politics – Page 5 – Media Matters

September 24, 2017

Televised Sports and Politics

I’m sure you’ve seen and heard the noise in recent weeks around the topic of politics and sports. From ESPN sportscaster Jemele Hill’s critique of President Trump to the #TakeAKnee protest this past Sunday, sports and politics appear to be on a collision course. LeBron James and Steph Curry have traded tweets with President Trump regarding the Warrior’s invite to the Whitehouse.

I don’t know about you, but my social media feed is overflowing with opinions as NFL players responded today to President Trump’s comments a few days ago calling out players who have protested racism during the playing of the National Anthem.

Thankfully this is a media blog and not a political blog…so I’ll do my best to limit my comments to the issues related to the mass media industries and free speech and expression protected by the First Amendment.

Televised sports has largely been a place where fans have gone to escape politically charged issues. With a highly integrated roster, pro sports teams have actually been able to avoid much of the racially divisive issues that have troubled other sectors of society. There have been notable exceptions of course: the Black Power protest at the 1968 Olympic games, Muhammad Ali’s protest of the Vietnam War, and others.

Even though we have been experiencing a highly polarized political climate of late, TV programmers (with the exception of Sunday morning political talk shows, cable news networks, and late night comics) typically avoid political debates. When advertising revenue is your bottom line, political issues are dangerous because they risk alienating large segments of viewers who turn on their TVs to be entertained, not excoriated.

To be clear, professional athletes, like all Americans, have a First Amendment right to express their political concerns. But the First Amendment does not apply to non-governmental entities. So while the government can do nothing to penalize these protests and protestors, team owners can legally enact policies that restrict players’ rights to express themselves while representing the team. That’s how MLB owners can restrict visible tattoos that contain brands, the NBA can fine Kobe Bryant for an anti-gay slur, and any team can discipline a player for his/her private use of social media. In an interesting twist, college athletes playing for a state-school are legally much more protected for their personal use of social media since the university is an agent of the state which is an extension of government. (see more here)

P.S. No matter what you’re political opinions, you might have strong feelings about the Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty against Von Miller in Sunday’s game against the Bills! 🙂

August 14, 2017August 14, 2017

The “many sides” of the Moral Equivalence Fallacy

When engaging in political debates it is quite common these days for one side to attempt to shut down an argument by arguing that the opposing view is creating a moral equivalence when one does not exist. It goes something like this: X is terrible, but Y is also terrible. So for you to support Y while criticizing X makes you a hypocrite and your critique of X invalid.

Need a practical example? The founder of PETA is well known for her statement shown below. Taken to it’s logical conclusion, a rat deserves just as much protection as a human child because they are morally equivalent.

Now consider a recent example. The widely-reported violence in Charlottesville this past weekend resulted when protestors and anti-protestors clashed in the streets. This was followed by President Trump saying,

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides.”

The phrase, “on many sides” drew harsh criticism for implying that the “hatred, bigotry and violence” was not limited to those protesting the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue. While extremists on the right (e.g. white supremacists) were met by extremists on the left (e.g. antifa), few would argue that there is a moral equivalence to their motives and tactics.

Here’s another example. The recent escalation of rhetoric between President Trump and North Korea led some reporters and pundits to criticize both Trump and Kim for heightening the risk of conflict. While both leaders’ statements have tended towards the bombastic, to suggest that North Korea and the USA are contributing equally to the rising tension in the region is making a false moral equivalence.

So what does this have to do with mass media? Journalists and reporters need to be constantly vigilant for faulty logic and tortured arguments made by newsmakers. To simply accept these comparisons without pushing back, or to introduce your own moral equivalences into a story, is a rookie mistake that can be avoided once you understand the logical fallacy called moral equivalence.

August 11, 2017August 12, 2017

Hacking, Leaking, and Weaponized Data

The press, and by that term I mean the media industries devoted to journalistic enterprise, love a good leak. Inside information not intended for public consumption that suddenly appears in a package tied with a pretty bow is a gift of great value and consequence.

