Have you ever been in the following situation? You have first-hand or up-to-date knowledge about something. Perhaps you witnessed a traffic accident or other newsworthy event. Or perhaps you have expertise on a matter of public importance. Then you see a news report about that thing you know. Afterwards, you say to yourself: “That’s not how it happened,” or “They don’t have their facts straight,” or “That’s a rather half-baked report,” or “The gas-bag they interviewed doesn’t have a clue.” I’m starting to think that most of us experience such realisations of news-media slackery on a regular basis. Of course, the press isn’t omnipotent: it can’t be everywhere, all the time. And our own knowledge is fallible. But whenever I ask someone in the know about the poor quality of news coverage on a fairly basic subject, they seem to shrug it off as so much noise. It all makes me wonder: if the coverage of the things I know well is so faulty, then what about those things which I know relatively little about and am dependent on the news media to explain?

I won’t deny that complaining about press coverage is a popular sport. In the book Don’t Shoot the Messenger (1999), Bruce Sanford argues that the public has overinflated expectations about the press and its responsibilities. He talks about the “humorless monotony of modern media criticism”, especially criticism by ex-journalists who complain about the institutional credibility lost because of shortsighted executives. Sanford reminds us that sensationalism and myth-making have a long tradition in journalism and are not new. There has been a recent decline in deference towards the news media that is not entirely caused by the industry itself. Members of the public are less likely to trust institutions and authorities of various kinds. He cautions that complaints against the press often become calls for less press freedom. It’s safe to say that Sanford worries more about regulatory encroachment than the substance of news reporting. His role as a press lawyer might have something to do with that stance.

There is some merit to Sanford’s apologetics. I defend press freedom as an absolute. You should too. But Sanford and industry reps are being cavalier and self-serving when they dismiss critics as idle whiners while waving off accuracy concerns as beside the point. Factual accuracy and rigour are the point, or ought to be. They are the source of a news outlet’s credibility. They are what journalists strive for as professionals. They are the value sold to customers. They are what make the “Fourth Estate” a treasured institution of democratic society.

That gets us to the point of this review. These days, the factual accuracy of a news report seems to be less important than whether the news report corresponds to a recognisable script. And poor reporting can be made to seem authoritative by tarting it up with technology and aligning it with the prevailing wisdom held by some lucrative constituency or another. Christopher Hitchens, no slouch when it comes to defending press freedom, puts it this way:

If ever you criticize the prevailing news values, whether to a [TV show] booker or a researcher or a pre-interviewer or a presenter, you will always be told that the public wants it this way, and is only being given what it wants, and indeed likes what it gets. So that’s all right then. Of course, the public can have it any way it likes with entertainment, or sports, or chat shows, or movies (though I think the people in focus groups who demand moist and happy endings should be compelled to view the ‘product’ produced in their name). But news can’t be made to fit a profile, because news by definition involves telling people what they don’t know, and may not even ‘like’. That in turn is why so much trouble is taken, in designing news coverage, to put the emphasis on what people know, or think they know, already. (Hitchens, 1998, p. 61; emphasis added)

Thanks to Stephen Colbert, a comedian who parodies talk-show pundits, we now have a word for bending the facts into a script that fits neatly with prevailing sensibilities. That word is truthiness. It’s the idea that things are true if they feel true to you. As more people feel something to be true, the more something is treated as truth. If the empirical facts are ignored and errors are spread, that’s okay. People can continue to live their lives blissfully, unencumbered by inconvenient facts. Of course, truthiness is just another word for ignorance. And that’s why Colbert’s term is clever in a dark and tragic sort of way.

Just to be clear, I think it is extremely important to make information meaningful, not just accurate. We tell stories, provide context, discuss history, make comparisons, disclose relevant details … et cetera, et cetera … all to make facts more understandable and relevant; that is to say, to make the facts cohere as a description or explanation that we can comprehend and relate to. However, truthiness is about a pre-defined meaning that subsumes all else. It’s the conceit that you’ve had the right story all along, and that story suits your emotional and material interests rather nicely, and the facts can only be correct if they confirm what you already know. It’s the news you “like”.

I’m going to discuss a couple of books that look at the erosion of accuracy and rise of pandering in the news mediathe truthiness problem. One of these books asks whether we’re entering a “post-fact” society. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I boldly defy Sanford and talk about a former journalist who criticizes short-sighted industry executives.

Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All by Tom Fenton (Collins Living, 2005), pp. 262.

Tom Fenton’s Bad News looks at foreign news coverage by America’s major television networks. Foreign news was Fenton’s beat at CBS News for 38 years. Fenton describes the struggle between the nearly extinct species of permanently stationed foreign correspondents and the insular executives at headquarters. The correspondents are the ones with the situational awareness, connections, and inside-dope to break important stories. The execs are the detached overlords who think of foreign news as boring, depressing, overly complex, and (above all) expensive. Once upon a time, news coverage was an unprofitable loss-leader that built up the prestige of a television network and performed a vital public service. Now broadcast news is a cash-cow featuring celebrity news anchors. The salaries of the celebrities are growing while the overall budgets of news agencies are shrinking. Fenton estimates that spending on foreign coverage has dropped by eighty percent since the salad days of the 1970s. Very few foreign bureaus remain, even among news outlets that specialise in international news. Those that do are hollowed-out repackagers of cut’n'paste reports that are bought on the wholesale market.

The overall result of this change, according to Fenton, has been to make foreign affairs coverage highly reactionary. Major stories are not noticed until they become crises, at which time the television networks over-compensate with saturation coverage. That coverage tends to be superficial; trivialising complicated issues and perpetuating stereotypes. Less investigation and analysis is done, making the news highly susceptible to spin. Fenton argues that because all the American networks have followed this path with a rigid like-mindedness, all the coverage is similar and sensationalist. The public notices this decline, which is why opinion polls show that most people have very little confidence in the television news coverage.

Fenton cites some specific practices to explain why broadcast news has become so insular and thin.

• “Packaging.” This is a form of out-sourcing whereby news agencies buy stock-video from a photo service and bundle it with stock-reports taken from news services. The agency then slaps on their logo and adds a narration. This prevalent practice makes news organisations vulnerable to errors and biases because there is no fact-checking involved. It also explains why all broadcast news stories on the same subject all look and sound the same: other news agencies are reselling identical material. Since everyone is doing the same thing and few are breaking fresh stories, packaging reinforces herd reporting.
• Telegenic Parachute-Journos. Since there are precious few professional foreign correspondents about, news agencies are likely to take attractive and charming (but inexperienced) journalists and drop them into the field. Often the news is packaged elsewhere and the journalist is on-site simply to do a “stand-up” (talk on camera in front of an appropriate backdrop). Sometimes actual information gathering takes place, but it is based heavily on a single on-site source, or “stringer” (a freelancer or news junkie on retainer). If little information is available, then a parachute journalist may simply recite a pre-conceived story peppered with any available facts. In any case, the drop-in lasts only a few news cycles, so even if any new information surfaces, there isn’t enough time to investigate.
• Pool-side Reports. If interest persists beyond a few news cycles, then a temporary bureau may be set up. Iraq and Afghanistan are two examples from the noughties. The problem is that many of these places have become so dangerous that virtually all the reporting is “embedded” (well behind the military’s velvet rope) or from the safety of the hotel. Fenton doesn’t go into great deal about this, but William Langewiesche has an excellent article about the travails of pool-side reporting from a Baghdad hotel (2005).
• Satellite Interviews. To give the illusion of a nerve-centre with access to a global strike-force of crack journalists, news anchors will conduct a scripted interview via up-link with a parachute or pool-side reporter. The reporter is usually on a hotel roof or, in Fenton’s case, in front of a mosque in central London.
• Going with the Flow of the Show. Editors will routinely omit important stories simply because they seem out of place between the up-beat commercials and the “human-interest” fluff pieces.
• Removal of Contextual Information. Fenton reminisces about a report he submitted about the Kurds. Everything was good except the editor wanted references to the Kurds removed. Why? “Too confusing … No one knows who the Kurds are.” (p. 36) Since most American news shows contain only 18 minutes of content, there is no room for background information. Or history. Or obscure references. Or complexity. Just report the wreckage.
• Non-threatening Reports. The reports that are axed first are those which don’t jive with the pre-existing view of a situation. Those that hit the raw nerve of a powerful interest group are “softened” to make them more palatable and “audience friendly.” Given the increasingly concentrated conglomerate ownership of news agencies, reports which threaten parent company interests are frowned upon, says Fenton.
• Less Independent Analysis and Investigation. News reports have become susceptible to spin because there are too few resources to do proper analysis and checking. The Bush Administration was particularly good at media management, rewarding sympathetic journalists and “freezing out” those who tend to ask awkward questions.

