The Seven Lies Journalists Want You to Believe
Originally published on August 25, 2021.
TRANSCRIPT: This is episode one of Baffled with David DesRoches. That's me. So let's get right to it. The name of this episode is the Seven Lies That Journalists Want You to Believe.
Now before I get into that, I just want to offer a little context for why this podcast exists. Quickly about me; I was a journalist for about a decade. I spent five years at different newspapers and then I spent five years at the NPR member station in Hartford, CT, covering education and social justice issues. Before I got into journalism, I ran a nonprofit media company in Ethiopia. So why would you listen to me? Well, here's the part where I should brag about winning thousands of awards like New England's “Reporter of the Year,” two years in a row (2013 and 2014). And I was also in Connecticut Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list, a club for which I am no longer eligible, sadly.
But none of that really matters, does it? What's more important to you, I think, is that I really, deeply, and profoundly care about human beings. I care about how we live. I care about how we treat each other, and I especially care about how we treat this planet. I lose sleep over these things. And during my 10 years making journalism, I saw a lot of stuff that just really, frankly, it infuriated me. I still see a lot of that stuff today and in some ways it's gotten worse and we're going to get into all these in more detail in later episodes.
Of course, there's plenty of incredible journalism out there, and we're also going to talk about that. But the goal of this podcast is to help journalists improve their craft and to also help everyone else understand the reporting process.
Now before we continue, it's really important to say this about me. I never really wanted to be a journalist, which I think is actually why I did pretty well as a journalist. I never really got caught up in the power or influence that it can wield. I never wanted to be a journalist because, like many of you, I conflated media with journalism.
Now, certainly journalists create stories that become part of media, but media also includes books, film, fiction, music – all the information that we consume for entertainment.
But because I thought that I didn't want to be a part of that, I didn't really want to be part of the consumerism machine. I didn't want to partake in becoming a de facto supporter of the American way of life, which, even after being a journalist and learning that some of us don't act like that, some journalists actually do act that way. They never challenge the assumptions that make up our society.
Like for example, only within the last few years has the assumption of racial equality been truly challenged by the majority of reporters? Which should tell you a lot. Now, I didn't want to be a journalist because too many things needed to change. And there are two things about journalism that didn't sit right with me. First of all, journalists are not supposed to want to change. They’re not supposed to be change agents. And second, journalists want the system to function because the companies they work for are part of the system. You can't bite the hand that feeds you, and that's all I really wanted to do. A lot of biting.
All that said, modern journalism has done some truly incredible work. ProPublica is probably the best thing to happen to American journalism in decades. The Center for Public Integrity is another one. And then there's The Intercept, The Marshall Project, and, of course, all the excellent podcasts being made by The New York Times and NPR. There's also a strong argument to be made that now is a golden era for journalism.
But like many things in life, when one thing gets better, the opposite of that thing gets worse. To balance it out, we're always in search of an equilibrium. So just as there's incredible work being done, there's also an incredible amount of garbage, probably more than any other time in history. Arguably, it's yellow journalism all over again.
Yellow and gold. Kind of weird.
And of course, there's everything in between. Now we're not going to focus on fake news at all. We're actually going to talk about actual journalism and where it went wrong. Those fake news sites – there's plenty of people talking about what's wrong with fake news, but we're not gonna focus on that. We're gonna talk about actual journalism and the things that they do that might be confusing to you and the things that they could do to improve their methods.
To reiterate this goal, what I want to do, is I want to hold journalists accountable for their mistakes so we can improve as a profession, and I want to show regular people – maybe that's you listening now – what the reporting process is actually like. I feel like a lot of people get mad at reporters for something the reporter did, but that might be because most people just don't understand the process. They don't understand what it's like to be a reporter. I want to help you understand the decisions that journalists have to make, so maybe you'll cut them some slack. Or better yet, you'll be able to hold them accountable for actual mistakes or biases, and not for things you simply misunderstood, or for things that they wrote that challenged your own biases.