Leakers come in every form imaginable, and do so for a wide variety of reasons: true whistleblowers looking out for some greater good, disgruntled employees who don’t like what they see happening behind closed doors, an injured party to a dastardly deed, or hackers looking to profit from rich corporations (e.g., the hack of HBO and threat to leak spoilers for upcoming episodes of Game of Thrones)…all find reasons to go the the press with their inside scoop.

It strikes at every level of nearly every organization or power structure. It is one of the power levelers—a way for those near the bottom to inflict damage on those near the top. Presidents, CEOs, celebrities, and clergy…all are susceptible to a well-timed leak.

Sometimes the leaker is passing along information that they came by honestly, and other times it may involve a breach of security protocol or even illegal hacking.

Recent leaks have been widely reported, including: the DNC emails hacked (or were they?) and released to Wikileaks last year, transcripts of President Trump’s phone calls to heads of state, Jared Kushner’s off-the-record meeting with congressional interns (see Wired magazine), FBI director Comey’s anonymous leak to the press, and the leak of an internal memo at Google that ignited a firestorm of controversy over sex discrimination in the tech industry (see more here and here). The last example also raised questions about when and where it is safe to speak out when speaking out may be controversial and politically incorrect.

In all of these cases the leakers were only part of the equation. The leakers need the assistance of a willing journalist and a willing publisher to distribute the information to the public. Journalistic history is filled with stories about investigative reports that broke because of leakers; perhaps the most infamous being Deep Throat of Watergate fame. But these symbiotic relationships are risky when the motives of leakers are unclear. Leakers may be seeking revenge, or may even leak information in an attempt to promote their own agenda. Sometimes those in positions of power use leaks through intermediaries in order to advance their own version of events. Without corroborating evidence, a leak is simply a rumor…or worse.

The legality of leaking to the press is complicated. Prosecution of illegal leaks that compromise national security is rare but does happen, e.g. Chelsey Manning’s conviction and sentence, which was later pardoned by President Obama. But more often than not the leaker and the news organization escape punishment. This inclination to protect journalists, and their sources, is part of our First Amendment tradition.

For more information about leaks and the media, see this page at the Newseum and listen to this podcast at On The Media.

August 3, 2017

Did They Really Say That?!

Soundbites have a way of coming back to bite us. Whether we’re a politician, celebrity, or just an average person, we sometimes wish we could take back something that slipped out in an unguarded moment. For those in the public spotlight, these “hot mic” moments have lasting repercussions. An errant comment caught on tape can have disastrous consequences.

For a top 10 list of “hot mic” moments, see Time magazine.

But new technology may make these moments seem, well, so 2010. Adobe is developing, and may soon release to the public, software that will bring the manipulative potential of Photoshop to the world of audio editing. We’ve grown accustom to questioning “Photoshopped” images, but now we’re going to have to question every soundbite as well. This applies to news-makers as well as consumers. When confronted with accusations about an inflammatory statement, public figures will now be able to cast doubt on any recorded evidence that casts them in a negative light. “You must have misunderstood me. I never said that, and here’s an audio soundbite” (that my staff just edited) “to prove that I never said it!”

The folks at RadioLab recently recorded an episode in which they explored the ethical implications of technology that allows not only for audio files to be manipulated, but video files as well. Combining the potential of audio editing with new video morphing software allows technicians to, literally, put words in the mouth of a target of interest. Here’s a video that demonstrates this new technology.

And here’s another demonstration video.

For those concerned about the future of news and the potential for manipulation of documentary evidence, this is a very frightening development.

July 24, 2017July 27, 2017

White House Public Relations

The Presidency of the United States is probably the most important job in the country. And the person who represents the President to the press, and to the public, is the press secretary—likely the most important (and most difficult) public relations job in the country.

Last weekend’s shakeup in the White House resulted in the resignation of Sean Spicer as press secretary, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders taking his place. This is not a job for the faint of heart. While Spicer, who was the butt of numerous SNL jokes, had a brief tenure, five previous press secretaries served even shorter terms.

