tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/us-journalism-19304/articlesUS journalism – The Conversation2024-01-30T13:33:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178952024-01-30T13:33:53Z2024-01-30T13:33:53ZFor 150 years, Black journalists have known what Confederate monuments really stood for<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571511/original/file-20240125-21-3a2puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=494%2C187%2C2976%2C2596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Confederate leaders Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis are depicted in this carving on Stone Mountain, Ga. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-confederate-generals-carved-into-stone-mountain-in-news-photo/3094974?adppopup=true">MPI/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In October 2023, nearly seven years after the deadly <a href="https://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/">Unite the Right</a> white supremacist rally, the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2023/civil-war-monument-melting-robert-e-lee-confederate/">melted down</a>. Since then, two more major Confederate monuments have been removed: the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/arlington-cemetery-confederate-monument/676965/">Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery</a> and the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/confederate-monuments-jacksonville-florida-eb85c70216603e180db5df851f0f852c">Monument to the Women of the Confederacy in Jacksonville, Florida</a>.</p>
<p>Defenders of Confederate monuments have argued that the statues <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/the-meaning-of-our-confederate-monuments.html">should be left standing</a> to educate future generations. One such defender is former President Donald Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee in 2024.</p>
<p>“Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-history-defending-confederate-heritage-political-risk-analysis/story?id=71199968">Trump tweeted</a> in 2017. “The beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!”</p>
<p>But since the end of the Civil War, journalists at Black newspapers have told a different story. Despite meager financing and constant threats, these newspapers represented the views of Black Americans and documented the nation’s shortcomings in achieving racial equality. </p>
<p>According to many of these writers, the statues were never designed to <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/beyond-monuments-african-americans-contesting-civil-war-memory/">tell the truth</a> about the Civil War. Instead, the monuments were built to enshrine the myth of the “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/growing-up-in-the-shadow-of-the-confederacy/537501/">Lost Cause</a>,” the false claim that white Southerners nobly fought for states’ rights – and not to <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp">preserve slavery</a>.</p>
<p>In 1921, for instance, the Chicago Defender published an article under the headline “Tear the Spirit of the Confederacy from the South” and called for the <a href="https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/why-honor-them">removal of the statues</a> from across the country because they “lend inspiration to the heart of the lyncher.” </p>
<h2>‘Lost Cause’ propaganda</h2>
<p>For the last several years, I’ve <a href="https://falseimage.pennds.org/introduction/">studied the history of Confederate monuments</a> by poring over the letters and records of the organizations that campaigned for their construction. My research students and I have also <a href="https://falseimage.pennds.org/">reviewed countless reactions</a> to the monuments published in real time in Black newspapers.</p>
<p>What is clear is that from the late nineteenth century until today, Confederate monuments were part of a relentless propaganda campaign to restore the South’s reputation at dedication ceremonies, parades, reunions and Memorial Day events.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://archive.org/details/ProceedingsOfTheThirty-seventhAnnualReunionOfTheVirginiaGrandCamp">dedication in Charlottesville</a> of the Lee monument in 1924 – 100 years ago this May – was one such event. </p>
<p>Timed to coincide with a reunion of the <a href="https://scv.org/">Sons of Confederate Veterans</a>, the speakers openly bragged about how they were sweeping Northern-authored textbooks out of Southern schools and replacing them with <a href="https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/education/2020/12/03/southern-history-textbooks-long-history-deception/6327359002/">friendlier accounts</a> of the Civil War. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Underneath a burning cross, a group of white men dressed in white robes and white hoods march holding American flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571519/original/file-20240125-21-en2mp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571519/original/file-20240125-21-en2mp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571519/original/file-20240125-21-en2mp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571519/original/file-20240125-21-en2mp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571519/original/file-20240125-21-en2mp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571519/original/file-20240125-21-en2mp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571519/original/file-20240125-21-en2mp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ku Klux Klan members march under a burning cross near Washington in 1925.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/arlington-park-va-composite-photo-of-ku-klux-klan-members-news-photo/515204254?adppopup=true">Bettmann Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the weeks leading up to the dedication, members of the Ku Klux Klan <a href="https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/uva-lib:2590120">paraded down Charlottesville’s Main Street</a> in daylight and <a href="https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/uva-lib:2590109">burned crosses in the hills</a> at night.</p>
<p>The master of ceremonies of that unveiling was <a href="https://www.cvillepedia.org/Richard_Thomas_Walker_Duke_Jr.">R.T.W. Duke, Jr.</a>, the son of a Confederate colonel who was a popular orator at events like these. </p>
<p>A few years earlier, Duke made his own views of the Civil War plain. </p>
<p>He told a crowd gathered at a Confederate cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, that he was “still a believer in the righteousness of what some of our own people now call the ‘rebellion.‘”</p>
<p>Duke further said “that slavery was right and emancipation a violation of the Constitution, a wrong and a robbery.”</p>
<h2>A critical Black press</h2>
<p>Contrary to the claims of today’s defenders of Confederate monuments, a <a href="https://falseimage.pennds.org/essays/">review of Black newspapers</a> going back to the 1870s conducted by my research team shows that Black journalists’ criticism of these memorials had already begun by the late nineteenth century. </p>
<p>The first truly national Confederate monument was the statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond. It was unveiled before an audience of as many as 150,000 attendees on May 29, 1890, and provoked sharp alarm among Black commentators across the country.</p>
<p>In a May 31, 1890, article, <a href="https://www.civilwarrichmond.com/written-accounts/post-war-newspapers/richmond-planet/6161-1890-05-31-richmond-planet-editorial-decrying-the-erection-of-the-lee-statue-on-monument-avenue-and-the-improper-use-of-confederate-imagery-and-memory">Richmond Planet</a> editor John Mitchell, Jr. pointed out that Confederate flags and emblems far outnumbered U.S. flags at the unveiling.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A Black man wearing a business suit sits at a desk with his right hand on a sheet of paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571515/original/file-20240125-21-44dqbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571515/original/file-20240125-21-44dqbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571515/original/file-20240125-21-44dqbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571515/original/file-20240125-21-44dqbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571515/original/file-20240125-21-44dqbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571515/original/file-20240125-21-44dqbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571515/original/file-20240125-21-44dqbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Mitchell Jr. at the Richmond Planet in 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/7808hpr_aab81de2428104d-scaled.jpg">Encyclopedia Virginia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“This glorification of States Rights Doctrine, the right of ‘secession’ and the honoring of men who represented that cause, fosters in this Republic the spirit of Rebellion and will ultimately result in handing down to generations unborn a legacy of treason and blood,” Mitchell wrote. </p>
<p>Mitchell further <a href="https://theshockoeexaminer.blogspot.com/2020/06/john-mitchell-jr-and-richmond-planet.html">detailed the enthusiasm</a> of the crowd assembled in Richmond. </p>
<p>“Cheer after cheer rang out upon the air as fair women waved handkerchiefs and screamed to do honor,” Mitchell wrote. But the South’s insistence on celebrating Lee “serves to retard its progress in the country and forges heavier chains with which to be bound.”</p>
<p>By reprinting articles from other Black publications, the Planet in 1890 effectively created <a href="https://falseimage.pennds.org/essay/lee-in-richmond-forging-heavier-chains/">a forum for commentary on the Richmond Lee statue from around the country</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A large statue is seen in the middle of a park that depicts a white man siting atop a horse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571528/original/file-20240125-21-rww437.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571528/original/file-20240125-21-rww437.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571528/original/file-20240125-21-rww437.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571528/original/file-20240125-21-rww437.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571528/original/file-20240125-21-rww437.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571528/original/file-20240125-21-rww437.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571528/original/file-20240125-21-rww437.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Va., in 1905.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/equestrian-statue-of-robert-e-lee-in-richmond-virginia-in-news-photo/835252424?adppopup=true">Library of Congress/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An article republished from the National Home Protector, a Baltimore-based Black newspaper, also took aim at the statue.</p>
<p>“When the unveiling of the monument is used as an opportunity to justify the southern people in rebelling against the U.S. government and to flaunt the Confederate flag in the faces of the loyal people of the nation the occasion calls for serious reflection,” the article said. </p>
<p>The editors of the newspaper accused white Southerners of trying to use the glorification of Lee to resurrect the “corpse of rebellion.” </p>
<h2>Writing truth to power</h2>
<p>No one knows what the Black-owned Charlottesville Messenger said about the unveiling of the Lee monument in its city in 1924.</p>
<p>Only one copy <a href="https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/u3832085?idx=0&page=1">of a single issue still exists</a>. In fact, one of the only things known about the Messenger is that in 1921, the white-dominated Charlottesville Daily Progress <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/08/10/charlottesvilles-confederate-statues-still-stand-still-symbolize-racist-past/">reprinted a Messenger article</a> that called for Black civil rights. The Black newspaper later retracted the story after receiving threats from white supremacists.</p>
<p>But we do know what other Black newspapers of this period were saying about Confederate monuments. For many Black editors, the monuments had become symbols of the violent backlash against Black citizenship by white Southerners. </p>
<p>In 1925, the <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/the-pittsburgh-couriers-discursive-power-1910-1940/">Pittsburgh Courier</a>, criticized the Confederate carving on Stone Mountain in Georgia, the <a href="https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/19119/stone-mountains-hidden-history-americas-biggest-confederate-memorial-and-birthplace-of-the-modern-ku-klux-klan">site of the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan</a>. </p>
<p>Taking square aim at the Lost Cause myth, the newspaper called Stone Mountain “a living monument of the cause to which white Southerners have dedicated their lives: human slavery and color selfishness.” </p>
<p>The Confederate monument on the side of Stone Mountain still stands today. </p>
<p>Telling the truth about American history requires transforming these memorials into true reflections of the seemingly never-ending battles initially fought during the Civil War.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donovan Schaefer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At the turn of the 20th century, Southern sympathizers started building monuments to Confederate leaders. Black newspaper editors saw these emblems clearly for what they stood for – a lost cause.Donovan Schaefer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057272023-05-31T17:29:25Z2023-05-31T17:29:25ZMr. Associated Press: How 20th-century journalism titan Kent Cooper transformed the news industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528660/original/file-20230526-27-yc2h9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kent Cooper worked for the Associated Press for over four decades, changing the news media landscape in the process.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the day of Kent Cooper’s funeral in February 1965, the flow of news through the international Associated Press network — the institution he spent a 40-year career building — came to a complete stop. </p>
<p>In scores of AP bureaus and thousands of newsrooms around the world, the printers that hammered out the news fell silent. </p>
<p>This tribute to a man who changed the kind of news millions of readers and listeners relied on, and opened the way for its global spread, lasted only a minute before the torrent of news resumed.</p>
<p>But it was AP’s highest honour, a vivid testimony to the institutional importance of the man widely known to journalists in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa as K.C.</p>
<p>Almost a century after Cooper became AP’s general manager, what can we learn from his career and the development of the institution he led? And what does it tell us about how journalism — including the international news system — evolved during the mid-20th century?</p>
<p>And what light might his career shed on today’s troubled news landscape, where organizations like Fox News systematically spread falsehoods that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/02/22/fox-insiders-admit-even-fox-viewers-dont-trust-fox_partner/">even its own employees do not believe</a>? </p>
<h2>Human-interest news</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A book cover with a middle-aged white man in a suit on the cover and a black-and-white photograph of a newsroom in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529184/original/file-20230530-25-ddsjqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529184/original/file-20230530-25-ddsjqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529184/original/file-20230530-25-ddsjqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529184/original/file-20230530-25-ddsjqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529184/original/file-20230530-25-ddsjqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529184/original/file-20230530-25-ddsjqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529184/original/file-20230530-25-ddsjqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Book cover for ‘Mr. Associated Press: Kent Cooper and the Twentieth-Century World of News.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(University of Illinois Press)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During Cooper’s long tenure as a senior executive, general manager and executive director — as documented in <em><a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087233">Mr. Associated Press</a></em>, my newly published biography of him — he changed AP, and the news that its readers and listeners depended on, in three major ways. </p>
<p>First, driven by competition with the United Press, AP’s great rival, Cooper loosened the strictures that made AP news colourless and dull (even if widely recognized for its accuracy and impartiality).</p>
<p>Editors of AP member newspapers were turning to the livelier and breezier (and, according to some AP supporters, less accurate) stories provided by UP. That could not be allowed to continue. </p>
<p>Cooper responded by embracing human-interest stories, entertainment, sports and other less traditionally newsworthy subjects. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo of a baseball player finishing a swing after hitting a pitch" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528669/original/file-20230526-21-zoasdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528669/original/file-20230526-21-zoasdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528669/original/file-20230526-21-zoasdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528669/original/file-20230526-21-zoasdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528669/original/file-20230526-21-zoasdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528669/original/file-20230526-21-zoasdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528669/original/file-20230526-21-zoasdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York Yankees’ Joe DiMaggio hits a solo home run in Game 5 of the World Series at the Polo Grounds in New York in October 1937. Cooper embraced less traditionally newsworthy subjects, like sports, during his tenure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“If one man fails to file a story of a millionairess marrying a poor factory hand because that man understands such a story is not properly A.P. stuff,” Cooper wrote in 1922, “such an error of news judgment ought to be generally made known to other employees.” </p>
<p>Journalism had to succeed in the market by offering readers what they wanted to read, rather than what journalists <em>thought</em> they ought to read.</p>
<h2>Moving beyond North America</h2>
<p>The second major change — one that Cooper spent more than 15 years fighting for — was loosening restrictions that prevented AP from distributing news outside North America. These restrictions were a product of AP’s earlier reliance on the British agency Reuters and its allies for almost all its international news. </p>
<p>While many AP directors considered the Reuters connection an essential foundation of AP’s dominance of the U.S. newspaper market, Cooper insisted AP could succeed on its own. By doing so, AP could also change its relationships with European news agencies that were often controlled or heavily subsidized by their respective governments. </p>
<p>By 1945, his campaign had succeeded: AP was poised to sell North American-style news everywhere in the world with virtually no restrictions. This development gave readers in other countries access to a different kind of journalism than they were familiar with. It also raised questions about American influence beyond its borders that remain relevant today. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo of journalists working in a newsroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528668/original/file-20230526-17-6lc99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528668/original/file-20230526-17-6lc99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528668/original/file-20230526-17-6lc99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528668/original/file-20230526-17-6lc99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528668/original/file-20230526-17-6lc99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528668/original/file-20230526-17-6lc99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528668/original/file-20230526-17-6lc99m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Staffers work on election night at the Washington bureau of the Associated Press on Nov. 3, 1964.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his relentless pursuit of expansion, Cooper sometimes conveniently set aside his public opposition to government-subsidized or government-controlled news. For instance, he maintained close connections with the Nazi-controlled German news agency Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro after 1934, and consistently played down limits on <a href="https://www.ap.org/about/history/ap-in-germany-1933-1945">the work of international correspondents in Germany</a>. </p>
<p>Despite Cooper’s failure to denounce Nazi press restrictions, AP wasn’t actively involved in spreading German propaganda. Its alliance with Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro ended after Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941.</p>
<p>Cooper also established an alliance with the Japanese news agency Rengo, despite knowing it was heavily subsidized by Japan’s militaristic and imperialist government.</p>
<p>The trade-off between access and acceptance of limits by authoritarian regimes on what can be reported remains a major problem for journalists today, as is the case with <a href="https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-releases/article/china-foreign-journalists-face-travel-restrictions-harassment">Western news organizations in China</a>.</p>
<h2>Embracing technology</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo of a man operating a wire service machine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528667/original/file-20230526-21-fbg6z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528667/original/file-20230526-21-fbg6z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528667/original/file-20230526-21-fbg6z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528667/original/file-20230526-21-fbg6z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528667/original/file-20230526-21-fbg6z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528667/original/file-20230526-21-fbg6z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528667/original/file-20230526-21-fbg6z6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AP Wirephoto operator Harold King demonstrates transmission equipment at Associated Press headquarters in New York, circa 1950.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Corporate Archives)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cooper was a visionary when it came to adopting new technologies. </p>
<p>Although many AP members feared radio in the 1920s and 1930s as a dangerous competitor for advertising revenue, Cooper understood from the start that radio could not, and should not, be resisted — a conclusion that has clear resonance in the age of digital journalism.</p>
<p>He also pioneered the development of same-day news photography by wire, permanently changing daily journalism’s repertoire of storytelling methods.</p>
<p>Before the advent of AP’s Wirephoto, photographs were delivered by mail, train or airplane, often taking days to reach their destination. Wirephoto revolutionized the process by allowing images to be transmitted in minutes.</p>
<h2>Commitment to facts and accuracy</h2>
<p>One thing that Cooper did not change was AP’s commitment to factual accuracy and political neutrality — a rejection of the <a href="https://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2011/04/20/the-fall-and-rise-of-partisan-journalism/">virulent partisanship that dominated U.S. journalism for most of the 19th century, and that is now returning</a>.</p>
<p>On the factual side, few things caused him, and AP, more grief than high-profile errors. In one memorable case in 1935, AP falsely reported that the murderer of Charles Lindbergh’s baby had been sentenced to life in prison, rather than receiving the death penalty.</p>
<p>Such errors led to immediate investigations of what had gone wrong, embarrassed and apologetic corrections, and severe consequences including firing of those responsible. </p>
<p>In these cases, competition between AP and UP focused on which agency’s news was faster and more reliable, a marked contrast to the dissemination of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/08/unique-role-fox-news-misinformation-universe/">ideologically driven falsehoods</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/technology/misinformation-integrity-institute-report.html">social media misinformation</a> that we see today. </p>
<p>Cooper was not perfect, and neither was AP during the years that he led it, but its basic journalistic values stand out sharply against the backdrop of our current fractured news landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gene Allen has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from Indiana University (Everett Helm Fellowship).</span></em></p>During Cooper’s long tenure as a senior executive, general manager and executive director, he changed the Associated Press and the news its readers and listeners depended on, in major ways.Gene Allen, Adjunct Professor, Journalism/Communication and Culture, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2036492023-04-24T19:57:33Z2023-04-24T19:57:33ZTucker Carlson’s departure and Fox News’ expensive legal woes show the problem with faking ‘authenticity’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522669/original/file-20230424-1075-lksybg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C6390%2C4529&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fox News Host Tucker Carlson speaks during the 2022 Fox Nation Patriot Awards on Nov. 17, 2022, in Hollywood, Fla.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tucker-carlson-speaks-during-2022-fox-nation-patriot-awards-news-photo/1442331995?adppopup=true">Jason Koerner/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, Fox News thrived because the people behind it understood what their audience wanted and were more than willing to deliver: television news – or what Fox called news – from a populist perspective. </p>