I think that these are excellent insights on the topic of television journalism, which is the most popular source of news for Americans and others. And Fenton’s analysis is astute. However, I think his book only describes part of the problem. Thankfully, I’ve found a book that completes the picture.

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo (Wiley, 2008), pp. 250.

In True Enough, Farhad Manjoo reflects on the polarisation between left and right in America. This cleavage is not just about differences in opinion or ideology. Each side is holding different “facts”. The news media (or “infosphere”, which includes online sources) has become highly fragmented. Instead of “mass media”, we now have constellations of cable news channels, blogs, and other partisan news outlets. According to Manjoo, the competing versions of reality that result are leading to a “new tribalism” whereby members of each tribe are fed a steady diet of information that reinforces their previously held views. Even blatantly dishonest reports can have a big political impact in this system. Manjoo focuses a lot of attention on the Swiftboat Veterines’ successful (yet utterly groundless) smear campaign against John Kerry during the 2004 US Presidential election campaign. Conspiracy theories about the 9-11 massacre are also given a lot of attention.

What makes Manjoo’s book especially interesting is his discussion of how media fragmentation plays out at the psychological level.

When new information challenges deeply held views, a great deal of emotional discomfort results (cognitive dissonance). To minimize the distress, we tend to pay more attention to information that confirms previously held views, while ignoring or downplaying information that contradicts those views (selective exposure, more commonly called confirmation bias or biased assimilation). And each of us tends to think of our own views as more-or-less objective while considering the views of others as potentially biased. More interesting is how the strength of an argument relates to this set of biases. Citing the work of Aaron Lowin, Manjoo explains how we prefer to listen to a weak argument from an opponent (”weak dissonant messaging”) than to a weak argument that confirms our views (”weak consonant messaging”). That’s because we take particular pleasure dismissing flimsy arguments we disagree with. Talk radio hosts know this intuitively, which is why they often invite lame opponents onto their shows for “ambush interviews” or lampoon the weak claims of opponents circulating in the media. The mix of strong arguments in support of our views and weak arguments presented by opponents is the ideal condition for the reinforcement of political views.

Manjoo argues that, even when people receive the same information, they are likely to notice different things. Unconscious filtering causes opponents to see different things (selective perception), such as when opposing sports fans dispute a questionable call made by a referee. Each camp sees what they want to see. So when political jokes and parodies are presented by television comedians, as another example, people of different political stripes will often interpret the comedy very differently. They take away different meanings from ambiguous satire. The reinforcement of previously held views continues.

The passages in True Enough about experts also reveal much about our vulnerability to manipulation. It turns out that politicians and activists in front of a camera tend to do very little to move public opinion. Citing the work of Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro, Manjoo explains that “experts” are the ones that have a major influence. That’s why the press place so much stock in the opinions of academics, scientists, think tank analysts, retired officials, and so forth. The problem is that experts don’t actually have to know very much to be influential. They just need to seem very convinced of their own expertise. As shown by John Ware’s experiments (which I’ve discussed elsewhere), if a person is attractive and persuasive, they can pass-off nonsense as learned insight, even to an audience that ought to know better. These are the “Dr. Fox” experiments in which a highly expressive orator gave lectures filled with utter nonsense and contradiction. Audience members rated the lecture highly because of the way information was presented. These findings were replicated in doctor-patient situations. Warm, expressive doctors with rhetorical style but very weak analysis can convince patients of a diagnosis, whereas a cold and impersonal doctor is seen as less trustworthy despite the merits of the analysis. (I strongly encourage you to read Ben Goldacre, 2008, on this topic.) This helps explain the popularity of alternative medicine, which emphasizes the “healing experience” over the substantive merits of a particular treatment.

