“It’s easier to correct what we call a ‘verifiable fact,’” Schafer said, “but if you play with something more ambiguous like death panels it’s just a great way for skilled political communicators to take a position that can’t necessarily be refuted because it has no definition.”
These factors played a role in overriding the attempts to debunk death panels. The more you wrote about how death panels were false or misleading, the more people kept hearing about, picturing, and thinking about death panels. It unleashed a vicious cycle.
Media reports, regardless of their content, can sometimes work to reinforce a falsehood.
We in the press, the people who are supposed to apply verification and be rigorous with what we publish and broadcast, can actually work against the process of correcting and informing people. We amplify falsehoods even as we work to combat them.
One prescription for handling this kind of situation is, as one researcher quoted in the paper said, to “create negative publicity for the elites who are promoting misinformation, increasing the costs for making false claims in the public sphere.”
Meaning: ignore people like Palin when they talk about death panels. But of course ignoring something because it is false is making a judgement, which some journalists seem loathe to do. If the mainstream press did choose to ignore stories like this, it would just enable supporters to claim it’s something the “media elites” don’t want people to know about.
Schafer raised another problem with this advice.
“There is a practical question of: What political journalist in August of 2009 isn’t going to cover the death panel claim just because they already debunked it?” he said. “It’s tough to say to a journalist, ‘If you’re really trying to serve the public best, then don’t cover this anymore.’ It’s like telling them to sit out the big game.”
Taken together, all of these factors have led me to end up in a rather conflicted and frustrated situation. The challenges are clear and well documented.
The solutions, however, are not.
Correction of the Week
“An article on Thursday about technology investments by the actor Ashton Kutcher misspelled in some copies the name of a fashion Web site in his portfolio. It is Fashism, not Fascisms.” - The New York Times
Random accusations can be almost impossible to disprove. The news media should acquaint the public with the concept of BURDEN OF PROOF.
#1 Posted by Dave Packard, CJR on Sat 28 May 2011 at 12:56 PM
A good example of *why* the media is so ineffective is your colleague Ryan Chittum's Piece on the Elizabeth Warren Smear. The conventions of mainstream journalism has become a straitjacket, rendering most journos incapable and unwilling to write a normal, straightforward description of a given event.
1) Most political journos are profoundly cynical about politics and policy and government. They actually don't care if they get facts wrong. They are indifferent to the truth of what they write. You can write to them with uncontestable data -- quotes, video, tables, graphs -- that they have gotten something wrong, and they are completely indifferent, defending what they wrote all the way up the line. Their editors and their ombudsmen back them up as well. They will only update or correct if someone prominent embarrassingly calls them out. There should be some kind of rotation process that cycles these hacks out into the real world occasionally, for a new perspective on their job.
2) Journos and their editors are terrified that some rightwinger is going to accuse them of "liberal bias." Yes, this is the Twenty-First Century, and mainstream journos still cringe and hide under their desk the minute some rightwing dipstick cries "Liberal!". You see what has happened to Bill Adair of Politifact, who started out as a fair arbiter but has been beaten down by the conservative machine, rendering his work worthless as a factchecker.
3) No journo wants to be "part of the story" and with the powerful rightwing echo chamber, a straightforward description of events is likely to put the reporter in an uncomfortable spotlight, the right setting their thugs to writing and calling and twittering and stalking the hapless reporter. It's easier for a deadline-challenged journo to use the bland, formulaic he-said/she-said. Quoting both sides is good enough.
4) It is an easier ride, and more beneficial professionally and socially, to go along with the conservative message machine. So most of the political journos in Washington are little more than stenographers, carrying water for the GOP. They advance in their career a lot faster this way.
5) A lot of beltway journos are personally invested in the conservative network -- they count conservative operatives as their peers and friends and bar buddies and they are attracted to their GOP Daddies. The young Jake "Fast Break" Sherman of Politico, for example, has been adopted by Daryl Issa, his GOP daddy, who Sherman feeds information that might be useful. Sherman goes so far as to suggest avenues of inquiry to Issa and his staff.
Not even peer criticism, I think, can overcome this bad state of affairs. What's the solution?
#2 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 31 May 2011 at 09:23 AM
We need to add "Bush Lied!" to list of falsehoods promoted by the media, don't we?
As for "death panels", the key lies in the definition... If by "death panel" one means "execution squad", then there are indeed no such agencies created in ObamaCare... However, if one means instead "agencies that ration services to patients", then the matter is hardly closed.
The most egregious of these regulations - the "end of life" counseling mandate for Medicare patients - was only removed by the Obama administration last January.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/health/policy/05health.html?_r=1&ref=us
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 31 May 2011 at 11:08 AM
Rev. Camping has used his rapture schtick to gather up his flock's worldy assets. He quite literally has a lot invested in his scheme, and so cannot be expected to, erm, repent. The "death panel" scam is similar. Guys like Padster will defend to the death any right-wing trope, 'cause that's where the money's at. Even if he isn't a paid troll, doing what he does here opens up many more career opportunities than, say, learning new things and reporting them would.
So a lot of folks still think Saddam Hussein was in on that 9-11 unpleasantness, and that Iraq had nukes, just like President Cheney repeatedly suggested via Mr. Bush. They think Fannie and Freddie crashed the economy and that half of all Americans pay NO TAXES. People who know better will not be able to convince their fellow citizens otherwise until truth grows some muscle and develops a modern media strategy. That takes money, and there's no percentage in it.
#4 Posted by Edward Ericson Jr., CJR on Tue 31 May 2011 at 08:40 PM
To correct a padikiller mistatement: the "end of life" counseling mandate for Medicare patients was not a mandate at all; it simply provided reimbursement to doctors should they and their patients choose to have this discussion. Hardly egregious, by any definition of the term.
#5 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Wed 1 Jun 2011 at 01:18 PM
Correcting the Minister of Paditude's misstatements would be a full time job, if anyone had the time & could get paid for it. Makes one wonder what the Padster's full time job (correction: "small business") really is, doesn't it?
#6 Posted by edward ericsond jr., CJR on Wed 1 Jun 2011 at 05:32 PM
The "mandate" was in the proposed payment for "end of life counseling" - taxpayers on the hook for this crap - I did not mean to write that the counseling itself was mandatory. But the issue is moot, for the time being at least, since Obama flip-flopped yet again on the issue.
Not so with the "Independent Payment Advisory Board".. This actual ObamaCare "death panel" will give an unelected board of political appointees the power to determine what Medicare will and will not pay for... Thus, although the IPAB is prohibited in theory from rationing healthcare, in reality, it has the authority and practical mandate to do so.
#7 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 1 Jun 2011 at 07:39 PM
Edward said: "Correcting the Minister of Paditude's misstatements would be a full time job"
Agreed, but sometimes I just can't resist.
#8 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 09:26 AM