While American journalists have received death threats and are dismissed as “enemies of the people” by folks who refuse to face the facts, its actually much, much worse in Central Europe. This article captures some of my work on this subject, and gives an update about what is needed to support these whistle-blowers who are putting their lives on the line.
Here are the insider tricks to figure out if a news item is true or not. Please share this PSA which contains some basic media literacy guidelines so that you don’t get duped by those who want to use you to spread their lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3rDP_boUYw&feature=youtu.be
I’m happy to see this new initiative that helps us identify the real journalists who offer trusted work, with accountability. Now we need to get more media literacy, so consumers will know to use tools like this Transparency Tracker to select reality-based, fact-based journalism providers instead of falling prey to the propagandists, newsbots and conspiracy theorists who are making money or gaining power by duping us into spreading and believing stuff that isn’t true.
Most importantly, tools like this confirm that some content is much more trustworthy than other content You CAN figure out what is useful news from what is propaganda. Don’t be left powerless by cynicism that tells you everything is a scam. If you decide that, you will never be able to hold the bad guys to account.
Journalism has never been, and will never be, perfect. But it is a tragedy when people don’t understand who is working in the public interest, to help empower them with information, versus all those jerks who are trying to sell them something for their own amusement or ill-gotten gains.
“I am seeing this so you don’t have to!”
This 2012 rebuke from war correspondent Marie Colvin to her London editor, as she returned to die in the horrors of Syria, is the best description of journalism I ‘ve ever heard. “A Private War,” Matt Heineman’s morally fierce new film about Colvin, reminds us that some people give up everything, trying to give us the truth.
How terrible then, for so many Americans to live in a world of deliberate lies. It is inevitable that the Trump-Fox News bubble will burst, as our country faces the real impacts of climate change, Russian cyberwarfare, economic inequality and Republican corruption. I feel sorry for the genuine conservatives out there who have made this devil’s bargain with Trump. If history is any guide, the gains they have made will be threatened, if not reversed, by the coming wave of revulsion.
While Colvin’s retort was about war, it could apply also to the tedious journalism of court documents, transcripts, government fine print, and data of all kinds that reporters plow through to figure out what’s true. The public can see this evidence for themselves, if they want to do this investigation of documents in plain sight. But who wants to take the time? So thank goodness nonprofit and for-profit mainstream reporters all over the world, including The New York Times and Washington Post, Propublica, The New Yorker and the Atlantic—are doing this for us. Check out the Post’s summary Dec. 3 report about the Mueller investigations, based on actual court convictions and guilty pleas.
I won’t be going to see the film about Gary Hart, not because I think the press was always terrific in covering him, but because I think they did an honest job outing his hypocrisy and weirdness. Matt Bai, who wasn’t there at the time and has a gauzy view of how Hart might have served as president, has done a disservice to history. Hart was a hypocrite and a liar. He was no Donald Trump, to be sure. But looking back to say he would have been a great president, and setting it up to blame the media, is a waste of everyone’s time.
Instead see “A Private War,” where an imperfect—crazy and sometimes out of control—journalist does the job. That is the real story.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2012/08/marie-colvin-private-war
Aug. 21, 2018 A House Divided Cannot Stand
I write to you in a spirit of respect and cooperation. We are all Americans, and I think it is better for our country if we can try to work together. Abraham Lincoln was quoting the Bible when he said a house divided against itself cannot stand. The letter below reflects my recent trip across the country–see the “road trip” section of this website— included meeting different Americans of all kinds, and listening carefully to them.
I listen to Hannity on Fox and the other pro-Trump pundits on Fox, Medium, etc. and am alarmed at how off the mark they are. Their descriptions of Democrats, Hillary voters, the media, and “libtards” are simply bizarre. Do they care that they are getting this so wrong?
Why is it that Hannity finds Trump perfect in every way, and changes the subject to Hillary Clinton if any question about Trump is raised? This seems fishy to me. On the other hand, on MSNBC and CNN, there seems nothing that Trump can do right, offending my conservative friends who want Trump to succeed.
Before the 2016 election, the mainstream media and the Democrats failed to understand how angry and conservative many Americans were. Polls show that most Trump voters don’t love everything about him (despite Hannity), but they want to stand by him as a warrior for their economic and cultural issues. By excusing every sin he commits, the people showing up at Trump rallies are acting more like a cult than a smart group of citizens. No politician deserves this fervent level of uncritical support.
It’s time to get past the labels to something more authentic. Here is my try at respectfully understanding Trump’s supporters:
Do I have it about right?
Now let me describe my side. Please try to keep an open mind. It is an honest effort.
We are appalled by Donald Trump. It is not because we disrespect you, or think your concerns should be ignored. It is because:
Thank you for listening. We need to find ways to hear each other, and compromise, because a united country is a strong country. That is the only way we will ever make America great again.
My premise is that the facts matter, and that journalists are in an ideal position to hold the powerful accountable. This is what I tried to do for 19 years as a reporter. The news media also must be held accountable themselves-because they, too, are among the powerful forces that shape our policy, politics and preoccupations. That is why I quit journalism in 1988 to be part of a group that is trying to hold the news media themselves accountable, and to improve their quality and role, from within the business.
