Cheney appeared on Fox News Sunday to defend the Bush administration's use of torture in their war against terrorism. Responding to the recent release of a 2004 CIA report that found no reason to believe "enhanced interrogation tactics" provided trustworthy intelligence, Cheney insisted that torture worked. Dutifully, newspapers nationwide reprinted his contentions with very little context, nuance or even reference to earlier stories about the report's conclusions.  (See what we mean in these coast to coast examples.)

The report's actual findings garnered few headlines—a fact noted in the blogosphere. Greg Sargent pointedly asked  why "big news orgs decided that Dick Cheney's previous claims that the CIA docs proved torture worked were more newsworthy than what the documents themselves actually do prove?" And Howard Kurtz, whose "on the one hand, on the other hand" analysis is markedly more measured, raises a similar point.

It's past time (remember WMDs and the lead-up to the Iraqi War) for reporters to consider the ethical dimensions of their coverage—beginning with the criteria for coverage. News is traditionally made by conflicts, "celebrities" and eruptions of the unexpected. It's also increasingly generated by Washington insiders who play reporters by providing access and "information." Since the legacy media are desperately seeking reasons to justify their existence, they have become increasingly dependent on such sources. But as illustrated by the Cheney brouhaha, the subsequent stories are self-serving and of dubious veracity. They are sensational, conflict-heavy and personality-driven: Former vice president attacks current administration—and so they lead the news.

What's a reporter to do? Can she offer an alternative story, provide better context and sourcing, or even turn down as assignment? In today's fraught and frightened newsrooms, just saying no is a far reach for anyone hoping to keep her job. But if reporters want to be deemed more legitimate, credentialed, accomplished and professional than any old blogger with access to Wordpress, they need to adhere to the standards they so eloquently espouse: Speak truth to power; comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; and, in the words of Walter Williams, serve as a public trust "that all connected with it are, to the full measure of responsibility, trustees for the public."

Diane Winston