Good News and Bad News About the News

Occasionally, a national news organization will take a step away from advocacy and attempt to present useful news.  Brian Lehrer who hosts his eponymous show on NPR and WNYC, in conjunction with Bobby Ghosh, the Baghdad bureau chief for Time magazine, deserve credit for attempting to shed light on the current status of the troop surge in Baghdad.  Ghosh is in Baghdad and made his first report last Thursday; today was Part II, with two more to follow.  Brian Lehrer asked about the comments made by several of the Democratic candidates to the effect that we need to withdraw most of our troops and confine our efforts to fighting al Qaeda.  Ghosh's response was surprising and should receive wide dissemination.

Ghosh started by describing how the Sunni tribes have been breaking their ties with al Qaeda and forging alliances with the Americans in Iraq.  He offers several reasons for this and does not hesitate to describe the current alliances as based more on bottom line utility than any profound philosophical awakening to the value of Democracy.  He also points out that the recent statements repudiating al Qaeda by the leader of the Sunni scholars and Imams in Iraq is extremely significant.  His conclusions are striking.  He makes it quite clear that any efforts to withdraw would endanger all of these advances.  The tribes, for purposes of self preservation, would not only immediately drop out of the fight against al Qaeda, but the Sunni provinces would in short order become al Qaeda mini-states, offering a source of manpower, training, funding, and support that they currently do not have anywhere in the developed world.

Anyone want to give odds that we will actually see these conclusions addressed to the Democratic candidates at their next debate?  Or that such facts on the ground will actually be part of the debate over the war sure to follow General Petreaus's report on our progress due in September?

The bad news comes courtesy of Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley.  You might think the headline offers more good news, but you would be mistaken:

AP's Curley says Internet hasn't changed news gathering fundamentals

SEOUL, South Korea - The Internet is bringing numerous changes to the media industry, but the fundamentals of newsgathering remain the same, Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley said Thursday.

    "As we consider the digital future though, let’s be very clear about one thing: Technology may change how journalists work, but it has never changed what journalists do," he said in a speech to the Seoul Digital Forum 2007.
    "Speaking truth to power or acting as the watchdog of the powerful is one of journalism’s enduring values," Curley said.

Curley gave his speech at this years forum, "an annual three-day gathering of leading technology and media industry figures sponsored by South Korea’s SBS television network, this year drew Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt, among others. Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer attended last year."

The rest of the article describes how the news industry must find new ways to get their product to the masses, who have been spending less and less time reading paper and more and more time on the Internet.

The saddest and most dangerous aspect of Curley's remarks are that he seems so utterly unaware of what a perversion they are.  I use the word purposely; a perversion is an activity that misuses a healthy drive in order to attain destructive gratifications.  "Speaking truth to power" may be an enduring value of certain types of advocacy journalism but it is never an appropriate goal of a news gathering and disseminating organization. 

I have no problem with people interpreting data in ways inimical to my point of view; it happens all the time and is a healthy part of political, indeed of any human, discourse.  However, when our news gatherers distort the news in the service of a desired outcome, it is no longer news but propaganda;  Curley supports the AP in committing the most egregious of journalistic sins.

News organizations are certainly under tremendous pressure from the Internet, yet by destroying their product and making it indistinguishable from the advocacy we can find in myriad other places, they are opening the door for newcomers to perform the more traditional and unique functions that the AP was once set up to do, gather and disseminate news.

The fact that it is impossible for anyone to be completely objective and report a news event without any bias is incontestable.  However, that does not rationalize eschewing the attempt and adopting the posture that slanting a story in ways which best propel one's agenda, all the while professing to be a disinterested observer, is dishonest, propagandistic, and advances the agenda of the worst evils of our time.  Curley and his AP are beneath contempt.

Comments

[Good Ole Charlie]

SW:

"Beneath contempt" is a good description of what the AP has turned into. Pardon the grammar, but I have no more faith in the AP to report facts - never mind interpretation of those facts - than I would trust my pet Lab to do the same.

In my own field - physical science - I have watched in disbelief as facts and findings are changed to either make headlines or promote an agenda. AP coverage of "Global Warming" is a good example...in their hands, bad science but great propaganda.

