This Week:

Quote of the Week

10 Attacks. Or 25 Attacks. Or 40, 50, 100 Attacks. Or Whatever.

Reporting Lies I: Stenography Versus Journalism

Reporting Lies II: What’s a Journalist To Do?

Greetings,

No real room for an editor’s note this week. I’m sure I’ll have room for more folksy, entertaining comments in the next issue. So, uh... Happy Spring!

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

On March 12 the New York Times (All The News That's Fit To Print!) published a story headlined “Bush Picks Adviser to Repair Tarnished U.S. Image Abroad.”  The story focused on Bush's appointment of Karen P. Hughes as Propaganda Minister, which officially is known as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.  Ms. Hughes, who the Times says is “a tall, commanding presence who is known for putting a positive spin on the most dire events,” [!] is expected to oversee “a complete overhaul of American public relations efforts in the Muslim and Arab worlds.”  Hughes will have, administration officials say, “the extremely difficult job of selling the United States and its policies to the world after the anger over the American-led invasion of Iraq.”  (After?)

It's a big “public relations” problem, no doubt, which will require a lot of “selling.”  That's all amazing enough, but the elevated status of “Quote” of the Week must go to the final paragraph of the article, where reporter Elizabeth Bumiller finally, if indirectly, cuts to the chase:

“But some senior State Department officials say that the problem is American policy, not inadequate public relations,
and that no amount of marketing will change minds in the Muslim world about the war in Iraq or American support of Israel.”

10 Attacks.  Or 25 Attacks.  Or 40, 50, 100 Attacks.  Or Whatever.

Although it has, for the most part, retreated into the inside pages of the newspapers, the U.S. occupation of Iraq remains perhaps the most consistently-covered news story in the U.S. media.  Does that mean that the U.S. population is particularly well-informed on the subject?  Not necessarily.

In the New York Times of March 19th (and reprinted in my local paper, the Star Tribune) ran a story headlined “Insurgency Loses Ground, Top Marine in Iraq Says.” The Star Trib headline was more dramatic: “Marine General: Insurgency Fading.”  This caught my eye, as it had not been my impression that the so-called “insurgency” was fading, or losing ground, at all.

The second paragraph REALLY caught my eye, as it read like this: “The officer, Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, head of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said that insurgents were averaging about 10 attacks a day, and that fewer than two of those attacks killed or wounded American forces or damaged equipment.  That compared with 25 attacks a day, five of them with casualties or damage, in the weeks leading up to the pivotal battle of Falluja in November, he said.”

That's funny.  I had reported on the Times' coverage of attacks back in the weeks before what Sattler calls “the pivotal battle of Falluja,” and the number of attacks against U.S. forces at the time was variously reported at anywhere from 40 per day up to 100 per day, far more than the 25 that Sattler now states.  The Times itself reported 87 per day.

The article was based almost entirely on comments that General Sattler made “in a wide-ranging, 45-minute telephone interview from his headquarters.”  Since he is the top-ranking Marine in the country, I suppose it is worthwhile to listen to him.  But the Times article points out that “Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a tour of Iraq and other Persian Gulf states this week that the number of attacks throughout the country had fallen to 40 to 50 a day -- far fewer than in the weeks before the Jan. 30 elections but roughly the same number as a year ago.”  (So much for the insurgency losing ground...)

So, who are you going to believe: The “top Marine,” who says 25 attacks a day, or the head of the U.S. military, who says twice as many?  The Times and the Star Trib appear to choose the top marine, who says that the “insurgency [is] fading.”

It's important to report what Sattler says.  Even if he's not credible, he is powerful.  But, when judging whether the resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq is “losing ground” or not, what sorts of sources should be used?  When the media chooses to let their headlines be shaped by powerful sources, rather than credible ones, the only thing that we know for sure is losing ground is the public's knowledge.

Post-script:  As a little aside, let me point out some very sloppy journalism on the part of the local paper.  (Very sloppy, but quite common, in my experience.)

The subheadline for the Star Tribune version of this story – which was bylined “Eric Schmitt, New York Times” – was “In Baghdad, Shiites Demonstrated at Jordan's Embassy, Angered by Reports That a Suicide Bomber Who Killed 125 Was Jordanian.”  This subhead referenced the five paragraphs (out of nine) that had to do with this demonstration, true.  But none of these words were written by Schmitt.  In fact, they weren't from the Times at all.  The five mystery paragraphs actually came over the AP wire, in an article by reporter Rawya Rageh.  Nowhere did the Star Trib credit Rageh, nor hint that the article it ran was anything but a “New York Times” article.  If accountability is important, the most basic responsibility of a news organization is to identify who is writing the words they publish.  The Star Tribune did not do so.

Reporting Lies I: Stenography Versus Journalism

A stenographer simply records what someone says.  A journalist, on the other hand, is supposed to report not only what is said by powerful people, but what is not said.  Sometimes that's the real story.

This could be seen very clearly in the reporting on the federal budget proposed last month by George W. Bush.  The headlines in newspapers around the country pretty much mirrored that in the local paper: “Bush Seeks Deep Domestic Cuts; Social Programs Would Bear Brunt of Deficit Reduction.”