So obviously I'm gonna need your help. If you come across something that baffles you, I want you to let me know. What did you read that made you go: “What the hell was that?” Or, did you watch something that made your belly ache? Let's figure out what happened together. You can find me on Twitter @savingEJ. Or you can e-mail me at david.desroches@qu.edu, you can send me a link to a story that baffles you.
Now it should go without saying that I'm not infallible. I'm not going to have all the answers. I might even be wrong sometimes, and that's OK. I want you to let me know. All I'm trying to do is offer some ideas, offer some thoughts on why something happened, where it went wrong, and maybe we can get some journalists on here to talk about their stories, and some media critics to come and talk about their concerns about modern journalism.
The big picture goal, again, is simple: improve journalism and help others understand the reporting process. So that was plenty of ado, so let's have no more. Let's get right into it. Here it is. The seven lives journalists want you to believe.
Lie 1: Journalism Is the Pursuit of Truth
Well, it's actually the pursuit of truth in a moment. Now, say I have a glass of ice in front of me as I'm recording. That's true now, but when you listen to this podcast, does that glass of ice still exist? Of course not. It's, at this point, it's water, or it's gone. Truth changes. Truth is fluid, in fact, one of my colleagues, Shirley Skyers-Thomas here at Quinnipiac has a podcast that's all about this idea. The podcast is called Fluid Truth, I encourage you to check it out.
But how many times have you come across an article that was written years ago, but someone is only now sharing the article. Is it clear that the article is old? Even if it is clear, is the article still true? Things change so fast in the modern age, it's impossible for things to remain completely true forever. Just as it's also impossible to constantly update stories with the truth as it changes. Or maybe it's not impossible: could we add parenthetical phrases to old stories, simply reminding the reader that the story was reported at a certain time in the past?
Now there are dates often that are published at the top and there are updated points saying if the story was updated at a certain time. But as people read, they might forget that fact. Why not just reiterate it throughout the story? Maybe that simple time-disclaimer could help us tremendously. Or maybe there's another solution. Maybe you have some ideas. The bottom line is that the truth is almost never absolute, and for journalists to go around claiming that they pursue truth and that's all they do. Well, it’s a lot more complicated than that. And it's completely disingenuous to make this claim especially given all the gray in the world and the many, many sides to the stories that are never told.
Again, journalists do not pursue truth. They pursue truth at a point in time.
Lie 2: You Need Journalism
This is a tricky one, because journalism is absolutely important, no question about it. But have we ever stopped to think why journalism is important? It's important only because people are critically flawed and even more flawed as a society. Journalists essentially serve two distinct but related functions.
First of all, we report to you what's happening in the world. Something happens. We get information about it, we tell you about it. The second thing that we do is we uncover things that shouldn't be happening. Now, the idea that some things should happen and others shouldn't is of course completely subjective. We're going to get more into that later, but this idea that you need journalism is just plain silly. Think about all the things that journalists cover, OK, all of it from A-Z. Now think: How many things go wrong in the world? How many things go wrong in the environment and the private sector in society generally?
Of all the things that go wrong, what percentage of those things get covered by journalists? If we're lucky, we get to cover 25% of all the government corruption; 50% would be incredible and borderline impossible. In short, we only know about the things that get reported. What goes unreported goes unknown to all but the participants and their elite inner circle. Here's an example. I was in DC recently. We stopped by on my way home from visiting family in Virginia.
And we walked by Watergate. The hotel we were staying at was right near Watergate. And it was incredible. It's a massive hotel. I've never been that close to Watergate. I've been to DC before, but I've never been to that hotel, and and obviously all the thoughts start rushing through my head. All the things about the scandal with Nixon and and corruption that was uncovered.
But here's a depressing thought. How many other shady things have happened at that hotel that we don't know about, or outside of that hotel that we don't know about? How many other illegal searches have gone unnoticed? How many backs have been scratched or bribes paid or corruption hidden in the dark? My bet is much more than we could even imagine. The iceberg of human fallibility runs so deep that to actually uncover it completely, would arguably threaten our entire existence as a species. We're going to talk more about this later.
