How Truthful Are Newspapers?

[ralph124c]

The thread about poor people having to eat pet food inspires my question: how can you trust what you read?
Remember the WASHINTON POST scandal? A few years back, a reporter wrote a totally fictional story about a young black girl getting hooked on heroin. The reporter was about to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize, when somebody blew the whistle.It turned out that the little girl had never existed. Later, the BOSTON GLOBE had a writer (Mike Barnicle) who admittted to making up just about all of his "human interest" stories.
I myself have had experiences: a few years back, I called a reported for a local paper, regarding a story he had written (this was about a dangerous medical procedure that had been performed in the past). It told him of my experience, and a week later I saw that he had totally misquoted me! I angrily called the editor, and demanded (and hgot) a retraction.
So, what policies to newspapers use to determine the triuth of what they spew out?:eek:

[TBone2]

Those who write for newspapers are people. People have ideas, beliefs, persuasions, agendas, goals, etc., that color their perceptions. And people have varying levels of integrity -- some lie, others lie a lot, a few lie all the time.

I'm not trying to generate a GD here, but it happens that a large percentage of those who write for newspapers share a common influence on their thinking -- an education at a liberal-thinking journalism school. (There is, AFAIK, no other type of journalism school in the U.S.) This explains the fact that media coverage of watershed political and social issues, such as abortion, gun control, welfare, etc., is heavily slanted to the left.

All newspapers (probably) have standards or codes or rules regarding the truthfulness of what they print, but it's important to keep in mind that such policies are enforced internally, by editors and publishers who -- you guessed it! -- were by and large once reporters/writers educated in a liberal journalism school. There is to my knowledge no outside independent body that serves in that role.

An op/ed writer at the Cincinnati Enquirer once called me at home in response to a letter I had written disagreeing with the paper's stance on gun control. (This was just after the Stockton schoolyard shootings, when assault rifle bans were all the rage.) He explained that he was trying to put together a "fair, balanced" column on the subject of assault weapons, but he humbly admitted a complete lack of knowledge on the subject. He asked specific questions; I recall a special interest on his part in the BAR, short for Browning Automatic Rifle, and whether it might be considered an assault weapon.

I answered all his questions as well as I could, and of course his subsequent column misquoted me in every detail.

Years earlier, I was in an occupational position that required me to give information to reporters occasionally, usually regarding a construction project. I can't recall a single instance when a reporter's story quoted me correctly, and most often the "facts" reported were simply wrong.

[David Simmons]

How truthful are people? I see very few stories in newspapers, about things that I know about, that get it quite right. I think that most papers try hard to report accurately, but people do have axes to grind and those who own newspapers are no different. I've worked on newspapers and considering they way they are assembled and the time constraints involved, it's a wonder they get anything right.

[David Simmons]

PS. Of course, before the "liberals" took over the media everything was reported with complete honesty and accuracy. That was back in the "good old days" of William Randolph Hearst, et al.

[TV time]

I am a newspaper editor. I have worked in newspapers since I was 12 years old. I have known liberal newspapermen and conservative newspapermen. For the most part the people in the newspaper business are as hardworking and honest as any I know, perhaps even more so since they realize what they are responsible for.

Yes, some get some facts wrong. On the average a reporter will talk to between 35 and 50 people each week working on between 10 and 20 stories. That's why we have corrections in papers. But you may rest assured that those reporters who get it wrong get chewed on, dinged in pay or in some cases even fired for making those errors you see.

In spite of what TBone says, we try very hard to be objective. Yes, to some right wingers, we seem liberal. And to most left wingers we seem incredibly conservative. That's the nature of the business. Those that can make sweeping generalizations about things are generally upset when things are not reported their way.

Above my desk I keep a quote that an editor of mine wrote in the 1950s long before I worked for him. He had written something that did not please some group in town who became irate because their little itch had not been scatched or their ego had not been salved sufficiently - so he wrote this:

Unhappily, it is never possible to please all readers. One learns to accept that. When he sits down at the typewriter, his earnest prayer is "May I first be honest." And also, "May I avoid hurting others." And then he tries to balance these two things on his typewriter keys.
--Al Burtis, La Junta Tribune-Democrat, Feb. 3, 1953.I think most newspapermen feel much the same. I know I look at that yellowed piece of newspaper clipping each day when I sit down at my desk and not. But I too, make the occasional error.

TV

[ftg]

As others have noted, newspapers are notoriously bad about certain things.

I find problems all the time with basically every article regarding science, computers, and other areas that I am knowledgable about. I assume that historians have problems with history articles etc.

Every prof. I ever knew regretted being interviewed by the media since they ended up getting misquoted and distorted. They clearly have no interest in getting basic facts straight.

For the non-sciences, my fav. example was during the height of the "Monica" controversy. In the same article, the local rag asserted as well known facts that: a. Clinton was trying to get Monica back from the Pentagon to the White House, b. Clinton was trying to get Monica a job in NYC. Two paragraphs apart, self-conflicting rumors described as facts.

If you have any knowledge about the topic, you are appalled at what is written.

[ralph124c]

I know that journalists have to live, and that they have to make their stories interesting. However, whemn I buy a newspaper, I expect some standard of minimal truthfulness. Like, I don't expect to be lied to!
Heck, thats why I buy the NY TIMES instead of the NATIONAL STAR! If I wanted to read about the latest Elvis/JFK sightings, I'd buy one of those rags. I expect more from the NYT, and damn it, I should get it! Why can't editors:
-insist on completely factual accounts
-report only on WHAT WAS SAID, not some cub reporter's fantasies
-own up to their own mistakes
To my mind, the editor that allowed the WP reporter (who made up the fictitious child heroin addict) to publish the bogus story, should have been fired as well!
I'm fed up! Yes, there is something called OBJECTIVE TRUTH! And if you are not smart enough to recognize it, you should NOT be an editor11

[BobT]

Hmm...

Apparently this has become General Diatribes.

[RealityChuck]

Because, ralph, no two people will agree on what actually happened. Sure, there is objective truth, but objectivity is always in the eye of the beholder.

Newspapers strive to be objective and balanced. But there are always problems, mostly because they are dealing with human beings. This means:

1. Observers disagree about what happens. However the story is written, someone will think they got it wrong.
2. Reporters have to decide how to tell the story. Since they bring their own viewpoints (even a viewpoint of objectivity), whatever they write isn't going to satisfy all the witnesses.
3. The people at an event aren't objective, and perceive any attempt to be objective -- by not siding with them -- as a way of slanting the news.
4. Reporters often jot down quotes on the fly. Later, when looking at their notes, their recollections don't match what the quoted person said (and, what the quoted person said, may not be what the person remembers saying afterwards).
5. Reporters are not experts on all subjects. Thus, when dealing with a highly technical area, they miss nuances or just plain get things wrong. And, again, the experts they talk to may not have actually said what they think they said.

Re: the Washington Post story -- the reason why that got so much play was simply because it was the exception to the rule. That sort of fictionalization is extremely rare in newspapers, and practically nonexistant in news stories (the Washington Post story was a feature, and Mike Barnacle was writing a column. Those are both different from news stories, though it doesn't excuse the problem). Again, in the case of the Washington Post, the writer was fired. The principle is clear -- get caught making up facts and you're out of work. Consequently, no reporter dares do it. Pointing out one or two bad examples out of the millions of stories published each day as symptoms of a systematic problem. is the Big Lie at its worst.

[F. U. Shakespeare]

Regarding bias in the media (which could be a whole 'nother thread, better suited to GD)...

The late Katherine Graham said something that I thought was really profound. An interviewer asked her something like, "I assume you insist that reporters be unbiased?", and she replied, "No, NOT unbiased. DETATCHED", and proceeded to elaborate.

There is a BIG difference.

In order for someone to be truly unbiased, it is first necessary to know what the absolute truth is.

What is the truth on, say, gun control? Or abortion? Or racism? If you ask a liberal, you get different answers than when you ask a conservative.

And if you say you know which are the right answers, guess what: YOU'RE biased!

But whether a reporter is liberal or conservative (yes, there are conservative reporters: read the Washington Times or the Wall Street Journal) the impact of their bias will be minimized if they strive to remain detached.

[Motog]

I'll try to do this without straying into GD. I recently finished a 6 year stint working in politics. I dealt with the media on a daily basis.

