This May 31, 2026 “CAMERA Eye on the Media” Op-Ed by CAMERA’s David Litman appeared in JNS.
The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof (Photo by Monika Flueckiger/World Economic Forum, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
“If your mother says she loves you, check it out,” goes the famed journalistic dictum commonly attributed to legendary Edward Eulenberg, a longtime reporter and editor for City News Bureau and the Chicago Daily News.
The admonition, even if hyperbolic, reflects a sense of pride in the craft and professionalism that those in journalism once held. The quote was first credited to Eulenberg in a 1976 column, which also happens to be the year in which Gallup polls recorded the highest level of trust and confidence in mass media—72% stated they held a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust.
Nearly 50 years later, in 2025, Gallup recorded the lowest-ever level of trust in the media—a mere 28% expressed a great deal or fair amount of trust. A likely factor: the abandonment of the journalistic zeal embodied by Eulenberg.
Case in point has been New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s article on May 11, alleging that Israel maintains a “standard operating procedure” of sexual violence toward Palestinian detainees. Similarly illustrative have been those attempting to defend Kristof’s “reporting.”
Read the rest of CAMERA’s Op-Ed at JNS.