So the idea that “democracy dies in darkness”... I'm sorry, Washington Post, it's just silly. Now, it might slow down. It might not be as good, but it doesn't die. Journalism is the last line of defense. So many problems get caught by the various safeguards we already have in place by the justice system, police, regulators, FBI, et cetera.
Nowadays, we also have everyone with a camera on their phone, so accountability has improved because more people have access to information. And yes, sometimes journalists have written stories that encourage new laws to be passed. They have held those other gatekeepers accountable for their misdeeds. Of course they do that, but it doesn't mean that those laws would never exist otherwise. Journalism only exists because human beings are imperfect.
But let's say I'm wrong, OK? Let's say for the sake of argument, that the Washington Post is right. Let's say that democracy does in fact die in darkness. This begs a very important and simple question, I'm guessing that very few journalists have ever stopped to think: What does journalism actually have to do with democracy? What does journalism have to do with democracy? Are journalists supposed to be defenders of democracy?
Now I'm sure this might get me into trouble, but it has to be said. How can journalists be objective if they are working under the assumption that they're protecting democracy? This assumes, one, that democracy is what's ultimately important. And two, that journalism's primary function is to preserve it.
Just look at how many journalists led the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003. Almost every single media outlet, with the exception of a few Knight Ridder journalists, happily fed the public lie after lie about why we were invading a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
All those journalists were blinded by their anger over the fall of the Twin Towers and happily slurped up the false narrative that Saddam Hussein had WMD's and was connected to the attacks. They were blinded by their own patriotism. They were blinded by their sense of democracy, by their position as journalists, and their role,, they thought, was to defend democracy. So they ignored what they knew to be true: that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. And they followed that false narrative, again, with a few very, very few exceptions of those Knight Ridder journalists who actually followed the truth.
They were not blinded by their patriotism, or their anger, or their desire to preserve democracy. Those Knight-Ridder journalists were all but ignored. They knew those reasons were lies, and they reported it, but nobody else was reporting it. Why? Again, because they were blinded by their allegiance to a country. And the truth got lost. And as a result, over 1 million Iraqis died during our occupation, along with tens of thousands of American troops and their allies.
A true journalist should have no allegiances to any country. Period. They should only be guided by an unwavering commitment to the facts, and to a clear and evolving sense of the truth within those facts. I'm not saying democracy is good or bad, but how can journalists be objective if they consider themselves defenders of an ideology?
Just think about that for a second. How can we report fairly on any country whose system is not wholly democratic? Or worse, is it American democracy that American journalists defend? Do British journalists defend their version of democracy? I mean, hell, there's a strong argument to be made that American democracy isn't democracy at all, but it's a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy. But that's a subject for another podcast host to tackle. So if we are defenders of an ideology, how could we ever be objective?
Lie 3: Objectivity; It’s an Illusion.
In reality, objectivity is a pursuit. It can never actually be an end. To be truly objective, each story would have to be conducted like a scientific experiment, with ideas tested and retested with controls in place and every conceivable angle investigated to be peer reviewed for accuracy. Now maybe some deep dive investigative projects undergo this type of scrutiny.
But it's an absolute impossibility for every story to be produced in this way, because of the tremendous amount of time required to do this kind of work.
But no, it it's impossible for stories to be objective. It's impossible for all stories to be objective. Journalists decide how to start a story, how to frame it, and how to end it. They choose which points to include and which ones to admit. Now, you can be fair and objective with making those decisions, but someone will inevitably have the last word. Now, maybe if we lived in a world by where the 24-hour news cycle didn’t exist, true objectivity could be obtainable.
Lie 4: The 24-Hour News Cycle
And that brings us to the fourth lie, which isn't necessarily a lie, per se, as it is a convoluted cultural phenomenon, and that is that news must be reported 24 hours a day.
In a 24-hour period, how many things happen in the entire world that we actually truly need to know about? One? Two? Three? And the bigger question is, are the cable TV shows actually talking about those things, or are they spending hours talking about what they want to talk about? It's almost always the latter, and it's almost always people opining on something, with an occasional reporter there to drop some facts for the talking heads to then pick apart for hours. Also the idea that news must be reported all day, every day has led to a convoluted sense of what's actually important.