I had a few basic rules in dealing with the media:
*Always be extremely careful of what you say and how you say it
*Just because they ask you a question, doesn't mean you have to answer it.
*Always make it absolutely clear when a conversation is on the record and when it is off the record.
*Never, ever lie
*Never, ever trust them

That might seem a bit paranoid but it's what I learnt after being burnt a few times. I put all news stories through a bullshit filter and just accept that most of what I see is simply not really correct. However I don't think that the problem is invented stories like those described above.

A few gross generalisations: Most of the print media in Australia (like the US) has a definite left bias. On the other hand most of the radio personalities are very conservative (or at least pretend to be). TV news is a bit of a mixed bag but will always run with a beat-up if given the opportunity. The "Current Affairs", "60 Minutes" tabloid tv shows deal almost exclusively in beat-ups, scaremongering and cheap sentimentality.

Everybody who deals with the media regularly knows that such biases exist and they deal with them accordingly. It's the poor schmucks who don't know how to deal with the media (the ones being chased down the road by the Current Affairs camera with the journo shouting "Mr Smith why did you feed those old people dogfood and steal their pensions?") that you almost felt a bit sorry for.

I do not think that most journalists are vindictive (though some certainly are) nor do I think that they are generally lazy or stupid. To rise in a very competitive profession you have to be reasonably smart.

But, being on the other side of the journalistic process for a while makes it clear that some do come in with their own agenda, and many don't bother to check facts nor bother to seek out other sides to an argument. However those are things that you can deal with (you make sure that you get the facts to them, you make sure that whenever a particular issue comes up that they call you first because you were so helpful last time.)

The real problem I found, and the causeof most of my journalist inspired grief was journalists who had already written the story in their head and decided what they were going to say before they started getting their facts together. The result was selective quoting, ignoring inconvenient facts and sloppy research.

To be fair a lot of this is driven by the time and output pressures that are put upon journos.

As an aside, one of my ex-bosses used to think the problem with a lot of journalists was that they wanted to be Bernstein and Woodward rather than just reporting the news properly.

[Diceman]

As a fairly religous person, I've noticed that pretty much every newspaper article dealing with religion, spirituality, or any kindred concept is usually horribly distorted and inaccurate. I'm RC, but I suspect that coverage of other faiths isn't much better. I'm also an engineer, and I'll second the notion that journalists seem to be totally clueless about all things scientific. I couldn't begin to count the number of scientific or technical articles that I've read which I've known to be inaccurate. All that crap is why I don't read newspapers anymore. Online news sites, like MSN.com and the news on Excite.com, are usually far superior in quality. I also watch TV news, mostly for the local stuff.

[istara]

As a journalist, I would very much agree with Motog's comments above. In terms of trust - if I promise someone involved with a story - witness/victim/subject/police officer - that something is off the record then I totally stick to that. It's never worth breaking an embargo and all future relations with someone important just for the sake of one crappy little scoop.

If I was investigating someone who had done something illegal and IMO (again so prejudice comes in) disgusting or hypocritical then I might break a promise. I haven't ever done a deliberate sting though.

However not all journalists (often due to work pressure) are able to stick to this, so do be careful. Just use common sense and don't incriminate yourself. Nor be over paranoid or rude about genuine, standard enquiries (if your company goes bust or your CEO is arrested, of course you're going to get calls. It's their job to expose corruption as much as it's the press officer's job to hide it!). Just be polite, and honest, and genuinely say if you can't comment.

Journalists do also use the trick of "putting words into someone's mouth." This is largely because so many people give such totally crappy interview quotes. If a shipwreck survivor really wants to be quoted as: "Um, yeah, it was cold," Bob Brown said. "Yeah, I guess, it was sort of scary like" then he's just not going to make print.

Skipper Bob Brown described in graphic detail the freezing hours of terror the crew endured in the icy, pitch-black waters.

is what it would probably morph into. For a tabloid newspaper you might "tidy up" or tweak the quotes: "It was freezing cold - we were all scared for our lives," skipper Bob Brown said.

I don't have a problem with this in this case, because (a) he sounds more coherent, (b) it's actually representing his true sentiment better than he can, and (c) it makes for a better story.

The other words-in-mouth thing is suggesting things to people - again, this does get used unscrupulously. But in some cases, with a very shy or dumbstruck (or stupid) interviewee, it's necessary. EG:

Journo: So your cat, was he very special to you?

Old lady: Oh yes.

Journo: What was he like?

Old lady: Very special.

Journo: Can you tell us a bit about him? Describe him?

Old lady: He was very special.

Journo: How did you feel now he's missing?

Old lady: Ooo well, I don't know...

Journo: Very sad perhaps? You want him back.

Old lady: Ooo yes.

Journo: Would you say that perhaps he was your best friend, that you're very much missing him, and you're very worried for his safety?

Old lady: Ooo yes.

RESULT: Fighting back tears, Mrs Brown described the heartbreaking loss of her cat Tibbles. "He was my best friend," she said, her voice breaking up as she described how special her cat was. Mrs Brown said she was missing Tibbles very much, and was desperately worried for his safety. "It's very lonely without him," she said.

[Acsenray]

Frankly, I'm shocked at the suggestion that this "putting-words-in-mouth" is a standard technique for mainstream journalists. I certainly would never do that, I have never been encouraged to do that, my editors have never done that, and, as far as I know my colleagues have never done that.

When it comes to direct quotes, I feel free to clean it up -- take out the pauses, the repetitions, the slip-ups, the "umms" and "ahs," and, if it's a news story rather than a feature, sometimes to clean up the grammar or word order if it's a very minor change. Sometimes I'll change the order of two separate sentences in a quote if it makes more sense that way, but only by breaking it into two separate quotes.

I think, as has been said before, there are two huge factors involved --

1. People often remember what they meant to say rather than what they actually said.

2. People with specialised knowledge are often more picky about the way things are described than is necessary for a general interest reader. In other words, for the journalist and the reader, it might just be two different ways of saying the same thing; whereas, to the expert, they mean two different things. Language means different things in different contexts. Experts shouldn't expect that the general public is going to use their specialised terms in the same way that they do. (I, for example, feel justified in using the word "system" to mean "method" or "process" when it suits me to; technical people get on my case for that, but I don't care.)

[Quercus]

Well, my $.02, as someone with a fair amount of experience dealing with the media.

1. Newspapers as institutions and reporters as human beings do try hard to be honest and 'true' [the 'truth' is to a large degree a matter of opinion, of course]. I tend to find TV is a little more oriented towards whether something is an entertaining story than print media, but they don't really want to get anything wrong. The outright fabrications are extremely rare (sometimes surprisingly to me, given that there really isn't that much check on them).

2. Papers can never be perfect: they have a very short amount of time to learn things, and a very small amount of space to explain things to a very broad audience. Don't forget the second part, when you're reading an article on something you're an expert in. I've spent a lot of time convincing technical and legal experts that while they could nitpick a given sentence, it gets the real idea across to a lay audience far better than a technically unimpeachable but incomprehensible paragraph. Yes, sometimes they do make mistakes, but you would, too, given the time and space limitations.

3. As far as political biases, most (print) reporters are probably somewhat liberal. (Is it because only liberals want to become reporters, or because reporters who really know what's going on but have no personal stake in it tend to become liberals?)
However, most newspapers (and all TV stations) are owned by very large corporations, who never want to offend any readers, and more importantly have a lot of money riding on the economic system pretty much going as it is now. In the end, I think we all know who has the final say (hint: the guy who signs the checks doesn't lose).

4. But the bias to be concerned about isn't blatant lying or outright censorship ('kill the story because it makes our advertisor look bad') (though it does happen rarely). It's more of the fact that papers and TV only cover 'NEWS'. And 'NEWS' tends to be narrowly defined, especially for TV, and is always 'within the box', in that it doesn't push the boundary of the group-think at the time, or cover gradual changes that add up.

[Barbarian]

I'd like to know Istara's real name, so I never hire him. Creating quotes for people is unacceptable-- and very different from asking leading questions. In fact, the description given starts with a cardinal no-no: asking a yes-no question. No wonder you have a hard time talking to reticent subjects.


As for the truthfulness of journalists: we ry hard to become experts on something in 6 hours or less. Not enough of us can balance a chequebook, let alone deal with medical stories. And we have to deal with editors in another office regretting their career choice and thinking they can write better than we can :)

[Cervaise]

Originally posted by ralph124c
Why can't editors:
-insist on completely factual accountsMy college psychology professor, during the unit on memory, related the following incident that had happened to him.

