Among them:
-the idea of getting “scoop” is increasingly irrelevant, and the excuse of not having enough time to fact check before reporting is increasingly lame Journalists can have their breaking news and serious analysis as well
-the way journalists work encourages politicians to exploit the press’ unwillingness to fact check and its eagerness to repeat nonsense ad naseum
This is actually a fairly radical proposal for journalism, however, and I figured it would make for a pretty good debate about the future of journalism and whether a change like this can improve the quality of our political debate.
Though the idea of nipping ignorance at the source is tempting, ultimately I’d have to nix the idea. The problem is that a journalist who corrects a subject in this manner is assuming the mantle of being the Unbiased Arbiter of Truth™, which we can imagine lends itself to all sorts of abuses.
I believe responsible journalists should question interviewees who make statements that contradicts the evidence. Like this Capitol Report interview reproduced in the Daily Howler last month. Gloria Borger asked a question about a quote of Dick Cheney and the Vice President denied making the statement. If, as seems likely, she has the actual quote in front of her she should correct the Vice President right then. If not then the program should find the Meet the Press video of the VP making the statement and show the footage alongside the man’s denial of reality. The public would be more informed if the media took the responsibility to fact check the statements they report.
If they’re bullshitting on their talking points, the interviewers will know the lies that are coming ahead of time. In that case, they should come down on them so hard the scumbag would need therapy before going on TV again. But a lot of the bullshit you get from politicians is spontaneous, and they’re always using interviews as ways to break out some new bullshit. You can’t expect journalists to go after them right away in those cases, but they sure as hell should be pointing out the lies once the facts are in.
The independent media (and no, I couldn’t type that with a straight face) does not exist merely as a mechanism for helping politicians distribute their message. They are supposed to inform the public. Sadly, that doesn’t get very good ratings.
I agree. Journalists, in their desire to scoop everybody first and analyse things and put them into context later if they have time (and they usually don’t, because they’re off trying to scoop the next thing), have become totally predictable and manageable. Everybody knows how to use them: politicians, entertainers… it’s embarrassing. That’s why I decided not to go into political journalism. I don’t want to be used. I sometimes wonder if the people doing that kind of reporting KNOW that they’re part of the spin machine or if they still think they’re providing a valuable public service by saying exactly what someone else wants them to say. A new way of thinking is needed. Actually, let me revise that: thinking is needed.
This isn’t necessarily the case at all, nor what the article was arguing for, I think. The situation is more like: candidate A says “I never said X.” Reporters today will then completely ignore several official quotes from their own newspapers in which the candidate was quoted as saying X. When Bush tells us about the “average” recipient of his tax cut without noting that the average extremely skewed by the high end, is it really Orwellian to explain that in this case the “average” is quite different from the typical or median recipient? Isn’t it more Orwellian to let that confusing distortion go uncorrected?