"Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?"
That was the headline last week on a blog posted by New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane.
Brisbane is the Times' ombudsman; his job is to hold the paper accountable to journalistic standards and to act as its readers' representative. The blog caused a lot of jaws to drop and tongues to wag. The reactions were either "duh" or "yikes." Those in the first group were appalled that an arbiter of professional values was calling the very pursuit of accuracy into question; the others, pouncing on how the question was framed - "vigilante"? really? - read the headline as a sign that the propagandists charging "liberal bias" had succeeded in intimidating even the Times.
The headline, in other words, begged the question. Its implicit answer is that Times reporters should faithfully record what sources claim, and depict conflicting claims within the framework of he-said/she-said. An adroit reporter might juxtapose goofy claims with credible contrary evidence; an enterprising editor might assign a sidebar, within whose walls it's acceptable to check facts. But by and large, especially in the realm of politics and public affairs, this conception of journalism casts us as arbitrators in a dispute between warring press releases.
What kind of journalism would empower us as citizens instead of blowing us off with "we'll have to leave it there"? It would have to step up to two responsibilities, each of which carries risks, but ducking either one is as good as giving up on what a free press can do for democracy.
Take my headline, above. When I say that Tim Tebow is Jewish, I'm doing two things. One is making a factual claim. The other is pursuing an agenda. Journalism's job, I think, is to investigate both.
You can check whether Tim Tebow is Jewish (he's not), just like you can check whether Barack Obama was born in America (yup); whether the earth is 6,000 years old (nope); or whether the U.S. has the best health care system in the world (we're #37). There's a big chunk of rhetorical real estate to which the words "true" and "false" can be appropriately applied. People who say that climate change is a hoax are wrong. So are people who say that taxes have gone through the roof in California.
Some assertions, like Mitt Romney's claim that Bain Capital netted 100,000 new jobs, can be checked in principle, but not in reality, because Bain refuses to release the data needed to confirm or disprove it. That 100,000 is the equivalent of an ad for a male enhancement pill; a consumer warning is the least the media could provide. A reporter or host who fails to call a falsehood false - on the spot, within the story, in real time - is committing journalistic malpractice.
But fact-checking is just one part of the journalist's job. The other is to help citizens understand the intention of the speaker, to expose the purpose of an assertion. When I say Tim Tebow is Jewish, my goal is to grab your attention. I know it's not true. I'm lying.
The mens rea of a speaker - the intent to deceive - is fair game for journalism. It's not enough to say that Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley are factually wrong about "death panels"; an analysis of a disinformation campaign belongs in the story (as the Times, to its credit, provided). The lies Dick Cheney sold the Times about Saddam's uranium centrifuges cried out for political deconstruction. Good reporting on the charges about Barack Obama by Donald Trump, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich also requires reporting on their marketing campaigns for TV ratings, lecture fees and book sales. Motives matter.
Here's how that works, when it works: After Fox & Friends followed the money trail from "Ground Zero mosque" builder Imam Rauf to Saudi prince and purported terrorist funder Al-Waleed bin Talal, not only did Jon Stewart point out that Al-Waleed is News Corp.'s largest shareholder; he also used that inconvenient truth to raise the key question about Fox News's failure to mention the connection: Are they stupid, or evil? That's not overstepping the bounds between journalism and partisanship; it's reclaiming the ground that journalistic cowardice has ceded to partisanship. (And yes, I know that Jon Stewart calls himself a fake journalist, not a real one. But if that's fake, then the Pulitzers need a new category.)
Sometimes motive is the most important part of a story. The significance of Mitt Romney's re-invention of his record isn't that he's lying about the past; it's that he will say and do anything to be president. He wants Tea Partiers to believe that he's one of them, but he wants the rest of us think that he's actually winking at us while pandering to them, and at the same time he wants the press to admire his feint-to-the-right/pivot-to-the-center strategy as a triumph in narrative-making. It's not journalistically unprofessional to call Romney's strategy cynical; it's professionally derelict not to.
Stephen Colbert is also winking at us, but his meaning isn't that we're all in on the joke that money-fueled politics has become; it's that our civic hair is on fire. When the Times' public editor wonders whether verification is vigilantism, it's a sign not only that the right's 30-plus years of working the refs has succeeded, but also that the postmodern allergy to a category called "truth" is on the verge of being fatal to democracy. When Stewart and Colbert make motive the topic and analysis entertaining, I feel a tectonic shift - a promising one - in the ground of political storytelling.
Tim Tebow ain't Jewish, but journalism ain't stenography.
This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.
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Dan Kennedy: Bonfire of the Ombudsmen
President Obama's claim of job creation. We know we created jobs and saved jobs
but we are unable to show you. Maybe Tim is Jewish by accepting Christ as his savior.
Christ was half Jewish (full by his mother being Jewish). By accepting Christ, Tebow
is an accepted brother of Christ.
Romney's Bain Corporation seems to have worked like the Obama stimilus Chevrolet and
Chrysler. Close factories, close dealersbhip, pink slips - make them profitable. Romney did not use
government money. There are more democratic millionaires in Congress than Republicians.
I'm sick of "opinions". I don't want to hear some TV talking head's thoughts. I want to hear facts. I don't want to hear reporting from media sources that "give the benefit of the doubt". So much bad has happened in the past few decades because of sloppy journalism: former VP Cheney lied to the press, the press passed on the message and then we invaded Iraq, killing millions and spending trillions. I don't want to hear "Fox gives the Republican spin and Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow give the Democratic spin": when two sides disagree on a fact, one side is lying or being disingenuous.
