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The job of a reporter is to report what they see and hear.
Correct? How about if they can read the minds of public officials? Should
they report what they see there? I'm joking, of course, but it is not
at all uncommon for reporters to "report" things that they
could only know if they were reading minds. And, when you see such "reporting,"
you should be aware that you are reading propaganda or, as it is commonly
called these days, "spin."
There are many examples to be found, from the simple and obvious to
the more subtle. This issue of Nygaard Notes takes a look at four examples
of mind-reading and related supernatural powers of elite journalists,
all from recent months.
Example #1: "Aiming To" Do... something.
Inside Cheney's Head
In the Washington Post of July 20, on page 6, this headline appeared:
"Cheney Urges Cap on Malpractice Awards; Proposal Aims to Improve
Health Care." Note the phrase "aims to." How does the
reporter - Ceci Connolly, in this case - know what the proposal "aims
to" do? She can know what the proposal says. And she can ask knowledgeable
sources to predict what it WILL do, or is LIKELY to do. But, as for
what it "aims to" do, that is known only to the person proposing
it, and perhaps to those supporting it.
To understand the difference between observation and speculation, let
me suggest a radical idea: sometimes the true "aims" of a
political leader are different than the stated "aims."
In the current case, for example, here's the opening paragraph: "Vice
President Cheney, with a swipe at his Democratic trial-lawyer counterpart,
yesterday blamed rising health care costs on 'runaway litigation' and
promoted a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice awards as the central
tenet of the White House program to improve access, affordability and
quality of care." Then we hear from other Republicans who support
the bill, who agree - surprise! - that lawsuit abuse is the root of
the crisis in medical care in this country.
The reader had to go down to paragraph 10 to read a different opinion,
which comes from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office: "An
analysis by the CBO said the malpractice bill would benefit physicians
and the government but would reduce private health insurance premiums
a scant 0.4 percent."
It's not until the end of the article that we read this comment from
Martin J. Hatlie, "president of the Chicago-based Partnership for
Patient Safety, which advises hospitals on safety improvements:"
"The solution that organized medicine and the White House are supporting
is a fix for the doctors to some degree. It helps keep their premiums
down. It does nothing to advance the quality of care, nothing to advance
the safety of care, nothing to more fairly compensate claimants or address
the other really significant problems in the current medical-legal system."
So, does the reporter actually know what the Bush proposal to limit
medical malpractice suits "aims to" do? No, she only knows
what Bush and his supporters say their "aim" is. Those are
two different things, and a good reporter would not get them confused.
Example #2: "Meant To" Do... something.
Inside Republican Heads
On October 13th New York Times (All The News That's Fit To Print!)
ran a long article on the front page of the business section headlined
"Bush Health Savings Accounts Slow to Gain Acceptance." Health
Savings Accounts, or HSAs, for those who do not know, are tax-free savings
accounts that people can draw from to pay for out-of-pocket medical
bills. If you don't spend your tax-shielded money on health care, eventually
you will be allowed to spend it on pretty much anything you want. It's
a tax shelter, in other words. As proposed by George W, families can
set aside up to $5,150 per year in these accounts. The Bush Treasury
Department says that HSA's are "intended to improve access by making
health insurance more affordable, particularly for those with very low
incomes."
The Times article elaborates on this official motivation for the proposal.
The fourth paragraph states, "The [HSA] plans...are meant to provide
basic, high-deductible insurance while letting people accumulate money
tax-free to be spent on medical services or saved to pay for future
health care needs." Also note the 19th paragraph, which tells us
that "The health savings accounts are meant to help reduce wasteful
spending by involving consumers more directly in weighing the costs
of alternative types of care."
So, that's what these accounts are "meant to" do, eh? How
would one know this, unless one was a mind-reader? What we do know is
what the Bush administration says is motivating the proposal. But let's
think about this for a minute.
The official poverty level for a family of three in the United States
is currently $15,670. Let's imagine a family of three living just above
that level, so they are not officially "poor." Let's say they
make $16,000 per year. OK: The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment
in Minnesota is about $9,400 per year (over $13,000/year in California).
Add $165/month for utilities (really bare bones!), and that's another
$2,000 per year. If the family could manage to eat for $3.00 per day
each, that would add up to $3,300 per year. We're up to just about $15,000
now, and I haven't said anything about transportation, or non-health
insurance (fire, theft...). Nor have I mentioned recreation, like the
occasional movie, or baseball game. Meanwhile, the Kaiser Family Foundation
reports that "In 2004, [health insurance] premiums reached an average
of $9,950 annually for family coverage."
It must be comforting, indeed, for the "very low income"
family described here ($16,000 per year, by the way, is about 50 percent
higher than the current, full-time minimum wage) to know that the Bush
plan will allow them to "accumulate money tax-free" to buy
health insurance. There's some "access" for you! And aren't
we all grateful that such families will be encouraged to "reduce"
their "wasteful spending" on health care?
