Are journalists betraying their values? No, it’s the public who are wrong, says Washington Post writer
14 Apr, 2021 20:47
FILE PHOTO: A quotation from former executive editor Ben Bradlee is seen on the newsroom floor during the grand opening of the Washington Post newsroom in Washington, DC, January 28, 2016 © Reuters / Gary Cameron
American journalists think of themselves as crusaders for truth, transparency, and the little guy. But when the public isn’t buying it, they get defensive, as the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan recently proved.
According to Sullivan, there is a “troubling disconnect” between “core journalistic values” – oversight, transparency, factuality, spotlighting wrongdoing, and giving a “voice to the voiceless” – and the American public.
Citing a new study by the American Press Institute, Sullivan on Wednesday lamented the fact that these values just don’t seem to resonate with the public anymore. Only 1 in 10 Americans support all five of these values, and when the API’s researchers split the public into four groups – the so-called “Upholders, Loyalists, Moralists, and Journalism Supporters” – only 2 in 10 fell into the latter group.
Faced with declining trust in the media – down from 70% in the 1970s to 40% last year – Sullivan thinks that journalists aren’t doing anything wrong, but are still forced to “explain to a distrustful public that, ‘we’re not biased, we’re just doing our jobs,’” in the words of API Director Tom Rosenstiel.
Sullivan reckons that journalists need to “think differently” about how to reach the 8 out of 10 Americans who don’t fully support their mission, but only suggested tweaking headlines to suit their tastes as a solution.
To some of her readers, the problem wasn’t that oversight, transparency, and factuality are bum concepts to begin with. It’s that Sullivan and her fellow journalists aren’t living up to these lofty ideals.
“This must be parody,” tweeted Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Texas), declaring that the press only follows its own guiding values “when it helps Democrats.”
Perhaps they have a point. In the last week alone, a CNN technical director admitted that the network did everything it could last year to “get Trump out of office,” and intentionally stoked fear about Covid-19 for ratings, and CBS’ ‘60 Minutes’ was caught selectively editing a story to damage Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Aside from these most recent blunders, last year saw the cable news reporters declare arson attacks “fiery, but mostly peaceful,” and the New York Times state that anyone describing the ‘Black Lives Matter’ riots that took place during the summer as “violent” was spreading “misinformation,” to name just two widely-mocked media missteps.
But maybe Sullivan is right, and the public just needs some better headlines to understand the vital work of the media.
Maybe they need some journalists with functional brains. How can they not see the political bias in their own publications? How can they miss that if they have a functional brain? Seems that journalists are showing utter contempt for the public.
Brian Stelter says there was no ‘cover-up’ after CNN sat for 4 days on news of crew assaulted by protesters
18 Apr, 2021 18:21
CNN anchor Brian Stelter shot down suggestions that the network had covered up an incident of its news crew being assaulted by violent protesters, while one of the reporters said he “cannot blame” his attackers for “being angry.”
On CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Stelter called claims that CNN had covered up Wednesday’s incident “ridiculous,” despite it being the first time the attack was mentioned on the network – four days after the footage went viral online.
He acknowledged that the story “went viral on right-wing media,” but did not explain why CNN had previously refused to cover it.
Footage of the incident showed one CNN crew member being hit hard on the head by a water bottle and then falling over as a protester laughed. After the footage ended, another crew member was also hit with a water bottle, before videos then showed the CNN staffers fleeing the scene.
During Sunday’s show, CNN Senior National Correspondent Miguel Marquez, who was one of the journalists pelted with bottles and chased off by the violent mob, also said, “I cannot blame them for being angry,” noting that “a lot of people are very angry, suspicious of the press, the corporate media.”
Does that mean he's admitting to fake news on CNN?
"We happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he concluded.
Isn't that what news reporters are supposed to do?
Social media users criticized CNN’s response to the incident, with one user commenting, “They finally reported it to save face because it’s all over Twitter.”
Another user condemned Marquez for making “excuses for the mob,” and questioned, “So if I see a CNN reporter anywhere, I can pelt them with stuff because I am mad at them for being fake news, right?”
Right. As long as you are black!
New York Times ‘bounties’ non-story shows US/UK media has got so used to blaming Russia, it's basically now doing it out of habit
20 Apr, 2021 10:48
A woman wearing a protective face mask walks by the New York Times building in Manhattan © Reuters
By Paul Robinson, a professor at the University of Ottawa. He writes about Russian and Soviet history, military history, and military ethics, and is the author of the Irrussianality blog
As holes predictably appear in claims that Russia paid the Taliban to kill American soldiers, questions arise as to why such erroneous stories keep appearing in the American press. Domestic US politics provide part of the answer.
“A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories.” So ran a headline in the New York Times in August 2016. If it were only a Russian phenomenon, the world would be a much better place. Alas, the Times is far from immune from spreading “false stories” itself. From Walter Duranty’s reporting from the Soviet Union, through Judith Miller’s articles on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, up to its coverage of accusations that US President Donald Trump had colluded with the Russian government, The New York Times has had its fair share of “fake news” experiences.
“A little tiny bit flat-footed,” was how the Times executive editor Dean Baquet described the newspaper when the Mueller investigation failed to find Trump guilty of collusion. “I mean, that’s what happens when a story looks a certain way for two years. Right?” added Baquet. You have to feel a bit for him. He really believed in collusion. In his eyes, it did “look a certain way.” It was rather embarrassing when he turned out to be completely wrong.