He was driving his daughter to athletic practice one afternoon. He pulled into the neighborhood where the school was located. Midway down one block, a dog suddenly darted out in front of his car. To his horror (and his daughter's), he was unable to stop his station wagon in time, and the dog bounced off his bumper. The dog staggered a bit a few feet in front of his now-stopped vehicle, and then dropped to the pavement.

The professor got out of his car and verified that the dog was dead. Then he went up towards the house from whose yard the dog had come. As he approached the door, a woman came out, furious.

"Did you see that?" said the woman. "Can you believe that guy?"

Turns out the woman had seen a red sports car zoom past the house and hit the dog. She didn't recognize the station wagon that had actually done the deed at all. She swore up and down that the killer car was a sporty red vehicle; she had "seen" it.

In other words, she had edited her personal reality to fit her expectations within seconds of the event.

So, ralph, if you're able to devise a system by which concrete and unassailable facts are consistently extracted from eyewitnesses, please let us know when and where we can buy stock in your enterprise, because everyone involved will get unimaginably wealthy.

[kunilou]

As a PR person who started out as a reporter, I've been dealing with this issue for more than 25 years. And while this really is Great Debates territory, I'll get my two cents in before the thread gets moved or locked.

1. I start with the premise that the reporter is a professional who's trying to do a professional job.

2. The person being interviewed knows more about the subject than the person doing the interview. (There are rare exceptions, mostly in trade media.)

3. Because of this, the person being interviewed often does not express him/herself at a level the reporter can understand.

4. People remember what they meant, not what they said. I can't even count the number of times when I tape recorded an interview, and the subject INSISTED he hadn't used those words.

5. Yes, there is bias. Your truth is not my truth. Our local TV station has a feature called "You Paid for It" and the reporter has never once found a story where "you paid for it, and you got a good deal."

As for my personal experience, when Mrs. Kunilou was on strike, both the union and management were in complete agreement that while a certain reporter did not make a single inaccurate or false statement, both sides thought he had biased toward the other. And only a week after an NFL player had collapsed and died at training camp, one of the Kunilou kids passed out at football practice and was taken to the emergency room. One of the TV stations decided to make a big deal out of it. Was it truly a big deal (teenager faints, is revived, goes home, told to take it easy for a couple of days)? No. But they did a big story on the warning signs of heat exhaustion, etc. and the part with my kid in it was "accurate."

[Chronos]

In my experience, the biggest flaw with reporting on technical subjects is that the reporters cut out most of the disclaimers. If the scientist being interviewed says that one interpretation of an experiment provides some evidence that a new theory might be more plausible than previously thought, the headline will be "Scientist proves new theory true!".

Just remember to mentally put back all the disclaimers, and you should be OK.

[lucwarm]

My XGF was a newspaper reporter, and one problem I noticed was that there's a bit of a game of "telephone" at the newspaper. She would interview people and write a story, then a couple editors would change the story. The finished product would read well, but be misleading or wrong a lot of the time.

Anyway, I too have noticed that in areas where I have specialized knowledge, reporters seem to get things wrong a lot of the time. The inference from this is that they get things wrong, in general, a lot of the time.

[rowrrbazzle]

Originally posted by Motog
*Always make it absolutely clear when a conversation is on the record and when it is off the record.So, if the movie "Patton" is correct and General Patton actually did tell the reporters that his remarks were off the record, these reporters' careers would be greatly hampered?

I thought this wasn't true any longer, because I seem to remember hearing something to the effect that in Washington nothing was off the record. But someone could tell the reporter that the remark was "not for attribution". Rather than identify the person, instead the reporter would use a circumlocution like "a senior White House official" or "a State Department source".

[DrMatrix]

There isn't really a factual answer to this question. It's more of a debate.

Off to Great Debates.

DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator

[Motog]

Originally posted by rowrrbazzle
So, if the movie "Patton" is correct and General Patton actually did tell the reporters that his remarks were off the record, these reporters' careers would be greatly hampered?

I thought this wasn't true any longer, because I seem to remember hearing something to the effect that in Washington nothing was off the record.

I can't speak for what happens in the US, only in Australia. In every conversation I have had with a journo I always assumed that it was "on-the-record" unless I asked that it be "background", "not for quoting", "off-the-record" or "don't put my f***ing name on this" and the journo had specifically agreed to that condition. Even then, I've always been extremely careful about what I said (even if they don't quote you it is usually pretty obvious to those in the know where it has come from).

Asking to have something "off-the-record" only works where:
*you have sufficient power that the journo implicitly knows that you could put the word around that they weren't to be trusted in such conversations if they were to break your trust.
*the journo is a very trustworthy person (in which case I would still refer you to the dot-points in my previous post).

In essence it still works (at least in Australian politics) because its useful for both groups and the journos know better than to throw away their reputation for a short term gain. However, it wouldn't work for Joe Bloggs in the street because there is no chance of a longer term relationship or a credible threat.

Nor would I have spoken off the record to a journo that I didn't know or at least know by reputation. For example, I never tried to have off the record conversations with journos from small town, local or regional papers unless I knew them pretty well.

I wondered how long this was going to take to be moved to GD

[Apos]

---This explains the fact that media coverage of watershed political and social issues, such as abortion, gun control, welfare, etc., is heavily slanted to the left.---

This is a rather controversial claim in itself. I've heard it made before, and backed up with purported statistics, but the statistics are often quite misleading (and sometimes baseless, like the assertion that NPR never has pro-life voices on their reports and interviews, which is simply false). Part of the problem is what defines slant. For many people, simply reporting certain uncontroversial facts too often (and not others) is considered bias. But often there are much more plausible reasons as to why certain events are covered more often, and often it's dollars that determine what gets reported, not bias.

I have a cousin who's an up and coming national TV anchor, and I've gotten some perspective from him into what gets covered nationally and what doesn't. It's rarely what anyone thinks: the way choices get made is rarely polictical, and very often all about marketing. (Because of this, I don't have a lot of respect for his journalism actually, even calling it journalism.) The last election was particularly laughable, focusing on stereotyped character traits and utterly baseless pop-psychoanalysis of various figures. Liberal or conservative, there was plenty to make one sick and suspect of bias (since liberals are more likely to notice the frippery that seemed to play fast and loose with liberals, and vice-versa for conservatives: but the reality was just that almost everything was frippery)

[istara]

Originally posted by Barbarian
I'd like to know Istara's real name, so I never hire him. Creating quotes for people is unacceptable-- and very different from asking leading questions. In fact, the description given starts with a cardinal no-no: asking a yes-no question. No wonder you have a hard time talking to reticent subjects.
Actually, I work in TV - so I never get to make up quotes! The lip-synching would look terrible!!

I did once hear of a TV reporter who claimed they'd actually manage to do this unobtrusively - dubbing the audio of a street name that the interviewee had quoted later over an earlier quote (eg the subject says "it happened in the school road" and "postoffice road" was dubbed over with them saying "London Road" or some such) but I've never tried it.

Another example which you may find ethical or not (it's not something again that I've ever had to do) was told to me by a BBC radio journalist. He interviewed an eminent historian who was just totally incoherent and impossible to edit, even sound-only. So he made a transcript of what the guy said, reworded bits of it so it sounded better, then went back to the guy. He told him there had been some "technical error" but to save time he had written down what the historian had said - could he possibly re-record his answers. It worked, and the historian apparently sounded much better than he otherwise would have.

Obviously it's a very grey area - and I don't know if I would ever do it. I would hope I wouldn't ever had to make that decision. I do know that I WOULD hire that journo for making the best of a difficult situation.

Creating quotes for people is often acceptable in other areas. Ever seen a press release? Those quotes are never real. They are made up by the PR/press officer, and sent to the "speaker" for approval. Which is why they sound far more like cut-and-pastes from the company's corporate blurb (which they often are!) than actual speech.

I have worked for newspapers before, and I've actually nearly always been very lucky in drawing out reticent or shy subjects. The yes/no was a bad example sure, - however even with leading questions as you must know you can get a subject who gives one-word answers. And it makes it harder for both the journo and the subject in terms of getting the story across.

Obviously the example I gave was a very soft, "colour" story. You wouldn't use it for most other cases. You certainly wouldn't use it for a legal expert or a politician etc, where any alteration of their words spells LAWSUIT. But it does go on certainly with the colour stories in UK tabloids - I've sent them un-edited quotes only to have seen them considerably "jazzed up" by the sub-eds when the actual story makes print.

