I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about. – Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?
Arthur Brisbane’s post today left me speechless and that’s not easy to do.
It’s the most important piece you can read and it sheds light on our entire problem in the media and their complicity in helping politicians market absolutely rubbish.
Anyone who has read my book The Hillary Effect will see evidence of what’s happened throughout our media, which is represented in Brisbane’s remarkable acknowledgement that as public editor of the Times he believes that a snappy ap where facts are offered as a sidebar replaces truth that once was expected to be embedded in what people read.
Somewhere along the way, telling truth from falsehood was surpassed by other priorities to which the press felt a stronger duty. Arthur Brisbane, public editor of the New York Times, was unaware of this history when he asked users of the Times whether reporters should call out false statements.
That this breaks out on the web pages of the New York Times, no less, is truly remarkable. But that it does so in a flip commentary is…
No wonder people are uncomfortable when new-media writers like myself offer up uncomfortable truths. They seem to be optional, even for what used to be the paper of record, the New York Times.
We’re a stupid, lazy nation, but our media is worse. No wonder we’re getting the candidates and leaders we are today.
This inadvertent admission from Brisbane reveals why Fox News Channel has gotten away with it’s GOP cheerleading. It illustrates why MSNBC decided to throw gravitas to the wind and offer non-stop ideological nonsense, minus Chuck Todd and Dylan Ratigan, with Chris Hayes in there now too.
Truth is now optional.
Spot on Ms. marsh. That explains so much of what is happening in what passes for American politics today…from BOTH sides….while it is also true that the repugnantklan/teabaggers are operating in a twisted bizzaro dimension , the Obamazoids are operating in their own little insular bubble with their own notions of reality that are also disconnected with truth and facts.
truth is patriotic. if you need to inquire of your patriotism then you have none. ’countdown to iraq’, showed the media to be profit driven corporations. truth tellers, no. instruments of destructive propaganda, yes. the evidence is clear, from war to wall street the media has thoroughly failed the people. their role is now one of entertainment, perhaps there they achieve mediocrity.
is it any wonder the voter is so misinformed!
media INC.
Sometimes, I think telling the truth is one of the most patriotic things a person can do, particularly when people are determined to believe what isn’t true.
Sweet Baby Jesus On A Pogo Stick, The Stupid, It Burns!! I read the article, and holy guacamole, there is so much foolishness in that article I’m surprised it does not collapse into a black hole. On second thought …
Two things: “ The president has never used “ apologize “ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. “ That would be objective reporting.
“ Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpre tation of the president’s words. “ That’s bordering on opinion and putting the two sentences together shows bad judgement.
This from a commentator on his blog: “ As someone who graduated with a B.A. in Journalism ( back in the days of typewriters ) I am speechless and horrified that the Times feels it needs to ask the question. ”
A few years back a drinking buddy of mine was lamenting on the sad state of education in this country. He said what people don’t realize is that one day these people are going to be in positions of power and influence. What they say and do will be accepted by other uneducated people since it’s coming from a source which is perceived to be knowledgeable. Welcome to hell.
I think journalism schools need to insist that reporters learn elementary mathematics, including statistics, and have some serious grounding in philosophy. Then they should take a few science labs. That a senior journalist would even pose a hypothetical debunking that way shows how little that journalist remembers about logic.
Cujo, right there with you on this one. It’s nice to find some common ground occasionally. It used to be that you could “trust” what you read in the newspapers as being somewhat objective and factual. I miss those days.
I would add, Cujo 359, that journalism schools need to teach students to use specific language, in particular, the difference between an “assertion” and a “fact.” Politicians constantly make assertions that have no basis in truth. Therefore, these assertions are not “facts.”
Over the past several years, I have observed journalists actually using the words “true facts” as though there are facts that are not true. This is extremely sloppy language and reflects very careless thinking.
A true observation, and maybe the saddest. If there’s one thing you’d hope they’re still teaching in journalism courses, it’s that. I think the things I mentioned can provide context for what those words and concepts mean, but at the very least they should know, for instance, that a “globe” is a model of world, and things of that nature. Broadcast journalist Edwin Newman wrote a couple of books on that subject back in the ’70s. They should be required reading now, I think.
