Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald

Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald presented insightful talks about their experiences in independent media at tonight's Izzy Awards, and helped talk about how they report as they do and what implications it has.

Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to make the risks and sacrifices associated with investigative journalism that challenges powerful individuals. For many journalists, merely going out, getting the necessary information, writing the story and filing it on time takes most of their talent and energy, and those people may not want to be bothered with reading additional documents or going the extra mile for additional sources. The publication itself may place limits on what journalists can publish, threatening them with disciplinary action if they go outside those bounds. Such journalists, concerned with keeping their jobs or obtaining desired promotions, may avoid writing provocative articles in order to avoid being labeled as a troublemaker. Far greater external risks accompany journalists on certain stories, including being arrested or being killed by governments or organizations that do not appreciate what they are uncovering.

While journalists who back down from what they know to be true for these reasons are doing so for selfish motives, it is important to acknowledge that these concerns are real. Journalism is already a very competitive job market, and the pressure to obtain a job at a respectable publication can lead people to do anything that is necessary to outshine the competition. It can be frustrating for journalists to watch people with ambition but few principles climb the hierarchy, especially when such people eventually make decisions about which stories to run.

However, while these pressures may be present and troubling, they do not change what is right or what the implications of journalists' decisions are. If journalists continue to publish uncritical articles about what the government is doing, misconceptions will spread and it will be that much harder for journalists who understand what is really going on to counteract them. That vicious cycle also legitimizes this kind of shallow reporting above and beyond what pressures do, thus making it seem acceptable to impressionable journalists.

The only real way to counteract this trend and create an environment in which journalists are able to do hard-hitting investigative journalism regardless of who is being covered is simply for mainstream news media to adopt the same kind of commitment to journalism that the independent media do. This can involve various methods, such as reducing dependence on advertisers, or by the public putting pressure on the media, but they all ultimately involve moral clarity and being willing to see issues in terms of ethical values, rather than material gain or loss. Goodman appropriately demonstrated that kind of courage at the conventions, especially when she and her producers were arrested for filming demonstrations, and it was appropriately contrasted with the NBC reporter who remained in the skybox. The best example Goodman provided of simple courage was the story of the President's Scholars who presented then-President Bush with a letter asking him to oppose torture. Some people may respond to Goodman's following argument that children best understand morality by arguing that children do such things because they are too young and naive to understand the nuances of the world- like what constitutes torture or the financial pressures the news media face- but for the most part, such children are better at seeing things in terms of right and wrong and less likely to confuse what they want with what is best for the public.

Mainstream journalism has too often become seen as a means of doing business by providing people with information, rather than a means of providing people with the best possible situation and only requiring money to stay in business and enable its employees to make a living. While Greenwald and Goodman may be "independent" journalists, journalism, as Greenwald said, journalism, by nature, is supposed to be independent, and journalists should strive to live up to their example.