Asking to have something "off-the-record" only works where:
*you have sufficient power that the journo implicitly knows that you could put the word around that they weren't to be trusted in such conversations if they were to break your trust.
*the journo is a very trustworthy person (in which case I would still refer you to the dot-points in my previous post).
Yes - also if you know the journo well. Newspaper journalists especially tend to build up long-term and good relationships with important "contacts" - and would not (unless they were very stupid) jeopardise them with dishonesty.

Another situation is that a police officer, eg, tells you something off-the-record. He may actually want it exposed, or not mind, but his job is on the line if it gets out connected to him. In this case the journo needs to get the same thing from another source. Often the officer might even drop a few hints or point directly to where you could get that other source. So in this case you are able to use his off-the-record comments, but by getting them from a second-party.

[ruadh]

I know a guy who's a sport journalist who says that making up quotes is absolutely routine in his industry. The quotes are based on what the person actually said though, for example:

Journalist to David Beckham: "David, were you happy with your performance today?"
Beckham: "Yeah."
Article in newspaper: "Beckham told us, 'I'm quite happy with my performance today'."

Of course, you do have to keep in mind that in the world of sport reporting you aren't dealing with the sharpest tools in the box, so limiting quotes to genuine quotes would make for rather painful reading. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that journalists in other fields have the same practice.

Getting back to political reporting, another thing to consider apart from outright bias is which source(s) the newspaper is getting its information from. Throughout most of the Northern Ireland conflict the British media considered the army to be inherently more reliable than republican or nationalist sources, resulting in the publication of numerous (now documented) instances of flat out falsehoods as fact, often without any presentation whatever of the counter argument. I take everything I read in the British media about Northern Ireland with a grain of salt, and I would do the same with the U.S. media's reporting on Afghanistan, for example.

[Henry B]

TV time wrote:
"Yes, some get some facts wrong. On the average a reporter will talk to between 35 and 50 people each week working on between 10 and 20 stories.

Yes, that's the rub! Mostly too many stories in a too short time.

Reporters reporting from "over there":
- I know (not personally) one Good (in Norhern Europe) Journalist. He is quite famous for going to any war, to any bandits lurking in the bushes, or what ever, and he is still alive.

Then there was another guy that got caught for that when he was writing about The Soviet-war in Afganistan, he was actually in Amsterdam! He had another story going on as well.
He got caught, but just to defend him a little bit, he had a co-worker "on the spot", which in this case means Kabul (reporting to the reporter about fights some 400 km from Kabul.


So this Famous Reporter I first mentioned, was asked, on TV, how many times he has been alone, without colleques, somewhere "on the spot"?
He looked a little bit anxious, what it all was about and said nothing...
Then he was shown a newspaper that wrote something quite different from his story, and asked if has he met this guy.
The Good Reporter said nothing, went to his hotel-room and came back with a official news release from the actual government.
That the Famous Reporter was there on the spot, was quite without questions, because he had photographs that could not be faked (if You do not have very good contacts with Hollywood).

I think, personally, that many stories like; "The Crisis in XX-land" are made based on news that comes from "local sources" and that is often happening in the capital of the country.
I'm not saying that the reporters are directly interviewing each other in the hotel lobby, but sometimes the stories are quite far from the actual... what-ever. Or they simply does not put their neck's out to find "the other story" as well.
And why should they, if there "back home" is someone re-editing everything so that it will be "suitable".

And I also understand that, because only sick people want to see how a human is swollen up before blown up when over-rideded by a tank. That is on 8 mm camera film.
Or when I was told about Afganistan, by a guy in the special troops some decade ago...
I will not retell it, just say that war is crazy.

I do not believe in reporters. I personally give, if asked, every answer in printed form.
If they do not have time for that, it's their problem. I once got misquoted and I had a problem.

[istara]

Yeah ruadh - it does.

With some people - and sportsmen can be notorious (hell they're athletes, not orators) for being monosyllabic, it's the only way. Also, it's not really dishonest as such.

The alternative would be either entirely reported speech:

When asked if he was happy about his performance today, David Beckham replied that he was.

or

When asked if he was happy about his performance today, David Beckham replied "yeah".

The first is OK, but it lacks the action and immediacy that actual dialog gives.

The second makes Beckham sound a bit dumb/ineloquent.

There's probably a hundred different ways you could write this, but as a journo and as a reader I see nothing wrong or misrepresentative with your version.

[gex gex]

As a journalism student, I'm finding all this very interesting. So, keep on. Tell me what you never ever want to see me do in my career as a journo. :)

and re this:

Journalist to David Beckham: "David, were you happy with your performance today?"
Beckham: "Yeah."
Article in newspaper: "Beckham told us, 'I'm quite happy with my performance today'."

What I think would have worked best:

"Beckham said that he was quite happy with his performance today."

It's almost a direct quote, so it has the dynamism that Istara was speaking of above, but it does not directly attribute the statement to him.

[gex gex]

Oh, sorry... "Beckham said that he was happy with his performance today".

The word 'quite' was never mentioned.

[msmith537]

Originally posted by Motog
It's the poor schmucks who don't know how to deal with the media (the ones being chased down the road by the Current Affairs camera with the journo shouting "Mr Smith why did you feed those old people dogfood and steal their pensions?") that you almost felt a bit sorry for.



I cannot comment on that at this time.

[vanilla]

I tend to believe little newspapers such as Overthrow.

[istara]

Cool gex gex - you're hired!

Just so long as you spell colour and centre correctly...

Want to know the WORST piece of broadcast journalism I ever saw?

Situation: plane crash into a mountain somewhere in SE Asia. Maybe 200 dead, 120 at back of plane survive. Horror wreckage, injuries, dying people, rescue workers, frantic relatives, etc etc.

Shot: Australian reporter crouching next to stretcher with "survivor" on it, holding out mike:

Question: "So, three Aussies on the plane, and three Aussies survive! What does that say about Australians?"

[minty green]

Sheesh, don't they teach the difference between direct and indirect quotes in European journalism schools? It's a very simple rule: If the words didn't actually come out of the speaker's mouth, do not put those words in quotation marks.

[ElJeffe]

Gex -

You want some tips on good journalistic behavior? Some pet peeves of mine pertaining to the press's handling of contraversial topics:

- If you get a quote from one side, make damn sure you get a quote from the other side. And make sure that the sources are of equal validity. Example:

"Proliferation of guns leads to greater safety, overall", said Ed Edwardson, lead gun-control researcher at MIT. But not all people agree: "Guns lead to more people getting hurt - they're a bad idea, overall", said Tennessee housewife Donna Donnason.

This makes Donna's opinion sound just as informed and well-reasearched as Ed's, even though Donna's opinion is likely purely anecdotal.

- If you're going to label one side with adjectives, make sure you label them both. One of the most often cited stats is that the press uses "conservative" to describe conservatives a lot more frequently than it uses "liberal" to describe liberals. Try to avoid words like "extremist" and "radical" unless they really fit. Example:

"Radical conservative Dick Armey responded to Cynthia McKinney's position with skepticism."

In the above example, if Dick Armey is a "radical conservative", Cynthia McKinney is certainly a "radical liberal". Ideally, I would say don't use adjectives like "liberal" and "conservative" at all. "Dick Armey (R)" and "Cynthia McKinney (D)" are preferable, and more objective.

If you do need to use "liberal" and "conservative", remember that those terms should be used relative to mainstream America, not to yourself (I don't know your political affiliation, and I don't care). This is a common problem in journalism. Journalists are predominately very liberal - which is fine - but they assume anyone to the right of them must be conservative. As such, you have to be a communist before they call you a liberal, but they'll refer to Hillary Clinton as a conservative or moderate.

- Don't be scared of descriptors that are accurate if they *do* apply. The Cato Institute is a conservative think tank - it says so, itself. Charles Manson is a convicted murderer - refer to him as such. Usama Bin Laden is a terrorist, by definition. It's okay to call him that. Newspapers that have no problem referring to a pro-lifer as a radical extremist, yet call the 9/11 terrorists "freedom fighters", are annoying.

