Commentary

Had basic ethics of journalism been heeded, the fiasco/debacle/extraordinary mess stemming from the release of a video clip from a speech by Georgia USDA official Shirley Sherrod would never have occurred.

It all started last Monday when Andrew Breitbart of the website Big Government.com posted a video clip from a speech that Sherrod made at an NAACP event in March where she talked about wanting to discriminate against a white farmer in danger of losing his farm. In no time at all – what I’m sure to Shirley Sherrod and her family felt like the entire country – had heard and/or seen the clip.

Shortly thereafter, Sherrod was very publicly condemned by the NAACP and on Tuesday she was very abruptly and publicly dismissed from her job at USDA. Later that day, it was made clear the video clip by which NAACP, the White House, USDA, some in national media, many so-called “citizen journalists” with blogs, Twitter and FaceBook accounts had used to judge Sherrod was only a small part of her speech and had indeed been taken out of context as she had claimed.

It became apparent that the video was only part of her speech, during which she revealed that this situation changed her attitude towards racism. As a matter of fact, the farm couple from Iron City, Ga. she mentioned in the clip quickly came to her defense and credits her for helping save their farm.

“We probably wouldn’t have our farm today if it hadn’t been for her leading us in the right direction,” said Eloise Spooner.

The official apology from the White House came Wednesday and later that day, an obviously regretful Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack offered his apology. During a press conference, the former Iowa governor said time and again that he “deeply regretted” the decision made in haste to ask Sherrod to resign.

“As a result, a good woman has gone through a very difficult period and I’m going to have to live with that for a long, long time,” he said.

The ag chief took full responsibility for his knee-jerk reaction to the accusation that one of his staffers had made racist comments.

As the RTNDA Code of Ethics states, “Professional electronic journalists should pursue truth aggressively and present the news accurately, in context and as completely as possible. . .Professional electronic journalists should present the news with integrity and decency, avoiding real or perceived conflicts of interest and respect the dignity and intelligence of the audience as well as the subjects of news. . .Professional electronic journalists are accountable for their actions to the public, the profession and to themselves.”

Manipulating video or audio or photos or the written word for self-serving purposes is irresponsible. It is also irresponsible for us to accept as fact every politically-motivated mud-spattered claim made against a party, an issue or a candidate.

It is important for us, as individual consumers of information, to differentiate between sources of “news” and sources of “views.”

Just because you read it on a blog doesn’t make it so.