Make way for fluff.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editors and journalists fail to pursue important stories - Brief Article - Editorial

I'm worried about journalism. Seems like every day there is more and more fluff--and less and less news. And when good reporters do tackle tough subjects, their editors are backing down with depressing regularity.

The current pattern began in the early 1980s when Abe Rosenthal of The New York Times banished reporter Ray Bonner to the business section after Bonner exposed the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador. At El Mozote, U.S.-trained soldiers killed hundreds of civilians. A few years later, Newsweek followed suit by easing out Robert Parry, who had done pathbreaking work on the Iran-contra scandal.

In the last two years, the trend has intensified. The San Jose Mercury News sounded the retreat after its investigative reporter Gary Webb linked the contras, the CIA, and the crack cocaine epidemic. When The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times decided to tear apart Webb's story instead of pursuing it, the executive editor of the Mercury News issued an apology and sent Webb off into obscurity, Webb took the hint and quit the paper.

Webb made some mistakes, but he advanced an important story with a lot of solid reporting. The story deserved a correction, not a retraction and an all-out war on Webb's reputation.

Next to fall was The Cincinnati Enquirer. In May, the paper ran a blockbuster story on Chiquita, which is based in Cincinnati. The piece highlighted several questionable practices by the company in Latin America, including allegations of paying off officials, busting unions, spraying pesticides banned in the United States, and brutalizing peasants.

But late in June, the paper issued an apology and agreed to pay Chiquita more than $10 million not because the story was inaccurate but because the Enquirer said one of its reporters may have stolen voicemail messages from Chiquita. In exchange for the apology and the payment, Chiquita said it would not sue the paper.

Certainly, reporters are not above the law. But the Enquirer reporter says he received the voice mail from whistleblowers inside Chiquita. (By the way, the CEO of Chiquita is Carl Lindner, who used to own the Enquirer.)

There is an old and noble tradition of editors backing up their reporters when they challenge the powerful. That tradition lies in tatters.

Meanwhile, editors are sending out their reporters to chase the latest tidbits of the Clinton sex scandal, at times reporting idle gossip as if it were news. You don't see editors retracting these...