- Probably not within your control, but this still annoys me: If an article is a "news story", it should not have an editorial slant. If it *is* an editorial, it should be labeled as such. I once read a CNN headline on the front news that stated something to the effect of "Bush's So-Called 'Education Plan' Will Supposedly Help Children". It could have been subtitled "Yeah, right" and it wouldn't have sounded more derogatory. Something like "'My education plan will help children', says Bush" would have been more appropriate.

Hope this helps, and good luck with your career.


Jeff

[sqweels]

ElJeffe:
- If you're going to label one side with adjectives, make sure you label them both. One of the most often cited stats is that the press uses "conservative" to describe conservatives a lot more frequently than it uses "liberal" to describe liberals. Try to avoid words like "extremist" and "radical" unless they really fit. Example:

"Radical conservative Dick Armey responded to Cynthia McKinney's position with skepticism."

I agree, this doesn't sound right, but is it a true quote? Part of the problem is in defining the labels. Most conservatives happily label themselves as such, and the term can be defined as someone who takes the familiar conservative positions across the board (with the glaring exception that not all pro-gun/anti-tax conservatives are religious). But non-conservatives are all over the map, and "liberal" is a label that more and more people are shying away from because it's used perjoratively and is subject to some pretty outragous stereotyping.

If you do need to use "liberal" and "conservative", remember that those terms should be used relative to mainstream America, not to yourself

First, you seem to be doing just that, second a person whose position is unchanged shouldn't be re-labeled just because the majority has shifted. The terms should be defined according to an objective standard.

Journalists are predominately very liberal - which is fine - but they assume anyone to the right of them must be conservative.

"Very" liberal? I don't think so. And again, conservatives tend to strongly embrace both the label and the positions.

As such, you have to be a communist before they call you a liberal, but they'll refer to Hillary Clinton as a conservative or moderate.

Liberalism has nothing to do with communism, and is this a true quote from a mainstream journalist about Hillary Clinton being "conservative"?

Newspapers that have no problem referring to a pro-lifer as a radical extremist, yet call the 9/11 terrorists "freedom fighters", are annoying.

Are these true quotes by mainstream newspapers?

[David Simmons]

Originally posted by Motog


I can't speak for what happens in the US, only in Australia. In every conversation I have had with a journo I always assumed that it was "on-the-record"

...

Asking to have something "off-the-record" only works where:
*you have sufficient power that the journo implicitly knows that you could put the word around that they weren't to be trusted in such conversations if they were to break your trust.
...

In essence it still works (at least in Australian politics) because its useful for both groups and the journos know better than to throw away their reputation for a short term gain. However, it wouldn't work for Joe Bloggs in the street because there is no chance of a longer term relationship or a credible threat.

Nor would I have spoken off the record to a journo that I didn't know or at least know by reputation. For example, I never tried to have off the record conversations with journos from small town, local or regional papers unless I knew them pretty well.



This is one of two rules to follow about this sort of thing. Never say anything to anyone, and not just journalists, that you don't want made public. It is unquestionably true that three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

The other rule to remember is that all microphones are always "live."

A possible corollary to the first rule would be, if you do say something for publication expect it to be misquoted at least a little, edited so as to mean something else, or so garbled you look like an idiot.

[istara]

You know what really, REALLY pisses me off as a journalist? This could be a Pit thread of its own, but it's relevant here, so I'll write it. Stupid, arrogant, paranoid members of the public with such an inflated sense of their own self-important that they assume any media contact is going to be some huge documentary "sting" into their boring bloody lives.

99.999999% of the time the interview is usually informative or emotive - we want your opinon, your view, info about your company, how you feel - we're not trying to get you to admit to the rape, torture and murder of your CFO and embezzlement of a billion dollars of company funds.

IF your company has just hit the skids, then obviously, we're going to probe. IF we start asking odd or uncomfortable questions, then yes, we may have been tipped off to another story.

But if you're a scientist who's just made a discovery - controversial or not - I just want to know about it, to tell our viewers/listeners. I'm not trying to expose you as a fraud, or pervert, or disprove your research.

If you're the bereaved widow of a man killed in a hit and run, I'm not trying to probe into your personal affairs, or find out if you were sleeping with his brother - I just want (and ONLY if you are comfortable speaking to me) for you to communicate that grief so it makes a moving story and reaches the public, and maybe long-term helps increase public awareness of the need for better road safety.

If you're a politician - I want your opinion, your policies, your news, your plans. I'm not every single time trying to find out if you did some dodgy real estate deal for party money six years ago.

If you've just launched a product, and I ask you about it, and your expansion/manufacturing plans, I'm not necessarily trying to do a story on child labour at your factories. I'm just interested in your company, and how it's doing, and your new product.

I am trying to write a STORY. You have the chance to make and help form that story with the information that it is beneficial for you to get across. I want to make it in interesting and novel for our readers, you have a chance at free publicity, whether personal or professional.

So for god's sake treat me with the respect I treat you, the politeness I afford you, and use common sense rather than paranoia and a shut-door attitude, or you'll piss me off AND make me suspicious, and by god THEN I'll start digging...

[minty green]

Entitled much, istara? You're being ridiculous. If you're talking to "the bereaved widow of a man killed in a hit and run," you have no right in the world to expect her to cooperate with you, your story, or your profession. Nor do you have any right to expect that scientists, CEOs, and politicians are just dying to have you butt into their business for the sake of filling air time or column inches. So for god's sake, treat them with respect and if they don't give you everything you'd like, that's YOUR problem, not theirs.

[Crusoe]

Regarding the reporting of plain, objective facts and nothing more:
Originally posted by ralph124c
Why can't editors:
-insist on completely factual accounts
Quite apart from the problems in ascertaining a completely objective account of an event, news is also about interpreting meaning. Reporting the passing of a piece of legislation is only informing your readership in a very limited sense; what, to my mind, is equally important is explaining what it means and why it is important (or not). Interpreting meaning will obviously be coloured to a degree by beliefs of the journalist, editor or proprietor of the newspaper.

[Jackmannii]

As a former reporter and current news consumer, it should be clarified that there is no such thing as objective reporting. The only truly objective people are dead. Controversial issues are always going to be filtered through a reporter or editor's set of personal predjudices and opinions.
The standard to strive for is fairness. Save the editorials for the editorial page. Unfortunately, opinions increasingly creep into news accounts.

Sometimes interviewees will say something in public and then flatly deny it later when they realize the impact of their remarks. For example, I had one bozo running for the school board declare himself in favor of corporal punishment and then claim he was misquoted when his remarks wound up in my story.
It's hard to quarrel with audio or videotape, which is why it can be a good idea to tape yourself while being interviewed and let the reporter know it's happening.

[Acsenray]

In the case of someone who is being interviewed only because he or she has suffered a misfortune -- I have absolutely no expectation that he or she will speak to me, but I think that they should be just as polite in declining my request to speak as I am in making such a request. I totally understand not wanting to speak to a reporter in this kind of situation -- in fact, I think such "how do you feel" stories are just about the most pointless and un-newsworthy stories that appear in the press -- but I do resent rudeness or anger when refusing such a request.

In the other cases -- politicians, scientists, corporate executives, etc. -- they are all doing things that may have a major impact on the public. I think they are morally obliged to explain what they're doing, and, to be fair, I have rarely encountered a situation in which politicians and scientists will refuse to talk about something. In this case the press is representing the public.

[istara]

Thanks, ascenray. In the case of the bereaved I mentioned above, please note that I added: "ONLY if you are comfortable speaking to me."

In the case of others, I'm talking about people who are quite happy to issue press releases left right and centre about their crappy "news", then clam up like fukkas when a journo actually calls them for a bit more depth, or a quote somewhat better than:

"This exciting, challenging and market-leading product represents the next major step in our company's corporate vision of increased market share as we continue our strong postition of dominance in this sector."

Because puff-shit like that is never going to make it into my programme or my article. And I have fucking nightmares with trainee reporters trying to get them not to put it into their stories.

[minty green]

Originally posted by acsenray
In the other cases -- politicians, scientists, corporate executives, etc. -- they are all doing things that may have a major impact on the public. I think they are morally obliged to explain what they're doing, and, to be fair, I have rarely encountered a situation in which politicians and scientists will refuse to talk about something. In this case the press is representing the public. You think the public is privileged to impose itself on people who don't want to be imposed upon? Jeez, and journalists wonder why people so often don't like them.

istara, the mere fact that somebody issues a press release does not entitle you to get snotty if they're not willing to give you anything more, or if they're simply not that as good as you'd like at expressing themselves in a subsequent interview. In fact, I would say that many press releases are issued precisely because the person does not want to screw around with press interviews and fumble around for the proper thing to say.

