Is it still okay to use journalism and integrity in the same sentence?

Newspaper journalist Dean Smith writes about media consolidation in his blog. His beat is media and he does a great job of bringing to light issues that everyone, not just journalists, need to consider and understand.

One of these hot issues is media consolidation.

I first heard about it from a relative, who has been in the TV business for about 30 years and has been a general manager of multiple stations for the past 10 years or so. When the company he worked for was bought by Sinclair Broadcasting, he immediately began to look for a new job. No specific reasons were given, except that he didn't like "the way they do business." The latest news about Sinclair gives me a better understanding of what he didn't like about them. And it isn't the company's anti-Kerry agenda. From what I can tell, my TV GM relative is right of me, an evangelical Christian (also a member of a United Methodist church - see our social principles here: http://www.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=1&mid=1686). So media consolidation in itself seems to be inherently bad--and if it continues, will only get worse and more destructive to open dialogue. All of this reinforces what I read in a Donald Kaul column a few years ago; that is, both left, right, and middle agree that media consolidation is bad.

My newspaper journalist classmate Dean proposes ownership of TV stations by newspapers, though I am not sure how this will fight media consolidation. I do have respect for most newspaper folks but wonder about others, such as:

An editorial columnist at my local newspaper berated Winston-Salem State University students who politely expressed concerns regarding the Department of Mass Communication's choice to invite Jayson Blair, formerly of the New York Times, to speak to them. Calling them self-righteous, the local newspaperman said they just wanted to hear a big-name journalist; it was a pathetic end to a sad day in journalism.

Still there is hope. I applaud the students for being able to tell right from wrong while showing compassion. I applaud them even more for not being enslaved to political correctness.

Imagine if the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at UNC invited Martha Stewart to speak on entrepreneurship.