Think about whenever you watch cable TV. You're watching CNN or Fox or MSNBC and the ticker on the bottom third of the screen says BREAKING NEWS in all caps. And it's followed by something completely ridiculous, like: “Breaking News: Melania Trump Says Her Cause Will Be Online Bullying.” Sure, it's interesting, but is it breaking? Especially when you consider the same language is used when something completely egregious happens, like a school shooting!
“Breaking News: 20 children and Six Educators Dead in the Worst School Shooting in History.”
Is that breaking news? Are they both breaking news? Is the breaking news tag appropriate in both cases? If you think so, maybe it's time for a head check. I don't know, I personally, do not think so.
Lie 5: You Need the Facts
This is a tricky one. Because people, it turns out, don't really want the facts. Of course they need them, but time and time again, it's been shown that people don't really want facts at all. People want their biases confirmed, and they need to feel safe and happy. That's essentially the two things that people need when it comes to living in a social group. We want our biases confirmed. And we want to feel safe and happy. That's really it. That’s all we really want.
The truth isn't nearly as important as the need to be connected to other people. Being accepted is more important than the truth in many cases. Take the Asch Experiment. Here's an example. In 1951, the psychologist Solomon Asch did this really wild experiment.
Here’s a clip from the experiment:
CLIP: The experiment you'll be taking part in today involves the perception of lengths of lines. As you can see here, I have a number of cards, and on each card there are several lines. Your task is a very simple one. You're to look at the line on the left and determine which of the three lines on the right is equal to it in length. All right, we'll proceed in this order, you'll give your answer...
One of the people in the group is a real subject, your fifth person with a white T-shirt. The others are Confederates of the experimenter and have been told to give wrong answers on some of the trials.
The experiment begins uneventfully as subjects give their judgments.
But on the third trial, something happens.
The subject denies the evidence of his own eyes and yields to group influence. What he found through interviews was that they went along with the group for different reasons.
“They must be right. There are four of them and one of me.”
This subject's yielding is based on a distortion of his judgment. He genuinely believes that the group is correct.
“I know they're wrong, but why should I make waves?”
In this case, the subject knows he is right, but goes along to avoid the discomfort of disagreeing with the group.
They found that 37 out of 50 test subjects responded with an obviously erroneous answer at least once. When they were faced by unanimous wrong answers from the rest of the group, the subjects conformed. And these findings were confirmed by Stanley Milgram in 1962, so we've known for at least 70 years that most people will value a lie over the truth, if only to fit in with a group, if only to conform.
What does that mean for journalism? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest with you. But ignoring that reality, we do so at our own peril. Democracy might not die in darkness, but it probably does die in ignorance. And if we, as journalists, are ignorant of the fact that people would rather believe a lie to fit in with a group than believe the truth – and we're gonna be champions of truth, even though we're not pursuing whole truth and pursuing truth in the moment – something is going to fall apart. And it has been falling apart. This is why so many people – part of the reason why so many people – don't trust journalists. People don't really want the truth. They want to belong. For a lot of people, facts are only important if they confirm their biases and bring them closer to their group.
Lie 6: Journalists Provide Just the Facts and Only the Facts
That's the lie that they want you to believe: We provide just the facts and only the facts.
Well, first of all, much like the illusion of objectivity, reports based solely on facts belie the reality that some facts will inevitably be left out. You cannot include all facts. Some have to be omitted. Who makes the decision to leave some facts in and cut other ones out? Journalists, of course. Editors do the same thing. Our biases usually decide what we keep and what we omit.
Again, there's that illusion of objectivity. How we choose which facts we think are important and which ones we think people don't need determines the message we're trying to send.
Lie 7: There Are Two Sides to Every Story
Now this is a great little saying to children, but when it comes to journalism, it's flat out dangerous. In fact, I'd argue that this might be one of the worst things that journalists do. They find one side and then another that disagrees and presents it as balanced. Media critics like Jay Rosen, Naomi Klein, Amanda Ripley and Noam Chomsky, and many others have pointed out this flaw for decades, yet it persists.