And I do have some small experience with being on the other side of that camera and those notepads. One of my cases has received a certain amount of press attention, and I've been the lucky lawyer who had to walk past the press covering the story a couple times. Guess what, folks? I am NOT saying one goddamned word about it. I'm not telling you what I think the judge is going to do, I'm not telling you what our reaction is to the opposing counsel's papers, I'm not telling you what the client's position is. It's just not going to happen. If you don't like what's in the press release, then don't use it. I guarantee you won't be hearing from me if you ignore it.

Finally, and most importantly, when you and your cameraman pop into the clerk's office while I'm filing papers with the court, and I tell you that we're not going to have any comment, DO NOT be a pushy jerk by turning the camera on and proceeding to ask questions for which you've already been told you're not going to get any answer. I understand you have a job to do. You need to understand that I have a job to do as well, and mine is not necessarily going to accomodate yours.

[astorian]

Despite my far-right leanings, I very rarely doubt the basic truth of news stories I read in newspapers, even very liberal newspapers.

Oh, I'm human, so sure, I got a bit of a kick out of seeing the Washington Post squirm after that Janet Cooke scandal. And on the rare occasions the New York TImes or Boston Globe gets caught in a blatant falsehood, I snicker a little.

But I've never doubted that most reporters at all major newspapers (again, including the liberal ones) want to get their stories right. Their political biases may very well lead them to pursue a particular type of story, but it doesn't follow that they make stories up.

Look, I fully EXPECT a liberal reporter to look for stories that fit with his personal beliefs. Will he look extra-hard for scandals involving conservative icons? Of course. Will he look for cases of coporate fraud? Of course. Will he jump at the chance to write a story about big business despoiling the environment or screwing the little guy? Absolutely.

But even when a reporter is motivated by liberal politics, he STILL wants to get the story right. Janet Cookes are few and far between. So, while I might resent liberal reporters, or wonder about their motives in pursuing a particular story, I almost never doubt the basic facts they lay out in news stories.

[ElJeffe]

ElJeffe:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Radical conservative Dick Armey responded to Cynthia McKinney's position with skepticism."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I agree, this doesn't sound right, but is it a true quote?



No, it's an example I pulled out of my bum for demonstrative purposes, but it's not as much of an exaggeration as you might think.


Part of the problem is in defining the labels. Most conservatives happily label themselves as such, and the term can be defined as someone who takes the familiar conservative positions across the board (with the glaring exception that not all pro-gun/anti-tax conservatives are religious). But non-conservatives are all over the map, and "liberal" is a label that more and more people are shying away from because it's used perjoratively and is subject to some pretty outragous stereotyping.


True, "conservative" and "liberal" are subjective, to some extent. Which is why I said, in general, referring to them as "deomocrat" and "republican" is preferrable - it's an objective term. And honestly, I don't think that when "conservative" is used in the media, it's always (or even usually) used as an insult. I think it's used in a genuine attempt to be informative. The only reason that "liberal" isn't used as often is because journalists taken as a whole legitimately seem to have a skewed view of how the political spectrum unfolds. Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand aren't liberal, they're just regular people - Arnold Schwarzenegger, though... now *that's* a conservative.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you do need to use "liberal" and "conservative", remember that those terms should be used relative to mainstream America, not to yourself
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First, you seem to be doing just that, second a person whose position is unchanged shouldn't be re-labeled just because the majority has shifted. The terms should be defined according to an objective standard.


First, I can do that if I want, because I'm not writing a news column. :) Second, a position absolutely *should* be changed if the majority shifts. "Liberal" and "conservative" are like "big" and "small". They have meaning only in relative context. For example, if you plopped Dick Armey in Saudi Arabia, he'd be seen as extremely liberal - I mean, c'mon, women having equal rights? That's about as liberal as you can get. And what, religious tolerance? Must be a hippie.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As such, you have to be a communist before they call you a liberal, but they'll refer to Hillary Clinton as a conservative or moderate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Liberalism has nothing to do with communism, and is this a true quote from a mainstream journalist about Hillary Clinton being "conservative"?


I would disagree with your first point. Being a liberal doesn't necessarily mean you're a communist, but communism is an extreme form of liberalism, just as fascism is an extreme form of conservatism. And there was an AP article not too long ago saying how much of a moderate Hillary is:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/07/29/democrats.hillary.ap/index.html


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newspapers that have no problem referring to a pro-lifer as a radical extremist, yet call the 9/11 terrorists "freedom fighters", are annoying.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are these true quotes by mainstream newspapers?


Pro-lifers are sometimes referred to as radicals and extremists, and I don't mean just the ones who bomb abortion clinics. Sorry, no cite at this time. As to the freedom fighter thing, an executive at Reuters said the official company policy was not to use the word "terrorist" when referring to the 9/11 attackers, because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".


Jeff

[minty green]

Originally posted by ElJeffe
And there was an AP article not too long ago saying how much of a moderate Hillary is:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/07/29/democrats.hillary.ap/index.htmlIn fact, that article is a piece of political analysis, not a straight news story. Furthermore, it factually demonstrates that her voting record has been much more centrist (i.e., "moderate") than many people expected. The article is certainly not a simple assertion that Hillary is a moderate, and your citation to it as an example of knee-jerk press bias is unpersuasive.

Other than that, you have offered absolutely nothing in the way of demonstrating your asserted examples of anti-conservative press bias.

[sqweels]

For example, if you plopped Dick Armey in Saudi Arabia, he'd be seen as extremely liberal - I mean, c'mon, women having equal rights? That's about as liberal as you can get. And what, religious tolerance? Must be a hippie.

You have a point there, so I'll retreat, but then you said:

communism is an extreme form of liberalism

Wrong! In Russia, Boris Yeltsin and the anti-communists reformers were the liberals, yet they were further to the right. They were liberal because they challenged the assumptions of communism, advocated change, supported more human rights, etc. Nothing "permissive" about communism.

I've said this before: "Liberal" means a willingness to challenge established beliefs, also "unrestricted". "Left-wing" is advocacy of policies to remedy percieved past inequities. Liberalism and leftism march hand-in-hand for a ways, but when leftism becomes dogmatic and disregards human rights, it violates key principles of liberalism and they part company.

OTOH, whether or not "conservative" and "right-wing" are synonymous is a question I've thus far been unable to answer.

[ElJeffe]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ElJeffe
And there was an AP article not too long ago saying how much of a moderate Hillary is:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS...y.ap/index.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In fact, that article is a piece of political analysis, not a straight news story. Furthermore, it factually demonstrates that her voting record has been much more centrist (i.e., "moderate") than many people expected. The article is certainly not a simple assertion that Hillary is a moderate, and your citation to it as an example of knee-jerk press bias is unpersuasive.


When it first appeared on CNN, it was billed as a "news" story, not a "political commentary" story. Second, the title of the story: "Hillary Clinton emerges as a moderate" sounds like a simple assertion to me. The fact that the bulk of the story goes on to better explain the situation simply highlights the fact that the title of the story is either biased or sloppy. And incidentally, it "factually demonstrates" that her record has been extermely liberal. It mentions her USPIRG rating as 85, and her ADA rating as 95. For comparison, Ted Kennedy, uber-liberal, has a USPIRG rating of 75.

You're right, it's possible that it's not bias. It could just be an example of extremely horrible reporting, including such errors as:

- misleading headlines
- self-refuting statements
- statistics listed out of context (ie, mentioning USPIRG and ADA figures without showing what they mean)

Either way, it's a great example of what *not* to do.


Other than that, you have offered absolutely nothing in the way of demonstrating your asserted examples of anti-conservative press bias.


I wasn't trying to. I was simply giving Gex pointers on what not to do. Trying to establish that liberal bias exists wasn't my purpose, and I think it strays beyond the realm of the OP.

Jeff

[ElJeffe]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
communism is an extreme form of liberalism
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Wrong! In Russia, Boris Yeltsin and the anti-communists reformers were the liberals, yet they were further to the right. They were liberal because they challenged the assumptions of communism, advocated change, supported more human rights, etc. Nothing "permissive" about communism.

I've said this before: "Liberal" means a willingness to challenge established beliefs, also "unrestricted". "Left-wing" is advocacy of policies to remedy percieved past inequities. Liberalism and leftism march hand-in-hand for a ways, but when leftism becomes dogmatic and disregards human rights, it violates key principles of liberalism and they part company.

