Press: Newswatch: Credibility At Stake

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The news is that the press is at last beginning to shed its romantic image of itself as the lone public defender pure of heart, pursuing all those other rascals. To the public, the press is not David among Goliaths; it has become one of the Goliaths, Big Media, a combination of powerful television networks, large magazine groups and newspaper chains that are near monopolies. It often seems as unreachable as the Government or any big corporation. The public might agree that the press, while making money, often does good (though not always in a lovable manner). It peeks behind doors; it tries to get at the truth by exposing wrongdoing, detecting deception, piercing propaganda, deflating inflated reputations, questioning motive. Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press.