The Congressional Research Service has stated that the weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion indicates that the term means one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship "at birth" or "by birth," including any child born "in" the United States (other than to foreign diplomats serving their country), the children of United States citizens born abroad, and those born abroad of one citizen parent who has met U.S. residency requirements. ONE CITIZEN PARENT - DUUUUUUHHHHHHH
Yeah, lots of Americans believe blindly because journalistic integrity eroded (or was bought off)so insidiously and slowly enough that older and/or naïve folks still think big-name reporters are Edward R. Murrow, merely BECAUSE they are big-time journalists.
Might (power) makes right.
Big makes right.
Ratings make right.
Good looks make right.
Popularity makes right.
Loud mouth makes right.
Charisma makes right.
“Spewing the same kind of hateful propaganda that we already believe and want to hear,” makes right.
So anything broadcast by a popular, powerful, good-looking or charismatic loud mouth pandering to the prejudices, myths, bigotry and superstitions of enough of the lowest common denominator to get good ratings ($$$$$$$) is – ta da!! The TRUTH.
Statistics don't lie, but liars can't statistic.
See, it doesn't work because there is no double-entendre.
Perhaps you don't know what "normally" means, or perhaps you are confused by a Mark Twain quote that you only "kinda" remember?
That statement is the height of liberal arrogance an article about "truth." What a joke! How can the author objectively know what is in anyone's mind, that he "wants" anything? There are several plausible alternatives to the author's "truth" here.
We just need journalist to disclose their bias at the beginning because as this author of "truth" has demonstrated so forcefully, objective truth in these matters is a non-starter.
Your assertion that you can't know someone's intent from their statements within context is ludicrous. In fact, most human interaction is exactly that. We are constantly trying to know and understand the intent of other people.
What I am saying is that it is not "truth" and "objective" to make the assertion Romney is pandering rather than actually believes what he is saying to them.
The media, at least the large and most commercially successful members, may be pushed by their corporate overlords to dumb down the information and shirk journalistic responsibility, but if the consumers turned away from all the slop and second-rate reporting, the industry would get the message that they need to change tactics.
We can learn those things going on in the world that are truly relevant if we take the time and effort to ferret them out. A majority of Americans, it seems, would rather know about the Kardashians and hear from the climate-change deniers that make them more comfortable with themselves and their circumscribed little worlds. And so they get just what suits them best.
Bread and circuses, bread and circuses.
Like, "People who say that climate change is a hoax are wrong." The climate changes all the time so no one can technically say climate change is a hoax. The intent is that man-made climate change is a hoax and that is at the very least in question despite what libs want to force on the population.
Also, the death panels comment. While there are not any groups explicitly called "death panels" in Obamacare, the intent of that comment was much different. That is, medical care has to be rationed because demand will always exceed supply so the question is, who/what will ration it? Will it be the market using price and letting individuals make the decision or will it be government bureaucrats limiting supply because they cannot afford it like in Europe? If it is a bureaucrat determining the amount of say cardiologists in the system, then that could result in death if a patient cannot get treatment in time. Thus the group that rations the care could end up causing a death.
The author just pointed out that one's perspective has an effect on the "truth."
If an individual has a contract with an insurance company for a specified level of service for a specified price, he/she knows what is and is not covered and therefore they will make a rational decision about price and risk. However, in government runned systems like those in Europe and what Obamacare brings here is that a government body (or panel) makes the decision about how much of a service to provide given costs and perceived "needs."
Thus in many cases, individuals may have chosen to purchase more care than the government is willing to provide under Obamacare or any other government runned system. By limiting services the panel may limit some services that would otherwise be purchased and could end up in deaths.
A relative in the Netherlands went without care for 18 months for a specfic heart condition because the government limited supply of the specialty needed. That person had to get "worse off" and take the risk of potentially dying in order to move up the list to get the scarce care. The same could and would happen here.
Some Americans believe that that is the correct rationing system, since there just are not the resources to give everyone all the health care needed. Letting those who cannot provide for themselves suffer must be tolerated in the name of good health for those who CAN provide -- with NO CONSIDERATION of WHY they cannot provide. They, in other words, are UNFIT to survive, no matter how intelligent, or gifted or special or loved by their families or productive in the kinds of endeavors that do not pay enought to buy health care..
Whereas, those who have provided for themselves ARE FIT to survive, even if they, perhaps stole their wealth, never worked in their life and inherited the wealth from great-grand-daddy, or were born with totally random, unearned advantages like surpassing beauty or athleticism or super intelligence to exploit. From this viewpoint, no other measure except ability to pay (ie. sufficient wealth/resources) is a "fair" rationing method, no matter the worth of the individuals involved. This rationing method is the oldest and most common method used -- by those who believe in "survival of the fittest and Social Darwinism. Ironic that many who profess to follow Jesus are also Social Darwinists, but creationist when it comes to all other things.
Anyway, 85% of people in this country have health care and based on polls are generally happy with their care. Can if be provided more cheaply and better, sure, but throwing out the system and letting the government take over is not the answer for most people.
Those 15% (45MM people supposedly) w/o insurance are made up of various groups: illegal immigrants (12-18MM), people in between jobs (temp w/o insurance), young people (who choose not to be insured), poor people (who qualify for Medicaid), etc.
The bottom line is do we want a small minority of people who cannot afford insurance to dictate a suboptimal program to the vast majority that are generally happy with their current health care. It would be better to reform the system and figure out a way to keep costs down and get more people insured privately than let the government take over.
It was a serviceman rebutting an article published, it said, in the Washington Times by an Obama official (Cindy Williams) about military pay.
Talk about mens rea- The article in question was, in fact, published by the Washington Post in 2000, and that is only the beginning of the factual errors.
The intent of this email is not to complain about military pay, but to curry anger against the current administration.
Internet junk like this is flying around daily and is widely and easily distributed .
The person who sent it to me obviously did nothing to check the facts before hitting send.
Did you "reply to sender" with the facts?