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1. I have story I want to share with fellow journalists. The essence is to tell the truth sometimes (though rarely & carefully) you have to take a stand. Neutrality is not necessarily objectivity. In my first Broadcast News class at Columbia University's Graduate School of
2. Journalism our instructor was the legendary Fred Friendly, producer for Edward R. Murrow and former President of CBS News. Friendly showed the class a filmed TV News report on a new anti-personnel weapon America had deployed for use in its war in Vietnam. The weapon was a bomb
3. filled with three-inch nails. When exploded, an area the size of a football field would be hit with the nails every six or so inches. The idea was to severely maim not kill the enemy, since a wounded soldier takes four/five persons to take care of him. In this report the army
4. demonstrated the weapon on a thick piece of wood, which several dozen nails easily ripped through. Friendly asked for the students' reaction to the story. My classmates complemented the writing, the visuals the subtlety of the story. Then it was my turn. As a former anti-war
5. activist I was torn. I had gotten a small fellowship to attend Columbia & was concerned if I said what I felt I might jeopardize my standing in this prestigious school.
Then I said to myself, "Fuck it." Out loud I said,"If it were me I would have shown what that weapon does to
Then I said to myself, "Fuck it." Out loud I said,"If it were me I would have shown what that weapon does to
6. bodies. What it does to human beings and not just a piece of wood." My classmates all attacked me even my best friend at the school saying I was not being objective and was biased. I responded so if you were covering the Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany you would not have
7. shown the dead bodies of the victims only artistic shots of swinging gas chamber doors? They yelled that's different. I yelled why because these victims are Asian and not White? They yelled back that's ridiculous. This was the entire class of White, Black and Latino students
8. The yelling went back and forth until one student called me dangerous, because I was not objective. There was a pause and the class turned to Professor Friendly. At first he said nothing then quietly, which was exceptionally unusual for him, said "If Edward Murrow were here
9. today," (at this point I expected him to say he would kick me out of the school) he would have backed Ti-Hua." The class and I were all stunned. Friendly continued, " Sometimes to tell the truth you have to take a stand. Sometimes there is only one side to a story." The next
10. day Friendly called me into his office and said, "What you learned yesterday was the most important thing you will learn at Columbia. But you will get fired a lot in your career." I remember thinking, "What does he know this old man?" Of course he was right. And two decades
11. later I understood why he was so quiet in class. After Edward R. Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly took down Senator Joe McCarthy who had destroyed so many lives in the 1950's with his communist under every rock campaign of lies, Murrow and Friendly got fired, lost their
12. news program and got reduced to doing light feature stories. The greatest broadcast journalist eventually got forced out of CBS News. Friendly saw in me a microcosm of what he and Murrow had endured and it refreshed a bitter memory. He knew I would get my ass kicked by
13. many of my bosses. He was right. Friendly gave me a hard time at Columbia, always pushing me to do more. But I was always surprised that he kept using my stories and years later his widow knew who I was. For the last two years under President Trump I kept referring to
14. Trump as a racist, sexist & now an American Fascist who attempted a coup to stay in power and overthrow democracy. It is our duty to tell the truth, there is only one side to this. Of course we cannot always know the truth especially when on deadline with one day to report,
15. and we have to prepare thoroughly before taking a stand & be aware of our own biases, which can cloud our judgment. But our job as journalists is tell as close to the truth as we can and when it is abundantly clear we have to take a stand. that's why tyrants always attack
16. honest journalists and murder courageous ones.
