They teach it in J-school.
From Billie Stanton of the Tuscon Citizen, via Romenesko:
Billie Stanton says her journalism profs at the University of Arizona 30 years ago were relentless about balance and objectivity. “Every angle must be covered, and if you had any bias, it better not show,” she writes. “This credo served me well for many years. When some talented Denver Post reporters covered an anti-gay referendum later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, their bias showed. Repeatedly I demanded rewrites to give the homophobes’ side equal credence.”
Steve Lovelady of Columbia begs to differ:
Let’s imagine an Alabama editor in the 1950′s writing, “Repeatedly I demanded rewrites to give the Klu Klux Klan’s side equal credence.”
Or how about “Repeatedly I demanded rewrites to give Hitler’s side equal credence.”
Where the hell has Billie Stanton been for the past 15 years, during which the most discredited journalism credo in the book has become the premise that “balance” equals truth ?
It is truth that journalism is supposed to be about, not “balance.”
We’re afraid it’s Lovelady who’s been under a rock. Just look at the coverage of “intelligent design” if you don’t believe us.
Or read Anderson Cooper’s interview with Hermann Goering.
Yet here is the rub.
Most reporters and editors are glorified generalists. There are a whole host of topics where they don’t have enough experience or expertise to draw from.
“Catastrophic Climate Change” is a clear example. There is a tiny and miniscule minority of reporters who have the skill to tread through data and see what is really there as opposed to what is in the summaries. You have to be able to do that to provide the contextual basis for “choosing a side.”
Imagine how foolish the profession would appear if it bought the Global Warming as an article of “objective truth,” only to eat those words later.
It’s already happened.
Remember, up until 1970 all of the data was pointing the other way, and scientists were “concerned” about worldwide global cooling. I shudder to think that a bunch of reporters exercised a “moral right to the truth” in presenting only one side as unvarnished fact.
Frankly, I think the he-said she-said J-school philosophy was a way to rationalize the appeasement of lawyers. As long as you have somebody saying something for you, you avoid liability. It’s also quite lazy, and there we are in total agreement.
On climate change (as on evolution):
The key is that these are issues of science, and if 99 percent of scientists believe in global warming, and 99.9 percent of scientists believe in evolution, that’s what should be reported: that the scientific consensus is that these things are very real.
Don’t balance that by finding a scientist from the .1 percent, or worse yet, by interviewing Jerry Falwell.
That’s the equivalent of giving Ralph Nader as much time as Bush and Kerry in the last presidential election — and we know THAT didn’t happen.
Science doesn’t always get it right, though. Just go back a couple of generations and look at the scientific enthusiasm for eugenics. If the “experts” can get things totally wrong (and in this case, amorally,) then how can the generalists be expected to act as a check on information?
Rule number one: follow the money.
Science is a process, not an absolute. But in general, it points us toward progress as a civilization — and yes, toward truth.
The cool thing about science is that it is, over time, a self-correcting process.
If left to itself.
When you add in:
1) a public that is increasingly illiterate in science
2) a mainstream media that is as illiterate of science as it is everything else
3) a political machine that wields far too much control over which science gets funding
4) a scientific establishment that chases dollars based not on what is worthy of study, but what people-pollsters-politicians can be scared into financing
you get a present-day system that is more cause/activist oriented than motivated by pure science.
The difference between a theory and an ideology is that an ideology can never be disproven — it is beyond investigation, and is a closed system. Any piece of evidence or experience is accounted for, and is used to bolster the ideology.
I’ve been tracking this since college, and instead of looking at contrary evidence with a skeptical eye, the global warming activists seem to spin every nugget of condtradiction into a new rationale for fear.
I for one wish reporters and editors would hone their logic and skepticism. I’m not blaming a vast conspiracy — just an overwhelmed and undertrained shrinking media, that doesn’t know what to ask, and doesn’t have the time besides.
I’m so tired of “99 percent of scientists agree global warming is real,” etc.
First, the danger with figures like this that they are often produced by poeple who believe that if you disagree that climate change is real, you’re not a real scientist. Second, it doesn’t even begin to address the fact that half of the scientists disagree over the CAUSE of global warming.
