Disagreeing with Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen's a good press critic, and I liked his work even more after I found him writing while atop one of my traditional soapboxes.

But I think he's mostly wrong in his opinion about the competing methods of handling truth claims. 

Rosen wrote about the issue after a remarkable New York Times piece that asked readers if the paper should employ vigilante zeal in fact checking:

Something happened in our press over the last 40 years or so that never got acknowledged and to this day would be denied by a majority of newsroom professionals. Somewhere along the way, truthtelling was surpassed by other priorities the mainstream press felt a stronger duty to. These include such things as “maintaining objectivity,” “not imposing a judgment,” “refusing to take sides” and sticking to what I have called the View from Nowhere.

I'm not going to call Rosen entirely wrong. I've encountered persons in the journalism profession who see themselves almost like the Watcher from the Fantastic Four comic books. The Watcher was a figure of great power who was pledged to merely record great events without interfering. There are journalists who feel it is their duty to report every bit of news regardless of resulting harm. I could write a lengthy blog post about that, but for now I'll just concede that Rosen identifies at least part of the problem.

I think Rosen misses a more obvious explanation, one that better explains the facts. Journalists today are an educated class. And this shift falls pretty much in the 40-year window Rosen identifies. Traditional journalists knew that they possessed a broad lack of expertise. When confronted with complex or controversial issues, journalists responded economically: They punted. In other words, journalists found an expert or two, presented those views and left the rest up to their readers. Yes, this method preserved the appearance of objectivity--as Rosen notes. More importantly, it kept journalists from having to figure out aspects of the story they were unequipped to evaluate in terms of both time and education.

Consider PolitiFact's handling of many economic claims surrounding the effects of the economic stimulus bill. Are the journalists at PolitiFact experts on economics? They are not. They survey a group of experts, find a majority of Keynesians in that group and tend to confirm issues of fact according to a Keynesian paradigm. The reader is typically none the wiser.

PolitiFact's handling of such stories illustrates the key pitfall in journalists' vigilante attitude toward truth:  It makes journalists more likely to try to handle issues of fact they are not prepared to evaluate.

If journalists can stay safely in the shallow end of the pool of epistemology, then, fine, practice a vigilante attitude toward truth.  Traditional journalists uncomfortable with that approach need to clearly articulate a strong rationale for their opposition.  Doing so will help make it more clear to the truth vigilantes where they can safely swim in that pool.

The meta-savviness of Brendan Nyhan

Political scientist Brendan Nyhan is back--not that he ever went away--with another of his patented faux-objective assessments of the U.S. media's relationship with its audience.

Nyhan's fundamental trouble remains his difficulty in assessing the aquarium habitat while always swimming in the tank with the rest of the fish.

His pet issue in his story is the tendency of news reports to continue to use "he said/she said" accounts of political disputes:

The first obligation of journalists is to the truth. As such, it is important that reporters set the record straight when ads like these are misleading their audience. The problem, however, is that many national reporters—and the state reporters who increasingly emulate them—have been sucked in by the cult of the savvy. For these journalists, producing meta-level analysis of the effectiveness of deception as a campaign tactic is more important than correcting the factual record for readers.

I, for one, do not see why Jay Rosen's description of the journalistic "cult of savvy" would be incompatible with the solution Nyhan recommends:

A better approach would be for reporters to characterize the accuracy of ads in their own voice and to invoke non-partisan experts like PolitiFact. In some cases, it may even be possible to find credible sources on the side of the candidate airing the misleading ad who are willing to state the truth.

So journalists will let readers in on their supposedly specialized knowledge regarding the truth of political claims.  And then what?  The cult of savvy will proceed to meditate on the effects its findings should have on the reader, no doubt abundantly citing Nyhan's flawed research in the process.  Both steps leave ample room for the cult of savvy to direct the journalistic approach.  Glenn Greenwald, for example, pointed out the tendency at PolitiFact to use expert sources from both sides of an issue. The main difference with the traditional he said/she said approach is that PolitiFact not infrequently ends up making an arbitrary decision as to which expert opinion carries the day.

If the journalists taking that step are both expert and not ideologically biased, then fine.  But who buys either proposition?

Apparently the meta-savvy Brendan Nyhan buys it, as he refers to PolitiFact as "non-partisan experts."

Give me a break.

Hey, Jay Rosen! That's my soapbox!

Jay Rosen, media critic and associate professor of journalism at New York University, thinks journalists ought to offer more in the way of self-disclosure.

That makes two of us.  For several years now I've been arguing that the tradition of reporters keeping mum about their opinions is obsolete.  It has one role:  to hoodwink the public with regard to the objectivity of the press.

NPR's David Folkenflik reports on Rosen's views and offers a representation of the argument against Rosen.  Which I found very amusing:

Much of the conventional press has guarded against public exposure of journalists' private opinion lest it undermine the ability of readers, viewers or listeners to believe what they print or broadcast. Many journalists say they did not get into the news business to parade their personal opinions. They say they did it to uncover the facts.

Isn't that a hoot and a half?

Letting the public in on journalists' private opinions might "undermine the ability of readers ... to believe what they print or broadcast."  I'm pretty sure that's what I said up above, except without the euphemistic phrasing.  The media outlets are hoodwinking the audience into thinking they're objective.  The conscientious press is concerned about their poor readers!  We must not interfere with their suspension of disbelief!  That would be wrong!

The latter part of the paragraph is just as funny.  Journalists didn't get into the news business "to parade their person opinions," but to "uncover the facts."  Unless the fact is that they have specific personal opinions.  Let that fact remain forever covered, please.  After all, uncovering that fact might interfere with the ability of the audience to believe the media message.

Too flippin' hilarious.

But it's nice to see NPR reporting on this at all.  Seriously.


Jan. 27, 2011:  Finally remembered to include the URL to the NPR story.