While it is true that the President's budget proposes steep cuts in many domestic programs, was that really the most important “angle” from which to view the story?  In the opinion of at least one paper – the Boston Globe – perhaps the most important news in the budget story was what was left out of the budget submitted by the President on February 7th.

The Boston Globe – alone among major U.S. newspapers – put the missing news on the front page, and here's the lead paragraph: “President Bush's budget proposal does not include some of his biggest spending and tax-cutting priorities, and includes no money for future expenses for the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.  If all costs were included, Bush would fall well short of his campaign pledge to cut the federal budget deficit in half within five years...”  The headline read: “Key Expenses Are Omitted, Analysts Say.”

The analysts include all sorts of people, among them the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, OMB Watch, and the budget-hawk group the Concord Coalition, whose director, Robert Bixby, commented on the deficit-reduction goal thusly:  “It's easier to achieve your goal if you leave stuff out.”  Stuff, that is, like the costs of Social Security reform, which, if Bush gets his way, look to be about 3/4 of a trillion dollars in the next five years.  Also left out is the little detail of proposed new tax cuts, which would cost $1.4 trillion over 10 years.

Bixby points out what all news reports should have highlighted, saying, “This isn't a realistic budget because of what it leaves out and what it ignores.”

The degree of manipulation and omission of information in this budget was so extreme that it led one commentator to call the President's budget proposal “astonishingly dishonest.”  And so it is.

When the press sees its job as nothing more than accurately recording dishonest statements by powerful people, no one should be surprised when polls show the public to be wildly misinformed on the issues of the day.  The solution to the problem?  Less stenography, and more journalism.

Reporting Lies II: What's a Journalist To Do?

At times, public officials say things that are not true, and reporters report those untrue statements.  If the reporter knows that the statement is not true, the reporter has a duty to convey that in some way.  But, how?  The New York Times of March 8th offers a textbook example of how to do it and how not to do it.

Public figures are bound to put a certain “spin” on issues of the day, especially hot ones like, at the moment, Social Security.  For those who favor a radical dismantling of the program, a popular target is the Social Security Trust Fund.  Privatization proponents like to say that there is no trust fund.  Here are two paragraphs of facts about the Social Security Trust Fund:

1.  Back in 1983, in anticipation of the coming retirement of the so-called “Baby Boom” generation, Social Security payroll taxes were raised high enough to not only pay for current benefits, but also to set aside some extra money for the day when the boomers begin to retire.  The result is the Trust Fund, which at the moment has about a trillion-and-a-half dollars in it.  That'll go up to over $3 trillion by 2016.  Since the whole point of the program is security, the decision was made to require the Social Security administration to keep the surplus in the most secure form possible, which is U.S. Treasury Bonds.

2.  As any investor knows, when you “buy” a bond, what you are doing is loaning money to the bond-seller.  And, by issuing the bond, the bond-seller agrees to pay you back, with interest, when the bond is due.  Since U.S. Treasury Bonds are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. Government, almost everybody in the world thinks that Treasury Bonds are the safest investment possible.  The only way there would be a problem with Treasury Bonds is if the U.S. Government were to default on it's debt, something it has never done.  Whatever problems the government may or may not have in paying back the bonds it has sold, that would be the fault of the federal government's fiscal policies, not the fault of Social Security.  Just like, if your employer goes out of business and you don't get paid, that is the employer's fault, not yours.

Now, despite the above facts, the President likes to say that there is no trust fund.  Another person who recently said it was Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa.  As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley will have a lot to say about whatever happens to Social Security.  The Times quoted him earlier this month as saying, “The trust fund is a mirage, but I still have Iowans say to me, ‘Where's the money?'”

Grassley knows very well where the money is, and so do you if you read the paragraphs above.  So, what did the Times reporter, David Rosenbaum, do with this false “mirage” statement by a powerful public official?  Well, the good news is that the first thing he said was this:

“But unlike a mirage, the trust fund does exist.  The details are on Page 1,112 of the appendix in the president's budget for the 2006 fiscal year.”  That's pretty good journalism.  The first option of a reporter when someone lies, on the record, is to point out that the statement is not true, citing the most credible source you can find. (We can debate about how credible the President's budget is, but that's another subject!)

Now, if Mr. Rosenbaum had left it at that, readers could have decided for themselves which explanation for Grassley's statement is more plausible: ONE: That Mr. Grassley doesn't know anything about the Trust Fund, or how bonds work, or about the Social Security law, or TWO: that Mr. Grassley is – and I don't use the word lightly – lying.

I guess the Times reporter didn't like the idea of readers choosing one of those two explanations, so he made up a third.  His very next sentence was this:

“What Mr. Grassley meant was that the significance of the trust fund is limited.”

Well, as I am fond of saying, reporters are not mindreaders (much as they might like to be), so Mr. Rosenbaum does not know what Mr. Grassley may have meant.

What Rosenbaum does know is what Grassley actually said, and he actually said that “The trust fund is a mirage.”  And when a public figure utters such an amazing falsehood to a reporter from a major newspaper, it's not the reporter's job to read his mind, or to make up excuses for him.  It's the reporter's job to report what people say and how it fits with the facts.  Journalism, after all, is journalism, and public relations is supposed to be something else entirely.