One reason to at least check if there is another side to an arguement is to make sure your own bias isn’t coloring your perception. Hey, check the other side, you might learn something.
And if the other side turns out to be Hitler, report it straight. Smart readers will figure it out.
I used to cover right-wing political crazies in San Diego. I covered them straight. They loved me cause they got to tell their side of the story. I was told many times I was the only reporter who didn’t try to make them look like fools. The watchdog groups that campaigned against them loved me because my stories feed them with all kind of wacky quotes for their newsletters. I didn’t need to make the wackos look like fools. Their own words did that for them.
I have no problem with advocacy journalism, but there’s also a place for just straight, balanced, unbiased reporting. There is a public service to reporting what a Jerry Falwell or Louis Farrakhan has to say.
howardowens.com
Howard,
I can identify with what you’re saying. When I was a reporter, I covered religion in Dallas. I covered the conflict between fundamentalists and moderate Baptists, as well as in other denominations, in a way that won praise from both sides because of the balance.
However, it’s different when you’re reporting on a subject like global warming. I don’t want to hear what some fossil fuel lobbying group has to say about it. I don’t want to hear what some political operative has to say about it. I want to know what scientists have learned — what their research indicates.
If you or Ike think for a MINUTE that the financial incentive for scientists to exaggerate global warming exceeds what corporations will pay to scientists to research and profess anti-global-warming hypotheses, you’re not following the money.
Read Richard Kluger’s analysis of how science was manipulated by tobacco industry, Ashes to Ashes, as just one example.
Follow the money, on that we agree.
When the oil-funded research shows less of a carbon-consumption impact, everyone screams about the taint of bias.
When the eco-fear-funded scientist professes that the world will end in ten years, he’s hailed as a visionary. No one stops to consider how his noisy squeaks have been greased, and the squeakiest get greased the most.
The drumbeat of fear is being pounded to the point that some scientists are advocating dire global action while admitting the evidence isn’t conclusive. “It’s too serious to wait until we know for sure!” (I’m digging to find the direct quote to that effect.)
“No worse society can be imagined than one in which the respective experts in each field are given unrestrained power over the people.”
- Freidrich A. Hayek
Ike:
I know where the corporate money comes from.
Tell me where the “eco-fear” money comes from. Specifically. And how much of it there IS, compared to what’s in corporate coffers.
The “eco-fear” money, for lack of a better term, does not in fact come from a large cash stash that arrived in $10 lumps from “Mother Jones” readers.
It instead comes from a new iron triangle of self-sustaining support:
- scientists chasing after research grants and stipends
- universities, chasing after grants and researchers
- political interests, more interested in the political implications of ecology findings than actual ecology
It really is the free market at work. With less science money to throw around, a proposal with “dire implications” gets a lot more notice and prestige (and funding) for a college than one without. Competition has bred us scientists with marketing savvy — only they have to lay their prejudices on the line before the experiments start.
There are hundreds of sites that follow the corporate money — but it’s virtually impossible to track down the fear-money, because the evidence is buried in denied proposals, and because reporters have never bothered to ask the question. It’s easier to paint Big Biz as the villian and be done with it.
I appreciate your candor, your bandwidth, and your willingness to host comment and dissent. As the kids would say, “U R teh R0xx0r.”
It instead comes from a new iron triangle of self-sustaining support:
- scientists chasing after research grants and stipends
- universities, chasing after grants and researchers
- political interests, more interested in the political implications of ecology findings than actual ecology
Ike, you’ve engaged in a bit of begging the question.
1. Who is giving the scientists money?
2. Who is giving the universities money?
3. Who are these political interests and where are they getting their money?
If you truly believe in following the money, you need to start with where the money comes from that greases the entire political system.
It’s not coming from unions, or environment groups, or other minor financial players.
It’s corporate money — that’s what funds our entire political system, and pays for the candidacies of both Democrats and Republicans.
So show me the money that is going to “pro” global warming research — and how it competes with the corporate money that is in the system?