To their credit, the Times balanced out their mind-reading in this
case with a quotation from Princeton University economist and health
policy expert Uwe E. Reinhardt. In the very last paragraph of
the article, we read that Mr. Reinhardt "said that the new plans
were 'a bum deal' for people with chronic illnesses. But 'for chronically
healthy people,' he said, 'it's another 401(k) savings account, and
Wall Street is licking its chops at the prospect of managing the money.'"
That's a good quotation. But by stating earlier in the article that
the HSA plan is "meant to" provide access to insurance and
is "meant to help reduce wasteful spending," the reporter
implies that any other outcomes will be unfortunate errors, rather than
the predictable and/or intended results of uncaring policy. That's some
serious "spin."
Example #3: "Intended To" Do... something.
Inside Bush's Head
On September 3 the NY Times reported on the speech President Bush made
in accepting his nomination by the Republican Party to run for a second
term. The Times reported that "Under the rubric of an 'ownership
society' intended to promote individual power and responsibility as
well as to give people more of a direct financial stake in the economy,
he also made a case for tax incentives to help people save for health
insurance costs and for efforts by government to encourage homeownership."
More mind-reading there. Did you catch it? The reporters claim to know
what the "ownership society" is "intended to promote."
What they actually know, and should report, is that some people say
that this "ownership society" (whatever that may be) is "intended
to" do what Bush said, and some other people say that this "ownership
society" is code for an all-out attack on the last vestiges of
the New Deal of the 1930s.
I, myself, think this "ownership society" thing goes beyond
that to an attack on the reforms made during the Progressive Era, which
came before the New Deal (we're talking here about the 1890s into the
1920s). The legal and political reforms of the Progressive Era were,
in part, a response to the outrages committed by the notorious "robber
barons" of the time. I suspect that the aims of those promoting
what they call the "ownership society" are motivated in large
part by a desire to restore some of the lost privileges that they believe
should accrue to our modern-day robber barons. (One of the key reforms
enacted during the Progressive Era, for instance, was the income tax.
See what I mean? I'll have more on the "ownership society"
and the income tax, and related ideas, in a future Nygaard Notes.)
Example #4: "In The Interest Of... something.
Inside Anonymous Heads, and Down the Memory Hole
Sometimes what appears to be mind-reading is not really that at all,
but is something far worse, as in this example.
On July 13 the NY Times headlined a 1000-word report "Doubts on
Informant Deleted in Senate Text." The news report told the tale
of certain deletions that had been made from "a year-long, bipartisan
Senate investigation" of intelligence lapses leading up to the
war in Iraq. The report noted that "About one-fifth of the 511-page
report still has not been made public, despite objections from both
Republican and Democratic senators. As in the case of the Iraqi defector,
the deletions were the result of objections raised by American intelligence
agencies in the interest of protecting sources and methods...according
to American government officials who have read the classified version
of the Senate committee's report."
There you go: "in the interest of reporting sources and methods,"
reporter Douglas Jehl says. That's a defensible reason to keep something
secret, isn't it? But wouldn't reporter Jehl have to be a mind-reader
in order to know the reasons motivating those mysterious "American
government officials" who made the deletions? Otherwise, how would
he know the noble "interests" that prompted the deletion of
20 percent of a report of such major national interest? I thought this
was an example of mind-reading, until I remembered another article,
from the same paper, that ran three days earlier, on July 10.
That article, part of a whole section about the Intelligence Committee
report, was headlined "C.I.A. Deleted Large Sections, Officials
Say." In it, a different reporter - Neil A. Lewis - tells us that
"The deletions have renewed a debate about whether Central Intelligence
Agency officials were trying to suppress certain information to avoid
embarrassment." Hmm... a debate about the motivation for deleting
huge segments of a public document, you say? Someone is debating whether
the deletions were made "to avoid embarrassment" or "in
the interest of protecting sources and methods?" That sounds like
an important debate. But within three days it had disappeared from the
Newspaper of Record, leaving only the one version remaining and consigning
the important "debate" on the subject to the dustbin of history.
Where's a mind-reader when you need one?!
A good reporter will distinguish between observations of verifiable
facts and blind acceptance of the self-serving public relations of public
figures. But not all reporters are good ones, so when you see or hear
phrases like "aims to" and "intends to" and "are
meant to," or when you see or hear that some public agency is doing
something "in the interest of" something, pause for a moment.
Take a moment to ask yourself some questions, like, "Who says?"
and "How do I know what they really 'aim' to do?" and "Are
there other opinions on the nature of their true intentions?" If
the reporter didn't balance out their stenography of the official line
with some answers to questions like these, then it might be worth your
while to tune in to some other media.
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