OTOH, whether or not "conservative" and "right-wing" are synonymous is a question I've thus far been unable to answer.


Sorry, I've been using more contemporary definitions of the words "liberal" and "conservative". You're right, in the strictist sense, "liberal" means "wanting change", "conservative" means "wanting to stay the same". However, nowadays, it's the left-wingers who pretty much have what they want in the US, and the right-wingers who want change. Right-wingers today are pretty much classical liberals. However, when you here "liberal" in the media, it typically means "left-wing", and "conservative" means "right-wing". I've just adopted my definitions to match, because it's simpler. With the left-wing/right-wing definitions in place, it can then be said correctly that communism is an extreme form of liberalism (ie, communism = extreme left-wing). Sorry again for any misunderstanding.

Jeff

[stpauler]

Wow, a whole GD about news and newspaper without a mention of Chomsky, there, I said the name. Someone had to.

My opinion is the majority of the standard news sources try and present factual information as best as they possibly can to become more trusted and more subscribed to. There are the fringe newssources (naming names, foxnews.com, newsmax.com) that are definitely coming from a slant. So in order to get the best information, you have to take the news in in a Chomskyian way. read multiple source and try to discern what the news is minus the opinions that are mixed into the stories.

[minty green]

Originally posted by ElJeffe
When it first appeared on CNN, it was billed as a "news" story, not a "political commentary" story.No, the article itself indicates it is from Inside Politics, which regularly features political analysis and interviews with talking head-types.And incidentally, it "factually demonstrates" that her record has been extermely liberal.Quite the contrary. Observe:Clinton supported bankruptcy changes even though critics complained they did not do enough to protect mothers owed child support or those facing catastrophic medical bills.

She is co-sponsor of a welfare bill that increases child care aid but also work requirements. That so angered some poverty advocates they protested outside her Washington home.

She bucked her liberal Hollywood supporters and teamed with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Connecticut, on a bill that would penalize the entertainment industry for marketing sex and violence to children. Classic liberal positions, huh?

[Jackmannii]

Originally posted by stpauler
So in order to get the best information, you have to take the news in in a Chomskyian way. read multiple source and try to discern what the news is minus the opinions that are mixed into the stories.
Rather than wade through competing biases and opinion masquerading as news, I'd prefer to work towards professionalism in reporting.

In many cases one can readily filter out bias, sometimes it's more subtle, and occasionally it's just irritating. Take for instance a story appearing in the past week in the N.Y. Times.

It featured an interview with a Catholic bishop in N.Y. (supposedly the first time he'd agreed to an interview on the church's sex scandal). The reporter made a point of saying that the meeting had taken place in the archdiocese's "high-rise Manhattan offices", "with a view of the Chrysler Building". To reinforce that seeming non-sequitur, there was also a photo of the bishop by his office window, complete with view.
It's not difficult to fathom the thought processes of the reporter/editor. "Wow, what a great metaphor for the wealthy Church's isolation from the masses! Just in case readers are too dumb to get the allusion based on the news copy (WHAP!), we'll throw in a photo too! (HEY YOU! WE'RE MAKING A POINT HERE!).

I happen to agree there's evidence that Church leaders have lost touch with the rank-and-file on this issue and have done an abysmal job handling abusive priests. But there's no reason for this shabby little editorializing trick in the guise of a news story.

[ElJeffe]

Quite the contrary. Observe:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clinton supported bankruptcy changes even though critics complained they did not do enough to protect mothers owed child support or those facing catastrophic medical bills.

She is co-sponsor of a welfare bill that increases child care aid but also work requirements. That so angered some poverty advocates they protested outside her Washington home.

She bucked her liberal Hollywood supporters and teamed with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Connecticut, on a bill that would penalize the entertainment industry for marketing sex and violence to children.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Classic liberal positions, huh?


Yes, if those were the only things she'd ever voted on, she would be quite right-wing. However, her record consists of far more than 3 votes. Go to the US PIRG homesite, and do a little research. There are only 9 senators in the US who scored higher than her in 2002. That means that, according to this pretty objective litmus test, she's the 10th most liberal senator in the US. Please explain to me, in 100 words or less, how that makes her a moderate. For the record, these are the senators who scored higher than her in 2002:

Boxer, Lieberman, Biden, Harkin, Sarbanes, Kerry, Dayton, Wellstone, Reed

If she's a moderate, then what does that make Daschle, Leahy, and Kennedy? Are they conservatives?


Jeff

[sqweels]

ElJeffe:

Right-wingers today are pretty much classical liberals. However, when you here "liberal" in the media, it typically means "left-wing", and "conservative" means "right-wing"

Then why don't we say "liberal" only when we mean liberal and say "left-wing" when we mean left-wing? It's only in the past few years that the term has been hijacked to mean "more government, less freedom", and I contend that this is a classic case of Big Lie propaganda.

Instead of letting certain people apply it as a label to their political foes, shouldn't people who actually call themselves liberals tell us what it means?

This disput over its meaning goes a long way toward explaining why the media is reluctant to label anyone "liberal".

[Acsenray]

(About rewriting an athlete's "yeah" into a quoted sentence—) There's probably a hundred different ways you could write this, but as a journo and as a reader I see nothing wrong or misrepresentative with your version.

Frankly, I see everything wrong with it. As far as I am concerned, a basic rule of journalism — no matter whether it's serious journalism, or political commentary, or sports writing, or puff pieces — You only put quotation marks around words that the guy actually said. If it makes for a boring quote, if it makes him look stupid — tough, that's what he said.

If I were the editor and I found out that sports writers were faking quotes like this, they would be immediately out on their ears, even faster if they tried the "but it's sports reporting" line. That's plain and simple bullshit.

You think the public is privileged to impose itself on people who don't want to be imposed upon?

There are people who by their own jobs or actions are imposing themselves on the public. This includes all elected officials, most appointed officials, anyone in a position to influence public policy, many scientists and engineers, and many businessman (certainly any businessman whose business involves selling goods to the public or whose operations have an affect on the economy or environment). If you're doing something that has a major impact on the public, then I don't care if you want to be imposed upon or not. If you want to be left alone, then go do a job that doesn't affect the public.

In fact, I would say that many press releases are issued precisely because the person does not want to screw around with press interviews and fumble around for the proper thing to say.

This is flat wrong. Nearly 100 percent of press releases are issued because the person issueing them has an interest in what is going to be said in the press about that topic, usually from a political or business perspective. People who issue press releases are largely hoping that their point of view gets picked up and quoted. The press has no obligation to cover things from the point of view of a person issuing a press release.

I, for one, will not quote directly from a press release, because, by definition, they are faked quotes. I want my information directly from the source in a manner in which I can follow up for clarification and make sure that what I am writing is as objective and thorough as I can make it.

and I've been the lucky lawyer who had to walk past the press covering the story a couple times.

I, for one, do not expect a lawyer to discuss his client's case with the public. But, should he or she choose to issue some kind of release or make a public statement in person, then to me that means that the lawyer is soliciting media attention in hopes that the client's point of view will be reflected in the coverage. Don't want to talk to the press? That's fine. Your job is to represent your client. I might be inconvenienced by your refusal to talk, but should you just politely decline to make any comment, I can only respect that.

[Acsenray]

Journalist to David Beckham: "David, were you happy with your performance today?"
Beckham: "Yeah."
Article in newspaper: "Beckham told us, 'I'm quite happy with my performance today'."

This was the example I was referring to above. I just want to point out — as someone already had with another example — that this exchange is an example of a reporter who has not learned the skill of asking questions or interviewing. If you don't want a yes-or-no answer, don't ask a yes-or-no question. This reporter fucked up and it does not excuse his fabricating a quote by Beckham. This is just plain bad journalism.

[Acsenray]

Journalist to David Beckham: "David, were you happy with your performance today?"
Beckham: "Yeah."
Article in newspaper: "Beckham told us, 'I'm quite happy with my performance today'."

This was the example I was referring to above. I just want to point out — as someone already had with another example — that this exchange is an example of a reporter who has not learned the skill of asking questions or interviewing. If you don't want a yes-or-no answer, don't ask a yes-or-no question. This reporter fucked up and it does not excuse his fabricating a quote by Beckham. This is just plain bad journalism.