Manjoo partly explains these findings by making a distinction between “central” and “peripheral routes” to processing claims. Ideally we would take the central route and investigate the facts underpinning a claim ourselves. That’s not practical in most cases. And we lack the expertise and knowledge most of the time. So we rely on the peripheral route, or third party sources and rules of thumb (heuristics). When we rely on third party sources, we are often unduly influenced by emotional cues used by others intent on persuading us. When we use rules of thumb, we are vulnerable to biases of oversimplification and the errors caused by shortcuts. For example, we’re more likely to show a preference for information we are familiar with (the recognition heuristic). We give greater credence to the claims made by name-dropping and big-talking experts. That’s what makes possible the “new amateurization of expertise”, as Manjoo correctly labels it. Real empirical experts, such as those scientists who take their vocation seriously, tend to be cautious, tentative, qualifying, and hedging. That’s what their vocation demands of them in order to ensure honesty, integrity, and forthrightness. Faux experts and con-artists can make themselves credible by being expressive, assertive, confident, and attractive. And that explains the abundance of bombastic, know-nothing gas-bags on television news programmes.

The fragmentation of the media into various camps feeds on these psychological tendencies. According to Majoo, those who are hostile to mainstream mass media because of a perceived bias are likely to flee to news sources that reinforce their personal views. People trust those who are more like themselves (particularised trust). The pandering news outlets, from television networks to print publishers, know this and are marketing their coverage to appeal to niche audiences. The problem is that this prevents serious critique of particular claims because serious challenges are excluded. The problem also involves a highly selective and exaggerated telling of the facts. If the news outlet is reporting on an easy-to-verify claim, then obvious bias or spinning is less likely to result because of the fear of a consumer backlash. More caution is applied. However, when claims are difficult to verify because of the nature of the topic, then the opportunity to mislead or selectively omit facts is greater. Or it can just make it easier to be careless. Either way, truthiness prevails. As Manjoo sums up: “The truth about truthiness, I’ve argued, is cognitive: when we strung up the planet in fiber-optic cable, when we dissolved the mainstream media into prickly niches, and when each of us began to create and transmit our own pictures and sounds, we eased the path through which propaganda infects the culture.” (p. 192)

Public relations (PR) firms are wise to this situation and are mercilessly taking advantage of it. Remember what Fenton said about “packaging” news and telegenic journos. Well, it turns out that press releases increasingly come in the form of video news releases. These videos are news-like stories created on behalf of an interest. They tend to be made in a way that takes advantage of people’s predilections. And television news channels, especially local ones, are routinely passing these videos off as actual news coverage. Again, as Fenton also mentions, slapping on a logo and voice-over are all that are usually required to make these forms of spin seem like an actual news report. Manjoo elaborates. News video databases, such as the popular Pathfinder system, offer cash-strapped news outlets with free video and commentary that can be spliced into regular news coverage. Video news releases make up much of this free content, sometimes to sinister affect. So just as the print press (again, especially local press) often publish mostly unedited press releases, I would add, television news is now doing much the same thing. Manjoo tells several horror stories of duped-but-unapologetic news outlets and clever PR agencies.

All of the problems I’ve cited suggest a necessary countervail in order to keep your information diet healthy. My advice is: don’t just pay attention to the news, pay attention to the “meta-news” (the news about the news coverage). In America, one of the appeals of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report is that it makes the method of news coverage the subject of the show. Indeed, talk radio shows on the right, such as The Rush Limbaugh Show, do exactly the same thing. So when I say “meta-news”, I’m not thinking about Stewart, Colbert, or Limbaugh. Such sources are more about spin and comedy than serious reportage. The one you pay more attention to probably has a lot to do with your ideology. And that’s fine. But there are other sources that take the meta-news reporting more seriously.

My favourite podcast is New York Public Radio’s show On the Media, a radio show that delves into these issues on a weekly basis. It’s my favourite podcast by a large margin. You can do even better and also subscribe to the Columbia Journalism Review and follow their blog, even if that does seem like a pointy headed and overly conscientious thing to do. I call it a good investment. The BBC’s radio show and podcast More or Less is a great source of insight about the media’s use of statistics. These are just a few of my favourite sources of meta-news. My larger point is that a healthy information diet now requires that we are more tuned into the news about the news. I admit that I can’t keep up with fact-checking blogs, such as Regret the Error. That’s too much trivia. Nonetheless, I increasingly find myself compelled to live in the meta-news sphere. Sadly, that sphere keeps me abreast of what’s really going on more than the popular news outlets.

By Peter Stoyko

Update (20.07.10)

Paul Sawa has directed my attention to a Joe Keohane article in the Boston Globe called “How facts backfire.” It’s all about truthiness and people’s tendency to reject facts that conflict with deeply held beliefs. It’s worth a read: link. It includes a humorous coinage: the “I know I’m right” syndrome.

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