I wish I had seen Jay Rosen’s latest critique of “he said, she said” reporting before Saturday’s accuracy workshop at Georgetown University.
Jay provides an excellent example of reporting that is accurate but falls short of the journalistic principle of seeking the truth. That was a key point of the workshop: Yes, we taught about getting quotes accurate and verifying facts, but we stressed that accurate but incomplete or accurate but lacking context doesn’t fulfill the responsibility to seek, find and report the truth.
While I have called for updating some of the details in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, I love the direct, elegant wording of its first principle: Seek Truth and Report It. “He said, she said” reporting shrugs off this responsibility. In fact, it presents lies equally with the truth, which is hardly different from lying.
I hope you read Jay’s critique, which I will just summarize here. He notes an NPR report about new rules regulating abortion clinics in Kansas. The report quoted one side calling the regulations an attempt to drive abortion clinics out of Kansas and another saying they were common-sense regulations to protect the health of women. NPR’s ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, and the reporter, Kathy Lohr, defended the report. Lohr said it’s not her job to “take a position” on the issue. Schumacher-Matos said NPR reporting “comes under criticism from both the right and the left,” (implying that NPR must have found some virtuous middle ground).
A key point I made in yesterday’s workshop was that accuracy is not enough. We need to get beyond the “semi-true stories” (yes, I did play Jimmy Buffett’s song) we hear from sources and find the actual truth.
This is an excellent example. If you accurately report what the rules require and you accurately quote the warring factions’ views of the rules, you have an accurate story. But you have not sought the truth or reported it, beyond the basic fact that partisans disagree, and that’s a statement of the obvious and eternal in American political life.
As Rosen notes, you can find the truth in this story. You can compare the requirements to requirements for outpatient facilities providing other sorts of medical procedures, such as cosmetic surgery or colonoscopies.
I like that PolitiFact has spawned a lot of fact-checking operations in journalism. But I hate that this is a specialty. Shouldn’t fact-checking be routine in every story? Source A says the sky is blue. Source B says the sky is red. Shouldn’t the reporter look at the sky rather than just report the disagreement?
I cannot be alone in hating the he said she said approach – adds to the noise and confusion – I want to bounce my thinking off the reporter. For instance the Economist encourages its writers to have a POV. They do seek the truth.
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Good points Steve, but to me there’s still “more to the story” (isn’t there ALWAYS?)
If only most arguments were over the color of the sky or something so easily observable. Then every he said-she said could and should include “But records show A, B and C is true.” Great.
Instead, he said-she said usually boils down to: “The president says it’s a great idea,” “the House speaker says it’s a lousy idea” – and “the experts disagree on the impact of the proposal.”
So, in today’s always-strapped newsrooms, where’s the resources to “prove” who’s version of the truth is more accurate? It’s rarely black-or-white.
The problem is, attacking he said-she said journalism is usually down in a way to say “objectivity is old-fashioned, everyone has a slant and the reporter should take a stand, state their views.”
BS. Leave that to the one-sided blogs.
Abortion is a great example. No WAY should we come down on one side or the other on such a volatile, no-win, never-gonna-get-everyone-to-agree issue. As much as I find Fox’s news reporting distasteful at times, their slogan nails it: “We report. YOU DECIDE.”
Sure we should seek “the truth.” But usually “the truth” isn’t black or white but a sea of gray that is used by partisans to continue the endless tug of war in today’s Blame Society. And THAT’s “the truth.” Or a big part of it.
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Here’s a truth that wasn’t in the Lohr story.
“Both sides admit that changing regulations and licensing for clinics is intended to limit a woman’s access to a legal medical procedure.” Or, ” Cheryl Sullenger with Operation Rescue provides no evidence to support her claim that the new regulations will do anything to promote public safety or that a public safety issue exits in Kansas clinics.”
Why are these simple statements of fact not in the story?
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This is good advice, but very hard to follow. What should a journalist do when competing truth claims challenge the expertise of even, say, the Army Corps of Engineers on a matter as acute as how many salmon smolt are expected to survive a journey through a given set of hydroelectric turbines?
Or that of climatologists on global warming?
Is it true that some truths are simply beyond the capacity of journalists to observe for themselves?
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Hi Barney: Why are you refusing the recognize the distinction between “investigating conflicting truth claims about the Kansas abortion regulations,” which is what I wrote about, and “coming down on one side of the other of the abortion issue?” which NPR obviously cannot do.
Is the distinction really that hard to grasp? I don’t think it is, but maybe I’m wrong.
Or is that you think this is a distinction without a difference? If that’s it, could you explain: how so? Because it seems like a valid distinction to me.
It also seems kind of odd to me that we’re having this exchange because in my post I went out of my way to prevent this confusion from mucking up the discussion. It’s the part where I wrote:
Take a position on the issue? No, Kathy. This is not what I’m saying: at all. Lohr tried to change my criticism into something she knew how to respond to. Thus, our exchange went something like this.
Me: Why does NPR throw up its hands and tell its listeners: we have no idea who’s right? Is that really the best reporting you can do? Is that the excellence for which NPR is known?
Kathy Lohr: You want me to take a position on a public controversy. You want me to editorialize. To pick a side. What you don’t understand is: That’s not my job!
I do understand how you define your job. What I’m asking for is more reporting, not editorializing or picking a side.
Did you just ignore that part, Barney? Or, again, is this distinction so elusive that it does not compute? Thanks.
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Alright, here’s my transparent answer – I didn’t click through and read your piece, for which I humbly apologize, Jay. I tried to reflect off taking things beyond he said-she said on such a volatile topic.
You will never ever hear me argue against ‘more reporting.’ The problem CAN be that reporters can, subtly or not so subtly, do that additional reporting to drive the conversation toward one side or another in that volatile issue.
