Editor's Notebook

EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

Dear Readers:

Government Executive was honored last month when former President Ford presented writer James Kitfield with an award for the best defense coverage of 1995. Kitfield won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense in a tough competition with major media players such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. These publications have won past Ford prizes for defense reporting. So has Government Executive. Kitfield won the prize for us in 1990, chiefly for his compelling coverage of the complex logistics of Operation Desert Shield. He is the first two-time winner of the Ford prize.

This year judges cited particularly our October cover story titled "Crisis of Conscience," which treated the subject of ethics and integrity in the military. Kitfield's article pulled into a common analytical framework the well-known Tailhook incident and other ethical lapses so as to "discuss a larger issue of significant importance to the military as an institution . . . in an informative, judicious and sensitive manner," the judges said.

"Crisis of Conscience" seems right on point today, as the Navy laments the suicide of its Chief of Naval Operations, Jeremy M. Boorda. Boorda shot himself hours after learning that Newsweek reporters were on their way to question him about the legitimacy of his decision to display medals indicating valor in combat in Vietnam. That decision might have been an ethical lapse overlooked by military brass, which as Kitfield reported is common in today's armed services.

This tragedy spotlights the role of the press in shaping the public's perception of such ethical dilemmas. Some believe it was the glare of media attention coming his way that forced Boorda's hand. For example, Eleanor M. Sudinski of Boston, Mass., says in a letter to Government Executive, "The press should be held accountable for [Boorda's] death for always portraying honorable, hard working, ethical public officials as lacking in integrity and honor." Sudinski characterized Boorda's "mistake" in displaying the medals as minor, and noted that he had removed them from his uniform a year before he died.

The press is indeed pushy, arrogant, often quick to blow out of proportion lapses by public officials that are common human foibles. At the same time the press can hold the mirror of truth in front of institutions that cannot always recognize their own deficiencies. Kitfield's "Crisis of Conscience" article offered a sobering portrait of the military.

The press is sometimes known to tell the good news about military and other government institutions. Another Kitfield article the judges praised detailed the military's long record of peaceful progress on the issues of minority representation and affirmative action in the military. "Preference & Prejudice," published in June, "fosters a better public understanding of the military and its place in American society," the judges wrote.

The judges had kind words for two other Kitfield articles published in this magazine and for one published by National Journal, our sister publication where Kitfield now hangs his hat. His former desk here is now capably manned by Katherine McIntire Peters, who has brought to us from Army Times a keen ability to spot trends for our 60,000 subscribers throughout government.

--Timothy B. Clark
Editor and Publisher, Government Executive