Press freedom and investigative reporting were under threat and journalists should fight to preserve the "vital space" occupied by tough, honest reporting, New York Times journalist David Barstow told the Cleraun media conference in Dublin at the weekend.
"That vital space is shrinking now," said Mr Barstow, who was jointly awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for an exposé of unsafe conditions in the workplace. "I don't know about Ireland, but it is shrinking, and shrinking fast, in the US."
Investigative journalism was under pressure in financial, legal and political terms. His New York Times colleague Judy Miller had served 85 days in a maximum-security prison last year for refusing to reveal a source. "A freelance journalist is sitting in a California jail today for refusing to hand over videotape he filmed at an anti-war rally."
Mr Barstow continued: "Not long ago, if you can believe it, a radio commentator argued that the editor of my newspaper ought to be sentenced to the gas chamber. Why? For publishing a story that described government surveillance of millions of financial transactions."
Frequently, reporters were seen as "Rasputins who twist facts to advance ideological agendas" or, alternatively, "as vultures who swarm around the bereaved and trample through backyards to snap photos of topless movie-stars".
Journalists must fight back and demonstrate their "seriousness of purpose" by concentrating on "real stories" about crucial subjects, no matter how complicated. Publishers also must resist the temptation to cut back on reporting staff and resources "as a knee-jerk response to our industry's financial difficulties".
More and more people were taking their news from the internet but it was very difficult to generate revenue from this source. His newspaper employed 1,200 reporters and editors at a cost of some $200 million a year and Mr Barstow said the challenge was to generate that level of income from the Web which was gradually supplanting the print media.
Meanwhile, the editorial style of the New York Times was scrutinised by another US speaker, Kenneth Woodward of Newsweek magazine, who gave a memorial lecture in honour of the late Patrick Nolan (1928-2004), who was industrial correspondent of The Irish Times for many years. Speaking on the topic, "After objectivity: what moral norms should govern news reporting?" Mr Woodward highlighted the attitude of the New York Times to the phrase, "partial-birth abortion" which he said had only appeared once in a news headline in the paper.
Attributing this approach to "the newsroom culture" of the paper which was ideologically slanted in favour of abortion rights, he added: "From my computer analysis I think it is obvious that the Times regards 'partial-birth' as a toxic term." Some physicians had tried to replace "partial-birth abortion" with the phrase, "intact dilation and extraction" but this never caught on with news organisations - "even the New York Times" - because it was cumbersome and inadequate.
"Intact dilation and extraction" simply described what the doctor does to the mother - dilate the cervix and extract the contents of her birth canal - whereas "partial birth" described "what happens to the baby: it is partially delivered alive, at which point the physician can either proceed to a full birth or destroy the foetus". Mr Woodward noted: "when ideology determines what is written as news, language and its integrity are the first to suffer".
Other speakers at the conference, included, Sarah Carey (Sunday Times), Marc Coleman (Irish Times), Jamie Delargey (UTV), Noel Doran (Irish News), Ryle Dwyer (Irish Examiner), Rachael English and Cathal Goan (RTÉ), and Dearbhail McDonald (Irish Independent).