an honorable and glorious deed.
Do we Americans believe the president's excuse
that the Grenada exercise was too dangerous for the
press to accompany the troops? No. Do we sincerely
believe American government officials should be able
to do whatever they desire without it being revealed to
th e Ameri can public? Not really .
What m1ny Americans do believe, and they have
eloquently \ oiced it since the battle blackout , is that
the Ameri can press is not as truth seeking as the writers
of the First Amendment supposed it always would be .
They believe the morals of the media have decayed and
grown biased. They feel its interpretations of events are
di c tated by the prejudices of network management,
that it carves out news stori es to fit predisposed per-
sonal convi ctions, and , in general , that the media ap-
proaches its holy task under a variety of unholy
influences.
In a convincing editorial of their own , Americans
have taken the Reagan imposed information boycott as
an occasion to lambast the media with derogatory and
acc usatory epithets. It is reminiscent of the disgust
shown for politicians following the Nixon administra-
tion sea ndals. It reveals a widespread loss of confiden ce
in a profession that penetrates everyone's life , every
da y.
I remain convinced that most newspaper and
magazine reporters , electronic journalists, even
network ex ecutives, are people of honor. I contend
most media people aspire to find the truth in a situation
so they can lay it bare for their readers or listeners.
I suspect what Americans really don't like is bad
news. They are tired of unhappy findings and uncon-
scionable events.
But, it is the media 's job to point to the digressions
from what is right, to highlight the abnormalities, and
to alert the public to the abused and put the abused on
displa y in the hope that the abusers don ' t go
un checked. It is the duty of the journalist to question
the pronouncements of the powerful , to offer a
balance to the company line, so that no one can twist
society to serve his intentions.
That duty was not born at Watergate. It has been
the charge of the nation's press even before Joseph
Pulitzer put it into words. The media , the father of
modern journalism said, is "an institution that should
always fight for progress and reform , never tolerate
injustice or corruption . .. always fight demagogues of
all parties . . . always oppose privileged classes and
public plunderers, always remain devoted to the public
welfare , always be drastically independent, never be
afraid to attack wrong ."
In our own coin-op microcosm, there are people
who don't like bad news, mainly because they see
much of it as an attack on their livelihoods. The manu-
facturers who have oversaturated our marketplace
with dull product , the makers and operators of subter-
fuge gambling devices or " gray area" games, those
who profit from games that infringe legitimate copy-
rights-they don't relish having their indiscretion s
hammered away at in full view of their own industry
members.
It is Play Meter's intention to defend our industry
and to serve it. Often that requires exposing the abuse s
within it. We hope that in doing so we are contributing
to keeping the industry moving in a creditable , worthy
direction.
Whether America remains free from tyranny and
Americans retain personal freedom is due to a great
extent on whether the people can depend on an
uninterrupted flow of firsthand reporting . Compara-
tively , if our industry is to remain an arena for honest
competition , publications like Play Meter will have to
continue to take industry institution s to task , to review
all situations honestly and objectively. It is discom-
forting some of the time , but it is crucially important all
of the time.
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Mike Shaw
Associate Editor