As only the third woman to fill the role, Sarah Sanders faces a challenging job as the primary spokesperson for this highly controversial, and some would argue highly undisciplined, administration. The first female press secretary was Dee Dee Myers who served under President William J. Clinton. The second female press secretary was Dana Perino, who served out the final years of the presidency of George W. Bush after the sudden death of Tony Snow. Perino’s stint as the President’s spokesperson is of particular interest because she is a 1993 graduate of the mass communications department at CSU-Pueblo (University of Southern Colorado at the time). Now a TV commentator for Fox News, Dana Perino is arguably the most successful graduate of our department.

Public Relations departments and PR practitioners can be found at every level of the job market and in every kind of industry. Private sector businesses, non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies all need professional communicators who understand the power and influence of the media. The field needs people who are effectively in both spoken and written communications, people who know how to function at every level of communication from face-to-face to mass media, and who can do so with the ethical and moral judgement necessary to wield the power of influence for good.

The mass communications department at CSU-Pueblo (formerly USC) is proud of all of our graduates who perform ably in their professions. Some serve faithfully for years in jobs that never gain public recognition, while others, like Dana Perino, experience the scorching heat (and the recognition) that comes from standing in the brightest of spotlights.

Advice from Perino to Sanders

April 26, 2017

The News Media Bubble

Politico, a left-leaning web magazine, just published an essay about the bubble in which journalists live. According to the authors the bubble is not just geographic, but also ideological. According to Politico, the media bubble served to insulate journalists from the people and issues that ultimately led to the election of Donald Trump. For most journalists it was not an issue of whether Hillary Clinton would win, but by how great a margin. Was it perhaps because they didn’t understand what was happening across the country? According to Politico,

Nearly 90 percent of all internet publishing employees work in a county where Clinton won, and 75 percent of them work in a county that she won by more than 30 percentage points.

Another essay, this one by pollster and statistician Nate Silver, (the golden boy of recent electoral race coverage), makes the argument that the national media were the victims of group think leading up to the 2016 Presidential election. Silver’s essay spends some time reviewing a premise introduced by James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki’s thesis is that networking theory, applied to information flow, can yield superior results given certain conditions. Whether the crowd is professional journalists or citizen journalists, the idea is that collective wisdom is superior to the wisdom of any one member of the group. That is fine if the conditions are met. If not, group-think, an idea popularized in the 1970s by Irving Janis, leads to poor judgement and low-quality decision-making. According to Janis,

the more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making ingroup, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups. (https://web.archive.org/web/20100401033524/http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/faculty/macdonald/GroupThink.pdf)

Both articles point to a serious problem for national media coverage of politics. More than ever, national journalists are more highly educated, more liberal, less religious, richer, younger, more urban, and much more likely to live in communities with like-minded neighbors. The liberal, coastal, elite journalist is becoming the norm when it comes to national media coverage, and that is a problem for the future of the industry. Some have argued that this trend has led to an erosion of trust and created a credibility vacuum where fake news and lies can thrive.

This was not always the case. Journalists have not always been so out of touch with the audience that they serve. The failure of local and regional newspapers is a significant contributing factor. According to Politico, labor statistics are a clear indication of the trend.

In late 2015, during Barack Obama’s second term, these two trend lines—jobs in newspapers, and jobs in internet publishing—finally crossed. For the first time, the number of workers in internet publishing exceeded the number of their newspaper brethren. Internet publishers are now adding workers at nearly twice the rate newspaper publishers are losing them.

As news shifts from local newspapers and local reporters who reflected their communities’ values, to national news organizations located in major metropolitan centers on the coasts, it has becoming increasingly likely that the news that we’re consuming on social media and television is out of touch with mainstream values and main street sensibilities.

Another theory that may be useful to understand what is happening is Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence theory. According to this theory, unpopular ideas are pushed to the margins, where they slowly lose favor and spiral downward to eventual silence. We’re fine with this if it’s a bad idea, one that does not deserve to be sustained. But what about when an unpopular idea is silenced because those in authority don’t want to give it a hearing? What about unpopular ideas that are banished to the margins because groupthink has created a hostile climate for those kinds of ideas? What if the lack of ideological diversity in our newsrooms creates an echo chamber that drowns out dissenting voices?

Conservatives have consistently accused the national media of having a liberal bias, and that appears to be supported by these essays. But I’ll close with this quote from the Politico article…

Resist—if you can—the conservative reflex to absorb this data and conclude that the media deliberately twists the news in favor of Democrats. Instead, take it the way a social scientist would take it: The people who report, edit, produce and publish news can’t help being affected—deeply affected—by the environment around them. Former New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent got at this when he analyzed the decidedly liberal bent of his newspaper’s staff in a 2004 column that rewards rereading today. The “heart, mind, and habits” of the Times, he wrote, cannot be divorced from the ethos of the cosmopolitan city where it is produced. On such subjects as abortion, gay rights, gun control and environmental regulation, the Times’ news reporting is a pretty good reflection of its region’s dominant predisposition. And yes, a Times-ian ethos flourishes in all of internet publishing’s major cities—Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington. The Times thinks of itself as a centrist national newspaper, but it’s more accurate to say its politics are perfectly centered on the slices of America that look and think the most like Manhattan.

Something akin to the Times ethos thrives in most major national newsrooms found on the Clinton coasts—CNN, CBS, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico and the rest. Their reporters, an admirable lot, can parachute into Appalachia or the rural Midwest on a monthly basis and still not shake their provincial sensibilities: Reporters tote their bubbles with them.

February 19, 2017

Picking a Fight

President Trump crossed a line and ruffled a lot of feathers the other day with a tweet that called “the FAKE NEWS media” … the “enemy of the American people.” Admittedly, President Trump and journalists are both suffering a crisis of credibility. According to a recent poll of registered voters, it is a statistical tie when it comes to who they trust to tell the truth (45% to 42%, +/- 3%).

But as we consider who’s winning this war of attrition, let’s be clear about two thing; 1) the press plays an important and essential role in our democratic process as a check and balance on power (see earlier blog posts here and here). And 2) Presidents throughout history have had adversarial relationships with the press. Nearly every US President has a quote (or two or three) that captures their frustration with the folks whose job is to hold them accountable.

This should come as no surprise. Any administration trying to advance its agenda will be annoyed when journalists challenge their assumptions, ask difficult questions, and hold their feet to the fire. In response Presidents have deployed various tactics to take their message directly to the people…bypassing the traditional media whenever possible. FDR had his fireside chats, Trump has his Twitter account, and every president has used the bully pulpit, e.g., the State of the Union address, to speak directly to the American public. (Regarding press conferences there’s even discussion about which news outlets are called on and whether the President is taking or not taking questions from certain media organizations based on their ideological leaning.)

On a related note, leaks of classified information about the President and his staff by members of the intelligence community (aka the “deep state”) have raised questions about anonymous sources and journalistic ethics. The NSA, CIA, FBI and the DHS have staff who appear to be willing to share inside information with members of the press when they uncover either illegal or unethical behavior that could put the nation at risk. The challenge for the press is to ensure that their inside sources are not selectively leaking information to further other, less noble, goals.

Back to the point of this post. Early on in his campaign President Trump decided to pick fights with the Washington establishment, with the intelligence community, and with the press. All three can do this administration great harm if and when they decide to punch back. But it may be the press who wield the strongest blow. In the words of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.”

#NotTheEnemy

January 27, 2017

Alternative Facts and Rogue Tweets from Alt Federal Agencies

Journalists have their work cut out for them. With public faith in journalistic credibility at an all-time low and a combative White House that uses social media to circumvent traditional news channels, journalists are facing new challenges that have the potential to either make or break the industry.

A democracy depends on an information electorate, and information, for most of our recent history, has been the responsibility of a free and fair press. Newspapers, magazines, television networks, and internet websites have been the backbone of the journalistic enterprise in recent decades. Investigating and exposing corruption, reporting without bias, holding those in power to account…these are the responsibilities of a profession that is recognized and protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. But more and more news consumers are turning to alternative sources of information, including social media and internet websites that frequently traffic in a different type of information.