The New York Times’ iffy relationship with reality is back in the news today. US presidential spokesperson Jen Psaki admitted that the US intelligence community was not at all convinced by accusations first aired in the Times that the Russian government had paid bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill American soldiers. Rather, it had only “low to moderate confidence” that the story was true. Psaki explained:
“The reason that they have low to moderate confidence in this judgment is in part because it relies on detainee reporting, and due to the challenging environment and also due to the challenging operating environment in Afghanistan. So it’s challenging to gather this intelligence and this data.”
The accusation against Russia appeared in The New York Times in June last year. The Times then followed up with additional stories on the same topic. “Afghan Contractor Handed Out Russian Cash to Kill Americans, Official Say,” claimed the headline of a second article. “How Russia Built a Channel to the Taliban, Once an Enemy,” read the headline of a third.
Commentators soon pointed out problems. While the CIA had moderate faith in the claim, the National Security Agency didn’t. In any case, the primary sources of information were Afghan prisoners who hadn’t themselves been involved in the alleged transaction. Their claims needed to be treated with a fair degree of caution.
Others pointed out that the story didn’t make any sense from a Russian point of view. The Russian government values the stability of Afghanistan, and had consistently supported both the Afghan government and the US military presence there. There was no obvious motive for killing Americans.
Furthermore, it’s not as if the Taliban needed to be incentivised to fight America. They were already killing as many Americans as they were able to. Paying them to do what they were doing already would have been odd, to say the least.
Now, Ms. Psaki admits what people have long since suspected: that the accusation against Russia is not well-founded. But anyone with any sense realized that from the get-go. Why, then, did The New York Times report it?
The Times’ explanation is that the story was true. It didn’t say that the accusation was accurate; it merely reported the accusation. In an article on Thursday, Times reporter Charlie Savage notes that the newspaper had stated that the CIA had only “medium” confidence in the story and the NSA had “low” confidence. It had also reported that the Afghan prisoners who recounted the story hadn’t actually been present when the alleged meetings with Russians took place. In other words, The New York Times’ reporting was accurate.
Maybe so, but that begs a question – why report a story that makes an extremely explosive allegation if you’re not at all confident that the accusation is true? Isn’t there some responsibility to hold off from repeating libelous claims until such time as you can substantiate them?
Apparently not. It seems as if the Times wanted to believe the story. It “looked a certain way,” to use Dean Baquet’s phrase. Which in turn begs another question. Why did it look that way to the Times?
The obvious answer is that it fitted the political needs of the moment. For the real target of the Russian bounty story was never Russia but Trump. Its purpose was to show that the president had in some way betrayed America’s soldiers by continuing to talk to Russia even though he had evidence that the Russians were killing Americans.
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, thus remarked, “The administration’s disturbing silence and inaction endanger the lives of our troops and our coalition partners.”Meanwhile, then presidential candidate and now president, Joe Biden, responded to the story by saying that Trump’s “entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but this is beyond the pale. It’s a betrayal of the most sacred duty we bear as a nation to protect and equip our troops when we send them into harm’s way. It’s a betrayal of every single American family with a loved one serving in Afghanistan or anywhere overseas.”
Russia, in other words, was merely a pawn in an internal American political struggle. Sadly, though, this is far from an isolated incident. Furthermore, the Democratic Party and its backers in the USA have now become so habituated to spreading dubious stories about Russia that they seem to be unable to stop, even though the original political motivation has vanished. The Russian bounty wasn’t the first “false story” to appear, and it won’t be the last.
Press freedom experiences ‘dramatic deterioration’
during Covid pandemic – RSF report
20 Apr, 2021 10:40
© Getty Images / solidcolours
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has warned in its annual report that press freedom has experienced a “dramatic deterioration” during the pandemic, with some nations using Covid to justify limiting the activities of journalists.
Examining the situation throughout the past year, the group laid out how journalists, particularly in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, have found it harder to investigate and report on stories due to countries limiting access through Covid restrictions.
Following the attitude of nations throughout the pandemic, the RSF identified that the virus “has been used as grounds to block journalists’ access to information sources and reporting in the field,” reducing their ability to independently verify stories.
The RSF found in its 2021 press freedom index that 73% of the 180 countries evaluated “blocked or seriously impeded” the work of journalists at a time when, the group argues, the public need the media to serve as “the best vaccine against the virus of disinformation.”
Wouldn't that be nice, instead of being the source of such disinformation!
The Index data reflect a dramatic deterioration in people’s access to information and an increase in obstacles to news coverage.
The group highlights how impeding the work of journalists can seriously damage the public’s trust of media organizations. This is reflected in the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer, which showed 59% of respondents in 28 countries believe reporters intentionally publish false information to mislead the public.
Not sure I see the reflection. I seriously doubt that fake news is because of a lack of press freedom, but perhaps too much press freedom where liars are rarely castigated.
Established in 1985 and based in France, RSF claims to work to promote and defend press freedom, describing it as a human right that must be protected. Each year, the organization releases an annual world press freedom index, measuring the level of press freedom in 180 countries around the world.
===========================================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment