Word: reston
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...this manner, Reston feels that more people would be able to appreciate the narrow range of alternatives the President faces, and would be able to grasp the real options in what presently appears to be a meaningless gush of unrelated facts and personalities...
...should decide what the real alternatives are? By hand-feeding the public a kind of capsulated, easily digestible solution to foreign affaris problems, Reston runs the risk of allowing hundreds of myopic editors across the nation the opportunity to disguise their bias as the best alternatives. The front pages of today's newspapers may often seem chaotic, but straight reporting is probably less pernicious than an over-simplified account which imposes a particular point of view on the reader...
...THERE are dangers to the kind of reporting Reston is advocating, he must be credited with having seen that news analysis should not be made to compete with hard news for space. Most newspapers, as Reston points out, devote more space to the comic strip and the fashion page than they do to foreign affairs. If the papers were opened up a little more for long range articles from experts outside the government--the Galbraiths and Schlesingers--it would be an important educational service...
...reason, however, that most papers devote so little space to foreign affairs is that murders, sports, and local scandals sell more papers--and the editors are responsible to their advertisers. Although Reston recognizes this problem, he never really deals with it. The fact is that newspapers, like any other commodity, must cater to the whims of the consumer--and the consumers are more interested in sensational stories than in background material. Reston's only response to this logic, in essence. Is that the papers owe an extensive coverage of foreign affairs to their most intelligent readership...
...most interesting questions that the book poses is whether or not the old publish-and-be-damned motto is compatible with modern journalism. Reston aptly describes the plight of a reporter who is faced with the decision of whether or not to print information which might be used as propaganda in the cold war, or which might prove diplomatically embarrassing to our government. The question is best presented through example; first, should reporters have exposed the Bay of Pigs adventure; second should reporters have published Kennedy's plan to intercept Russian ships carrying missiles to Cuba. Presumably in the first...