If, after asking a good question, Beckham still comes out looking like an inarticulate fool, then it's not the reporter's business to try to change that impression.

[istara]

acsenray - I suggest you go and talk to some sports journos!

[Acsenray]

istara - Talk to them about what? If this is what they're doing, then I have nothing to more to say than that they are violating journalistic ethics and that I wouldn't stand for it on any publication that was under my direction.

Also, I have never met an American sports journalist who admits to doing things like this.

[gex gex]

Thanks to all who gave suggestions - and in particular, I shall address ElJeffe's extensive advice:

If you get a quote from one side, make damn sure you get a quote from the other side. And make sure that the sources are of equal validity.

I completely agree with you here - as far as I'm concerned, this not only makes for a balanced, fairly reported story, it is the very least that should be expected of a journalist. It also makes the story more interesting - after all, conflict is news, so a variety of viewpoints makes the story more interesting as well as being more fair.


If you're going to label one side with adjectives, make sure you label them both. One of the most often cited stats is that the press uses "conservative" to describe conservatives a lot more frequently than it uses "liberal" to describe liberals. Try to avoid words like "extremist" and "radical" unless they really fit.

Understand what you're saying, but the Australian media doesn't seem to use these labels as frequently as the U.S media does, in part, I'm sure, because the leading conservative party in Australia is called the Liberal Party.

Probably not within your control, but this still annoys me: If an article is a "news story", it should not have an editorial slant. If it *is* an editorial, it should be labeled as such.

This is one of my pet hates, too, and I hope I shall never engage in this practice. God, if you've got an opinion, write an op-ed. If you're reporting the news, then report the news, goddamn it!

Hope this helps, and good luck with your career.

It helped a lot, and thanks!

[TBone2]

Originally posted by sqweels


You have a point there, so I'll retreat, but then you said:



Wrong! In Russia, Boris Yeltsin and the anti-communists reformers were the liberals, yet they were further to the right. They were liberal because they challenged the assumptions of communism, advocated change, supported more human rights, etc. Nothing "permissive" about communism.

I've said this before: "Liberal" means a willingness to challenge established beliefs, also "unrestricted". "Left-wing" is advocacy of policies to remedy percieved past inequities. Liberalism and leftism march hand-in-hand for a ways, but when leftism becomes dogmatic and disregards human rights, it violates key principles of liberalism and they part company.

OTOH, whether or not "conservative" and "right-wing" are synonymous is a question I've thus far been unable to answer.

More to the point of this thread, and much simpler to boot, is the fact that the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' are used by the press as substitutes for 'good' and 'evil,' respectively. Thus, every ruthless dictator in modern history -- no matter what his/her political agenda or views -- is routinely described in the press as 'conservative' and/or 'right wing.' It has less to do with actual politics or policy than it has to do with perception and personality.

And in my opinion, the statement that "the disput [sic] over its meaning goes a long way toward explaining why the media is reluctant to label anyone 'liberal' " is hogwash. ElJeffe was much closer to the mark when he pointed out that most journalists are positioned so far to the left in the first place that it's difficult for them to find anyone more liberal to whom they can apply the label.

[gex gex]

Stalin was right wing, now?

[sqweels]

More to the point of this thread, and much simpler to boot, is the fact that the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' are used by the press as substitutes for 'good' and 'evil,' respectively.

I couldn't disagagree more. You can't insult a conservative by calling him a "conservative"; that's a badge they wear with pride. But when conservative pundits us the term "liberal" it is dripping with contempt. So if "liberal" means "evil" and "communist" then of course no one is going to want to call themselves liberal or label anyone else that if they don't mean to insult them.

ElJeffe was much closer to the mark when he pointed out that most journalists are positioned so far to the left in the first place that it's difficult for them to find anyone more liberal to whom they can apply the label.

I would contend that the average journalist is center-left and this is enough for a little bias to squeak through. The idea that the average journalist is as far to the leaft as, say, anti-globalization activists or blacks demanding reparations is what's hogwash. Another example is Michael Moore. He's pretty far to the left and yet there's quite a contrast between him and the average mainstream media journalist.

It's also worth pointing out that the left/right dichotomy focuses mostly on economic issues while the liberal/conservative dichotomy is more about social issues (such as those involving religion) although there is some overlap.

[ElJeffe]

I couldn't disagagree more. You can't insult a conservative by calling him a "conservative"; that's a badge they wear with pride. But when conservative pundits us the term "liberal" it is dripping with contempt. So if "liberal" means "evil" and "communist" then of course no one is going to want to call themselves liberal or label anyone else that if they don't mean to insult them.


Sorry, gotta disagree with you there. Yes, the average conservative wears the Conservative Badge with pride. And I'm sure the average Nazi wears the Nazi Badge with pride. That However, the average news consumer isn't the average conservative. The average news consumer lives in a world dominated by Hollywood, where the idea of being a *gasp* republican is comparable to the idea of being a serial child rapist. Witness Julia Roberts, who noted with trademark brilliance that "republican" falls between "reptile" and "repugnant" in the dictionary. Or the savvy political observations of Alec Baldwin ("If Bush gets elected, I'm leaving the country") and Cher ("If that man gets elected, we won't have one f**king* right left!"). These people, the people who (unfortunately) shape the lives and opinions of a large portion of America, try to insure that the word "conservative" is associated with stupid, close-minded evil. So when a news reporter uses the word "conservative", there's a reasonable chance that he's using it to conjure, in his readers, visions of wicked baby-killers who like to starve the elderly and kick the homeless. The same way that a conservative op-ed writer will use the word "liberal" to suggest a propogator of hair-brained "let's legislate wealth" schemes who likes to get bj's in the oval office in his spare time. Just because conservatives don't mind the word doesn't mean that it's not used in a negative fashion.


Jeff

[Acsenray]

This is, of course, complete and utter piffle. True, famous actors tend to be liberal and support liberal causes and candidates. That this fact "shape[s] the lives and opinions of a large portion of America" is disrespectful of all non-celebrity Americans of any political stripe. Those of us who are liberal are liberal because of our own abilities to reason and form opinions. The fact that some famous people might agree with us is just a bonus. But, really, the whole premise of this question is fallacious. The kind of people who are shaped by outside forces are just as likely to be shaped by televangelists, talk show hosts, and new age fakers as they are by actors, and these represent a wide range of political opinion.

[ElJeffe]

The kind of people who are shaped by outside forces are just as likely to be shaped by televangelists, talk show hosts, and new age fakers as they are by actors, and these represent a wide range of political opinion.


Yes, yes they are. But guess who hogs most of the limelight? In a given day, how much would you say the average person is confronted by images of Hollywood, as compared to say, televangelists? And if you truly doubt that America's opinions are shaped by Hollywood, then you might want to get ahold of all the advertisers out there. I'm sure they'd be grateful to know that they can stop spending millions on celebrity endorsements, because the public doesn't really care about the opinions of the superstars.

"But surely you don't believe that just because a person trusts Britney Spears to select his cola for him, he's going to listen to her political views?"

No, of course not. We're way to rational to let that happen.


Jeff

[Justhink]

Case in point:
Probably a years worth of investigative hours looking through every nook and cranny of the American election system after the "2000 thing", hours upon hours of philosophy, opinion, research, interviews and 'facts' transmitted through all medias.

The result:
Not once did a single report or sentence emerge, which articulated that 99% of votes in America are counted by a computer network; and as such, many Americans don't vote; because there is no reason to believe that voting is anything but a pretense; used to disguise the fact that we are not in a country that uses representation; or any form of democrcy for that matter.

It certainly does make one wonder about the news,
(as it's a f**king no-brainer), realizing that this is the only issue requiring attention in the U.S., and that every reporter and government official not articulating this is not doing their jobs in a logically consistant means; and thus are by default all catagorized as counter-intelligent human beings; the walking dead of absolute hypocrisy brewing to the very depth of logical discernment.

The case certainly speaks for itself.

-Justhink

[Apos]

---If you get a quote from one side, make damn sure you get a quote from the other side. And make sure that the sources are of equal validity.---

This is actually, if you think about it, more of a problem than a solution. How do we decide who represents which "side"? There are usually many more than two opinions on a single issue, and some are more inflamatory (i.e. newsworthy) than others, even if they are a minority of concerned people. The idea that there are a solid block of conservatives and liberals who uniformly disagree about every single issue in the same way is itself divisive nonsense, and yet that's the sense we often get from reports of this kind.