KCRA & the Safeway Meat Scandal (24)
Reflection #3: Even in KCRA's coverage of the Safeway meat scandal, the shoddiness of the final news product was ultimately more the product of accepted tenets of basic news policy, adhered to without cynicism by some of the most conscientious policymakers in the business, than of sales department pressures.
Sales departments will always be rapacious in pursuit of a client's interests. It's the nature of their work. But sales departments can only go so far--and they know it. It is inconceivable that sponsor pressure could have kept the Safeway meat story completely off our airwaves. Some things simply have to be done, if only because your competitors will do them, and make you look foolish for holding back.
News people tend to be overly concerned with concepts of Equal Time.
It is a legitimate concern, if not overdone. Certainly no political campaign can be covered fairly unless each candidate is given a comparable opportunity to get his views across. Likewise, no controversy can be investigated properly unless we keep it constantly in mind that all parties concerned should be contacted and questioned.
But some of us have gone so far as to internalize a fallacious equation: equal time = fairness = good journalism. Probably the most important thing KCRA broadcast in the Safeway meat controversy was a clear example of how flawed that equation can be when applied to real life.
