By John Dubensky
Pennsylvania State Representative and Speaker of the House Samuel H. Smith has been involved with politics for his entire life. “My father was a legislator,” said Smith. “He was elected in 1963. Back then, the home was the office. I was in third grade answering the phone and meeting constituents at the front door. I’ve been living with politics at one level or another virtually my entire life.”
Smith spoke about how technology is making the job difficult for both politicians and the press at the opening session of the Pennsylvania Press Conference in Harrisburg.
“When I was first elected, if you someone came to the office in person, you knew they were vested and their interest was high,” said Smith. “It was the same thing with a handwritten letter, and also petitions, to a certain degree. But the internet today has created problems for us in reading intensity. My office gets thousands of e-mails each day – so what’s the intensity of those? I think this has also been a major challenge in the world of journalism.”
Blogs and other forms of social media concern Smith since they can be anonymous, and are sometimes based on opinions and not facts. According to Smith, this can affect journalism, like in the case of several innocent people who were wrongly accused of being involved in the recent Boston Marathon bombings.
“The internet is the mob,” said Smith. “This influences how we govern, and it certainly influences journalism.”
Smith believes that anonymity on the internet also spreads into journalism. To underline his point, Smith described several examples of various publications writing political articles that had a large volume of quotes from different sources. Some people were quoted by name, but many others were not specifically identified, and were only mentioned as “a veteran lawmaker” or “an influential GOP figure.”
“I think that kind of anonymity undermines the validity of the story,” explained Smith. “It allows the people who offer quotes but refuse to be identified to push their own agenda. I can understand a few unidentified sources, but having larger numbers of unidentified people is an element of reporting I find problematic, and I’m throwing it out as a challenge to be overcome.”
Smith also discussed the tendency of some publications to publish somewhat more opinionated stories which he referred to as ‘petty,’ though he wished he had a better term for it. “Make it worthwhile if you’re going to criticize or critique something that the legislature is doing,” said Smith. “Don’t just resort to petty snippets.”
Overall, Smith felt that the dynamic relationship between politics and journalism all leads back to the responsibility to govern.
“I understand that taking shots at legislatures might sell some more newspapers,” said Smith. “But in the grand scheme of things that isn’t what our job is all about, and it shouldn’t be what newspapers are all about. As a business entity, newspapers are the only ones that are constitutionally protected under the first amendment. While newspapers aren’t a branch of government, you have a significant impact on it.”
“One of my greatest fears in how our government works is that people are getting so much of their information from things that aren’t factual but are opinionated,” continued Smith. “They’re getting information from so many multiple sources, many of which aren’t really identifiable, and it undermines the ability of elected officials to govern in a fair and responsible way. We have our responsibility as legislators, and you have your responsibility as the press. Power is like energy, which is neither created nor destroyed. In that regard, the press has nearly an equal responsibility to the public.”
Online Reporter 2013 