Not all information is created equal and it is becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain the value and credibility of the barrage of information that vies for our attention. Take for example the estimates of the size of the crowd attending the Presidential Inauguration. Competing claims, some with photographic evidence, were made by partisan sources and reported by journalists…facts and “alternative facts” if you will.

On Facebook the other day I followed a link to a report of a catastrophic pipeline rupture. A photograph was presented as evidence, calling into question the safety of the Dakota Access pipeline. But the article falsely represented a photo from 2010 (taken in Texas) as a current photo from a Pennsylvania spill by the company connected to the Dakota Access project. Regardless of whether you support or object to a pipeline near this Native American community, this is not journalism.

You may have seen the eruption on Twitter from various “alternative” governmental organizations after President Trump ordered a suspension of the official social media accounts. While these rogue accounts may be just that…actions of government employees acting on their own initiative on their own time…it is also possible that they are simply fake accounts created by partisans who are participating in a grass-roots resistance to the new administration.

As such they are newsworthy, but not for the same reason they would be if indeed they are actually the work of federal employees. According to one blog,

For now, at least, most of these unverified accounts seem to be pushing positive agendas: the climate change facts that many of them tweet are unequivocal, and the planned march of scientists on Washington promises to raise legitimate concerns about scientific progress in the United States. But a dejected left-wing and liberal group should remember that these accounts are emotionally gratifying, not edifying. Embracing such gratification without critical analysis veers close to the Trump administration’s embracing of “alternative facts” — lies that suit the narrative you’d prefer.

Disclaimer: the above quote is from The Verge, a website that has a mixed record as a credible source of news/information.

January 12, 2017

Time for a New Theory of the Press?

Four Theories of the Press, published in 1956, was an attempt to explain the role of journalism in the modern world. Each of the four theories are established on the essential values and norms held by governments and citizens who consider the press an essential component of governance. Values that we hold dear are “normalized” by our policies and behavior. Governments, media corporations, and individuals all play a crucial role in determining which values are advanced over competing values.

Recently I came across a blog post from February, 2007 and a comment that I wrote in response. The blog is no longer being maintained, but my comment seems somehow relevant in lights of the current issues plaguing the profession of journalism. Here is the comment as posted nearly 10 years ago…

Press models have never been very good at describing the real world…and even less so now that access to vast quantities of raw, unfiltered information is the norm. Never in the history of communication has there been such unrestricted access to information…and access to the means of production. However, as we all know, information alone does not make for an informed public.

However, there are signs that the investigative reporting role of traditional media is in for a dramatic upheaval. Memogate was just one example of how the collective intelligence of the masses trumped big media. The Consumer-Generated Media model that makes Wikipedia a qualified success is being applied to a particular role played by journalists commonly known as whistle-blowing. Wikileaks.org is a website designed to give a voice to dissidents and critics of oppressive regimes…but may also be equally helpful at exposing corruption within democracies and Fortune 500 companies. One of the most important roles of the press in the Social Responsibility Model is that of watchdog…and now they have the potential to add hundreds and even thousands of eyes and ears of citizen reporters who already have access to closed systems. Sure there are a host of potential landmines…but if you believe that “information wants to be free” you have to believe that this is going to shake things up. This could get interesting.

I think we can agree that things have gotten interesting.

While watching President-elect Trump’s press conference yesterday I couldn’t help but think that the role of the press has never been more in question, and at the same time it has never been more important. In front of a room full of journalists, Trump declared CNN to be “fake news” and BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage.” Just two days earlier Meryl Streep called for public support for the “principled press” to serve as a check and balance to the Trump presidency.*

Journalists are not only trying to figure out how to respond to an aggressive and combative President-elect, they are trying to rebuild credibility that is at an all-time low. At the same time they are divided about whether BuzzFeed’s publishing of the Trump oppo-research file helped or hurt the cause of journalists everywhere. One might argue that if you accept BuzzFeed’s rational for their decision it makes journalists unnecessary.

Which takes us back to the point of the blog comment above…the growth of citizen journalism, the explosion of social media, and an ever-more partisan press have created a perfect storm that makes the Social Responsibility function of the press much more difficult…if not impossible.

*For the record, I support the “principled press”…the challenge is figuring out who they are.