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Sep
6
I’ve updated this post about information that had been circulating in the mainstream media about Gov. Sarah Palin cutting certain budget items in the Alaska budget. Problem is, she did and she didn’t and the Washington Post really did not report the situation accurately. They were guilty of vetting too quickly, just as the MSM and many other people, have been saying about Sen. John McCain, the GOP candidate for president.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson appeared on Bill Moyers’ show last night and it was excellent - you can listen or read the transcript, but here’s the relevant part in which Jamieson makes an excellent case for those of us reporting information to not vet too quickly either or give allegations the power of reality:
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: …Here’s where I have a problem with the vetting analysis. The press is eager to say she may not have been properly vetted by Senator McCain. And there’s certainly evidence that she was vetted very, very quickly. How adequately we’re finding out now as the press reporting moves forward. But that doesn’t justify the press engaging in vetting which is also too quick and not properly informed. They actually seem to be vulnerable in some cases to the charge they’re investigating about Senator McCain.
Let me give you an example. On CNN earlier this week Soledad O’Brien picks up something apparently from e-mails, although perhaps from bloggers because it’s circulating in both places, and takes as fact that Governor Palin has cut special needs funding. Now, if she has, that evocative moment in the speech in which she promised to be the advocate for special needs children is an act of hypocrisy. So very important moment. However, it’s raised on the assumption that it’s true. It’s asserted as true by Soledad O’Brien. When Soledad O’Brien raises it, the McCain spokesperson responds by defending what the governor will do in the future, the reasonable viewer watches and says, “Well, the McCain spokesperson isn’t defending and saying she didn’t do it. Perhaps she did.”
Now you have a moment in which journalism has deceived its audience because in the rush to make this point about possible hypocrisy, a major commentator on a major network has asserted as fact something which doesn’t hold up. It took the FactCheck.org researcher that I called on my staff about four hours to get back to the primary research documents.
BILL MOYERS:And it said?
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON:That Sarah Palin had increased funding for special needs children. There was a change in the category in the budget in which it was housed. And as a result, there was some confusion. And some people had generalized from the budget proposed by the predecessor that she defeated.
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON:And so the problem I have with some of the press coverage is that in the rush to vet, they made the mistake they were accusing the McCain campaign of. But I don’t think that has anything to do with gender. I think that has something to do with the nature of 24-hour-a-day journalism.
BILL MOYERS:One that…
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON:But I think it’s problematic. However, in all of this, the press did something very important because it took another key claim that Governor Palin had made, that she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere. Well, as reporters quickly pointed out and accurately pointed out, she opposed it pretty much after she’d favored it and after it was all but gone anyway and the state did take the money. Now, there’s an instance in which reporting was quick, but the reporting was accurate and the press performed its function effectively. None of that has to do with gender.
BILL MOYERS:So what does the, what do voters do? What do ordinary people out there who are not sure whether Sarah Palin really cut said one thing in her speech and then at home cut aid for needy children? Or the press that gets it right and the politicians say it’s wrong? What does any ordinary viewer do?
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON:Well, the ordinary viewer should be able to step back and trust that the media are looking carefully and offering a factual basis apart from the partisan spin.
BILL MOYERS:What media, though? Fox News? CNN? PBS? Bloggers on the left to the right, as you said? Rush Limbaugh? Rachel Maddow?
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON:That’s the problem. The problem is that one can’t trust anymore from some of these sources that there’s going to be a fidelity to fact in the presence of contest. One of the things that we showed in 2004, from the National Annenberg Election Survey, was that those who are reliant on Rush Limbaugh and on Fox News accepted the Republican view of the facts.
Those reliant on NPR and CNN were more likely to accept the Democratic view of the contested facts. Now sometimes there’s legitimate contest. Sometimes, however, what you essentially had was spin and distortion on each side. Those who are relying on newspapers and traditional forms of news were still more likely to hold a non-contested view of those facts.
That’s the answer to your question. Journalism that tries to balance, tries to have fidelity to fact, when it makes a mistake, corrects often enough that the public catches the correction, is still the place that one goes or one reads and watches both sides and tries to filter them through.