Further down the intellectual chain, oversimplification rules their roost. They don't make an effort to get the science right: hard to do when you distort facts, but fatal to your credibility when you don't even try.

They don't have fact checkers? Maybe they're not interested in getting the facts right the first time.

The Trash Can Of History is at the end of their rainbow.

[Daniel in Brookline]

"Speaking truth to power", indeed.

Could we settle for aggressive pursuit of the truth, please?

The journalist's slogan that I'd like to see would be something like this: "We will pursue and publish the truth, regardless of whether it shatters preconceived notions... even our own."

Or perhaps this:

"We will speak truth to power, regardless of how powerful we ourselves become."

(Call that Dan Rather Syndrome. It never occurred to him that, for all his preaching to the masses, the masses might need protection from him.)

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

[Daniel]

Sadder still is that this seems a common view among newsfolks. How many times have we been told in the last few years that the role of the media is to make the world better or help the powerless or some such? Appearently facts, honesty, balance, subject knowledge, etc. aren't part of the better world.

[Seerak]

The fact that it is impossible for anyone to be completely objective and report a news event without any bias is incontestable.

Then let me contest it!

"Objectivity" is commonly interpreted to mean "without bias", which in common usage means, "unselective", or "without viewpoint". This conception of "objectivity" is philosophically false; by defining objectivity as intrinsically at odds with the necessity of viewpoint, it opens the door to all the dishonesty and slipshod reporting we now see today.

The clearest evidence against this false view is the fact that journalism as a profession exists because of the need for selectivity. With the vast sea of undifferentiated information available, it makes sense that there should be people we can trust to sift through it all, identify and select what is *objectively* important, and present it to the rest of us in a format that allows us to quickly get up to speed on what is going on.

The trust we put in such people is not that they will be "impartial" or "without bias", for it is by means of partiality and "bias" that they select what they will report to us. We trust simply that the *standards* by which they engage in that selection are themselves objective.

But thanks to the false idea of "objectivity", journalism schools are turning out graduates who have been told that "objectivity" is a fairy tale, and impossible ideal. Since objectivity is impossible and bias inevitable, we might as well make sure that they have all the "right" biases... and sure enough, journalists are 90% Democrats.

[Pompeia]

But I don't want "truth" from the media. I want FACTS - I am perfectly capable to determining my own "truth".

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Seerak is correct that there are two things that go by the name of objectivity, and journalists insert their opinions via the confusion. Being without bias or opinion is impossible. Adhering to a measurable and published standard is quite possible. Who, What, When, Where, and How are often clear, and objectively reportable. Sneaking in the "Why" via adjectives and verb choices is more ambiguous.

[Tom in Boise]

The two faces of journalism today. Slanting unvarnished facts to include your opinion, and omitting facts that don't fit your bias, ie., freedom of the press also means freedom to suppress that which you chose not to report. Two sides of the same crooked coin, tails I win, heads you (the reader or listener) loses.

[megapotamus]

On the media generally, certainly all the above indictments are supportable, if not quite at this level of umbrage, since there are of course a multitude of voices and we have yet, a free press that is internally competitive as well as necessarily profitable. But the Democrats may indeed be in for a rude awakening as regards Lehrer. Given his demo and background I have little doubt that he is a doctrinaire Liberal but the closest examination of his work reveals as nearly we may hope the aspirations of "objectivity". These Iraq developments, reported right to his own ears on his own show will NOT go down his own personal Memory Hole (which we all have, BTW). Lehrer is perpetually sought as moderator at primary and general election debates, no? Yes! Funniest of all though, no Dem candidate or advisor will ever even be aware of these developments. Plugged ears and closed eyes are the only tactics they employ on Iraq, either in the field or on the hustings. It's... what's that word? Unsustainable.

[Scotty]

There is a steady undercurrent of grumbling about "media bias". I believe it is time to bring this issue to the forefront.

Can someone be found who has the expertise and resources to compile an explicit log of bias examples? Such a log could be split into sections such as 'Bush bashing', 'Iraqi affairs', etc.. There are two examples I've noted today: Taranto mentioned a NYT report that noted the discovery of the Qaeda torture facility, but only after 10 other paragraphs under the headline "Two American Soldiers Killed"; Captain mention the AP-Kyoto lie in his blog today.

