JEAN-FKAN<;:OIS KEVEL
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cians) are as ready to betray this duty as their clients are reluctant to take
advantage of their right. In the hypocritical game played out by the
partners in this informational comedy, producers and consumers pretend
to respect each other, whereas in fact they fear and in some cases despise
each other.
Only in open societies can one observe and measure the genuine zeal
human beings show for saying and welcoming (or ignoring) the truth,
since its circulation is unhampered by anything but themselves. But - and
this is not the least intriguing aspect of this situation - how can they so
often act against their own interests? For democracy cannot thrive with–
out a certain diet of truth. It cannot survive if the degree of truth in
current circulation falls below a minimal level. A democratic regime,
founded on the free determination of important choices made by a ma–
jority, condemns itself to death if most of the citizens who have to
choose between various options make their decisions in ignorance of re–
ality,
blinded by passions or misled by fleeting impressions. If in a democ–
racy information is so free, so sacred, it is because it can thwart every–
thing that obscures the judgment of the citizens, the ultimate deciders
and judges of the public weal. But what happens if the judgment of the
judges is obscured by the nature of the information dispensed? For let us
be honest in facing this fundamental fact: those who cultivate compe–
tence, accuracy, and intellectual honesty tend to be the smallest segment
of the journalistic community, their audience the smallest sector of the
public. Only too often the big newspaper stories, the televised docu–
mentaries or debates, the press campaigns that generate the greatest heat
and dust turn out to be of an informational poverty matched only by
the inherent fraudulence of sensation seeking. Even what is popularly
called "investigative journalism, " which is praised as the very model of
courage or intransigence, is significantly swayed by motivations that are
not always determined by the disinterested cult of full and fairly inter–
preted information. Often a particular dossier is brought to light less for
its intrinsic merit than because it is capable of destroying a particular
statesman or politician. This or that other dossier, of infinitely greater
import for the general welfare, is neglected or sidetracked because it lacks
any immediate personal , partisan, or popular utility.
Whatever may be said about journalism (and I shall say a great deal),
we should beware of incriminating journalists. If, indeed, far too few of
them live up to the theoretical ideal, it is, I must insist, because they get
precious little encouragement from the public; and so it is to the general
public, and thus to each one of us, that one must look for the causes of
the supremacy of incompetent or unscrupulous journalists. The supply is
determined by the demand. But the demand, in matters of information
and analysis, emanates from our own convictions. And how are these