As long as the reporter goes where the facts lead them, and shed new light, whether it clarifies or muddies the sometimes shark-infested waters, I’ll never argue against it,
But you and I have both seen many stories over the years that seem directed toward a particular point/conclusion/point of view and use only the facts that buttress that point of view, or arrange things to lead to that conclusion. The guise of objectivity is worse than ‘he said-she said’ – it’s an editorial or column pretending to be ‘the truth.” Again apologies for not stating at the start that I was commenting on Steve’s piece and not the one you wrote.
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Berney – True, there are a lot of Grays but isn’t the issue that even when Black and White the reporters/journalists report it as gray? Or when the shade of gray is heavily tinted dark or light, they still report as neutral?
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I’d say after a few decades in journalism that some people who see ‘black and white’ on issues do so because they know they are on the ‘right’ side of said issue? “Heavily tinted”? That reminds me of something I like to say – I’ll take full credit or blame for what’s ON the lines. What people read BETWEEN the lines is just as often based on their own personal experience/biases they bring to the story, as on any failing or shortcoming of the writer. At least, that’s what I’ve come to see in years of moderating comments on a very lively news site.
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Sky is blue vs. sky is red is easy. When it is not so easy,… that is exactly where the audience is expecting and demanding that the reporters REALLY dig deep down, find out what the state of the knowledge is, and report it as it really is. Saying “it’s too hard to find out”, or “I don’t have time to find out” or “since I don’t know it must be not known” is just abrogating one’s journalistic duty to one’s reader. It is just lazy.
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“The state of the knowledge”? I do fear that sometimes the reason some folks claim there’s ‘lazy reporting’ is that the article doesn’t lead the reader to the side they happen to support.
It’s so easy to say reporters are ‘lazy’ when they don’t get to spend hours or days or longer ‘digging deep down.’ I’m all for ‘reporting as it really is.” But there’s always ALWAYS more to the story. And to ask “but what about” after reading a piece is not necessarily a failure on the part of the “lazy” reporter, but taking on a voluminous subject with a mtn. of ‘facts’ and points of view.
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To @andrewo, above (and tangential to the main point here): This is an important point; most journalists can’t be experts enough on every complex issue to distill out the truth. I think this is why you’ll see more and more news organizations, with the exception of the two or three large ones that have sufficient expertise on staff, partnering for complex coverage with real experts, often outside of journalism.
For example, I would predict that on the national level, healthcare policy, transportation and education are issues where you’ll see more and more coverage coming from outside of traditional journalism. In addition, locally you’ll see media organizations partner up for things like national political and campaign coverage. It’s one more example of doing what you do best and linking to the rest.
This idea horrifies many, but I think it’s necessary if journalism is going to be able to fulfill its mission of fostering a well-informed society.
Whet Moser, then of the Chicago Reader, had a long and very thoughtful blog post on just this topic a couple of years ago: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/cover-story-march-12-2009/Content?oid=1102979. (In fact, the Reader thought so much of it they made it the cover story for that week.) I highly recommend it.
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Hi Elaine
It puzzles me then – why would journalists not be experts on their “beat” – is this really an organizational resource issue or a personal one?
For sure there are people out there who know a lot about any topic – if journalists rely only on being journalists – who needs them?
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Re: “…most journalists can’t be experts enough on every complex issue to distill out the truth. :
On the “proposed abortion regulations in Kansas” story that I wrote about as emblematic of “he said, she said” at NPR, inexperience in the issue and lack of a deep understanding was definitely not a factor. The reporter told the ombudsman she had been covering the abortion issue for 20 years. And she interpreted the demand to investigate competing truth claims this way: “It would be inappropriate to take a position on an issue I’m covering. So, I don’t do that, with abortion or other issues.” In this case, her dedication to “he said, she said” reporting is the result of her experience in covering it for NPR.
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Hi Jay
Yes I am sure that many journalist have been covering a beat for decades and DO know so you are correct the “Block” is the culture
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@robpatrob — My statement certainly didn’t apply to all journalists, and certainly on local issues the experts are the local journalists. It’s on the bigger issues that I was focused.
Jay Rosen points out in the comment below yours a perfect illustration of my point: A large national news organization like NPR can afford to have journalists who have spent many years learning the nuances of a complex beat or issue. It’s those complex issues, that are more national or over-arching in nature, where local media hasn’t been able to invest sufficiently. So their choices are: no coverage at all; superficial coverage by their own staff, who lack knowledge and insight; or coverage that addresses the issue intelligently and completely, but comes from outside their shop. As news organizations tighten their resources I believe that they’ll seek that expert coverage more and more for issues that aren’t exclusive to them but are important to their readers.
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“As news organizations tighten their resources I believe that they’ll seek that expert coverage more and more for issues that aren’t exclusive to them but are important to their readers.”
As Steve can tell you, this is a key part of the strategy at Journal-Register company. In JRC’s case, the new CEO hasn’t taken resources away from newsrooms, but he wants them focused on only two things: local journalism and local sales.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/03/whats-project-thunderdome-you-ask-inside-jim-bradys-new-job-at-journal-register-company/
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@Elaine — I hope you are right about the increasing availability of expert reporting on topics of local importance that exceed local resources. I need to do more research, as I must not yet be aware of the best reporting already done on salmon issues.* Here’s an example of the kind of story that gets written repeatedly.
I think it sucks (it does not assess the empirical strength of either the conservation/fishing groups’ position or the state’s response) —- but at least it avoids having someone shouting about media bias or how the experts got it wrong.
* I’m the sports guy at a weekly in Idaho, recently assigned a story on the local implications of a law suit about spilling water over dams in Washington. I may as well have been born yesterday.
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