These items result in responses like "disgraceful, dreadful, etc.", but then evaporate into the ether. A log such as the one I suggest would tend to bring the problem into true focus, and provide an institutional memory that could be used to really beat on the MSM.

What say you? Could you find an intrepid volunteer in your wide circle of blogging experts?

[David M]

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 06/01/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.

You guys are just annoyed that the MSM is no longer slanting to the extreme right. But you can remain in denial of objective reality if you want: keep watching Fox News.

[Don Miguel]

"You guys are just annoyed that the MSM is no longer slanting to the extreme right. But you can remain in denial of objective reality if you want: keep watching Fox News."

Who's really in denial here?

A few months ago I read a statement from a journalism professor at a big J school who lamented the fact that when asking his students why they wanted to be journalists he got answers like "to make a difference" or "to change the world," but not a single student saying "to report the news."

[SDN]

I've been following the news for 35 years and it has NEVER slanted to the right at all, much less the extreme.

[megapotamus]

"the MSM is no longer slanting to the extreme right."
As hilarious as that lie is, all should remember that an implaccable and non-trivial fraction of our population really believes such crockery with the fervor of, say, a madrassa trained jihadi. They are as immune to fact and reason as Ted Kosczinski but not to events. These have already left them behind. As for the, yes, much needed documentation and quantification of the Leftwing corruption in our media, the Media Research Center of Brent Bozell has been doing that work for decades. Read a few random months of their newsletters. They are not comprehensive but as near as one may have asked before the internets.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Scotty, there's lots of that work going on. Start with Media Research Center http://www.mediaresearch.org/

[Don K]

I worked for the AP for 15+ years (left in the mid-1990s). The AP used to be a "just the facts" place -- the joke was that we were the "Joe Friday of journalism." We were told we were "newsmen (and women), and proud of that title." Any analytical/commentary pieces were clearly labeled; news items, in the vast majority of cases, contained the news -- what had happened. Writers and editors were told to stick to the facts and not editorialize.

After several years working in other media, I now work in a place where I see mounds of AP copy on a daily basis. The transformation is astounding -- and appalling.

First, the writing has deteriorated. But more alarming are the snarky comments, innuendos, misstatements and other garbage that now infect AP items. It's very easy these days to see on which side of the political spectrum an AP writer stands these days, something that wasn't true in previous eras.

The situation is exacerbated by the rapid expansion of use of AP material. The AP was late to the Web, but it's there now and in many ways is more important to online news operations than to newspapers. Online news sites are voracious, always seeking new and updated content. There is no one in the world equipped to meet that demand better (in the U.S.) than the AP. Reuters doesn't have the US base (except in business) and UPI is a rotting corpse. Newspapers cutting everything they can in efforts to pump up the bottom line have turned to the AP (which they're usually getting anyway, in one form or another) to keep pumping out the new material.

I still talk to some former colleagues who have noticed the same things I have, and are as appalled as I am. The AP is not supposed to stand for "Advocacy Press," but it becomes more like that every day.

[John Blake]

Today's mass media, including wire services, are unheard, unread, because mispoken and unreadable. Three quarters of material and substantive occurences are never even mentioned; the dumbed down PCBS remainder is beyond parody in simplistic arrogance, "reporting" as fact what any sentient entity knows is a perverse left-ideological distortion, hyped by dolts for louts, context and perspective free: Ignorant and phony to the nth degree, the very antithesis of "information". Mass media's so-called "news" is no such thing... content-free, predictable, possessing not even entertainment value. Contributors retail attitudes, not arguments, disseminated with a narcissistic contempt for audiences which in itself disqualifies them from honestly addressing any topic.

Against stupidity masquerading as puissance, there is no defense. The problem of our time is that eight of ten in-group celebrity worshippers neither know nor care.

[Ymarsakar]

"Speaking truth to power or acting as the watchdog of the powerful is one of journalism’s enduring values," Curley said.

When you feel free to sabotage and undermine those who you know won't kill you for speaking out, instead freely working to aid those who would and could kill you for speaking out, is that really speaking truth to power? Or it is just what they say as they help folks kill?