Journalists have got to stop creating false dichotomies. It only deepens the illusion that the world is black and white, right and wrong, left and right. Democrat, Republican, good guy, bad guy, Red Sox, Yankees. You get the point. Also, this type of bifurcated reporting only deepens our polarization as a society. We hear stories from two sides, and we think those are the only sides that exist.
It makes us more polarized and it impugns our ability to debate each other respectfully.
I want to talk about something that really is fascinating. I hope you find it fascinating, too. So a journalist named Amanda Ripley, from the Solutions Journalism Network: she's done some really incredible work on this thing that I'm talking about, especially in an article called Complicating the Narrative. When I was at WNPR Public Radio, I interviewed her for the show, Where We Live. And I want to play a clip for you. Now, in the clip, Amanda's talking about a place called the Difficult Conversations Lab at Columbia University, and how they found that when people consume media that only has two sides, it actually polarizes them even deeper after consuming it. But if they consume media that has a more nuanced approach, that's more complex, they're more likely to listen to opposing points of view, or at least respect others' opinions on the matter.
Here's the clip:
Amanda Ripley: We know that when you just give people two sides, that tends to leave them more entrenched in their own pre-existing point of view. So, it's it's, it's the traditional journalistic approach and it's absolutely nonsense, basically, particularly for polarizing issues. So it's really encouraging that you can help people have more complex and interesting and curious conversations. And it's and it's not that they walk away suddenly changing their mind. They walk away though more satisfied with the conversation. It's like they've been stretched intellectually or emotionally and they've retained their core values, but they've also heard the other person, and vice versa.
When you leave people with two sides you leave them more entrenched in their traditional point of view. Think about that for a second. When you leave people with two sides, you leave them more entrenched in their traditional point of view. Like I said before, because of the 24-hour news cycle, we simply cannot tell the kind of complex, nuanced story that would help us become less polarized in society.
So, you can see all these practices work together to perpetuate each other. You can't tell a story in a complex way if we have a 24-hour news cycle; you can't be objective if you consider yourself a defender of democracy; you can't force facts down people's throats when many of us don't really care about facts, we want to belong.
And the truth changes almost every single day, while the stories made by journalists are only updated if something significant changes, if they're updated at all.
Remember the coronavirus reporting early in the pandemic? How much of that reporting was actually wrong? And of that incorrect reporting, how much of it was appended with corrections? My guess is not that much. Of course things were changing at a rapid pace, things were kind of crazy, so it's understandable that a lot of things fell through the cracks.
But that's just a bigger example of a common trend, which is that most stories live forever, even if they're wrong, or have something wrong with them.
Now I was tempted to include an eighth lie on this list, which is this: reporters are told to report what you know. Or, more importantly, report what you can prove that you know. I was never big on this idea. I found, often, that the questions I couldn't answer were actually the most important ones. Those unanswered questions are critical, in my opinion, because it encourages others to critically examine this issue as well.
Now I understand that presenting unanswered questions creates a whole barrel of problems, like there could be insinuations embedded in there, or subjective viewpoints on what needs to be answered. But if we recognize that journalists aren't objective to begin with, maybe we can get away with those unanswered questions, and maybe, and maybe if journalism was considered the pursuit of equitable justice, rather than the pursuit of truth, which change... maybe then those unanswered questions could help us progress as a society, but that's a subject for another episode.
So that's it, humans. That's episode one of Baffled, with me, David DesRoches. Please reach out to me with stories that you'd like for me to dissect. I can't promise I'll have all the answers, but I will do my best to contextualize all that stuff that's out there.
Find me on Twitter @savingEJ or e-mail me at david.desroches@qu.edu. The podcast is a production of the Quinnipiac University Podcast Studio where I am the director of community programming. Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or the app of your choice. To learn more about this podcast and others that we make here at the university visit QU.edu/podcast. Until next time.