Before I became a full time teacher in 2003, I saw enough candidates, presidents, and political campaigns up close to be hard-hearted about politics. Nevertheless, I was particularly disheartened by the 2004 presidential election. It was a huge victory for those who set out to destroy the ability of the news media to serve as watchdogs.
Now…don’t get me wrong. The news media have done a lot to wreck their own watchdog role since Watergate. We journalists have been own worst enemies! If we hadn’t done a lot of stupid things -and failed to be more transparent about our own limitations, mistakes and yes, biases-we would have more credibility when we write about the realities of Iraq, the reality of changing tax policies, the reality of the Social Security situation, the real costs and benefits of job outsourcing, the choices our government faced about securing the homeland or pouring money into the Iraq war, when we write about global warming, the plight of women, the Soviet style leadership of Putin, and so on.
The news media–the broadcast networks, the newspaper chains like Gannett, the talk show culture across all media– have too often gone for the commercial gold instead of the real news. They have too often degraded us and themselves, by focusing so much on sex, crimes, and celebrity nonsense. All along, real journalists also have been hard at work-all across America and in Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya. But they are hardly noticed in the din of talk shows and partisan attacks.
That is why no one blinked when Gen. Tommy Franks, whose miscalculations in Iraq have led to unnecessary bloodshed and backlash against America, said on Fox News after a presidential debate this October, that it was the media’s fault; we had built up expectations too high about Iraq. No. It had been Tommy Franks and his colleagues who told the media what glories to expect in Iraq, and journalists reported their assessments. This time, it was clearly NOT the media’s fault. Who now, will hold Tommy Franks accountable?
The assumption that it IS the media’s fault may be part of why no one especially cared when the New York Times reported just before the election that the Administration had plenty of warnings about the bogus intelligence that led them into Iraq in the first place. And it is part of why CBS became the issue-rather than George Bush’s integrity, which is what the National Guard story was about. The public chose to believe honorable a man (Bush) who clearly ducked his responsibilities during Vietnam, over a man (Kerry) who risked his life and saved others there. It is important to note that many people felt that all of this was simply in the past, and believe (I think correctly) that Bush is now a better man than he was, a born again Christian who has found a way to manage his alcohol problem, who now steps up honorably to his responsibilities. But he was not then; the facts are very clear, with multiple sources to prove them. Many chose instead to believe it is all about CBS and bias.
When President Bush can get away with shrugging and saying, during a debate where his facts are being challenged, that the New York Times is not credible because “you know, the media…” then we have lost our watchdog press. The attacks on the professional mainstream news media have worked. The public has accepted his dismissal of real journalism. Watergate is forgotten.
And we news consumers are partly to blame for this, too, because we are of two minds. We have access to serious news, presented in a sober and factual way, but we click away or fail to pick up the newspaper because it isn’t amusing. It tugs too much at our consciences, it annoys us, it brings a ‘downer” to us when we have enough challenges already in our lives. And when we do get the news, we love the gossip and trivia. It’s fun, and we like to hear what our favorite celebrities are doing. We like to look at beauty and hear about its secret lives. Unless we think there’s a terrorist attack, or our loved one is on the battle lines. Then we go to the media where we will get what we want, rather than be challenged by something we don’t want to hear.
It is particularly galling to note in this media landscape that the news organizations which are least likely to observe the standards of verification, fairness, comprehensiveness and proportionality (the hallmarks of good journalism)-those news organizations are the very ones who with impunity call themselves “the no spin zone” and “fair and balanced.” Joining Fox and Bill O’Reilly in particular are now Chris Matthews and MSNBC. They are not more honest, they are only more effective.
If the New York Times were simply out to elect liberal Democrats, as the GOP/Bush campaign constantly alleged, then why were they the original critics of Bill Clinton’s new presidency? They savaged him about the Whitewater scandal, in page one investigative reports and editorials that called for a special prosecutor. Clinton gave them a special prosecutor, who was a Republican who then picked up the Monica Lewinsky sexcapades and turned that into an impeachment process. It was the “liberal biased” New York Times that wrote some of the negative profiles about Kerry throughout the primaries and into the general election. If they were in the same business as Fox and the talk show culture, they would have always come back to a refrain of support for their man. They did not. They were actually trying to be fair and balanced.
So where do we go from here?
Journalists need to keep struggling to do honest reporting. Live in truth, Vaclav Havel counseled people who were surrounded by lies during Communism. Let everything you do and say be as true as you know it. Don’t build up the lies in order to have balance. Prove that they are lies. Secondly, to the public: pay attention to the watchdogs even if they are unpleasant, or annoying. See if they are right before you change the channel. There are limits to what journalism can do. It takes people to act on the facts they uncover. Insist on government accountability as much as you worry about media bias. The first is a far more serious problem, no matter what you’ve been told. If the journalists are dismissed, then who will hold the government accountable and tell the citizens what choices they really have?