<p>Fox is <a href="https://deadline.com/tag/ratings/">consistently the most-watched cable news channel</a>, far ahead of competitors like MSNBC and CNN. That’s in large part due to people like Tucker Carlson, whose show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2023/02/14/with-35-million-viewers-tucker-carlson-has-the-weeks-highest-rated-cable-news-show/?sh=c4328587f529">has been one of the highest-rated in cable news</a>. But on April 24, Fox announced that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/business/media/tucker-carlson-fox-news.html">Carlson is leaving the network</a>, and while no explanation was provided, it’s safe to say it wasn’t a lack of viewers.</p>
<p>Carlson’s departure came on the heels of Fox News’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/18/business/fox-news-dominion-trial-settlement">US$787.5 million settlement of the lawsuit lodged by Dominion Voting Systems</a> over the network’s promotion of misinformation about the 2020 election. Dominion had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/fox-news-media-tucker-carlson-part-ways-2023-04-24/#:%7E:text=Dominion%20had%20alleged%20that%20statements,in%20Biden's%20favor%20were%20false.">cited claims made on Carlson’s program</a> as well as on other shows as evidence of defamation, and Carlson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/04/fox-dominion-trial-tucker-carlson-sean-hannity-testify">was expected to testify</a> if the case had gone to trial. The settlement reveals Fox’s biggest strength and weakness: the network’s incredible understanding of what its audience wants and its unrelenting willingness to deliver exactly that. </p>
<h2>More real than elites</h2>
<p>I’m a journalism scholar who studies <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/imagined-audiences-9780197542606?cc=us&lang=en&">the relationship between the news industry and the public</a>, and I’ve long been interested in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19312431211060426">understanding Fox’s appeal</a>. As media scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Yk3Elf0AAAAJ&hl=en">Reece Peck</a> observes in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/fox-populism-branding-conservatism-working-class?format=HB&isbn=9781108496766">his book about the network</a>, Fox’s success is less about politics than it is about style. Fox’s star broadcasters like Carlson <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2022/which-journalists-do-people-pay-most-attention-and-why-study-six-countries">found enormous success</a> by embracing an authenticity-as-a-form-of-populism approach.</p>
<p>They presented themselves as more “real” than the “out-of-touch elites” at other news organizations. Journalists have traditionally attempted to earn audience trust and loyalty by emphasizing their professionalism and objectivity, while people like Carlson earn it by emphasizing an us-against-them anti-elitism where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/27/fox-news-tucker-carlson-elections/">expertise is more often a criticism than a compliment</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/fox-populism-branding-conservatism-working-class?format=HB&isbn=9781108496766">Peck notes</a>, Fox broadcasters present themselves as “ordinary Americans … challenging the cultural elitism of the news industry.” So the allure of Fox is not just in its political slant, but in its just-like-you presentation that establishes anchors like Carlson as allies in the fight against the buttoned-up establishment figures they regularly disparage. </p>
<p>In short, NPR plays smooth jazz between segments, while <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/fox-news-partisan-progaganda-research.php">Fox plays country</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large crowd of people surrounding a small group of people on a public plaza." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reporters surround Dominion Voting Systems lawyers during a news conference in Wilmington, Del., after the defamation lawsuit by Dominion against Fox News was settled April 18, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PicturesoftheWeek-NorthAmerica-PhotoGallery/b8917d7cb42c459396ef17fe971ddcc3/photo?Query=Fox%20News&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4879&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Julio Cortez</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Authenticity’ became a trap</h2>
<p>This anti-establishment, working-class persona embraced by many of Fox’s broadcasters has always been a performance. </p>
<p>Back in 2000, Bill O'Reilly, whom the network would eventually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment.html">pay tens of millions of dollars a year</a>, called his show the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/12/13/the-life-of-oreilly/b9cd54fb-3edd-4e68-a489-2e990e3a7bca/">only show from a working-class point of view</a>.” </p>
<p>More recently, Sean Hannity, who is a friend of former President Donald Trump’s and makes about $30 million a year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/28/hannity-slams-overpaid-media-elites-then-journalists-respond-noting-his-29m-salary-and-private-jet/">slammed “overpaid” media elites</a>. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/fox-populism-branding-conservatism-working-class?format=HB&isbn=9781108496766">Peck observes</a> that this posturing is purposeful: It emphasizes “Fox’s moral purity, a purity that is established in terms of a distance from the corrupting force of political and media power centers.”</p>
<p>However, the Dominion lawsuit revealed that, after decades of using this distinctly populist – and often misleading – brand of performative authenticity to earn the loyalty of millions of people, Fox became trapped by it. </p>
<p>Internal communications between Fox broadcasters that were revealed in the months leading up to the trial’s scheduled start date showed the network’s marquee acts trying to reconcile their audience’s sense that the 2020 election had been rigged with their own skepticism about that lie. </p>
<p>Messages made public as part of the Dominion suit show Carlson, for example, said that he believed that Sidney Powell, Trump’s lawyer, was lying about election fraud claims. But, he added “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/business/fox-dominion-defamation-case.html">our viewers are good people and they believe it</a>.” Fox wasn’t telling its audience what to believe. Instead, it was following its audience’s lead and presenting a false narrative that aligned with what its viewers wanted to be true.</p>
<p>Once Fox’s broadcasters and the Fox audience became bonded by the network’s outsider status, those broadcasters felt compelled to follow the audience off a cliff of election misinformation and right into a defamation lawsuit. The alternative would run the risk of sullying its populist persona and, ironically, its credibility with its audience. </p>
<p>As New York Times TV critic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/arts/television/fox-news-settlement.html">James Poniewozik observed</a>, “The customer is always right. In fact, the customer is boss.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit sits at a desk in front of a bright-blue backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522679/original/file-20230424-26-11anhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill O'Reilly was one of the earliest Fox News hosts to present an ‘everyman’ persona to the viewing public.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TVOReillyAccuser/909647250fc34130acd81e7a9d51a191/photo">AP Photo/Richard Drew</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A trendsetter and a cautionary tale</h2>
<p>The Dominion lawsuit was more than a rare opportunity to see firsthand just how dishonestly Fox’s talent acted when the cameras were rolling. </p>
<p>It’s also a cautionary tale for those who see so-called authenticity as a marker of trustworthiness in journalism, and in the media more generally. </p>
<p>“As a society, we … love the idea of people ‘being themselves,’” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/02/social-media-analyst-emily-hund-influencer-authenticity-interview">says scholar Emily Hund</a>, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center on Digital Culture and Society and the author of “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691231020/the-influencer-industry">The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media</a>.” </p>
<p>The question that many seem to implicitly ask themselves when deciding whether to trust <a href="https://items.ssrc.org/beyond-disinformation/trust-and-authenticity-as-tools-for-journalism-and-partisan-disinformation/">journalists</a> and others within the media world seems to be shifting from “Does this person know what they are talking about?” to “Is this person genuine?”</p>
<p>Media workers have noticed: <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/03/social-media-policies-are-failing-journalists/">Journalists</a>, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2023/03/03/stars-are-embracing-authenticity-taylor-swift-prince-harry/11152779002/">celebrities</a> and <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90768656/ugc-influencers-content-marketing">marketers</a> routinely share seemingly personal information about themselves on social media in an effort to present themselves as people first and foremost. These efforts are not always necessarily dishonest; however, they are always a performance.</p>
<p>For decades, Fox’s prolonged popularity has made it clear that authenticity is truly valuable when it comes to building credibility and audience loyalty. Now, the network’s settlement with Dominion has revealed just how manipulative and insincere that authenticity can be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob L. Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tucker Carlson and his employer, Fox News, had an incredible understanding of what their audience wants: a kind of authenticity that is not genuine but instead manipulative.Jacob L. Nelson, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of UtahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040832023-04-19T17:34:38Z2023-04-19T17:34:38ZRussia’s legal interpretation of ‘espionage’ has broadened since the Soviet era – as the case of Evan Gershkovich shows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521872/original/file-20230419-26-wxakq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C0%2C5439%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich faces up to 20 years behind bars on espionage charges.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-wall-street-journal-reporter-evan-gershkovich-the-us-news-photo/1251953016?adppopup=true">Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The case of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/wsj-reporter-evan-gershkovich-detained-russia-cd03b0f3">Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich</a>, who on April 18, 2023, saw his appeal against investigative detention on spying charges <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/europe/evan-gershkovich-appeals-detention-russia-intl/index.html">turned down by a Russian court</a>, has echoes of an earlier era. Not <a href="https://theconversation.com/reporting-is-not-espionage-but-history-shows-that-journalists-doing-the-former-get-accused-of-the-latter-203020">since the Cold War</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-reporter-gershkovich-appeal-against-arrest-detention-russian-jail-2023-04-17/">the Kremlin noted</a>, has an American journalist been charged with espionage in the former Soviet Union.</p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/william-e-butler">longtime specialist on Russia’s legal system</a>, I am aware that the charges levied against Gershkovich are a product of modern Russia – and that could have worrying consequences for the journalist.</p>
<h2>Foreign agents and state secrets</h2>
<p>The legislation on espionage in Russia is no longer the same as that of the former Soviet Union. On July 14, 2022, <a href="https://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/73884/william-e-butler/criminal-code-of-the-russian-federation-september-2022">Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code</a> amended the definition of “espionage.” </p>
<p>Under the revised version of Article 276, espionage now constitutes “the transfer, collecting, stealing, or keeping for the purpose of transfer to a foreign State, international or foreign organization, or of their representatives, of information comprising a state secret.”</p>
<p>If such an act was committed by a foreign citizen or stateless person – that is, a person having no citizenship – then it constitutes espionage, the code provides.</p>
<p>This amended text broadened the definition considerably. The Gershkovich case appears to be the first involving a journalist under the expanded definition.</p>
<p>Precisely what information Gershkovich is believed by the Russian authorities to have acquired or collected is not a matter of public record. The FSB, Russia’s security service, has put the accusations in fairly vague terms, saying the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/30/russia-arrests-wall-street-journal-reporter-on-espionage-charges-evan-gershkovich">journalist was caught</a> “collecting classified information” on Russia’s “military industrial complex” <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/who-is-evan-gershkovich-what-does-russia-accuse-him-2023-04-18/#:%7E:text=The%20FSB%20security%20service%20said,a%20steakhouse%20in%20the%20city.">during a trip to Ekaterinburg</a>, around 1,400 kilometers (880 miles) east of Moscow. The FSB added that Gershkovich was “acting on instructions from the American side.”</p>
<p>The journalist’s employer, The Wall Street Journal, has <a href="https://time.com/6267183/evan-gershkovich-arrested-wsj-russia-espionage/">vigorously denied</a> that its reporter was involved in espionage. The U.S. State Department <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/10/wsj-reporter-wrongfully-detained-russia-00091293">has likewise said</a> that Gershkovich has been “wrongfully detained” and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170595511/moscow-court-rejects-wsj-reporter-evan-gershkovichs-detention-appeal">called for his release</a>.</p>
<p>Either way, under Russian espionage law the newspaper would be regarded as a foreign organization – that is, an entity created under the law of a foreign country.</p>
<h2>Years of detention – or a deal?</h2>
<p>So what lies ahead in the criminal proceedings over Gershkovich’s case? Under the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Russian_Law_and_Legal_Institutions.html?id=aWy-ugEACAAJ">Russian Criminal Code</a>, the crime of espionage requires “direct intent” to be proved by the prosecution.</p>
<p>“Direct intent” is defined under Russian law as being aware of the social danger of one’s actions, or foreseeing the possibility – or inevitability – of consequences that are deemed to create a danger to society.</p>
<p>The prosecution will be seeking to prove that Gershkovich handled, sought to acquire, actually acquired, or had in his possession state secrets. Although the definition of what constitutes a state secret is narrower than during the Soviet era, it nonetheless remains quite extensive and would include the information that Gershkovich is accused to have accessed.</p>
<p>Should Gershkovich be convicted of espionage, the punishment prescribed by the criminal code is deprivation of freedom for a term of from 10 to 20 years. Russian criminal law refers to “deprivation of freedom” because while it may be served in a prison if the individual is dangerous to others, for most it takes the form of detention in some kind of camp where the prisoners share accommodation.</p>
<p>It is probable that the Russian authorities will detain Gershkovich in an investigative cell, probably shared with someone else, while the legal proceedings continue.</p>
<p>Gershkovich’s legal counsel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000008863670/wsj-journalist-evan-gershkovich-russia.html">invited the court</a> on April 18 to replace investigative detention with either house arrest, potentially at Gershkovich’s Moscow address, or financial security, through a pledge or bail. </p>
<p>Either would have been possible under Russia’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Russian_Law_and_Legal_Institutions.html?id=aWy-ugEACAAJ">Code of Criminal Procedure</a>. But both were declined by the court. </p>
<p>The investigation will now continue until trial unless Russia and the United States come to another arrangement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William E. Butler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of Russia’s legal code explains the case against the Wall Street Journal reporter accused of espionage.William E. Butler, Distinguished Professor of Law, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2014562023-04-06T12:05:47Z2023-04-06T12:05:47ZStudent reporters fill crucial gap in state government coverage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518585/original/file-20230330-1211-oqh3hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C27%2C4578%2C3418&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Devon Sanders, a statehouse reporter and student at the Lousiana State University Manship School of Mass Communication, interviewed State Rep. Katrina Jackson in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Watts</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The local news business is in crisis. The nation is currently losing <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/">two community newspapers a week</a>, on average, and <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/">70 million Americans live in news deserts</a>, communities with little or no local news coverage. In much of the remaining territory, all that’s left are decimated newsrooms and advertisement-heavy publications with little local news, sometimes called “ghost papers.”</p>
<p>The problem is even more acute when it comes to covering the nation’s statehouses. The <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2022/04/05/total-number-of-u-s-statehouse-reporters-rises-but-fewer-are-on-the-beat-full-time/">total number of full-time statehouse reporters declined by 6%</a> from 2014 to 2022. Yet state legislatures handle key issues, including <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/tennessee/articles/2023-03-26/states-divisions-on-abortion-widen-after-roe-overturned">abortion rights</a>, <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-february-2023">voting rights</a> and <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/never-seen-anything-like-it-new-bill-would-write-desantiss-higher-ed-vision-into-law">educational curriculum standards</a>.</p>
<p>Where full-time staff reporters have disappeared, university-led statehouse reporting programs have stepped in, according to research from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Pew Research Center. More than <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/05/19/in-some-states-students-account-for-a-large-and-growing-share-of-statehouse-reporters/">10% of statehouse reporters are students</a>, and in some states they are a significant presence in the statehouse media corps.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://agis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=371da4f5779f46b8b12a3fa478644857"></iframe>
<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">A map showing university-affiliated local news programs around the U.S., from the <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/case-studies">University of Vermont Center for Community News.</a></span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Journalism boosts democracy</h2>
<p>An informed citizenry is vital to a thriving democracy. Researchers have found strong ties between the availability of local news and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2016/11/03/civic-engagement-strongly-tied-to-local-news-habits/">community engagement</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2016/11/03/1-regular-local-voting-community-attachment-strongly-linked-to-news-habits/">voting participation</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087419838058">number of candidates</a> running for local office. Less local news <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-newspapers-close-voters-become-more-partisan-108416">leads to increased polarization</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2019.06.003">higher municipal government costs</a> to taxpayers as accountability reporting declines.</p>
<p>Statehouse reporting programs are part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-college-students-can-help-save-local-news-175501">larger commitment by universities to connect student education with local news needs</a>. Through classes, newsrooms and media collaborations, these programs give students essential opportunities to use skills they have learned in classrooms – and provide badly needed local news coverage. Emerging scholarship finds <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/b319e60910c6ccd576b77c808c12a246">partnerships between news outlets and universities</a> are effective at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.2023323">both teaching students and serving the public</a>.</p>
<p>I lead a national effort to document these programs around the country as part of the <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/ccn">Center for Community News</a>. As of early 2023, we had cataloged <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/case-studies">more than 120 programs</a> in which university-led student reporting is contributing to local news coverage.</p>
<p>Among those, <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/reports">we found 20 instances</a> of university-coordinated statehouse reporting, covering 19 states; Florida has two.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person lit brightly speaks into a group of microphones, one of which is held by a person visible but in shadow." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518586/original/file-20230330-2588-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Nani, with SUNY New Paltz’s Legislative Gazette, interviews U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Watts</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the programs operate</h2>
<p>These programs are not internships but statehouse reporting bureaus led by veteran journalists who assign, edit and vet student work to ensure it meets ethical and professional standards.</p>
<p>Once ready for publication, the students’ work is shared with media platforms around the state, almost always free of charge. During 2022, about 250 student reporters <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/ccn/reports">produced more than 1,000 stories</a> for 1,200 media outlets across 17 states. The remaining two states’ programs, in Texas and Vermont, started in 2023.</p>
<p>Under professional direction, student reporters are producing important state-government stories across the country.</p>
<p>For example, at the University of Missouri, <a href="https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/state_news/lack-of-broadband-puts-missouri-behind/article_097fc1cc-efe2-11e7-99b2-273eaf367ba9.html">student stories on lack of high-speed internet service</a> in rural areas in 2018 <a href="https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/state_news/proposed-broadband-grant-system-may-provide-relief-for-rural-areas/article_39740144-0140-11e8-8b26-ab9124ea71d1.html">built momentum for lawmakers to pass new legislation</a> that has <a href="https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/state_news/lawmakers-create-grant-program-to-spread-broadband-in-missouri/article_592c66c2-5ae9-11e8-8077-bfd88fea8ad6.html">provided millions of additional dollars</a> to increase access to broadband.</p>
<p>In early 2023, the University of Florida’s statehouse team broke the story of a <a href="https://www.wuft.org/news/2023/01/11/uf-to-spend-300000-on-new-pool-for-incoming-university-president/">new US$300,000 private swimming pool</a> being built at the mansion occupied free of cost by the university president just before Ben Sasse, a former U.S. senator, assumed that role.</p>
<p>In Louisiana, 92 publications run stories from Louisiana State University’s statehouse reporting team. In a companion effort, called the <a href="https://lsucoldcaseproject.com/case/shooting-at-southern-university/">Cold Case project</a>, students dive deeply into racist murders from the state’s past. In late 2022, a series of stories about the police <a href="https://lsucoldcaseproject.com/case/shooting-at-southern-university/">killing of two students at Southern University</a> led to a <a href="https://lailluminator.com/2022/11/16/gov-edwards-issues-state-apology-for-fatal-1972-shootings-at-southern-university/">public apology</a> by Gov. John Bel Edwards.</p>
<p>In Montana, a student statehouse reporter wrote a <a href="https://www.ekalakaeagle.com/story/2023/02/10/regional/montana-lawmakers-seek-more-information-about-governors-heart-fund/4232.html">probing story</a> in early 2023 questioning spending in a state fund focused on mental health and health prevention. The story was republished widely, including in small papers like the Ekalaka Eagle, serving a town of 400 people, as well as the statewide news outlet <a href="https://montanafreepress.org/2023/02/03/montana-lawmakers-seek-more-information-about-governors-heart-fund/">the Montana Free Press</a>. A week later, Gov. Greg Gianforte <a href="https://news.mt.gov/Governors-Office/Governor_Gianforte_DPHHS_Invest_2.1_Million_in_Universal_Mental_Health_Screening">announced $2.1 million in new spending</a> on universal mental health screening from the fund.</p>
<p>As far back as 2016, <a href="https://cnsmaryland.org/discharging-trouble-maryland-nursing-homes/">series of stories</a> from the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service generated a lot of attention about the lack of state oversight of nursing homes. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh cited the students’ work in his pursuit of new regulations; legislators <a href="https://cnsmaryland.org/2018/05/04/legislation-aims-to-improve-oversight-of-nursing-homes/">passed two laws</a> addressing issues raised in the series.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7XSIoAxE15g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A KOMU news report with student journalists covering the Missouri state capitol.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New programs launch</h2>
<p>In Vermont, the University of Vermont’s <a href="https://www.communitynews.net/special-projects">Community News Service</a> started a statehouse reporting <a href="https://www.communitynews.net/special-projects">program this spring</a> with three students who each receive six credits and a stipend of $1,000. Together the students have already published 23 stories on issues as wide-ranging as <a href="https://vtdigger.org/2023/03/10/bill-would-give-500k-to-help-small-farmers-switch-up-their-products/">diversifying agriculture</a> and <a href="https://vtdigger.org/2023/02/28/vermont-legislators-look-to-ban-child-marriage-joining-other-states-this-session/">child marriage</a>. </p>
<p>For our university, the program meets several needs: Students get experience, media outlets get content and the university meets its <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/our-land-grant-mission-twenty-first-century">public-service mission</a>.</p>
<p>Clearly, more colleges and universities can step in to fill statehouse reporting gaps. We found that in just eight states – Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island – there are 42 colleges and universities with more than 200,000 students within 10 miles of the statehouses.</p>
<p>Public universities, with their public service mission and long-standing journalism programs, provide most of the student reporters in our study. Private colleges are largely missing.</p>
<p>But in Indiana, some of the 1,000 students at tiny Franklin College staff the <a href="https://www.thestatehousefile.com/">Statehouse File</a>, producing stories like a deep dive into the KKK’s <a href="https://www.thestatehousefile.com/politics/hoosiers-see-lasting-effects-from-time-kkk-dominated-state-politics/article_355201a2-e2ef-11ec-bef5-17a76bfe1736.html">effects on the state</a> and an examination of pregnancy-related deaths due to new <a href="https://www.thestatehousefile.com/politics/more-pregnancies-will-mean-more-deaths-but-numbers-are-difficult-to-pin-down/article_763a4b02-0482-11ed-9ab9-9f575f17b258.html">abortion laws</a>.</p>
<p>Student journalists in these university-led programs are filling local news gaps, adding legislative stories that are lacking while also building skills, polishing their clips and learning how government works. </p>
<p>I believe more public and private universities need to follow their lead. Democracy depends on an informed public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Watts receives funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and donors to the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Vermont. </span></em></p>Where regular reporters have disappeared, university-led statehouse reporting programs have stepped in.Richard Watts, Senior Lecturer of Geography and Founder of the Center of Community News, University of VermontLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814072022-08-05T12:14:23Z2022-08-05T12:14:23ZSocial media provides flood of images of death and carnage from Ukraine war – and contributes to weaker journalism standards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467537/original/file-20220607-40890-hy7er.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C5974%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A soldier's body lies next to a destroyed Russian truck on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraineWar100DaysExplainer/1a73a1612aba4c479dfb2a16af7f21cd/photo">AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Photos of civilians killed or injured in the Russia-Ukraine war are widespread, particularly online, both on social media and in professional news media. </p>
<p>Editors have always published images of dead or suffering people during times of crisis, like wars and natural disasters. But the current crisis has delivered many more of these images, more widely published online, than ever before.</p>
<p>“It’s all over social media,” says Nancy San Martin, a longtime former foreign correspondent and editor at the Miami Herald. And not just online. Mainstream journalists are also departing from their traditional tendency to avoid <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/30/us/politics/photos-uvalde.html">prominently featuring images of dead people</a> or particularly direct depictions of physical injuries.</p>
<p>But in times of conflict overseas, those standard practices tend to ease, San Martin, now deputy managing editor for the history and culture desk at National Geographic, told me in a phone interview: “War will always open that door. Part of our role is to document the consequences of war and all that it entails.”</p>
<p>Editorial oversight has traditionally been part of the equation – the practice of a group of journalists who ensure context, balancing the significance and importance of what an image depicts with its gruesomeness. They might, for instance, choose a different angle of an injured or dead person that shows less blood, or crop an image so a dead person’s face isn’t visible, or choose to withhold an image altogether while providing written information about what happened.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://beenasarwar.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/2001-jan.-22-documentary-and-democracy-goldsmiths-college.pdf">longtime journalist and editor</a> following media, journalism and human rights, I
know images can become <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2013/04/28/iconic-war-photographs/2119175/">public icons symbolizing major events</a>.</p>
<p>The flood of images from the Ukraine war runs deep and wide. It contains many potentially iconic images but also shows more raw carnage than in past conflicts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of three dead bodies lying next to a split-rail fence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Gardner’s photos, along with those of Mathew Brady, depicted casualties of the U.S. Civil War and were among the first to show people who had been killed in combat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.05174/">Alexander Gardner via Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Powerful images</h2>
<p>From the <a href="https://www.life.com/history/crimea-where-war-photography-was-born/">earliest days of photography</a> in the 19th century, war has been a common subject, including <a href="https://www.nps.gov/anti/learn/historyculture/photography.htm">during the U.S. Civil War</a>. </p>
<p>Certain images have become famous, such as <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima">Joe Rosenthal’s World War II image of U.S. Marines</a> raising the flag on Mount Suribachi, signaling the capture of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army in February 1945. It was distributed by The Associated Press and <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima">ran on the front pages</a> of many U.S. newspapers.</p>
<p>“There have always been powerful images emerging from conflict,” Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer <a href="https://patrickfarrellphotography.com/">Patrick Farrell</a> told me in a video call. “A still image is still one of the most powerful forms of media. It will sit with you forever.”</p>
<p>Many of the famous images are not of victory or glory but rather of violence and death – and also remain etched in public memory. Nick Ut’s photograph of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-after-napalm-girl-myths-distort-the-reality-behind-a-horrific-photo-of-the-vietnam-war-and-exaggerate-its-impact-183291">napalm girl</a>” Kim Phuc and John Filo’s photo of <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/in-depth/news/history/2020/05/01/kent-state-shooting-photos-mary-ann-vecchio-impacts-nation-jeffrey-miller-john-filo/3055009001/">Mary Ann Vecchio mourning student protester Jeffrey Miller</a> at Kent State University show both the foreign and domestic toll of the Vietnam War. They were <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/in-depth/news/history/2020/05/01/kent-state-shooting-photos-mary-ann-vecchio-impacts-nation-jeffrey-miller-john-filo/3055009001">transmitted via wire services</a>, too, and <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/04/vietnam-war-napalm-girl-photo-today">chosen to feature prominently</a> in newspapers and magazines across the country.</p>
<p>Photos of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-port-au-prince-deaths">bodies piled in the streets</a> after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and floating in the water in <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2010/08/24/129400381/telling-their-stories">New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina</a> in the same year are examples of the choices made by editors across the nation to feature coverage showing the real human cost of significant natural disasters.</p>
<p>Kevin Carter’s 1993 image of a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/03/02/5241442/a-pulitzer-winning-photographers-suicide">vulture next to a starving child</a> in Sudan is another lasting image of human tragedy that was published by editors worldwide. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994.</p>
<p>Wire-distributed photos of other tragedies, including Nilufer Demir’s image of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Greek beach, and atrocities, like the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/abuse-photos-ii/8/">images from Abu Ghraib</a> of U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners, are also visceral reminders of complex events. </p>
<h2>Increased volume</h2>
<p>The difference between those situations and the present one in Ukraine is the sheer volume of images.</p>
<p>There are, as usual in conflict situations, award-winning professional photojournalists in Ukraine <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/05/world/ukraine-war-photographers-cnnphotos/">sending images back</a> to the media outlets they work for. But many of them are also posting images on their own or their employers’ <a href="https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4857/war-photography-in-the-age-of-social-media">social media accounts</a> – more images than might be published on a newspaper’s front page or homepage on the web.</p>
<p>Also on social media are <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-social-media-images-from-the-ground-could-be-affecting-our-response-to-the-war-178722">legions of ordinary citizens</a> taking pictures with their smartphones and bearing witness, sharing countless images every day.</p>
<p>With the “floodgates opened by social media,” as Farrell put it, the media environment in 2022 is different from previous decades. There are now many powerful images competing to become iconic.</p>
<p>It’s “not more graphic than what we saw during Vietnam,” in Farrell’s estimation, but the media cycle then, based on daily newspapers and nightly TV news broadcasts, meant there were breaks in the barrage of imagery. </p>
<p>What’s of concern to Farrell, and to me, is that there is less editorial oversight about which images reach the most eyeballs – even in professional newsrooms. </p>
<p>With social media in the mix and the never-ending competition to be first, editors are publishing and distributing images with less consideration for traditional editorial restraint and balance between gore and meaning – and with less context about the images themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man plays a piano in the street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander, who did not want to provide his last name, plays a piano placed outside in the Old Town on March 29, 2022, in Lviv, Ukraine. Alexander said he was playing because he missed being able to play the piano after having to leave his behind when he fled his hometown of Kramatorsk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/alexander-plays-a-piano-placed-outside-in-the-old-town-on-news-photo/1388364859">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Context is vital</h2>
<p>An important element of that context is that in some ways <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/27/what-know-about-ukraines-lviv-struck-by-missiles-when-biden-was-250-miles-away/">life goes on</a>, says San Martin. Despite the carnage and mayhem of war, she says, the places experiencing war are still places where people make their lives. Her husband, Joe Raedle, an award-winning photographer with Getty Images, has been on the ground in Ukraine documenting both the refugee exodus and everyday life – cultural performances, restaurants serving free meals, churches providing comfort – and a <a href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/alexander-plays-a-piano-placed-outside-in-the-old-town-on-news-photo/1388364859">man playing a piano on the street</a>, having left his own behind when he fled the fighting.</p>
<p>“It’s a different kind of war. Still heartbreaking,” she says, noting that there is more happening than the dominant images show. Those elements, she predicts, will become more important to full coverage of events in Ukraine as the war continues. It is going to be, as she says, “a long haul.”</p>
<p>It’s normal for media to focus on the immediacy of conflict or disaster and to highlight the most dramatic, even horrific events. But what San Martin reminds me, and what I have seen in my work, is that the journalists often give <a href="https://beenasarwar.com/2009/06/28/dr-sarwar-blog-media-matters-chapter-in-new-book-on-pakistan-india-divide/">less emphasis to the processes behind</a> events and the surrounding context – including the <a href="https://tvr2c.com/2016/10/26/beenasarwar/">survival, determination and resilience</a> of those affected.</p>
<p>Sensational images circulating on social media are similarly incomplete – or even potentially <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-ukraine-russia/fact-check-photo-of-children-saluting-ukrainian-tanks-dates-back-to-2016-idUSL1N2V10DO">false</a>, whether shared by propagandists or their innocent dupes. They represent an important, and alarming, reality. But there’s more to the picture than that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beena Sarwar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many images from the Ukraine war are compelling and distressing depictions of the human costs of war.Beena Sarwar, Visiting Professor of Journalism, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755012022-05-26T12:27:15Z2022-05-26T12:27:15ZHow college students can help save local news<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461639/original/file-20220505-15-f6vg7p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C1448%2C821&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Endicott College student covers Election Day in November 2020 in a Massachusetts community as part of the college's news-academic partnership with Gannett Media.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sloan Friedhaber</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Local news outlets across the U.S. are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/14/fast-facts-about-the-newspaper-industrys-financial-struggles/">struggling to bring in advertising and subscription revenue</a>, which pays for the reporting, editing and production of their articles. It’s not a new problem, but with fewer and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/13/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-fallen-26-since-2008/">fewer journalism jobs</a> as a result, a growing number of local newsrooms have found a potential solution: college journalism students.</p>
<p>The pandemic, set on a backdrop of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8590822/">political and economic tumult</a>, further injured a local news industry weakened by <a href="https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/loss-of-local-news/bigger-and-bigger-they-grow/">decades of revenue decline, ownership consolidation and cuts to production and delivery</a>. In rural and urban communities across the country, residents have little or no access to credible or comprehensive local news and information – they live in what are called “<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469634029/the-rise-of-a-new-media-baron-and-the-emerging-threat-of-news-deserts/">news deserts</a>.”</p>
<p>Studies show that people who live in news deserts or other locations with little local news are <a href="https://www.lenfestinstitute.org/local-journalism/knight-foundation-gallup-local-news-survey/">less likely to be actively involved in their community or participate in local elections</a>. They are also more likely to believe <a href="https://citap.unc.edu/local-news-platforms-mis-disinformation/">false information spread online through social media</a> and fake or fringe websites.</p>
<p>Through formal and informal collaborations, college journalists are helping to serve the communities where their universities are located by making sustained contributions to local media. Indeed, an <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/05/19/in-some-states-students-account-for-a-large-and-growing-share-of-statehouse-reporters/">estimated 10% of state capitol reporters</a> across the nation are students. In some states, such as Missouri, students make up a little more than half of their statehouse press corps, according to a 2022 <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/05/19/in-some-states-students-account-for-a-large-and-growing-share-of-statehouse-reporters/">report published by the Pew Research Center</a>. </p>
<p>As a researcher who studies <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-c-smith-a47540a0/">trends in rural community journalism</a> and a journalism professor who teaches in a <a href="https://www.endicott.edu/academics/schools/social-sciences-communication-humanities/faculty/l/lara-salahi">region with significant elimination of local news reporters and news coverage</a>, we decided to study these collaborations – what we call “<a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/b319e60910c6ccd576b77c808c12a246/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026709">news-academic partnerships</a>” – often in areas that have seen local newsrooms suffer the hardest hits, as identified in the <a href="https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/">University of North Carolina’s news desert report</a>.</p>
<p>For our initial research, we sent surveys to 50 people who are involved in these collaborations, either as faculty members who manage the partnership at a college and university or as journalists at a local news outlet who oversee the partnership. We got responses from more than two dozen of them and learned these partnerships are key ways to sustain local news in places where news coverage is diminishing or critical issues are going underreported.</p>
<h2>Local connections</h2>
<p>There is not a formal comprehensive list of collaborations between local newsrooms and college journalism programs, and there are many.</p>
<p>For instance, the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism operates <a href="https://merrill.umd.edu/cns">Capital News Service</a>, which provides daily breaking and in-depth news stories by students on news stories in Maryland to partner news organizations, including television stations. </p>
<p>Some of these collaborations – such as ones between <a href="https://www.franklinpierce.edu/academics/colleges-centers/fitzwater-center/index.html">Franklin Pierce University</a> and the Keene, New Hampshire, Sentinel newspaper – have existed for more than a decade. But our survey found that they have become more common over the past five years with further media consolidation and layoffs. Newer examples include the collaboration between Connecticut College and the <a href="https://www.theday.com/">local news site The Day</a>. </p>
<h2>Student opportunities</h2>
<p>In 2019, one of us <a href="https://www.endicott.edu/news-events/news/news-articles/2020/12/communication-students-tackle-real-stories-in-remote-semester-internship">created a partnership</a> between her beat reporting class at Endicott College in Massachusetts and Gannett, the largest newspaper chain serving communities north of Boston. That year, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gatehouse-gannett-merger-is-official-creating-largest-us-newspaper-chain-2019-11-19">Gannett bought 21 publications</a> in the North Shore region of Massachusetts with 32 editorial employees serving 22 communities – and downsized them to just 10 publications with 12 editorial personnel, Gannett staff told us.</p>
<p>In a class called Beat Reporting, Endicott students receive classroom instruction on finding and pitching story ideas, conducting interviews, simplifying complex information and structuring various types of stories. Each week the students are assigned to report on stories in cities and towns surrounding the college, to be published in Gannett’s local outlets. In many ways, the class runs like a newsroom, with students involved in every stage of news reporting. In addition to the professor, a Gannett editor works with students on each story, so students get the experience of receiving professional feedback as they see their story through to publication. </p>
<p>In early 2022, there are just nine Gannett publications employing seven full-time journalists serving that same territory. During the spring 2022 semester – the partnership’s fourth year running – 10 students enrolled in the course published over <a href="https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/medford-transcript/2022/03/15/climate-change-community-resiliency-motivate-mystic-river-non-profit/9443911002/">65 news stories</a> for those <a href="https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/chronicle-transcript/2022/03/17/masco-environmental-club-ramps-up-tree-plenish-april/9366413002/">publications</a> over the course of <a href="https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/free-press-observer/2022/03/16/covid-rates-drop-malden-melrose-reading-and-wakefield/7061814001/">the spring 2022 semester</a>. They have worked on stories ranging from environmental issues to health stories to local sports and to profiling community members with interesting stories to tell. </p>
<p>While the benefit to Gannett is clear here – an increase in its capabilities for a few months – students have also benefited from the partnership. Some are publishing their stories in news sites beyond a high school or college publication for the first time. In past semesters, a few students have stayed on with Gannett beyond the course to either intern or freelance for these local publications.</p>
<p>We hypothesize some partnerships, like this one, also benefit the communities that are served by these newspapers and websites, though that has yet to be studied. In some cases, the stories written by the student journalists would likely not have been covered because of limited capacity in the newsroom. Some community members whom students have reached out to for interviews told the students they were speaking to a journalist for the first time. </p>
<p>A 2019 survey conducted by the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2019/03/26/for-local-news-americans-embrace-digital-but-still-want-strong-community-connection/">Pew Research Center</a> found that only 21% of Americans say they’ve either spoken to or been interviewed by a local journalist, which has declined from 26% in 2016. Speaking with journalists can help build an understanding of how journalism works and <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/lessons_from_journalists_on_building_trust_with_local_communities_during_crises">increase trust in news</a>.</p>
<h2>Universities as partners</h2>
<p>News-academic partnerships allow students to put the principles and techniques taught within classrooms into practice. We hypothesize that well-executed collaborations could arguably be seen as competitors to time- and resource-strapped newsrooms in the same coverage area. For now, though, it seems news-academic partnerships are just that: partnerships, and more collaborative than competitive. </p>
<p>We hope they might also lead to new journalistic endeavors, like the start of a new news outlet, or revival of an dying one. For example, in October 2021, the University of Georgia’s Grady College announced it would <a href="https://grady.uga.edu/journalism-students-to-play-integral-role-in-saving-community-newspaper/">revive a nearby community newspaper</a> that was slated to close. </p>
<p>However, it’s not an easy task. We have found that faculty members who seek to create or manage sustainable news-academic partnerships often find they face some of the same problems that editors at local news outlets report, such as burnout, high workloads and low pay. For instance, in a follow-up to our initial study, faculty members who oversaw a variety of news-academic partnerships reported receiving little or no additional compensation, nor a decrease in other responsibilities, such as teaching, to balance the workload.</p>
<p>The faculty members we spoke with also felt pressure to deliver professional-level multimedia journalism out of classrooms where students are still learning the craft, as well as the required technologies.</p>
<p>However, academic institutions are theoretically well positioned to sustain meaningful journalism that serves their communities, which are often outside of elite news coverage areas. Many are well funded and provide the physical and mental space for minds to build healthy skepticism and investigate complex issues in society. And many have <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-public-media">housed public radio stations for decades</a>, without imposing limits on editorial or financial independence. Even today, recognizing the <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/10/higher-ed-and-public-radio-are-enmeshed-so-what-happens-when-the-culture-wars-come/">possibility of political interference</a> from university administrators, some stations have deliberately created policies to maintain their independence. </p>
<p>We think even more universities could be a source for reducing the number and size of news deserts in the U.S., and ensuring communities across the country retain a reliable source of news and information.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Partnerships between universities and local media outlets are key ways to sustain local news where coverage is diminishing.Lara Salahi, Assistant Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism, Endicott CollegeChristina Smith, Associate Professor of Mass Communication, Georgia College and State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1830772022-05-16T18:30:04Z2022-05-16T18:30:04ZHow media reports of ‘clashes’ mislead Americans about Israeli-Palestinian violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463332/original/file-20220516-15-bbvezx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C22%2C3715%2C2454&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When does a 'clash' become an 'assault'?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PicturesoftheWeek-Global-PhotoGallery/bc862b042976498580767f551fd3e35f/photo?Query=Shireen%20Abu%20Akleh%20funeral%20police&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=20&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Maya Levin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/13/why-is-israel-afraid-of-the-palestinian-flag">Israeli police attacked</a> mourners carrying the coffin of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 13, 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/shireen-abu-akleh-journalist-funeral-west-bank-bb71e2ec64dd034066bc6df4a9aa2fb3">beating pallbearers with batons and kicking them</a> when they fell to the ground.</p>
<p>Yet those who skimmed the headlines of initial reports from several U.S. media outlets may have been left with a different impression of what happened. </p>
<p>“Israeli Police Clash with Mourners at Funeral Procession,” read the <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/israeli-police-clash-with-mourners-a-funeral-procession-for-journalist-139944517790">headline of MSNBC’s online report</a>. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/israeli-forces-palestinians-clash-in-west-bank-before-funeral-of-journalist-11652471399">had a similar</a> headline on its story: “Israeli Forces, Palestinians Clash in West Bank before Funeral of Journalist.”</p>
<p>Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/israeli-police-clash-al-jazeera-journalist-shireen-abu-akleh-mourners">began the text of its article</a> with “Clashes erupted Friday in Jerusalem as mourners attended the burial of veteran American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was shot dead Friday when covering a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.”</p>
<p>There is no mention in the headlines of these articles about who instigated the violence, nor any hint of the power imbalance between a heavily armed Israeli police force and what appeared to be unarmed Palestinian civilians.</p>
<p>Such language and omissions are common in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-media-reporting-on-israel-palestine-there-is-nowhere-to-hide-160992">reporting of violence conducted by Israel’s police or military</a>. Similar headlines followed an incident in April in which <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-jerusalem-aqsa-mosque-storm-attack-worshipper">Israeli police attacked worshippers</a> at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Then, too, police attacks on worshippers – in which as many as 152 Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets and batons – were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/17/1093233899/jerusalem-violence-al-aqsa-mosque">widely</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-police-palestinians-clash-jerusalem-holy-site-2022-04-15/">described</a> as “clashes.”</p>
<p>And headlines matter – many Americans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/19/americans-read-headlines-and-not-much-else/">do not read past them</a> when consuming news or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/06/16/six-in-10-of-you-will-share-this-link-without-reading-it-according-to-a-new-and-depressing-study/">sharing articles online</a>.</p>
<h2>Neutral terms aren’t always neutral</h2>
<p>The use of a word like “clashes” might seem to make sense in a topic as contentious as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which violent acts are perpetrated by both sides.</p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://menas.arizona.edu/people/maha-nassar">scholar of Palestinian history</a> and an <a href="https://www.972mag.com/us-media-palestinians/">analyst of U.S. media coverage of this topic</a>, I believe using neutral terms such as “clashes” to describe Israeli police and military attacks on Palestinian civilians is misleading. It overlooks instances in which Israeli forces instigate violence against Palestinians who pose no threat to them. It also often gives more weight to official Israeli narratives than to Palestinian ones.</p>
<p>U.S. media have <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/pens-and-swords/9780231133487">long been accused</a> of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2001.30.2.61">misleading their audience</a> when it comes to violence committed against Palestinians. A 2021 <a href="https://web.mit.edu/hjackson/www/The_NYT_Distorts_the_Palestinian_Struggle.pdf">study from MIT of 50 years of New York Times coverage</a> of the conflict found “a disproportionate use of the passive voice to refer to negative or violent action perpetrated towards Palestinians.” </p>
<p>Using the passive voice – for example, reporting that “Palestinians were killed in clashes” rather than “Israeli forces killed Palestinians” – is language that helps shield Israel from scrutiny. It also obscures the reason so many Palestinians would be angry at Israel. </p>
<p>It’s not just The New York Times. A <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/12/israel-palestine-conflict-news-headlines/">2019 analysis by data researchers in Canada of more than 100,000 headlines</a> from 50 years of U.S. coverage across five newspapers <a href="https://vridar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/416LABS_50_Years_of_Occupation.pdf">concluded that</a> “the U.S. mainstream media’s coverage of the conflict favors Israel in terms of both the sheer quantity of stories covered, and by providing more opportunities to the Israelis to amplify their point of view.”</p>
<p>That 2019 study also found that words associated with violence, including “clash” and “clashes,” were more likely to be used in stories about Palestinians than Israelis.</p>
<h2>Competing narratives</h2>
<p>One problem with using “clash” is that it obscures incidents in which Israeli police and security forces attack Palestinians who pose no threat to them. </p>
<p>Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/05/israel-opt-increase-in-unlawful-killings-and-other-crimes-highlights-urgent-need-to-end-israels-apartheid-against-palestinians/">described the recent incident at the Al-Aqsa Mosque</a> as one in which Israeli police “brutally attacked worshippers in and around the mosque and used violence that amounts to torture and other ill-treatment to break up gatherings.”</p>
<p>The word “clashes” does not convey this reality.</p>
<p>Using “clashes” also gives more credibility to the Israeli government version of the story than the Palestinian one. Israeli officials often accuse Palestinians of instigating violence, claiming that soldiers and police had to use lethal force to stave off Palestinian attacks. And that’s how these events are usually reported.</p>
<p>But Israeli human rights group B'Tselem’s database on Israeli and Palestinian fatalities <a href="https://statistics.btselem.org/en/all-fatalities/by-date-of-incident?section=participation&tab=overview">shows that</a> most of the roughly 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since 2000 did not “participate in hostilities” at the time they were killed.</p>
<p>We saw this attempt to shift the blame to Palestinians for Israeli violence in the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. According to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-al-jazeera-journalist-shireen-abu-akleh-shot-dead-jenin">her colleagues at the scene of her death</a>, an Israeli military sniper <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/shireen-abu-akleh-killing-al-jazeera-journalist-eyewitness-account?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1652294662">deliberately shot and killed the veteran journalist</a> with a live bullet to her right temple, even though she was wearing a “PRESS” flak jacket and helmet. One or more snipers also shot at Abu Akleh’s colleagues as they tried to rescue her, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-al-jazeera-journalist-shireen-abu-akleh-shot-dead-jenin">according to eyewitness accounts</a>. </p>
<p>At first, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/11/israel-jazeera-journalist-jenin/">said</a> that “armed Palestinians shot in an inaccurate, indiscriminate and uncontrolled manner” at the time of her killing – implying that Palestinians could have shot Abu Akleh. Then, as evidence mounted <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220512-btselem-israel-narrative-about-killing-shireen-abu-akleh-untrue/">disproving this account</a>, Israeli officials changed course, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2022/05/11/israel/benny-gantz-al-jazeera-journalist-may-have-been-killed-by-israeli-or-palestinian-fire">saying that</a> the source of the gunfire “cannot yet be determined.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A women walks past a mural depicting slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and a helmet with 'PRESS' on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mural of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PalestiniansIsraelJournalistKilled/80b0af70f3b34da798c415d95ce8c952/photo?Query=Shireen%20Abu%20Akleh&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=140&currentItemNo=14">AP Photo/Adel Hana</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The New York Times initially <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/world/middleeast/al-jazeera-journalist-killed-west-bank.html?searchResultPosition=7">reported that</a> Abu Akleh “was shot as clashes between the Israeli military and Palestinian gunmen took place in the city.” Further down in the same story, we read that Palestinian journalist Ali Samudi, who was wounded in the same attack, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/world/middleeast/al-jazeera-journalist-killed-west-bank.html?searchResultPosition=7">said</a>, “There were no armed Palestinians or resistance or even civilians in the area.” Yet this perspective is missing from the headline and opening paragraphs of the story. </p>
<p>A few days later, an <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2022/05/14/unravelling-the-killing-of-shireen-abu-akleh/">analysis of available video footage</a> by investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat concluded that the evidence “appears to support” eyewitnesses who said no militant activity was taking place and that the gunfire came from Israeli military snipers.</p>
<p>The New York Times has not updated or corrected its original story to reflect this new evidence.</p>
<p>It provides an example of why the use of “clash” has been widely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/28/jerusalem-al-aqsa-media-coverage-israeli-violence-palestinians/">criticized by Palestinian and Arab journalists</a>. Indeed, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association in 2021 <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56f442fc5f43a6ecc531a9f5/t/60a7f4b94dcb02030b448fc2/1621619899348/Guidelines+for+Palestine+%3A+Israel+Coverage+-+AMEJA.pdf">issued guidance for journalists</a>, urging that they “avoid the word ‘clashes’ in favor of a more precise description.” </p>
<h2>An incomplete picture</h2>
<p>There is another problem with “clashes.” Limiting media attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only when “clashes erupt” gives Western readers and viewers an incomplete picture. It ignores what B’Tselem describes as the “<a href="https://www.btselem.org/routine_founded_on_violence">daily routine of overt or implicit state violence</a>” that Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories face.</p>
<p>Without understanding the daily violence that Palestinians experience – as documented by groups such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">Human Rights Watch</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/">Amnesty International</a> – it is harder for news consumers to fully comprehend why “clashes” take place in the first place.</p>
<p>But the way people get their news is changing, and with it so are Americans’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is especially true among younger Americans, who are <a href="https://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2019/how-younger-generations-consume-news-differently/">less likely</a> to receive their news from mainstream outlets. </p>
<p>Recent polls show that younger Americans generally <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/24/a-new-perspective-on-americans-views-of-israelis-and-palestinians/">sympathize with Palestinians</a> more than older Americans. That shift holds among <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.22.3.08#metadata_info_tab_contents">younger Jewish Americans</a> and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/evangelical-youth-losing-love-for-israel-by-35-percent-study-shows-671178">younger evangelicals</a>, two communities that have traditionally expressed strong pro-Israel sentiments.</p>
<p>U.S. journalists themselves are also working to change how outlets cover Israeli violence. Last year several of them – including reporters from The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and ABC News – issued an <a href="https://medialetterpalestine.medium.com/an-open-letter-on-u-s-media-coverage-of-palestine-d51cad42022d">open letter</a> calling on fellow journalists “to tell the full, contextualized truth without fear or favor, to recognize that obfuscating Israel’s oppression of Palestinians fails this industry’s own objectivity standards.” So far, over 500 journalists have signed on.</p>
<p>Accurate language in the reporting of Israeli-Palestinian violence is not only a concern for journalists’ credibility – it would also provide U.S. news consumers with a deeper understanding of the conditions on the ground and the deadly consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183077/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maha Nassar is a 2022 Palestinian Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.</span></em></p>In trying to present violent events in ‘neutral’ language, media reports may be ignoring power imbalances when it comes to Israeli police or military violence against Palestinian civilians.Maha Nassar, Associate Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1744242022-04-13T12:14:20Z2022-04-13T12:14:20ZConservatives feel blamed, shamed and ostracized by the media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456620/original/file-20220406-18-d0kw5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4824%2C3610&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some conservatives view media as biased and take it personally.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/stadium-crowd-jeering-open-mouthed-and-pointing-low-royalty-free-image/200244723-011">John Rowley/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tune in to a conservative podcast or scroll through conservative Facebook feeds and there is a decent chance you’ll encounter the terms “mainstream media,” “liberal media” or just “the media,” used in a tone suggesting that the audience all should know exactly who that refers to and exactly what they did wrong.</p>
<p>Polling shows that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/30/partisan-divides-in-media-trust-widen-driven-by-a-decline-among-republicans/">trust in the media among conservatives</a> is low and dropping. Much of the American right is <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-being-anti-media-is-now-part-of-the-gop-identity/">hostile toward the press</a>, but there’s not much research seeking to understand why, or what it means.</p>
<p>Sometimes, journalists and academics view research into conservative communities as disrespectful and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/on-safari-in-trumps-america/543288/">tinged with condescension</a>. Other times this research is viewed as too respectful, focusing on a group whose influence on American politics is <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/the-left-behind-trump-voter-has-nothing-more-to-tell-us">greater than its proportional share of the population</a>.</p>
<p>We understand these objections. But in studying political media, <a href="https://www.ursinus.edu/live/profiles/4139-doron-taussig">we</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=enHWCaoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">have</a> come to believe that the alienation of conservatives from journalism presents a problem in a society where people are supposed to govern themselves using shared information. And we view that problem as worth exploring to understand it.</p>
<p>So, for a research paper <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/polarization-covid-conservative.php">published by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism</a>, we and our collaborators <a href="https://klein.temple.edu/faculty/andrea-wenzel">Andrea Wenzel</a> and <a href="https://towcenter.columbia.edu/content/natacha-yazbeck">Natacha Yazbeck</a> held focus groups and conducted individual interviews from September 2020 until May 2021 with 25 people in the greater Philadelphia region who identified themselves as conservatives. Our questions focused on their perceptions of, and feelings about, coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p>Our interviewees expressed animosity toward the press. But they were not primarily upset that the media get facts wrong, nor even that journalists push a liberal policy agenda. Their anger was about their deeper belief that the American press blames, shames and ostracizes conservatives. </p>
<p>Our research did not investigate whether these perceptions are rooted in reality. What we can say is that they appeared deeply felt, and they colored the way our interviewees perceived media coverage of important issues – like, for example, COVID-19.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man yells and raises both middle fingers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456219/original/file-20220404-15-odd2jr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Strong feelings against the media are deeply felt, a research study finds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trump-supporter-screams-at-the-media-during-a-rally-on-news-photo/692604548">Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Expunged from our society’</h2>
<p>Our interviewees described mainstream media operations like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and network news as “liberal.” What “liberal” meant to them was mostly a contempt for what they viewed as traditional American culture generally and conservatives specifically. </p>
<p>One college student, who joined our Zoom wearing a MAGA hat, said that in mainstream media, conservatives are “basically seen now as the outcasts, the savages.” Another interviewee, who worked as a manager at a retail store, offered as an example of the media’s attitude toward conservatives what he described as <a href="https://twitter.com/keitholbermann/status/1347150996804423682">a “rant” from political commentator Keith Olbermann</a> after Jan. 6, 2021. Our interviewee characterized this as a message that “all Trump supporters and those around him need to be expunged from our society.”</p>
<p>The people we spoke with said this ostracism was happening right now. The college student said he couldn’t express his views in his workplace or his classes for fear of retribution or shaming.</p>
<p>A real estate agent who described herself as a “millennial conservative” said political disagreement had caused old friends to unfollow her on Facebook. </p>
<p>“When I get going, politically, on my Facebook, I’m like, ‘Here I go, I’m calculating 10 [lost friends] by the end of the day.’” </p>
<p>She said the level of “tolerance” she felt from the liberals in her life “has definitely dwindled … I’m just seeing, ‘Okay, I’m just done with dealing with people like you.’”</p>
<h2>‘Completely overdramatized’</h2>
<p>As our interviewees tell it, media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic primarily blamed conservatives and President Donald Trump for the virus’s toll. The interviewees accused the media of exaggerating the problem and suggesting Trump’s policies and conservative recalcitrance were responsible for much of the death and suffering COVID-19 had inflicted on Americans.</p>
<p>Most interviewees didn’t dismiss the threat of COVID-19 entirely. But they said journalists obscured the degree to which the danger was limited to vulnerable groups. Then, they said, those same journalists dwelt on negative statistics and downplayed the economic impacts of lockdown measures.</p>
<p>“What they’re doing is actually laying guilt on certain people,” said a retiree who had owned a gas station. A college student said, “The only real fact I’m hearing from them is the death toll … then they go off on how bad Trump is.”</p>
<p>Several interviewees said journalists’ apparent concerns about COVID-19 were shown to be insincere when – in their view – virus fears were absent from media coverage of the protests that followed George Floyd’s murder in the summer of 2020. </p>
<p>“When we have the riots that were occurring, we had those groups that were not wearing masks, and again that wasn’t exactly emphasized as a negative, but when you have pool parties or people at beaches who weren’t wearing masks, it was completely overdramatized,” said a university instructor.</p>
<p>Their perception that COVID-19 was hyped to damage Trump was so powerful that it could withstand what seemed to us like contrary evidence. We asked interviewees why the press continued to sound the alarm about COVID-19 with similar fervor after Joe Biden was inaugurated. One interviewee admitted he was perplexed. </p>
<p>“I wish I knew,” he said. “That’s the ultimate question I don’t have an answer for. There’s no reason that I can see, statistically, legitimately, factually, for keeping up that narrative now.” </p>
<p>We are not able to say how representative, or not, the views of these 25 people are. But they are consistent with key themes in conservative media, including the <a href="https://theconversation.com/fox-news-uses-the-word-hate-much-more-than-msnbc-or-cnn-145983">general notion of anti-conservative animus</a> and the specific story line that <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/fox-news-dear-leader-donald-trump-coronavirus-coverage">COVID-19 was overhyped to hurt Trump</a>.</p>
<h2>Telling a new story</h2>
<p>Since the 2016 election, connecting better with conservatives has <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/inside-ag-sulzbergers-top-times-project">become a goal</a> for some major media outlets. </p>
<p>It is tempting to imagine that journalists could win trust with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/media-bias-against-conservatives-real-part-reason-no-one-trusts-ncna895471">rigorous accuracy or conspicuous evenhandedness</a>. But our conversations suggest that these measures alone will not be enough to change attitudes. </p>
<p>Aided by <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-great-anti-left-show/">years of prodding by conservative politicians and pundits</a>, many conservatives are deeply skeptical of journalists’ motivations. </p>
<p>Our interviewees view mainstream news outlets as part of a group of liberal institutions dedicated to making conservatives into pariahs. The misinformation often at the heart of conservative responses to COVID-19 is a symptom, rather than a cause, of this distrust. </p>
<p>If there’s a chance of improving the situation, journalists will need to develop strategies for challenging these emotionally powerful stories that portray professional news media as disdainful of conservatives and their communities. Journalists may or may not see conservative estrangement as their fault. But if their goal is to inform a wide swath of the public, they’ll need to convince more of the public that this is, in fact, their goal.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Doron Taussig is affiliated with the Germantown Life Enrichment Center. He receives funding from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Project Pericles.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony M. Nadler has received funding from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. </span></em></p>A series of in-depth interviews with self-described conservatives found concerns that go beyond concerns about selective facts or obvious partisanship.Doron Taussig, Assistant Professor in Journalism, Ursinus CollegeAnthony M. Nadler, Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies, Ursinus CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1732052022-02-04T13:08:31Z2022-02-04T13:08:31ZNew forms of advertising raise questions about journalism integrity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444123/original/file-20220202-17-dvum8z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C8%2C2659%2C1350&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is this a paid ad or a news story? Can you tell?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wellsfargo/investing-in-a-cleaner-future/">Screenshot from washingtonpost.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mainstream news media outlets have, in recent years, begun to <a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/black-ops-advertising-by-mara-einstein/">create advertisements that look like news articles</a> on their websites and on social media. <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17824">My research</a> raises questions about whether this modern form of advertising might influence those outlets’ real journalism. </p>
<p>These specific advertisements are called “native advertising,” but are also tagged as “<a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/black-ops-advertising-by-mara-einstein/">sponsored content</a>,” “partner post” or other labels <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918754829">consumers don’t understand</a>. They look like news articles, with headlines, photos with captions and polished text. But really they are ads created by, or on behalf of, a paying advertiser.</p>
<p>With declining revenue from traditional display advertising and classified ads, news outlets are <a href="https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/black-ops-advertising-by-mara-einstein/">increasingly relying on</a> native advertising – a sector in which U.S. spending was expected to reach <a href="https://www.outbrain.com/blog/21-native-advertising-statistics-for-2021/">$57 billion by the end of 2021</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/cole-haan/grit-and-grace.html">Fashion</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/netflix/women-inmates-separate-but-not-equal.html">entertainment</a> companies buy native advertising. So do corporations that produce products with potentially significant environmental or health connections, such as <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/media-fossil-fuel-ads/">fossil fuels</a>, <a href="https://www.statnews.com/sponsor/2019/02/07/leveraging-technology-to-help-address-the-opioid-crisis/">opioid medications</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wp/2021/05/25/lost-amid-misinformation-real-people-real-science-real-progress/">cigarettes</a> – including in attempts to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2021.1914445">counter negative news coverage</a>.</p>
<h2>Deceiving audiences</h2>
<p>In one example from spring 2021, Philip Morris International – the tobacco company – ran a native advertising campaign across many media outlets, including <a href="http://sponsored.bostonglobe.com/pmi/science-leading-to-a-smoke-free-future/?s_campaign=bg:article:tease">The Boston Globe</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/philip-morris-international/embracing-science-for-better-if-not-now-when.html">The New York Times</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/sponsored/we-cannot-let-misinformation-get-in-the-way-of-progress">Reuters</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wp/2021/05/25/lost-amid-misinformation-real-people-real-science-real-progress/">The Washington Post</a>. </p>
<p>The ads complained about the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wp/2021/05/25/lost-amid-misinformation-real-people-real-science-real-progress/">disinformation campaigns that muddy the truth</a>” regarding the benefits of vaping products while themselves muddying the truth. </p>
<p>In the past, the tobacco industry sought to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/doubt-is-their-product-9780195300673?cc=us&lang=en&">manufacture public uncertainty</a> about the harms of its products. This time, Philip Morris is using a practice that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/25/yahoo-opens-gemini-native-advertising">media critics</a> say is deceptive and media scholar Victor Pickard calls “<a href="https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/qa_victor_pickard.php">subterfuge … creating confusion between editorial and advertising content</a>,” to make claims about the benefits of its products.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439374/original/file-20220104-23-aobs3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439374/original/file-20220104-23-aobs3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439374/original/file-20220104-23-aobs3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439374/original/file-20220104-23-aobs3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439374/original/file-20220104-23-aobs3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439374/original/file-20220104-23-aobs3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439374/original/file-20220104-23-aobs3m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot of a native advertisement appearing in The Washington Post from Philip Morris International.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wp/2021/05/25/lost-amid-misinformation-real-people-real-science-real-progress/">Washington Post</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These advertisements that look like real news are <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com-disclosures-how-make-effective-disclosures-digital">labeled as ads</a>, as required by the Federal Trade Commission. But <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2015.1115380">research studies</a> have <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1293488">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918754829">shown</a> that those labels are largely ineffective at helping readers distinguish between the two types of content.</p>
<h2>Made by journalists</h2>
<p>Many media companies have created <a href="https://thetrust.wsjbarrons.com/">content</a> <a href="https://www.tbrandstudio.com/">studios</a>, separate from their newsrooms, to <a href="http://mediashift.org/2017/10/advertisers-underwrite-new-york-times-content/">create native advertising</a> on behalf of corporate and special interest groups. While newspapers traditionally had ad departments that designed and mocked up advertisements for their clients, today’s native ads are in the form of a “story” that often does not focus on – and sometimes <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10496491.2017.1323264">does not even mention</a> – its sponsor in order to resemble the seemingly objective journalism it imitates.</p>
<p>Sometimes those efforts have the help of intermediaries such as so-called “product marketing” teams that work between the newsroom and studios. A former “creative strategist” at The New York Times says that arrangement allows publishers “<a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/native-ads.php">to skirt the implication that news staff work directly with brands to craft commercial content</a>.” In other cases, journalists write for <a href="https://thebaffler.com/salvos/rest-advertising">both the newsroom</a> <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/blurred-lines-and-black-ops-disappearing-divide-between-uk-news-and-adverti/">and their publisher’s content studio</a>.</p>
<p>Because native advertising typically has <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/native-ads.php">no bylines</a>, most people are unaware that advertisements may be created in such close connection with mainstream newsrooms. <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/digital-age-the-new-york-times-slippery-path-news-advertising.php">Former</a> <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/native-ads.php">employees</a>, including a <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/jill-abramson-merchants-of-truth-book-excerpt.html">former executive editor of The New York Times</a>, say most publishers are not transparent about it with their audiences. One digital journalist told researchers, “Some people will say the ad is labeled so it’s not bad. That’s crap … the unsophisticated won’t get it and then <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764216660135">they’ll click on something meant to look exactly like a story</a>. That’s a problem.”</p>
<h2>Disappearing disclosures</h2>
<p>When native ads are <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/native-ads.php">shared on social media</a>, they’re often distributed in ways that further confuse or deceive audiences.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal, for instance, has <a href="https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/890327274062577664">retweeted posts from its Custom Content studio</a> from the same Twitter account that promotes its news content. While this particular retweet disclosed the commercial nature of the original tweet, this is not always the case.</p>
<p>More than half the time, the FTC-required advertising disclosures disappear when the content leaves the publisher’s website and is shared on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12212">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1906298">Twitter</a>. For example, when I recently shared an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/api-can-natural-gas-be-the-key-to-lowering-emissions/">American Petroleum Institute native ad</a> on Twitter, the disclosure disappeared – a violation of the FTC’s labeling mandate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440939/original/file-20220115-19-1q3i1qz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440939/original/file-20220115-19-1q3i1qz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440939/original/file-20220115-19-1q3i1qz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440939/original/file-20220115-19-1q3i1qz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440939/original/file-20220115-19-1q3i1qz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440939/original/file-20220115-19-1q3i1qz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440939/original/file-20220115-19-1q3i1qz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When retweeted, native advertising appearing in The Washington Post from the American Petroleum Institute was no longer labeled as a paid ad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Amazeen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I believe it is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1906298">responsibility of publishers, not consumers</a>, to ensure that sponsored content is accurately labeled when shared online. Otherwise, <a href="https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01281190">people will amplify</a> undisclosed commercial content <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12232">they think is genuine news</a>.</p>
<h2>Suppressing news coverage?</h2>
<p>I have another concern about this type of potentially deceptive advertising. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2005.10677638">Since as early as 1869</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884917725162">anecdotal</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1397531">evidence</a> has indicated that reporters are hesitant to write about advertisers that are lucrative to their news outlet. My <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17824">recent research</a> with <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/business/leeds-directory/faculty/chris-vargo">digital advertising scholar Chris Vargo</a> signals that similar concerns may occur with this new form of advertising.</p>
<p>We counted all the native advertisements between 2014 and 2019 we could find from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, by looking at native ads those news outlets posted on Twitter and with a custom search process we built on top of Bing. We noted what dates the native ads were published and what company sponsored them. </p>
<p>We also used the <a href="https://github.com/chrisjvargo/gdelt/blob/master/GDELT%20sources.ipynb">GDELT database</a>, which collects online news stories from those three outlets and many other mainstream, partisan, and emerging news sites across the U.S. In that data, we noted the number and dates of news stories naming major companies. </p>
<p>We found 27 companies for which there was enough information in both data sets to make a meaningful connection. For each of those 27 companies, we charted how many mentions they had in news stories over time, and compared those time periods with the timing of that company’s releases of native advertising. </p>
<p>We found that for 16 of the companies, news coverage noticeably decreased after a native advertisement was published. For just three companies, news coverage noticeably increased after a native ad was published.</p>
<p>These results suggest that advertiser-driven “news” stories – <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/media-fossil-fuel-ads/">written and approved by paying sponsors</a> – often go unchallenged. </p>
<p>For example, Wells Fargo – a multinational financial services company plagued by a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo#Lawsuits,_fines_and_controversies">litany of scandals</a>, such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/business/wells-fargo-sales-culture.html">deceiving customers with fake bank accounts</a> – engaged the content studios of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to create nearly a dozen native ads. One, created by The Washington Post’s BrandStudio, touted how Wells Fargo was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/wellsfargo/investing-in-a-cleaner-future/">investing in a cleaner environmental future</a>. If it had been a real news article, it would have reported that the company was also financing <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2016/09/29/how-to-contact-the-17-banks-funding-the-dakota-access-pipeline">the controversial underground oil transport system, the Dakota Access Pipeline</a>.</p>
<p>Our study found statistically less reporting on Wells Fargo not only within those three elite news organizations but across all U.S. online media following the native advertising campaigns.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Native ads are potentially very deceptive to consumers, in their content, their presentation and how they are shared on social media. Our research does not prove a direct connection, but when we add it to the anecdotes that <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democracy-without-journalism-9780190946760?cc=us&lang=en&">news management discourages stories critical of important advertisers</a>, we also wonder about the power of native ads over journalists’ supposedly independent decisions regarding what to cover and when.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle A. Amazeen has received funding from The American Press Institute, the Democracy Fund, and The Rita Allen Foundation. </span></em></p>When news outlets also publish so-called ‘native advertising,’ their journalistic reputations suffer – and their news coverage shies away from the companies that paid for the ads.Michelle A. Amazeen, Associate Professor of Mass Communication, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1651432021-07-30T12:21:46Z2021-07-30T12:21:46Z‘Outing’ of priest shines light on power – and partisanship – of Catholic media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413756/original/file-20210729-23-b75arx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C15%2C5176%2C3456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pope is big news, and provides plenty of column inches in the US.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/on-21-june-2018-the-world-council-of-churches-receives-a-news-photo/1132276780?adppopup=true">Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It had all the hallmarks of a sensationalist tabloid sting.</p>
<p>On July 21, 2021, an <a href="https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec">article appeared alleging</a> that a senior U.S. priest, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, had used the hook-up app Grindr, with data from the app placing him at a number of gay bars. Burrill, the now former General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/07/20/bishop-misconduct-resign-burrill/">promptly resigned</a>.</p>
<p>But the report was not published by an outlet that many Americans would associated with such sex “exposés.” Indeed, most would have never have heard of it at all. It was The Pillar, a <a href="https://www.pillarcatholic.com/about">small newsletter founded in early 2021</a>, that makes up just a tiny part of the Catholic media landscape in the U.S.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://americanstudies.nd.edu/faculty/peter-cajka/">scholar of American Catholicism and culture</a>, I take a keen interest in Catholic media. My recent book, “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo77932169.html">Follow Your Conscience: The Catholic Church and the Spirit of the Sixties</a>,” draws upon dozens of articles in the Catholic media as primary sources for historical analysis. While many Americans may be familiar with evangelical outlets like <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/">Christianity Today</a> or the <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/">Christian Post</a> – not to mention the hundreds of evangelical radio stations across the nation – the Catholic media seems to have less prominence on the national stage. </p>
<p>But as The Pillar’s reporting on Burrill shows, Catholic journalism can nonetheless be influential – and can split opinion in just the same way as media with a wider audience. </p>
<h2>A newspaper for every diocese</h2>
<p>The Catholic mediascape is made up of a series of publications at the local, national and global level. Almost <a href="http://www.ourcatholicneighborhood.com/faith/evangelization/media/newspapers/u.s.-diocesan-newspapers">every diocese has its own newspaper</a> that covers local events like first communions – when a Catholic receives the Eucharist, the bread and wine transformed into Christ’s body and blood, for the first time – or the construction of a new school gym.</p>
<p>But many Catholic readers also like to be informed on the bigger picture of Catholicism, and notably the Pope. In 2014, the Boston Globe, with the help of journalist John Allen, <a href="https://cruxnow.com/">founded Crux</a> to report on the Vatican for an American Catholic audience. </p>
<p>Catholic journalists not only report on the church itself, they aim to offer a Catholic perspective on broader American stories. That was the founding premise behind important Catholic <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/">magazines like Commonweal</a>, founded by laypeople in 1924, and <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/">America, a monthly publication</a> run by Jesuits in New York City. </p>
<p>Increasingly, like the secular media, Catholic outlets have been polarized and drawn into the culture war. They too have taken positions that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/24/like-americans-overall-u-s-catholics-are-sharply-divided-by-party/">divide readers and win constituents</a> with particular worldviews. <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/">National Catholic Reporter</a>, in the spirit of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/10/10/162573716/why-is-vatican-ii-so-important">the Second Vatican Council</a> – the meeting of the world’s bishops 1962 to 1965 that introduced changes like Mass in the vernacular and a new respect for the religious liberty of members of other faiths – is a liberal outlet that cut its teeth on criticism of the Vietnam War and continues to promote social justice. </p>
<p>Its counterpart, the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwo4mIBhBsEiwAKgzXODmopvSLuybqeOEoP_SY9efcHkArwWf6CAa87lbegATtskNEeH8CxRoCqTkQAvD_BwE">National Catholic Register</a>, prefers the moral clarity and conservative positions offered by Popes like John Paul II and Benedict XIV, particularly on matters of gender, sexuality and politics. Its readers overlap with viewers of the <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/">Eternal Word Television Network</a>, a network critical of the more liberal Pope Francis.</p>
<p>On the issue of homosexuality, Catholic media similarly expresses a variety of views. America magazine consistently features the writings of <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/voices/james-martin-sj">Father Jim Martin</a>, a Jesuit priest who has encouraged the church to treat the gay community with more dignity. The periodical <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/">First Things</a>, meanwhile, delights in offering readers searing critiques of secular modernity by Catholic conservative writers. </p>
<h2>Ethical concerns</h2>
<p>Into this partisan media mix emerged The Pillar in 2021 and its recent report on Burrill. The investigation prompted ethical <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/07/25/reporting-that-outed-catholic-priest-reveals-data-is-not-private/">concerns over the use of data privacy</a> – The Pillar’s report relied on geolocation data from the Grindr app that it legally bought. There were also complaints that the reporting appeared to <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/07/20/the-pillar-investigation-of-monsignor-burrill-is-unethical-homophobic-innuendo/">conflate Burrill’s apparent homosexuality with the child abuse scandal</a> in the Catholic church.</p>
<p>The ethics of The Pillar’s article aside, the reporting does tap into a tradition of Catholic media shining a light on church issues and elevating it to national attention.</p>
<p>A generation ago, Catholic media reporting was crucial in helping expose the sexual abuse of children by priests.</p>
<p>On June 7, 1985, an article by investigative journalist <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/authors/jason-berry">Jason Berry in the National Catholic Reporter</a> exposed not only the <a href="https://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/catholic-church/betrayed-by-silence/ch1/">pedophilia of priest Gilbert Gauthe</a>, but also the church’s complicity to cover it up. Berry, a practicing Catholic who covered the case initially for a local Louisiana paper, detailed for a national readership how Gauthe had abused dozens of children in the Diocese of Lafayette starting in 1972. He charted the local hierarchy’s efforts to keep the case out of the public eye and how church officials ignored reports of the abuse. Berry’s article ran for several pages, replete with headlines like “PEDOPHILE PRIEST: STUDY IN INEPT CHURCH RESPONSE” and “MANY KNEW OF FATHER’S PROBLEM BUT NO-ONE STOPPED HIM.” </p>
<p>The national press picked up the story only after it appeared in National Catholic Reporter.</p>
<p>The publication of Berry’s writings on Gauthe marked the beginning of a new, vigorous mode of national criticism in the Catholic press of church hierarchy for allegedly covering up sex abuse scandals.</p>
<h2>Reporting on scandals</h2>
<p>Without journalists like Jason Berry, the exposure of the clergy abuse crisis may have played along very different lines. To put it simply, it moved the interpretation of the crisis away from a “bad apple” paradigm – it which individual priests were to blame – towards a much more systemic approach which looked at a Catholic culture that facilitates abuse.</p>
<p>The Pillar has tried to frame its investigation of Burrill in a similar light. It implies that Burrill’s use of hookup apps might further develop a culture of abuse in the church. The Pillar’s article quotes <a href="https://dunwoodie.edu/people/fr-thomas-v-berg">moral theologian Father Thomas Berg</a> and the late psychological and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/nyregion/aw-richard-sipe-a-leading-voice-on-clergy-sex-abuse-dies-at-85.html">clergy sex abuse expert Richard Sipe</a>, both of who argue that there is a connection between a cleric violating his vows of celibacy with other adults and a potential abuse of adolescents. The suggestion is that it encourages “networks of protection and tolerance among sexually active clerics,” as The Pillar suggests.</p>
<p>But this argument requires a fine dance that risks falling into the trap of connecting the act of homosexuality with pedophilia. <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/pillar-investigation-monsignor-burrill-unethical-homophobic-innuendo">Not everybody is convinced</a> that The Pillar’s article drew this line sufficiently.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it has rekindled a debate over the role of Catholic media.</p>
