Reston Asks Press to Analyze Foreign Policy Instead of Just Telling Reader What Happened

In the July issue of Foreign Affairs, James Reston outlines imaginative suggestions for a reform of the role of the American press. The newspapers' major weakness, the New York Times' associate editor writes in "The Press, The President, and Foreign Policy," is their neglect of the educator's role for the sake of the role of reporter. Too much emphasis is being put on reporting events while too little is being dedicated to the analysis of foreign policy.

Reston calls for the press to catch up with the twentieth century. The U.S. President has become the most powerful sovereign in history, and the press has not adapted to the challenge of Presidential power. The Administration and the press have historically been in a constant state of war, Reston says, because reporters have always viewed government as a "dirty business."

But his new role for the press would allow for a truce between these two warring factions, which would allow them both to cooperate in analyzing the realistic foreign affairs options open to the government.

Practical Problems

Reston deals with several practical problems which have kept the papers from turning their resources toward constructive analysis. First, news analysis has to compete with hard news for prominent space in the paper. Although it is true that Americans are in general more interested in what is happening than why it happened, Reston feels that it is the duty of the press to shift the emphasis toward the latter. He thinks that the major newspapers in the big cities could probably be convinced to allow for a little more educating and a little less reporting.

A second, even more fundamental problem, is the style of news writing itself. The standard, accepted style is to organize the news in a sensationalistic pyramid--facts starting out with the most dramatic and organized in descending order. Reston points out that, although this is advisable in murder stories, it has a distorting effect on foreign policy reporting.

What is needed, then, is a new format. For the pyramid style, Reston would substitute a "case study outline" that starts with an unbiased statement of the relevant facts. The facts are followed by a series of "definitions" of alternative courses of action which the government might follow, along with arguments for and against each policy. The advantage of this format, according to Reston, is that it allows people to make a choice instead of simply receiving a deluge of facts, both important and trivial.

He admits that this ideal would require new talent as well as new style, but Reston maintains that the talent has only to be sought out. There are many astute political commentators in the U.S. who never reach the public because they never write for newspapers. But the specialized knowledge and experience of these people could be as useful to the general public as to the colleagues who are now their only audience. As an example, Reston cites John Kenneth Galbraith, who has written a number of books on his experience as ambassador to India, but who failed to catch the ear of the nation because "he wasn't getting to the people when they are most attentive [when they read the newspaper]." If Galbraith had written an article syndicated for the major U.S. newspapers during the India-Pakistan crisis, he would have had a huge and attentive audience. To be able to use these people, newspapers could hold a special space reserved for experts in a number of different fields, rarely heard from because they write for professional or academic consumption only.

Reston also suggests that the Sunday papers run an "Issue of the Month" feature, which could lend a wider perspective to the major current problems. He feels that, in general, we are so concerned with the events at hand that we fail to look ahead or behind for trends in the news which could provide clues to the best possible foreign policy.

The "letters to the editor" page could be turned into a forum for ideas which are rarely reported or debated in the press, but which probably carry a greater impact than many of the front page stories. Instead of vital debate on important issues these pages are filled with the prose of complaining extremists. Another way of turning the press into an educational core would be to open to reporters the mountains of unclassified information which pours into Washington every day, but which is stamped with the forbidding seal of "U.S. Government Property." If such sources were available and used, the Administration, especially the President, might be convinced that the press was genuinely interested in the hard choices he faced instead of "getting the sensational story." Reston's ideal seems to be a return to the FDR days and the fire side chat, where national problems were unveiled before an excited and compassionate national audience.

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Reston has come up with a series of valid criticisms and suggestions for the readjustment of the press to present-day realities and challenges, but I think it is necessary to sound a note of caution concerning such a fundamental change in the "fourth branch of government." Reston has failed to answer one of the obvious questions which emerges after reading his bold suggestions. Where does one draw the line between educational analysis in newspapers and mere propaganda?

Foreign policy has become a matter of such over-whelming importance that Reston obviously feels the people must be given a list of multiple choice policies in order to come up with an objective decision. But doesn't the harsh reality remain that the news and the analysis is only as good as the reporter? Before we start giving analysis a more prominent role in our newspapers, we should make sure that those doing the analyzing are up to the task, because it would appear that they would be taking over the reflective duties with which intelligent newspaper readers are faced every morning. If they are not up to the task, then it would be safer to keep giving readers objective fact instead of subjective analysis.

Reston's plea for more subjective, long-range thinking invites dangers which straight news reporting avoids. There are probably hundreds of myopic reporters all over the country who are itching to outline in their news stories their concept of what foreign policy should be. Reston's case studies would have to be censored by an intelligent editor in order to bring the readers an accurate version of what the options open to the Administration really are.

Reston is right in thinking that foreign affairs reporting is often sensationalistic and short-sighted, but that is no reason to advocate a style of writing half way between reporting and analyzing. The confusion which would result from this half and half formula would be that readers would be unsure as to what was fact and what was opinion.

Perhaps the answer is not to change newspaper style, but rather to encourage reporters to concentrate their reportorial energy on areas which, although not presently in the news, are potential areas of foreign policy involvement. Latin America, for example, is an area of great importance to the United States which is notably neglected by the press. Reporters interested in presenting the North American audience with a true picture of the Southern trouble spots could probably greatly influence our policies toward these areas.

Reston has taken the crucial step in identifying the disease--lack of perspective in the press. He has outlined suggestions for future experiments in reporting the news. Now it is up to the papers to act.