You are all spot on. This NYTimes post is so outlandish and at the same time also representative of the entire media culture, but also what people are not only willing to accept, but have come to expect, which revolves around their own world view & own truths that are no longer allowed to be challenged with objective or new information.
As you’ve seen across the media, as well as around here, the closer to the truth a writer gets the more he or she is attacked. It doesn’t matter the sources and research. If what’s being presented doesn’t comport with the marketing & propaganda the reader knows, vilification is swift.
Because of this, cable, radio, print and even new-media, on both sides of the political aisle, offer what bolsters conventional wisdom or a particularly viewpoint, all in hopes that the reward will be financial. Challenging perception is dangerous to your bottom line.
You know, I probably should be shocked at this, but I’m not. It’s what the major news businesses have been doing for a long time. When Glenn Greenwald highlighted this interview of Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus where Pincus admitted that the news avoids checking the statements of politicians for accuracy because they don’t want to be accused of taking sides, I pretty well knew that we’d reached this point. The right wing noise machine won. They don’t dare check facts because they don’t want to be called out by right wing critics.
I read a number of the comments on that column (comments are now closed sadly), and the ones that struck me, besides the ones that asked why this was even a question, were the ones that basically asked “What do you think we pay you for?” It’s been my perception for some time that they really don’t care what readers think of the paper, only what advertisers and people in power think. Frankly, even though I can get the service for free, it’s not worth bothering. It’s just a waste of time. When it’s not worth reading, even for free, it’s going to be tough to sell advertising.
If you are under 40, you probably believe that cable “news” consists of the host presenting an issue and then spending six minutes watching two people yell at each other about it. At the conclusion of the segment, the host is supposed to say something like “we’ll have to leave it there” or “we’ll have to agree to disagree” and move on to the next issue and the next two guests who will yell at each other about it.
Oh, and cable “news” consists of polls. Lots and lots of polls. Because no one can ever get enough of polls.
And if the cable “news” happens to be MSNBC, you expect the hosts to laugh at each other’s jokes, kid each other constantly, go off on personal tangents, and show clips of Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert to fill time. Serious, sober analysis of the news? Discussion of the facts? Forget about it. There are no facts- just opinions, polls, snark, comedians, and Coming Up Next More Of The Same With Different Hosts.
I was waiting to get Bob Somerby’s response to this ridicilous question asked by Brisbane. It is sure to be a barnburner, this being at the core of Bob’s work. I am delighted to see that you have written on it too Taylor.
At one time the NYT was thought of as the newspaper of record. It is very distructive to the public that it has gotten to the point where there is no authority to which one can point to prove your argument.Say you read something in the Times to a conservative friend and they will just snort their distain. All the while they are fully confident in their even more flawed media sources.
I have to disagree with you that we are a stupid, lazy people. I think americans are almost too hardworking, leaving themselves little time for reflection and very distracted by a smorgasboard of inconsequential crap. You have to make a conscious effort to literally turn it all off and allow your brain a rest. Brain science is very clear that the brain needs rest and time to process before anything like creative problem solving can happen. Sometimes I think a long power outage nationwide would be a good thing.
http://wiskeytangofoxtrotoscar.blogspot.com/2012/01/dereliction-of-duty-grey-lady-goes-awol.html
I usually look forward to Fridays, they are my only real off day. I get to sleep in, lounge about, or get stuff done. So imagine my dismay when Taylor Marsh pointed out an epically egregious Op-Ed in the New York Times “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?” It took all my limited amounts of self control and self restraint to avoid picking up a verbal flamethrower and fricasseeing Mr. Arthur S. Brisbane to charcoal perfection. This is the great great lady’s “readers’ representative”? Things have seemed to have only gotten worse since Judith Miller lowered the TImes to the level of over-priced fish wrap.
More at: http://wiskeytangofoxtrotoscar.blogspot.com/2012/01/dereliction-of-duty-grey-lady-goes-awol.html