<p>In his 1996 book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/pedophiles-and-priests-9780195145977?cc=us&lang=en&">Pedophiles and Priest</a>,” <a href="https://www.baylor.edu/history/index.php?id=87862">historian Philip Jenkins</a> criticizes Berry’s landmark reporting for making it appear as if everyone in Louisiana Church structure, from the bishops to fellow priests, were at fault for Gauthe’s prolific abuse. Jenkins argues that the June 1985 article provided a formula for future reporting: first a journalist details some rumors, then he or she writes about how the allegations troubled parents, then the reporter mentions a transfer of a priest to a new parish and, finally, the investigator quotes an expert who comments on the structural nature of the crisis. In this way, Jenkins suggested, journalists make abuse appear more pervasive than it is. Although Jenkins book was written in the mid-1990s, his analysis, while problematic, remains important.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>The abuse crisis is not the only challenge the Catholic Church faces – it is currently in the midst of struggle between <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/opinion/pope-francis-catholic-church.html">conservative and more progressive elements</a>. In <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/pillar-investigation-monsignor-burrill-unethical-homophobic-innuendo">tying to draw a connection between Burrill’s apparent homosexuality and his potential future complicity</a> in the clergy abuse crisis, The Pillar, one of the newest entrants in the Catholic media landscape, has waded into the church’s culture war and placed itself among the outlets that will be reporting on it in the months and years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Cajka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An article that used geolocation data to place a priest at gay bars raises questions over journalistic ethics, and shines a light on the Catholic media landscape.Peter Cajka, Professor of American Studies, University of Notre DameLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1600702021-06-21T12:19:21Z2021-06-21T12:19:21ZHow to consume news while maintaining your sanity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406499/original/file-20210615-3785-15a3wsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=220%2C196%2C2890%2C1736&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Too much news can overwhelm consumers and promote anxiety.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/control-room-operators-at-fox-news-studios-in-new-york-news-photo/142740560?adppopup=true"> The Washington Post / Contributor/ Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The amount and variety of news produced today often tests people’s ability to determine its value and veracity. Such a <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-too-much-news-is-bad-news-is-the-way-we-consume-news-detrimental-to-our-health-146568">torrent of information</a> threatens to drown news consumers in a river of confusion. </p>
<p>Media coverage of the coronavirus, for example, illustrates how news may overwhelm and confuse consumers, and even <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-media-may-be-making-the-covid-19-mental-health-epidemic-worse-153616">contribute to mental health woes</a> by escalating anxiety.</p>
<p>The overabundance also undermines Americans’ ability to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/10/19/the-future-of-truth-and-misinformation-online/">decipher fact from misinformation</a>.</p>
<p>But techniques exist for ferreting out what we can trust and what we should question, and there are steps we can take to help determine where the news comes from. </p>
<p>The owners of news media outlets often bring their own view of the news they want their organization to focus on. Some see themselves as information providers. Others may want to advance agendas they believe in. </p>
<p>One example of what should be covered in the news was provided by New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs in 1897. It still appears on the newspaper’s masthead: “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/All-the-News-Thats-Fit-to-Print">All the News That’s Fit to Print</a>.” </p>
<p>This statement of values enables us to understand what the journalist or news organization wants to convey and why. Understanding the messenger helps us understand the message. </p>
<p>As a longtime journalist, and as a <a href="https://my.wlu.edu/directory/profile?ID=x7968">journalism professor</a> who teaches media ethics, I believe news consumers should bring a critical eye to the news.</p>
<p>Here’s a list you can use when reading, listening to or watching news. It offers steps to bring better focus and context to the relentless news feed.</p>
<h2>1. What’s news to you?</h2>
<p>What is news? News, at its core, focuses on information that is “new.” It conveys the latest knowledge about local, state, national and international occurrences. Other definitions can be found <a href="https://www.masscommunicationtalk.com/definition-of-news.html">here</a>, <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/news">here</a> and <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/news">here</a>.</p>
<p>What’s the difference between your definition of news and that of news providers? The <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/makes-good-story/">American Press Institute notes</a> that journalism seeks to determine “newsworthiness.” That, it says, involves verification and value. </p>
<h2>2. Learn more about the news you turn to</h2>
<p>What news organization produces the news you turn to, and what does its mission statement disclose about its purpose and promises?</p>
<p>Who does it identify as the audience it serves?</p>
<p>What a news organization says it stands for can be found online. For examples, search for an “About” heading, a mission statement or “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/policies-and-standards/">policies and standards</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Stacks of newspapers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407054/original/file-20210617-17-1r29br0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Stacks of newspapers on a New York City street.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/copies-of-the-new-york-times-on-a-newsstand-contain-the-news-photo/526660826?adppopup=true">Richard Levine/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>3. Become familiar with journalists your news comes from</h2>
<p>What are the names of the journalists associated with the news story, and what’s their background? Check online.</p>
<p>How accurate has their work been? You can turn to news research organizations like <a href="https://www.poynter.org/news/fact-checking/">Poynter</a> and other independent groups focused on transparency and fact-checking.</p>
<p>What approach do they take? Is it straight, interpretative or personal? Straight news focuses on verifiable facts. The interpretive approach adds the journalist’s understanding of the subject matter. And the personal approach offers the journalist’s opinions.</p>
<h2>4. Compare different sources of news on the same subject</h2>
<p>Consume news from sources across the news spectrum when possible – from local to regional to national and international.</p>
<p>Ask yourself the following questions: How do they frame the same news from their vantage point? What, if any, slant seems apparent? What’s the focus of their lens on the news?</p>
<h2>5. Compare notes with others you trust and maybe don’t trust</h2>
<p>Ask your friends, and even those who aren’t friends, what their take is on the news. What news sources do they turn to that they trust? How do they evaluate their news?</p>
<p>Seek out different perspectives so you can compare them with your own.</p>
<h2>6. Seek out commentary from those who analyze news</h2>
<p>Look for columnists or commentators whose views you share. Seek out columnists and commentators whose views you don’t share.</p>
<p>Here is a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/syndication/columnists/">list provided by The Washington Post</a> of columnists across the political spectrum, with a brief description of their focus. </p>
<p>The New York Times has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion/columnists">host</a> of them, too. And so does the <a href="https://tribunecontentagency.com/premium-content/opinion/">Tribune Content Agency</a>.</p>
<p>Try to understand where they are coming from and why.</p>
<h2>7. Decide what news matters to you, and what doesn’t</h2>
<p>Be open about the news you consume.</p>
<p>Contact news producers when you think their news is incomplete or incorrect. Professional news producers welcome constructive feedback. They see it as beneficial to improving.</p>
<p>Consult other sources of news and knowledge for more insight on the news: magazines, books, podcasts and Instagram, for example.</p>
<p>Consume a variety of news: the good, the bad and, if necessary, the ugly.</p>
<p>Finally, take a break from news. Too much news overwhelms. The right diet of news enlightens.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 106,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aly Colón does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The daily deluge of information produced by the news media can drown consumers in confusion and anxiety, but there are steps you can take to filter out the noise and remain enlightened.Aly Colón, Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics, Washington and Lee UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1591732021-04-18T12:32:59Z2021-04-18T12:32:59ZBeing skeptical of sources is a journalist’s job – but it doesn’t always happen when those sources are the police<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395571/original/file-20210417-21-zj51t4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C21%2C2739%2C1131&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police body camera video shows Adam Toledo's hands were raised just before he was shot.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ChicagoPoliceShooting/bf83155c3e084424a4f48a5f9d5df89c/photo">Chicago Police Department via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo might well have made international headlines on March 29, 2021 – the day he was shot and killed by a police officer – had the emerging narrative been different.</p>
<p>Instead, early news reports of the incident relied on a police statement which said Toledo died in an “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/02/us/chicago-police-shooting/index.html">armed confrontation</a>.” An <a href="https://twitter.com/TomAhernCPD/status/1376479235162918913?s=20">image of a gun</a> recovered at the scene was also released. During a bond hearing for the man who had been with Toledo when the chase began, prosecutors said a <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/04/15/prosecutor-misspoke-adam-toledo-gun/">gun was in Toledo’s hand</a> when police shot him dead.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1376479235162918913"}"></div></p>
<p>Body camera footage <a href="https://www.chicagocopa.org/case/2021-1112/">released a full two weeks later</a> now casts doubt on the accuracy of that narrative. A short <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/adam-toledo-chicago-shooting-video-footage-eric-stillman/10518893/">video clip</a> shows a chase which ends with Toledo turning his body toward the officer, arms raised. There is no gun is his hands when the shot is fired.</p>
<p>The Cook County state’s attorney’s office has since said the prosecutor “failed to fully inform himself” before speaking. Others go further, saying <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/548677-ocasio-cortez-says-chicago-prosecutor-lied-in-adam-toledo-killing">the prosecutor lied</a>.</p>
<p>Either way, the body camera footage shifted the narrative. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protesters hold a banner saying " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395562/original/file-20210417-19-1i57uir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395562/original/file-20210417-19-1i57uir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395562/original/file-20210417-19-1i57uir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395562/original/file-20210417-19-1i57uir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395562/original/file-20210417-19-1i57uir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395562/original/file-20210417-19-1i57uir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395562/original/file-20210417-19-1i57uir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Protesters take to the streets in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hundreds-of-protesters-take-streets-for-13-years-old-adam-news-photo/1232352851?adppopup=true">Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>As a <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/dkilgo">scholar who researches media coverage of police and protests</a>, I believe Toledo’s death exposes a blind spot in journalism: a tendency to go with the “police said” narrative without outwardly questioning if it is right.</p>
<h2>Unreliable sources?</h2>
<p>Journalists are responsible for creating the first draft of history, quickly. To do this, the profession has routines and norms that help it produce news in a systematic way. Breaking news reporters often rely on the accounts and statements made by official sources. This often includes the narratives and statements put forward by official sources – politicians, police and official spokespeople. </p>
<p>These are people journalists may work with regularly; they are often more accessible under the pressure of a deadline – especially if a victim’s friends and family are hard to reach or less willing to speak to the press. And even if officials are wrong or say something defamatory, a journalist <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1757/fair-report-privilege">can often report what they say with legal impunity</a>.</p>
<p>All of this gives police an opportunity to shape the initial version of the event – and it gets their version of the story into the public consciousness before victims, families and their supporters are able to.</p>
<p>But often they do so in a way that is incomplete, misleading or presented for strategic reasons. Official statements may, intentionally or not, withhold or omit information. In Toledo’s case, <a href="https://twitter.com/TomAhernCPD/status/1376644238792929281/photo/1">the original statement given to media</a> on the day of the shooting mentioned that “one armed offender,” a “male,” fled from police and a “confrontation” took place. “The officer fired his weapon striking the offender in the chest.” </p>
<p>There is no mention that, as later emerged, it appears that <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-police-adam-toledo-shooting-video-released-20210415-xn63playebasld36oulootdq6i-story.html">the gun was tossed</a> and Toledo was raising his hands. The incident report <a href="https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/copa-releases-videos-of-police-fatally-shooting-13-year-old-adam-toledo">listed Toledo as a “John Doe”</a> and between the ages of 18 and 25 – and thus failed to reveal that Toledo was a child.</p>
<p>Similarly, on May 26, 2020, a day after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the city’s police released a statement to media <a href="https://www.startribune.com/mpls-police-still-haven-t-explained-misinformation-after-floyd-s-death/570970152/">under the subject line</a> “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction.” It noted the “suspect” had “physically resisted” and died after “suffering medical distress.” It does not say that an officer had Floyd pinned to the ground with a knee on his neck for more than nine minutes.</p>
<p>Just months before, in the police incident report documenting the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisville-police-breonna-taylor-death-incident-report/">2020 death of Breonna Taylor</a> in Louisville, Kentucky, officers didn’t include crucial details. It listed her injuries as “none” and suggested that there was no forced entry to her building. In fact, a battering ram was used and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html">Taylor was shot multiple times</a>.</p>
<p>And in June 2020, when a 75-year-old man fractured his skull during a protest in Buffalo against police brutality, the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/05/buffalo-police-said-protester-head-wound-tripped-fell-video-shows-lied/">initial official response was he “tripped and fell</a>.” Video quickly circulated showing he was shoved to the group by police in riot gear.</p>
<p>In the Buffalo case, the police version of the story was <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/05/buffalo-police-said-protester-head-wound-tripped-fell-video-shows-lied/">quickly and easily countered</a>. It took place in the presence of witnesses, including journalists, some of whom took video. When, in the case of Toledo, the incident is away from the cell phones of bystanders, it can take longer to establish precisely what happened.</p>
<h2>The victim’s story</h2>
<p>Police <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/communications_law/publications/communications_lawyer/fall2020/public-access-police-bodyworn-camera-recordings-status-report-2020/">do not typically release body camera footage immediately</a> – if it is released at all. Most footage is classified for weeks for internal investigation before becoming accessible to the public.</p>
<p>By that time, the public may have already been fed a narrative about what happened and the backgrounds of those involved.</p>
<p>Journalists have been criticized for being <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnson-black-victim-20170330-story.html">too quick to rely on police</a> to tell the stories of victims. That is why the public tends to know more about the criminal histories of victims and their families, especially soon after an incident, than it does about the histories of the police officers who shot them. </p>
<p>I <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08838151.2021.1897821?casa_token=0GhzEx29a7AAAAAA:0tEcjnXwQmCymhMHkVp-zHbHekKaxfe9w5jyr7ITX1v_SgE12mdLbTs1rsq7nBwnEMZryc7-PK-lEQ">recently analyzed</a> media coverage of the protests following the 2018 death of <a href="https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/timeline-stephon-clark-shooting-response/103-531055296">Stephon Clark</a>, who was holding a mobile phone when police shot him in his grandmother’s backyard. The people close to Clark, like his family and friends, weren’t the key sources providing information about Clark’s character in coverage. </p>
<p>Instead, over the six months of news coverage analyzed, news stories most <a href="https://www.kcra.com/article/who-was-stephon-clark/19635231">often relied on police accounts and records</a> that profiled Clark in stereotypical and stigmatizing ways. They were <a href="https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2019/03/02/da-release-texts-searches-stephon-clark/">helped along by the district attorney</a>, who released personal text messages and internet searches from Clark that detailed relationship difficulties and apparent suicidal thoughts.</p>
<h2>‘Failure of journalism’</h2>
<p>After presenting incomplete, misleading or downright wrong police reports as fact too often, reporters and editors <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/journalists-are-reexamining-their-reliance-on-a-longtime-source-the-police/2020/06/30/303c929c-b63a-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html">are now speaking up</a> about the problem. It was notable that journalists were among those most critical of the media response to Toledo’s killing.</p>
<p>“This is why journalists must stop reporting law enforcement accounts as fact,” <a href="https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1382795807368286211">tweeted The New York Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones</a>. </p>
<p>Chris Geidner, the executive director of The Appeal, a media site on law and criminal justice, <a href="https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/1382800243704659974">went further</a>: “… any narrative reliant on ‘police said’ is a failure of journalism. At best, police should be treated as one source for a story – an unreliable narrator in instances like officer shootings – and thus not sufficient to establish the story.” </p>
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<p>This fits within a broader media reassessment of policies and practices that traditionally misrepresent and inaccurately represent people of color. It includes initiatives to diversify newsrooms that have <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/race-ethnicity-newsrooms-data.php">a long history underrepresenting people of color</a>. </p>
<p>And it comes at a time when the wider public’s trust in the police is waning. A <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/317135/amid-pandemic-confidence-key-institutions-surges.aspx">Gallup poll</a> in August 2020 found confidence in police had fallen to its lowest levels since the survey began recording the issue in 1993. Just 48% of respondents said they had a great deal of confidence in police. Likewise, trust in the media <a href="https://www.axios.com/media-trust-crisis-2bf0ec1c-00c0-4901-9069-e26b21c283a9.html">has hit a new low</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Treating police sources with necessary and appropriate skepticism could provide news audiences with a more complete picture of incidents such as police shootings and disrupt a process that has privileged some voices over others. </p>
<p>And it isn’t a radical idea: Questioning and verifying information has always been a part of the journalist’s job.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danielle K Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the aftermath of Adam Toledo’s death, police and a prosecutor framed the incident as a confrontation with an armed male holding a gun. Should reporters have been so quick to accept that version?Danielle K Brown, John and Elizabeth Bates Cowles Professor of Journalism, Diversity, and Equality, University of MinnesotaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1492992020-11-10T16:45:59Z2020-11-10T16:45:59ZHow will journalists handle a Joe Biden presidency?<p>As in much of the developed world, the US media is in an existential crisis. For more than a decade, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/20/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-dropped-by-a-quarter-since-2008/">dwindling advertising revenue</a> and threats to the authority and legitimacy exacerbated by the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/24/qa-how-pew-research-center-evaluated-americans-trust-in-30-news-sources/">rise of digital and social platforms</a> is putting relentless pressure on mainstream news organisations. As president, Donald Trump has provided them not just with opportunities to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2018/04/18/the-ratings-bump-of-donald-trump/?sh=7acc80357ec1">raise their ratings</a>, but he has given them <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/coverage-trump-presidency-2020-election.php">something to talk about</a>. Every day.</p>
<p>Trump’s battle with the press – according to him <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437610-trump-calls-press-the-enemy-of-the-people">“the enemy of the people”</a> – has also given journalists a chance to reassert their power and, more importantly, their presence. Just as former CBS chief executive Les Moonves <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/its-the-end-of-the-world-desk-as-we-know-it/">said in 2016</a>: “Trump may not be good for America, but he is damn good for CBS”.</p>
<p>So now that it looks all but inevitable that Trump will have to leave the White House in January 2021, we need to start considering how the media will begin to cover a Biden presidency.</p>
<p>Biden has had a relatively good experience with journalists in the past. It helped he was under the umbrella of the 44th US president, Barack Obama – a darling of the media who was left largely unscathed by press attacks during his campaign and subsequent two terms in the White House. Reporters did, however, pick up on a few, small Biden gaffes, such as the time he was caught on camera telling Obama in 2010 that the signing into law of healthcare reform was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/23/joe-biden-obama-big-fucking-deal-overheard">a big fucking deal</a>”. That’s certainly not as bad as when the then vice president Dick Cheney was overheard on the floor of the US Senate to tell Senator Patrick Leahy to “<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dick-cheney-patrick-leahy-fuck-yourself_n_549100">Go fuck yourself</a>” in a debate about judical nominations and Cheney’s ties to war-profiteering Halliburton.</p>
<p>There were a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/joe-biden-tells-media-words-matter-as-his-gaffes-continue-to-pile-up/#x">few other Biden gaffes</a> during the recent campaign. His hypothetical reference to what would have happened had Barack Obama been assassinated during the 2008 campaign, for example, which was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-poses-hypothetical-assassination-obama-n1046006">widely seen as a misstep</a> or an occasion on which he <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/joe-biden-nevada-new-hampshire-primary-state-confusing-gaffe-a9330701.html">confused Nevada and New Hampshire</a> during the most recent campaign. </p>
<p>But we should put Biden’s gaffes at least in some context, the least of which is that his speech hasn’t led to major international political crises or ramped-up racial tensions in the US. He hasn’t encouraged people to inject dangerous chemicals to cure themselves of COVID. Trump <a href="https://dangerousspeech.org/tag/donald-trump">did say these things</a> – and plenty more.</p>
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<h2>Age-old questions</h2>
<p>How, then, will journalists handle Biden in office? For a start the media will need to tread lightly on the issue of Biden’s age – he turns 78 on November 20, making the oldest man to take on the presidency – so as to not appear ageist. But there are other, uglier tropes which have trended on social media, for example the tag: “Creepy Uncle Joe” for his supposedly inappropriate <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/2/18290345/joe-biden-lucy-flores-amy-lappos">behaviour with women</a>. At a time when personality politics remains so dominant in public discourse, this sort of thing won’t make for an easy transition. </p>
<p>Prominent commentator Jack Shafer <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/29/media-favor-to-biden-ignore-him-387498">writing in Politico</a> has observed that, over the years, “media’s biggest favor to Biden was to ignore him”. So how journalism responds to Biden now will be key to the continuing credibility of the US news media. This is doubly important thanks to Trump’s own behaviour, policies and speech while in office. The feeling is that journalism needs to <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-the-upside-hes-forcing-journalism-to-do-better-107464">strain every sinew</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/4/21306919/donald-trump-media-ethics-tom-rosenstiel">reinforce its role</a> as a legitimate and authoritative truth-teller.</p>
<p>Coming after Trump, who elite US journalists have largely <a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/06/03/media-shows-similar-bias-against-trump-as-it-did-vietnam-war/">found distasteful</a>, will Biden be a new media star who gives journalists “good stories” to tell, who provides opportunities for expert opinion, analysis and heated debate, and whose Twitter feed can fuel the next news cycle? And, if Biden is “good for democracy,” how will journalists cover – as opposed to celebrate – someone that half of the country voted against?</p>
<h2>Uninteresting times?</h2>
<p>I’ve <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trump-show-can-end-here-is-how">written before</a> that reducing a focus on Trump might provide journalists with a chance to focus on other issues elsewhere, ditching the distraction of the daily White House carnival for deeper and more serious reporting projects. But will a political sphere without Trump altogether mean journalism is back to being boring?</p>
<p>Many will argue that Trump’s policies were so divisive and dangerous that anyone in the office other than him is necessarily positive. But journalists and those who hold their purse-strings will have to find a new enemy if they wish to keep their increased ratings – and maybe even their reputation of being a critical eye – intact when Biden becomes president in January.</p>
<p>History <a href="https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=4924&context=mulr">suggests</a> that conflict attracts more eyeballs than stable government. So there are urgent questions for the media in this new era. Trump’s outspoken opposition to what he called the “fake news media” offered news organisations a sense of legitimacy and relevancy (in most people’s eyes in any case). This will suffer if they don’t subject Biden to the same level of scrutiny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert E Gutsche Jr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new era will require a new approach when it comes to reporting US politics.Robert E Gutsche Jr, Senior Lecturer in Critical Digital Media Practice, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1322242020-03-26T12:10:31Z2020-03-26T12:10:31ZCoronavirus: News media sounded the alarm for months – but few listened<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322707/original/file-20200324-155666-1m67mn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=73%2C49%2C8213%2C5385&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Journalists have been telling the public about the coronavirus.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cameras-filming-a-television-talk-show-royalty-free-image/1051789882">vm/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the COVID-19 outbreak began in Wuhan, China, journalists at the biggest U.S. news organizations have diligently reported on the many dangers posed by its rapid spread. </p>
<p>Yet even as entire states – like California and New York – shut down, many Americans still don’t believe that the coronavirus is as big a deal as the news media has made it out to be. A <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/17/816501871/poll-as-coronavirus-spreads-fewer-americans-see-pandemic-as-a-real-threat">poll conducted in mid-March</a> found that only 56% of Americans consider the coronavirus a “real threat,” and that 38% believe that it has been “blown out of proportion.” A <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_032320/">more recent poll</a> similarly found that only 57% of U.S. residents see the coronavirus as “the biggest concern facing your family right now.” </p>
<p>It’s true that there has been a lot of coverage. The New York Times has consistently documented <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html">the spread of the virus across the globe</a>, making it clear just how infectious the disease is. </p>
<p>More recently, the Washington Post published <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/">a compelling series of visuals</a> demonstrating the importance of “flattening the curve” so that the effect of coronavirus in the U.S. would be less severe. </p>
<p>The coronavirus has been the main story on television news, too, and the social distancing related to the virus <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-03-16/coronavirus-pandemic-plays-out-in-real-time-on-tv-news">has affected the way television news gets produced</a>. </p>
<p>People aren’t missing the coverage, either: Online news consumption <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/17/21182770/news-consumption-coronavirus-traffic-views">has gone up drastically</a> since the beginning of March.</p>
<p>Still, a significant portion of the American people are unprepared and uninformed about the pandemic journalists have warned about for months, which is now upon us all. Why is that? As someone who researches the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=keaFci8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">relationship between journalism and the public</a>, I have observed a growing consensus within journalism scholarship around a possible answer: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1464884918807069">People simply don’t trust</a> what they’re reading and hearing.</p>
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<h2>The causes of journalism’s credibility crisis</h2>
<p>Public trust in journalism has been a problem for the news industry for decades. Journalism boasted <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1663/media-use-evaluation.aspx">the highest level of public trust in 1977</a>, with 72% of Americans reporting that they trusted the news media “a great deal” or “a fair amount.” Journalism’s credibility has been on a long down-slide since, with the mass media <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/267047/americans-trust-mass-media-edges-down.aspx">now trusted by just 41% of Americans</a>. This is higher than the record low of 32% in 2016, but it means that more than half of the country’s citizens have little to no trust in the news that they’re exposed to.</p>
<p>Some within the media industry have identified a number of reasons journalism’s credibility is so low. One is the misinformation campaigns that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/">routinely flood social media platforms</a> and run the risk of conflating real news with fake news in the minds of the public.</p>
<p>Politics is another factor: Political leaders frequently refer to news stories and publishers as “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/09/donald-trump-obama-fake-news-tweets-124320">fake news</a>,” and audiences themselves increasingly gauge the quality of the news <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/216320/republicans-democrats-views-media-accuracy-diverge.aspx">through a politically ideological lens</a>. There is now <a href="https://galley.cjr.org/public/conversations/-M1kmqTirkxJzOK7i0wm">a growing group of researchers</a> focused on understanding “the right wing media ecosystem,” which includes “news” sources that publish misleading or false claims while also dismissing more mainstream news sources.</p>
<p>Finally, some researchers believe that the news industry itself is to blame for its credibility crisis. As journalism researcher Meredith Clark has found, newsrooms are behind <a href="https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2019/american-newsrooms-should-employ-more-people-of-color-survey-finds/">when it comes to employing people of color</a>. And journalism researcher Andrea Wenzel has found that this <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/public-radio-cultural-competency.php">lack of newsroom diversity</a> is a problem when it comes to public trust. When citizens do not see themselves reflected in a media outlet’s reporters, editors or sources, they are less likely to see that outlet as accurately representing their communities, and are less likely to trust it as a result.</p>
<h2>The relationship between news audience trust and loyalty</h2>
<p>This credibility problem has been especially evident in the reception of coronavirus news. A <a href="https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2020-03/2020%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Coronavirus%20Special%20Report_0.pdf">recent survey found</a> that journalists were the least trusted spokespeople about the virus. People in 10 countries expected more truth-telling from health care CEOs – or even the news media as a whole – than from journalists. </p>
<p>That people reported slightly more trust in “news media” may indicate a misunderstanding of the connection between news media and journalists. Citizens may see journalists as being individuals with an ax to grind, whereas the “news media” is more abstract and, therefore, less biased. Alternatively, this distinction could just be a symptom of a poorly worded poll question. Either way, it’s clear that the public’s lack of trust in journalism generally mirrors the public’s lack of trust in coronavirus journalism specifically.</p>
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<p>However, recent research I conducted with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Aqp_oZEAAAAJ&hl=en">Su Jung Kim</a>, a media scholar at the University of Southern California, shows the amount of public trust or distrust for news media is complicated by the fact that the news media is not one homogeneous entity. As we show in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2020.1719874">our article</a>, which was published in the academic journal Journalism Practice, the more people trust a news source, the more they seek out news from it.</p>
<p>We also found that people who trusted one type of news used other types less. For instance, people with a higher level of trust in television news read newspapers less frequently. We concluded that people do not perceive the “news media” as one homogeneous thing that they either trust or distrust. They acknowledge that the news comprises a variety of sources, and they distinguish between news sources they trust, and the ones they do not. </p>
<p>But what makes people more likely to see certain news outlets as credible, and which is likely to do the opposite?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322713/original/file-20200324-155652-bxfir1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It matters who works in the newsroom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/journalists-work-in-the-newsroom-at-the-orange-county-news-photo/1033430062">Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to improve trust in journalism</h2>
<p>It is hard to know what, exactly, makes people more or less likely to see individual journalists and the news outlets they represent as credible. Consequently, it is hard to know what exactly journalists should do to solve the credibility problem they face with their readers. </p>
<p>That means people are trying a variety of approaches to enhance credibility.</p>
<p>Some journalists and journalism researchers, for example, have embraced the idea that news will be viewed as more trustworthy when journalists show how they work by, for example, including information in their stories that describe <a href="https://laist.com/2019/11/14/saugus_high_school_shooting.php">the reporting process itself</a>.</p>
<p>For example, the Washington Post has published a series of videos called “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/wp/2017/12/08/the-washington-post-launches-how-to-be-a-journalist-video-series/">How to be a journalist</a>,” intended to “help inform viewers about what reporters do.” One video is an interview with one of the Washington Post’s political campaign reporters about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/how-to-be-a-journalist/analyzing-the-2020-democrats-with-david-weigel/2019/10/14/691eb76e-cefa-4063-801f-1ec6efbadda3_video.html">how he covers the Democratic presidential primary</a>. Another video is a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/how-to-be-a-journalist/behind-the-scenes-of-a-presidential-debate--how-to-be-a-journalist/2019/11/19/d9d01d95-f9fd-475c-ad6e-9782fe8fad29_video.html">“behind the scenes” look at how a presidential debate comes together</a>.</p>
<p>Right now, it’s unclear how effective this emphasis on transparency is when it comes to audience trust. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Media Engagement recently concluded that it doesn’t boost – or hurt – trust when <a href="https://mediaengagement.org/research/reporter-bios-and-trust/">reporters share biographical information</a> about themselves. </p>
<p>Conversely, a different study from the same center found that when a news outlet adds a box that explains the process to write or produce a story, <a href="https://mediaengagement.org/research/building-trust/">it improves perceptions of a news organization among its audience</a>.</p>
<p>As news organizations seek to boost public trust amid the coronavirus outbreak, I believe it’s worth trying <a href="https://medium.com/trusting-news/how-to-demonstrate-trustworthiness-with-your-coronavirus-coverage-e7804d5dd957">these ideas</a> and others – <a href="https://membershippuzzle.org/articles-overview/community-investment-2">such as more explicit engagement with their audiences</a>, and <a href="https://nieman.harvard.edu/articles/how-journalists-of-color-are-redefining-newsroom-culture/">more attempts to make the demographics of their newsrooms mirror that of their readers</a>. Research on their effectiveness, which is already being pursued within <a href="https://trustingnews.org/what-we-do/">several</a> <a href="https://newscollab.org/blog/">university-affiliated</a> <a href="https://agora.uoregon.edu/">projects</a>, will also be necessary to understand the impact of these efforts.</p>
<p>Having verifiable information that people trust is crucial, especially in a crisis. These methods – and others – can perhaps restore a degree of trust that the news has been lacking, even when the information is hard to believe.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob L. Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s a lot of scholarship, but a likely reason is pretty basic: People simply don’t trust what they’re reading and hearing.Jacob L. Nelson, Assistant Professor of Digital Audience Engagement, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1266372019-11-19T14:05:41Z2019-11-19T14:05:41ZLocal news outlets can fill the media trust gap – but the public needs to pony up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301851/original/file-20191114-26207-1rfv82d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C4246%2C2820&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The appetite for smart local news is there. The challenge is figuring out how to make it profitable.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/american-state-kentucky-on-map-world-1497157595?src=95c357ea-9b93-45d2-88ad-8a4a95cfb182-1-29">Sharaf Maksumov/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the polarization of America’s media and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/11/impeachment-democrats-republicans-polarization/601264/">politics</a> reaching a fever pitch, many news consumers – “worn out by a fog of political news,” as a recent New York Times feature <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/us/polls-media-fake-news.html">put it</a> – are responding by tuning out altogether.</p>
<p>Media distrust, which has <a href="https://www.edelman.com/trust-barometer">intensified globally</a> in recent years, is also a likely factor. A recent Gallup poll <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/267047/americans-trust-mass-media-edges-down.aspx">found</a> only 13% of Americans trust the media “a great deal,” while 28% indicated that they trust the media “a fair amount.” </p>
<p>However, evidence suggests a more favorable situation for local journalism.</p>
<p><a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ebnyhan/media-trust-report-2018.pdf">Poynter’s 2018 Media Trust Survey</a> and a recent <a href="https://www.knightfoundation.org/reports/state-of-public-trust-in-local-news">Knight Foundation-Gallup study</a> each found that trust in local media is higher than for national media.</p>
<p>Only 31% of Americans say they trust reporting from national news outlets “a great deal” or “quite a lot,” while 45% of Americans say the same for reporting from local news organizations. </p>
<p>Forty-five percent still isn’t great; clearly, there’s work to be done. These efforts are complicated by the fact that <a href="https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/11/01/end-of-local-news/">many newsrooms are struggling financially</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this backdrop, I’m optimistic. I’ve spent two decades <a href="https://damianradcliffe.wordpress.com/about/hyperlocal/">researching</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianradcliffe/">working in</a> local news. I believe local media outlets are in a position to creatively cater to audiences burned out by beltway drama. </p>
<p>Here are four ways local newsrooms can forge deeper relationships with the communities they serve. </p>
<h2>1. Interact with readers</h2>
<p>With newsroom employment <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/09/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-dropped-by-a-quarter-since-2008/">down 25% since 2008</a> – the equivalent of 28,000 jobs – there are fewer boots on the ground. Nonetheless, opportunities to engage with audiences are greater than ever.</p>
<p>One way is to be visible – online and in real life.</p>
<p>Journalists can think about opportunities for face-to-face interaction with readers. Some outlets have started holding <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/slow-news-venture-tortoise-creates-inclusive-members-model-with-potential-to-extend-into-local-journalism/">open editorial meetings</a>, in which journalists discuss the stories they’re developing, or <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/brews-and-news-with-voice-of-san-diego-journalists-march-20th-tickets-55609776338">meet-and-greets</a> with the public. There are also opportunities to engage with readers via social media, whether it’s through <a href="https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/success-stories/globalnews-live">Facebook Live</a> or Q&As on Reddit, also known as “<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/a4wvov/we_are_the_journalists_who_produced_the/">Ask Me Anything</a>.”</p>
<p>These efforts matter, because local journalists are often the only journalists people ever meet. As a result, they can serve as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-local-journalism-can-upend-the-fake-news-narrative-104630">proxy for perceptions of the wider industry</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Teach the process</h2>
<p>Another way to build trust is to explain how journalism works.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/how-does-journalism-happen-poll.php">Research suggests</a> audiences don’t understand how journalism is produced, nor do they understand some of the terminology reporters deploy.</p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/how-does-journalism-happen-poll.php">2018 survey</a> found 60% of respondents believed reporters get paid by their sources “sometimes or very often.” <a href="https://twitter.com/mayerjoy">Joy Mayer</a>, director of the <a href="https://medium.com/trusting-news">Trusting News</a> project, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/demystifying-media/joy-mayer">told me</a> that when journalists talk about “anonymous sources,” many people assume the journalist doesn’t know who the source is, either.</p>
<p>It’s not difficult to <a href="https://niemanstoryboard.org/storyboard-category/annotation-tuesday/">address this</a>, and doing so could help engender more trust in journalistic practice.</p>
<p>In December 2018, for example, journalists at The Oregonian published <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/02/the-oregonianoregonlives-ghosts-of-highway-20-named-finalist-for-scripps-howard-award.html">a series</a> about five seemingly disparate crimes and their connection to John Ackroyd, a convicted murderer. But they didn’t just publish the pieces and wait for <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/editors/2019/06/the-oregonianoregonlives-ghosts-of-highway-20-wins-4-regional-emmy-awards.html">the awards</a>. They also shared articles <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/ghosts-of-highway-20-how-we-reported-the-series.html">outlining</a> their reporting methods, alongside an <a href="https://projects.oregonlive.com/ghostsofhighway20/stories-annotated.pdf">annotated version of the full series</a> with footnotes and links to related documents.</p>
<h2>3. Give readers what they want</h2>
<p>Without this type of transparency, as a recent Knight report <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/articles/local-news-is-more-trusted-than-national-news-but-that-could-change/">acknowledged</a>, trust in local news “is vulnerable to the same perceptions of partisan bias that threaten confidence in the national media.” </p>
<p>One further way to try to eliminate this is to cede some control to the audience.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/12/the-editorial-meeting-of-the-future/">In an article published by Harvard’s Nieman Lab</a>, newsroom consultant Jennifer Brandel and editor Mónica Guzmán argue that it’s important for journalists to shift their approach to coverage. </p>
<p>The editorial meeting of the future, they write, “won’t start with our ideas – we’ll start with the information gaps the public demonstrates they have, and focus our efforts squarely on filling those gaps.”</p>
<p>Getting audiences to <a href="https://www.scpr.org/socal-so-curious/">submit questions</a> and <a href="https://listenerspodcast.uoregon.edu/">listening</a> to their needs can actually <a href="https://www.kuow.org/stories/you-won-t-believe-what-s-at-the-bottom-of-lake-washington">result in stories</a> that journalists might not otherwise have produced.</p>
<p>The Knight Foundation’s <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/press/releases/new-gallup-knight-study-local-news-should-be-available-to-all-yet-americans-divided-on-how-to-pay-for-it/">recent research</a> highlighted opportunities to put this principle into operation. Nearly two-thirds of their respondents want more coverage on subjects like drug addiction, K-12 education, the environment and planned public works. They also want local outlets <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/white-papers/characteristics-effective-accountability-journalists/">to do a better job</a> holding those in power accountable.</p>
<h2>4. Encourage readers to pay</h2>
<p>However, the uncertain finances of many small newsrooms are a major roadblock to experimentation and giving readers the content they crave.</p>
<p>Declining revenue has meant more than 1 in 5, or 1,800, local newspapers <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/the-u-s-newspaper-crisis-is-growing-more-than-1-in-5-local-papers-have-closed-since-2004/">have closed</a> since 2004. Today, over 1,300 communities <a href="https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2018/about-1300-u-s-communities-have-totally-lost-news-coverage-unc-news-desert-study-finds/">lack</a> original local reporting.</p>
<p>Most readers simply don’t realize how dire the situation is for some outlets. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.journalism.org/2019/03/26/most-americans-think-their-local-news-media-are-doing-well-financially-few-help-to-support-it/">According to the Pew Research Center</a>, 71% of Americans “think their local news media are doing just fine financially.” This may explain why only 14% of them financially supported a local news source in the past year.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/11/americans-are-more-willing-to-pay-for-local-news-when-they-knew-local-newspapers-are-in-trouble-a-new-study-says/">readers indicated</a> that they “were more likely to subscribe or otherwise support their local newspaper if it were the only one in their area and at risk of shutting down.” </p>
