Twelve Steps to Temperance for Journalists and Reporters

ROTW Contributor: Angela Durden

1. I admit I am powerless over ego-propping print bylines and television facetime. I know that my reporting angles are unnaturally influenced by my arrogant, self-righteous do-gooderism towards those I have judged to be helpless, stupid, ignorant, and who don’t agree with me.

2. I have come to believe that not all situations are as cut and dried as I once believed, and that Accuracy and Truth has power greater to repair than does my narrow view. If I stop reporting with pre-conceived biased judgment and only do my job – that is, simply telling what happened – this could restore readership to the paper and draw more viewers to the screen.

3. I have made a decision to turn my opinion and my arrogance over to the care of Accuracy and Truth whether or not my editor or producer agrees with it.

4. I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of the reasons I hold so dearly to Political Correctness at the sacrifice of Accuracy and Truth, and found that I am actually quite prejudiced, racist, narrow-minded, and don’t wish for equality for all.

5. I have admitted to my readers and/or viewers, and to myself, and to the subjects of my stories, the exact nature of my wrongly held attitudes and beliefs.

6. I am entirely ready to have the viewers and/or readers help me remove all these defects of my character by reading their letters of discontent and paying heed to their honest feedback about my delivery of the news.

7. I have humbly asked my viewers and/or readers to help me remove my shortcomings.

8. I have made a list of all persons and subject matter I have harmed, and am now willing to make redo the story and accurately tell the truth about what happened – and in that telling there shall be no slant to prop up my ego or narrowly held beliefs.

9. I have made direct amends to such subjects and news stories wherever possible.

10. I have continued to take personal inventory and, when I am wrong, promptly correct it on the spot without making excuses and without evading my moral responsibility to Accuracy and Truth.

11. Through pleas and deep reflection I have sought to improve my conscious contact with my readers and viewers, even if they are in fly-over country, asking only that they know I am now accurately delivering the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of the story, challenging “spin” from interview subjects, while leaving the reader or viewer to come to their own conclusions about the rightness or wrongness of the story, and that they give me the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a moral awakening, I will carry this message to other journalists and reporters to practice these principles at all times in all our stories, knowing all the while I may be maligned and criticized for leading the charge for Accuracy and Truth.