She is extremely correct in saying that we should all do better. If you don’t know, say so. If you haven’t verified it, say it. If it’s your opinion, label it opinion. But do not be the starter or the spreader of the smear. Unless you like the idea of losing credibility.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:01 pm September 6th, 2008 in Blogging, Media, Politics, Writing
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9 Responses to “Kathleen Hall Jamieson on Bill Moyers: Press vetting too quickly too”
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Agreed. Excellent post.
I can’t watch the CNN lovefest anymore. Campbell Brown went all “girlpower” over Palin and Cooper got googly eyes I swear.
Personal opinions aside, this kind of “vetting” from the media is actually really sad.
The CNN lovefest is disheartening. Between Campbell Brown’s “this is girlpower!” and Anderson Cooper’s googly eyes…blah. No matter what side you’re on, it’s not appropriate.
I won’t even go into my feelings about what girl power WASN’T acknowledged.
I agree too and it’s become even more difficult to get a variety of view points which increases the possibility of fact checking being done with the reliance on AP articles by some of the MSM. It makes our job as bloggers more difficult at times because it does increase the chance that we are going to post something, write an opinion on it and then discover it was wrong.
At least we are better than the MSM when it comes to issuing corrections.
Shalom Jill,
Apples and oranges.
Journalist report the most accurate information in which we have reasonable confidence at the moment of publication, broadcast or posting
The confidence factor is key, of course. We don’t report rumors or unsubstantiated allegations.
John McCain, or Barack Obama, didn’t act on information they received in a single day and they had no concern that someone else will pick their running mate if they didn’t do it first. They’re in complete control of the process.
Journalists are in competition and face daily — in the Internet world constant — deadlines. We risk our reputations every time we report. Get it wrong and people stop listening to you.
The 24/7 news cycle has altered the equation. Editors have to decide if a 75 percent, 90 percent or 99 percent confidence level is good enough in the moment.
Wait for 100 percent and we have dead air, blank pages and empty blogs.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[...] Kathleen Hall Jamieson on Bill Moyers: Press vetting too quickly too Posted in Comments, Election [...]
KHJ is a tired old pedantic quote machine who seems to live for being quoted yet again on her ivory tower analysis. It’s one thing when she makes banal observations, which is often. It’ worse when she just flat gets things wrong–as she does here, conflating deep, comprehensive reporting by the New York Times (which broke the story of the McCain campaign’s vetting of Palin with a half dozen veteran reporters) with some bit of foolishness tossed out by a CNN newsreader. Only a fool would go on Moyers and say something that ignorant. Someone who makes their living analyzing “the media” ought to be able to distiguish between serious and unserious media offerings.
Thanks for your distinction, John. It struck me too when I heard her - while we’re all susceptible to filtering based on our ideology, there does seem to be a vast difference between different source’s willingness to spin every fact and be selective in their use of information. Would she really compare Limbaugh and NPR in reliability? I ask that seriously - because her comment implies that she does.
I listen for what holds up under time. Democracy Now certainly has its populist view of the world - but generally speaking what they say hold up as situations unfold.
I like Kathleen because she helps me get out of my own mindset of all good being on one side and all bad being on the other - but the conflation and equivocation of sources concerns me.
The bridge to connect Ketchikan international airport on Gravina island to the city of Ketchikan. Not really a bridge to nowhere, it would have connected Alaska’s fourth most populated city to its airport. Palin was all for it all through the election and then changed position for what she said was popular public opposition to the project. Too expensive and they decided to look at improving ferry service instead. That was after she was elected and also after the state has already received the federal dollars. For her to say she fought the bridge is not truthful, not at all.
To call it a bridge to nowhere is misleading, was it the media that labeled it as a bridge to nowhere? They never really described the project, they said to connect to an island that only has fifty residents, they never said the island had the cities airport on it and runs ferry service every 30 minutes, every fifteen minutes during tourist season.
The southernmost city in Alaska, cruise ships and yes the airport is international, they came to the correct conclusion ferries are better for tourism, the bridge would have been huge and dominate the area.
Gravina island part of an archipelago, islands that are the tips of mountain ranges, is the island or does it have developable land?
http://www.city.ketchikan.ak.us/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island
http://dot.alaska.gov/stwdplng/projectinfo/ser/Gravina/images/alternative_11×17_v4.pdf
It’s not so much about how its more about content, detailed valid information.
Palin will struggle in Washington, she will be looking for consensus and practicality and find game players and good ole boys.
Can you imagine once McCain tells someone to f-off, in front of her, she will be like can I do that?