Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [54]
—I understand that the facts and the truth are not always the same. It is my job to report the facts so that others can decide on the truth.
—I will try to tell people what they ought to know and avoid telling them what they want to hear, except when the two coincide, which isn’t often.
—I will not do deliberate harm to any persons, except to the extent that the facts harm them and then I will not avoid the facts.
With the 60 Minutes crew; circa 1983: left to right: Morley Safer, Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Harry Reasoner, Dan Rather, Andy Rooney, Don Hewitt (executive producer)
—No gift, including kind words, will be accepted when it is offered for the purpose of influencing my report.
—What I wish were the facts will not influence what investigation leads me to believe them to be.
—I will be suspicious of every self-interested source of information.
—My professional character will be superior to my private character.
—I will not use my profession to help or espouse any cause, nor alter my report for the benefit of any cause, no matter how worthy that cause may appear to be.
—I will not reveal the source of information given to me in confidence.
—I will not drink at lunch.
It needs work but it’s a start on an oath for reporters and editors.
A Report on Reporting 113
2007 : front row, left to right: Lesley Stahl, Bob Simon, Morley Safer; back row, left to right: Andy Rooney, Scott Pelley, Katie Couric, Steve Kroft
A Report on Reporting
A few weeks after I first appeared on 60 Minutes, I got a call from a drug company selling aspirin. They asked if I would do a commercial for them because, they said, my voice sounded just right for someone with a headache.
This was the first time I ever realized I had a nasal, vaguely unpleasantsounding voice. The money they offered was interesting but I told them I was a journalist and that journalists didn’t do commercials.
Although I’d never dream of doing any commercial, I often make a sales pitch for journalism. I like the news business and intend to say good things about American journalism and the reporters and editors who work in it whether for broadcast or print. My desire to tell you how highly I regard reporters and editors is prompted by several negative stories that have appeared in recent years about dishonest reporting. The stories are dismaying to all of us who work in news. We know they reinforce the negative opinion many Americans have of us. We want to be loved and respected.
USA Today announced that, after a thorough investigation by a committee under the leadership of distinguished journalist John Siegenthaler, it had determined that one of USA Today’s star reporters, Jack Kelley, had invented many of his stories from war zones. He’d also borrowed information from other newspaper reporters and often added quotations he’d invented to make his stories livelier.
USA Today did the wrong thing when it kept Kelley on the job long after some of its own staff members suspected he was a fraud, but did the right thing when it had the matter investigated. I don’t recall offhand any other company selling a product that paid to have an investigation conducted of some aspect of its own business and then made public the details of what it did wrong. The report said Kelley’s stories had often been dishonest and that the editorial staff had been lax in not finding this out sooner. Half a dozen newspapers recently have fired reporters for dishonest or unethical reporting.
While USA Today has never been a paragon of editorial excellence, it has capably filled the gap left by good local newspapers in towns and small cities across the country that don’t pretend to cover national and international events. Many people who buy USA Today buy two newspapers.
Believe it or don’t, but I can tell you that newspaper or television reporters, working at USA Today or elsewhere, are more concerned about the ethical standards of their profession than the people in any other business. I don’t think car dealers, manufacturers or clothing store operators worry much