Monday, January 14, 2008

You are what you eat

Journalism is frequently described and dismissed by Bush groupies with the propaganda phrase “liberal media,” and every time I hear it, I cringe.

There are certainly liberal journalistic publications, just as there are conservative journalistic publications. In fact, journalism is practiced across the political spectrum in this country. This is, in fact, one of American journalism’s greatest strengths: every publication can report on the news, every publication can investigate its accuracy, and every publication can challenge the reports of others. In this way, facts that are widely reported tend to be more reliable than facts that are reported by only one or two publications.

In general, the more extreme the overall political stance, the more biased the coverage. It’s why I don’t often refer to, say, Worker’s World, which is an unapologetically socialist publication—the bias is relentless. Take the second paragraph of a story entitled “Behind the votes for Obama & Rodham Clinton”:

It’s not that the journalistic aspects of the article are necessarily inaccurate, mind you—it’s just the facts tend to get buried by the compulsive spin delivered by the author of the article and the tone set by the editors. It becomes difficult to extract the truth from the opinion, because the spin is so pervasive—in fact, when such a spin is this pervasive, it’s difficult not to wonder whether the reported facts are being modified, omitted or amended to support the spin.

If your only source of news was Worker’s World, it would be hard not to start acclimating to that particular atmosphere—and that’s true whenever one restricts themselves to one source, or a set of sources limited to a particular aggressive spin.

But what if you have a source that limits itself to an aggressive spin and is obviously engaged in misrepresenting the facts?

Hello, Fox News

I’m not all that crazy about Paul Begala, but I find him likable and competent for the most part. A former political consultant and presidential counselor for the Clinton administration, he’s currently a political commentator for CNN’s Inside Politics.

However, he reports that on January 8, Fox News reported that he was going to be working for Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign—without bothering to actually contact him to find out whether it was true or not. Reporters from other networks were calling to verify the story, including CNN (which obviously had a vested interest in whether he was going to be joining a presidential campaign or not). In each case, Begala repeated that the story wasn’t true.

The Fox reporter that “broke the story” was Major Garrett—my understanding is that “Major” is actually his name and not a rank—and Begala sent an email to him (note: paragraph spacing has been changed for clarity):

Concise, personable, understanding, giving the benefit of the doubt—all in all, the perfect sort of email that could clear up any confusion. Right?

Thirteen minutes later, Begala got a surprising response:

Take it under advisement?!

Let that sink in a little. The story is that Begala is signing up for Clinton’s campaign. Begala denies the story directly to the reporter, but that is somehow not worthy of including in the report?

Another 45 minutes goes by, and Begala has occasion to write Garrett again:

So now Garrett is in the untenable position of getting information from a source that, according to a much better placed source (the person whom the story is about) is completely untrue. Any rational reporter would at the very minimum include a bit about “When we checked with Mr. Begala, he said that he had had no contact with the Clinton campaign for months, that the reported conference call never occurred, and that he is not linked to the campaign in any way.”

Instead, Mr. Garrett, rather than venture near anything like accurate reporting, responded thusly:

“The sourcing is strong, very strong, or I wouldn’t go with it.”

Think about that. He has two sources talking with him—one that proferred information that the other is denying, the other in a much better position to know. He is deliberately choosing to go with the less reliable, more incendiary source, and is not allowing the more reliable information even the barest mention.

Begala sent one more email—a much politer one that I think I would have sent in similar circumstances—and that was it. Fox continued to report the story, issued no retractions that I am aware of, made no clarifications, added any new information, or in any way made any effort to make their story accurate.

If you want, you can read it in Begala’s own words on his Huffington Post entry.

Journalism has ethics?

Yes, Virginia—in fact, there is a Society of Professional Journalists that has a clearly stated code of ethics. Among this code are the following gems:

• Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
• Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.
• Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
• Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

Apparently, Mr. Garrett is unfamiliar with this code, as are a disturbing number of “journalists” over at Fox News.

Journalistic ethics are critical to a democracy, and critical to the very survival of this nation. Few private citizens have the time or resources to monitor what’s going on around the world, or in our own government (either federal, state, county or municipal). Journalists are paid to do so, and we rely on their ability to report accurately, to reduce the impact of their own opinions in favor of letting the facts stand for themselves. Reporters that cannot do this do a major disservice to those who read, listen or view their reports.

Unfortunately, Fox News has a problem: it has established a despicable reputation for inaccurate reporting, nutty commentary and extremist opinions.

In short, they are the GOP version of Worker’s World—only worse.

You can do better

I don’t mind too much when a publication (whether newspaper, radio, television or whatever) makes a mistake, as long as it promptly corrects it as soon as more information comes to light. In lieu of completeness—and let’s face it, there’s so much happening in the world that there would be no way to keep up with everything—one has to rely on a reasonable attempt at prioritizing based on actual importance, and on balanced, even-handed reporting.

Fox News isn’t it. Sure, they want you believe that they are—otherwise, they wouldn’t be emitting that constant lie Fair and Balanced.

My only advice is to be sure to balance your own news. Don’t rely on just one outlet. Get some perspective from other sources. That even goes for commentary. If all you listen to during the day is a conservative talk-radio station, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

As Republicans, we should be seeking out the truth, not just dogmatic spin. As thoughtful Republicans, we know we can only approximate the truth—but the more data points the better, and the fewer blatantly unreliable sources the better. Raise the level of discourse in this nation—not just its volume.

You owe it to yourself—and we owe it to our nation.