When Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Linda Greenhouse of the New Yorks Times was walking in Washington D.C. one day last year, she noticed that the streets were more crowded than usual. Then when one woman, wearing an anti-abortion button, asked for directions, Greenhouse realized that the Right to Life March was being held. The woman looked at her and said, “Please tell me that you’re pro-life.”
“I had a choice to make. A stranger was asking me to out myself,” Greenhouse said. She spoke last week at a lecture sponsored by the School of Communication.
After considering lying to the woman about her beliefs or thinking about telling her that she didn’t care to share her opinion, Greenhouse spoke up. “I’m sorry. I respect your views, but I’m pro-choice.”
Throughout her career in journalism, Greenhouse had to deal with what she described as tricky, shifty ground. Greenhouse explained that when she told people what she said to the woman, some called her foolish. But in that instance, Greenhouse was a woman, not just a journalist.
Greenhouse shared this story after receiving the Anvil of Freedom Award, awarded in recognition of an individual’s superior leadership and commitment to protection of the First Amendment.
Edward Estlow, member of the University of Denver Board of Trustees and former CEO of Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, introduced Greenhouse as “one of the most lucid thinkers and writers at the New York Times.”
Greenhouse began covering the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978. Before that, she was chief of the Times’ legislative bureau in Albany N.Y. She recently wrote a book providing insight into the Supreme Court, Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun’s Supreme Court Journey.
“I’m an old media person speaking in a place where new media is celebrated,” she said. “I remember the days before fax machines, let alone computers.”
Greenhouse addressed the issue of fairness in American media. She said that journalists should be fair and balanced in their reporting.
“The beneficiary of our fairness should be the reader,” Greenhouse said.
“The reader should come to an informed decision,” she added.
“I do not advocate to readers what to think,” she continued. “I want them to become better informed citizens.” She said that it is the responsibility of a journalist to provide citizens with information.
“My job is to do the work and tell the reader if something good happened or something bad happened,” she said.
Greenhouse also talked about the media’s paranoid attitude toward criticism. “The media is so cautious. It’s good to be careful, but it’s worrisome if caution turns to fear,” she said.
“Criticism of the media is not a bad thing,” she said. Journalists should stand behind their work.
“It’s my byline at the top of the story. I want to support it.”