<p><a href="https://knightfoundation.org/reports/putting-a-price-tag-on-local-news/">New research</a> shows that audiences value local news, and 61% of Americans <a href="https://kf-site-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media_elements/files/000/000/440/original/State_of_Public_Trust_in_Local_Media_final_.pdf">say</a> their local news organizations do an “excellent” or “good” job covering what’s going on in their area. But the Knight Foundation’s latest report, “<a href="https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Putting-a-Price-Tag-on-Local-News-final-updated.pdf">Putting a Price Tag on Local News</a>,” also finds that few readers are currently paying for it.</p>
<p>Clearly, many readers don’t realize how precarious things are. Newsrooms therefore must make a better case for the value of their work and why it needs to be supported.</p>
<h2>A civic imperative</h2>
<p>Until then, local outlets will have to <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/11/doing-more-with-less-seven-practical-tips-for-local-newsrooms-to-strrrrretch-their-resources/">do more with less</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t easy. But even the smallest newsrooms, like the <a href="https://www.cgsentinel.com/">Cottage Grove Sentinel</a> in Oregon, have been able to successfully experiment with <a href="https://cgsentinel.com/article/grove-report-january-22-2019">new formats</a> and ways <a href="https://medium.com/damian-radcliffe/the-rise-of-engagement-online-and-in-real-life-11a0c261a500">to engage with readers</a>. </p>
<p>Americans <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2019/03/26/americans-give-fairly-high-marks-to-their-local-news-media-especially-when-journalists-are-seen-as-connected-to-the-community/">believe local news outlets</a> are accurate, useful, trustworthy and caring. Yet without a vibrant local news industry, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1078087419838058">fewer people run for office</a> and citizens become <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/news-media/local-newspapers-civic-engagement/">less engaged</a> about elections. </p>
<p>“The diminishment of local news is to democracies what climate change is to the environment,” argues <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/people/tim-franklin/">Tim Franklin</a>, the head of Northwestern University’s <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/">Medill Local News Initiative</a>. “It’s a slow-motion crisis, the effects of which we’re just beginning to see.” </p>
<p>The appetite for hard-hitting, relevant, local news is clearly there. The big question is how best to tap into it and satiate it – all while ensuring local journalists can pay the bills.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damian Radcliffe continues to engage in freelance creative and consulting work related to his expertise on media and technology matters. He is a member of the Online News Association and has received funding from the Agora Journalism Center and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism to research developments into business models, innovation and civic engagement in local media.</span></em></p>Americans truly value local news. But 71% think that their local news outlets are doing just fine financially – which might explain why only 14% paid for a local news source in the past year.Damian Radcliffe, Caroline S. Chambers Professor in Journalism, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177852019-05-25T14:23:24Z2019-05-25T14:23:24ZAssange’s new indictment: Espionage and the First Amendment<p>Julian Assange, the co-founder of <a href="https://wikileaks.org/-Leaks-.html">WikiLeaks</a>, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165636/download">has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice</a> with a slew of Espionage Act violations that could keep him in prison for the rest of his life. </p>
<p>The new indictment expands an earlier one charging Assange with conspiring with Chelsea Manning, the former soldier convicted of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador-embassy.html?module=inline">to hack into a government computer</a>.</p>
<p>Assange is responsible for the dissemination of troves of classified American documents, including <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/22/wikileaks.iraq/index.html">hundreds of thousands of military reports</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable-leak-diplomacy-crisis">hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/24/wikileaks.guantanamo/index.html">hundreds of reports from the military prison in Guantanamo Bay</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html">thousands of secret CIA documents</a> revealing the agency’s techniques for hacking and surveillance.</p>
<p>The Espionage Act, a sweeping <a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5721240">federal statute enacted a century ago</a>, imposes heavy criminal penalties for obtaining or disclosing classified information without proper authorization.</p>
<p>Beginning under President Barack Obama, recent years saw a dramatic increase in <a href="https://www.cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-surveillance-post-911.php">prosecutions under the Espionage Act</a>. But these prosecutions were directed at leakers of classified information — all government employees and government contractors — not at journalists or publishers. </p>
<p>That makes Assange’s indictment a watershed.</p>
<h2>Scarcity of prosecutions</h2>
<p>To be sure, threats of Espionage Act charges against journalists and newspapers were previously made, and in one case charges were even submitted to a grand jury. </p>
<p>In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the Chicago Tribune published a front-page story titled, “Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea.” The story implied that the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-tribune-espionage-act-book-web-post-out-20171024-story.html">U.S. military had cracked Japan’s secret naval code</a> – which it had. </p>
<p>An incensed President Franklin Roosevelt demanded that Espionage Act charges be brought against the reporter, the managing editor and the Tribune itself. But unlike Assange’s grand jury, the Tribune’s grand jury <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-battle-midway-japan-war-code-tribune-roosevelt-edit-0924-md-20160922-story.html">refused to issue indictments</a>.</p>
<p>In 1971 President Richard Nixon’s attorney general threatened the New York Times and the Washington Post with such prosecutions when the newspapers published the classified <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/insider/1971-supreme-court-allows-publication-of-pentagon-papers.html">Pentagon Papers</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, Alberto Gonzales, attorney general under President George W. Bush, suggested that the New York Times and the Washington Post violated the Espionage Act when disclosing the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program and <a href="http://old.seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2003019333_ryan26.html">the CIA’s secret prisons – the so-called “black sites”</a>. </p>
<p>But no prosecutions were brought in these matters.</p>
<p>One reason for the scarcity of such prosecutions is their questionable constitutionality. The language of the Espionage Act is so broad that, undoubtedly, some of its applications run afoul of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution</a>.</p>
<p>Yet some Espionage Act charges against journalists and publishers are likely to pass constitutional muster.</p>
<h2>Pentagon Papers to rape victims’ names</h2>
<p>In 1972 the U.S. government tried to stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Department of Defense study on the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>In its well-known decision, the Supreme Court held that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/713/">preventing the publication violated the First Amendment</a>. But a majority of the justices also thought that the newspapers could be possibly punished for the publication, even if stopping the publication was unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The Pentagon Papers decision was about the ability of government to stop the publication of information – in other words, its ability to impose a “prior restraint.” It left open the possibility of prosecuting the publishers after the publication.</p>
<p>A number of subsequent Supreme Court decisions did protect publishers who had published truthful information in violation of the law. For example, the court prohibited the punishment of a television station that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/420/469/">broadcast the name of a rape victim</a> in violation of a state law, prohibited the punishment of a newspaper that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/435/829/">published the content of confidential judicial proceedings</a>, and prohibited the punishment of a radio station that broke a federal statute by <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/532/514/">broadcasting an unlawfully recorded phone conversation</a>.</p>
<p>But while these publications were all constitutionally protected by the freedoms of speech and the press, none of them involved national security information. The outcome may be very different when it comes to the disclosure of secret national security materials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chicago Tribune of June 7, 1942, featuring story, ‘Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-battle-midway-japan-war-code-tribune-roosevelt-edit-0924-md-20160922-story.html">Screenshot, Chicago Tribune</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The constitutionality of prosecutions for the unauthorized possession and publication of national security information is likely to depend on the specific dangers caused by the disclosure. </p>
<p>“No one would question but that a government might prevent … the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops,” <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/283/697/">said the Supreme Court in 1931</a>. </p>
<p>The pivotal questions are likely to be <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11882092">whether lives were endangered</a> by the disclosure, or whether the government was simply trying <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/403/713">to suppress information</a> embarrassing to itself.</p>
<p>At the same time, some judges are likely to defer to the government’s own assessment of the materials and refuse to conduct an independent evaluation of the risks they posed.</p>
<p>“In my judgment the judiciary may not … redetermine for itself the probable impact of disclosure on the national security,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/01/archives/texts-of-the-supreme-court-decision-opinions-and-dissents-in.html">wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan</a> for himself and two other justices in the Pentagon Papers decision. Some of today’s Supreme Court justices – <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZD1.html">Justice Clarence Thomas, for example – are likely to agree with the sentiment</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1037-julian-assange-espionage-act-indictment/426b4e534ab60553ba6c/optimized/full.pdf#page=1">The Assange indictment</a> includes specific allegations of publication of life-threatening information. The indictment accuses Assange of publishing the names of American intelligence sources, knowing full well that the publication would endanger their lives.</p>
<p>These charges might be found constitutional. Judges may be understandably reluctant to prohibit the government from punishing the publication of such sensitive life-threatening information.</p>
<h2>Dubious charges</h2>
<p>Assange’s indictment also involves a number of charges that are less likely to withstand constitutional scrutiny. </p>
<p>Assange is charged with “obtaining” information, including detainees’ assessment briefs from Guantanamo and Iraq rules-of-engagement files. </p>
<p>The danger posed by the disclosure of such information is far more questionable (and much of that information was also obtained and published by respectable media outlets).</p>
<p>Moreover, some of the charges against Assange are based on the theory that Assange aided and abetted <a href="https://www.apnews.com/569631f2b11c400cac05a29e0853624b">Chelsea Manning</a> to leak classified information to Assange himself. </p>
<p>Given that aiding and abetting can take the form of cajoling and encouraging, many national security journalists could become instant felons under this theory.</p>
<p>In fact, this is not the first time that the federal government advances such a constitutionally questionable claim in regard to a mainstream journalist. </p>
<p>In 2009 Fox News reporter James Rosen wrote an article that contained leaked classified information about North Korea. In 2010 the Obama administration <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/25/us/politics/james-rosen-affidavit.html?_r=0">filed a search warrant application</a> where it argued that Rosen was a criminal aider and abettor of his State Department source in the criminal disclosure of classified information. </p>
<p>The warrant was granted, although Rosen was never indicted for the alleged crime. Indeed when the matter became known and an outcry ensued, the Department of Justice explicitly repudiated the theory as a basis for prosecuting journalists.</p>
<p>Nominally, that repudiation still stands today. Defending against the charge that the new indictment endangers the freedom of American journalism, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165636/download">Department of Justice issued a statement declaring that “Julian Assange is no journalist</a>.” </p>
<p>But that assertion lacks constitutional significance: First Amendment protections do not depend on one’s status as a journalist. First Amendment doctrine does not extend any special protections to the press.</p>
<p>What goes for Assange also goes for any person who obtains or discloses classified information.</p>
<p>That includes any journalist, including those at the New York Times – which in fact published much of the information mentioned in Assange’s indictment, albeit after careful reductions of potentially dangerous materials.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-assange-indictment-a-threat-to-the-first-amendment-115420">an article</a> originally published on May 1, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ofer Raban does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Julian Assange’s indictment under the Espionage Act, a sweeping law with heavy penalties for unauthorized receiving or disclosing of classified information, poses a threat to press freedom.Ofer Raban, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1132482019-05-01T10:42:37Z2019-05-01T10:42:37ZPrescription for journalists from journalists: Less time studying Twitter, more time studying math<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271798/original/file-20190430-136781-u6qok1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office, April 14, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/e1642e64550443b4ac3057d6588c59e7/252/0">AP/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You hear a lot of heated claims and baseless generalities these days about what’s wrong with the news media. </p>
<p>What’s seldom heard is what the underlying data indicate about true problem areas and where journalists need to improve.</p>
<p>News reporting requires doing a lot things well, but two crucial elements are being independent of political (or other) interests and knowing one’s subject well enough to select what’s important for the public.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://camd.northeastern.edu/faculty/john-p-wihbey/">media scholar and former journalist</a>. In my research for my book <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/social-fact">“The Social Fact: News and Knowledge in a Networked World,”</a> I tried to quantify certain aspects of these two dimensions of news media. </p>
<p>While the overall evidence shows journalists to be ethical in their practice and fair and public-spirited in their mission, I found some troubling signs in my research.</p>
<h2>Partisanship</h2>
<p>The first question I looked at was whether journalists were partisan. That would affect their stories by making them biased and therefore less trustworthy. </p>
<p>Research in general <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3982/ECTA7195">continues to show</a> news media have left- and right-leaning partisan slants, although the degree depends on the outlet and subject in question.</p>
<p>But one novel aspect to consider in our hyper-polarized, social media-driven age is the relationship between journalists’ work and their online social networks, in particular Twitter, where reporters and editors spend a lot of time these days. </p>
<p>Is partisanship visible not just in the reporting of stories, but elsewhere, in the social networks that journalists inhabit?</p>
<p><iframe id="PnMwK" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PnMwK/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>As part of a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444818807133">2018 study</a> with my colleagues Kenny Joseph of the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and David Lazer at Northeastern University, we analyzed partisanship across more than 300,000 news articles produced by 644 journalists at 25 different U.S. news outlets. </p>
<p>We did this using algorithms that helped us sort and analyze each article and journalist, from more conservative outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and National Review to more liberal ones such as The New Yorker and The New York Times. </p>
<p>We looked at the frequency with which key political terms were used, such as “LGBT,” “equal pay,” and “Voting Rights Act” for left-leaning persons, and “bureaucrats,” “illegal immigrants” and “sponsor of terrorism” for right-leaning persons.</p>
<p>We then compared this analysis with a careful look at the individual journalists’ social networks on Twitter – which accounts they follow, and the degree of partisanship of these accounts. </p>
<p>Twitter is a figurative water cooler where journalists spend hours, and surely it shapes some of what they believe is important and colors their views. Research suggests that journalists see Twitter as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1077699016637105">valuable for their work</a>, and they use the platform at <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2016.1171162">relatively high rates</a> compared to the public at large. We did not design our research to be able to establish true causation, but rather set out to explore just how much of a correlation there was. </p>
<p>Overall, what we found was a modest correlation between the partisanship of the personal network a journalist follows on Twitter and the content she produces. Of course, just because a journalist chooses to follow, say, mostly conservative social media accounts doesn’t mean she will necessarily skew her journalism in that direction. It is not a mechanical relationship. But the data show a reasonably strong connection.</p>
<p>There is solid evidence of partisan segregation stretching across the news and social media worlds, and society should be worried about trends that might make polarization worse over time.</p>
<h2>Competence</h2>
<p>The second issue to consider in terms of areas of improvement for journalism is the degree to which journalists may not have sufficient knowledge or understanding of certain issues in order to inform the public properly. </p>
<p>Even if President Donald Trump’s criticism of the media is usually bombastic and misguided, it’s certainly legitimate to inquire about the competence and knowledge of news outlets. </p>
<p>We have been asking reporters and editors both about their knowledge and skills and their aspirations for the profession in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2016.1249004">survey work</a> we are conducting through the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard.</p>
<p>It’s clear there are many journalists who have substantial knowledge of many public affairs topics. But the profession continues to struggle with competence in a variety of areas, particularly with reporting about numbers, data and research. </p>
<p><iframe id="9c51X" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/9c51X/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Across the board, journalists know they should be better able to do quantitative analysis and interpret information more critically, a finding in our survey research. They know these skills are key to seeing through the potential bias of sources, be they politicians, health care companies, energy firms, Wall Street, Madison Avenue or the White House. </p>
<p>For example, when a police department makes a claim about reducing crime, or a health care provider touts progress on patient safety, skeptical journalists with good data skills will have greater ability to analyze the data themselves, see through faulty claims and call out misinformation. </p>
<p>Yet the training and preparation for the profession of journalism often falls short. As a journalism educator myself, I fully admit that the responsibility and burden are very much on us, as educators, to provide training in these areas, particularly as the world grows more complex and data-driven. </p>
<p>Taking a hard look at the press is not easy at this time, as it can seem to feed the lies about journalism fueled by the president. All of this analysis is not to validate the often poisonous criticisms of the press in recent years, which have tended toward exaggeration. </p>
<p>But if we are to have any hope of regaining broad public trust in professional news media – and improve public knowledge and discourse in the way that most people want – we need to start by getting much more empirical about what is wrong and what is right with our media institutions.</p>
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<header>John Wihbey is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/social-fact">The Social Fact: News and Knowledge in a Networked World</a></p>
<footer>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
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</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113248/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MIT Press, which is publisher of John P. Wihbey's "The Social Fact: News and Knowledge in a Networked World," provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>The president’s blame-the-press rhetoric is, to the news media, calculated to score political points. But are there real problems US journalists need to address in their work? Yes, says one scholar.John P. Wihbey, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Innovation, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1154212019-04-16T10:45:05Z2019-04-16T10:45:05ZJournalism’s Assange problem<p>These days, anybody with an internet connection can be a publisher.</p>
<p>That doesn’t make everybody a journalist.</p>
<p>This distinction has become more important than ever in light of two recent events.</p>
<p>One was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/11/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-arrested-london-embassy/3432977002/">the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange</a>. The other was a proposal by lawmakers from Georgia, the Peach State, that looked more like an export from the Georgia that was part of the Soviet Union: a <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/georgia-house-republicans-file-bill-create-state-journalism-ethics-board/XuwvLwHYv2uxEgtazGCuHK/">so-called “ethics in journalism” act</a> that would have imposed onerous new requirements and potential civil penalties on reporters. </p>
<p>As soon as news broke of Assange’s potential extradition to the United States for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/11/digging-into-details-indictment-against-julian-assange/?utm_term=.6985af5fd561">trial on charges of conspiracy</a>, his allies began campaigning to make him a Fourth Estate martyr. </p>
<p>“Every journalist in the world” should be speaking out on Assange’s behalf, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/12/greenwald_every_journalist_in_the_world_should_speak_out_against_arrest_of_julian_assange.html">said Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald</a>. Another fugitive leaker of U.S. government secrets, Edward Snowden, tweeted that Assange’s arrest represents <a href="https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1116288726601277440">“a dark day for press freedom.”</a></p>
<p><a href="https://journalism.missouri.edu/staff/kathy-kiely/">As two</a> <a href="https://camd.northeastern.edu/faculty/laurel-leff/">journalism professors</a> who practiced the craft for many years before becoming teachers of it, we know firsthand how powerfully reporters are drawn to unpopular causes. It’s an admirable reflex that often makes for great journalism and a better society. </p>
<p>But granting Assange journalist status is beyond problematic: It’s likely to draw more attacks on press freedom such as the Georgia lawmakers’ thinly disguised attempt to sanction and ostracize journalists whose work they don’t like.</p>
<h2>Standards differentiate journalism</h2>
<p>As the Pew Research Center has shown, journalists already are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/30/newsroom-employment-dropped-nearly-a-quarter-in-less-than-10-years-with-greatest-decline-at-newspapers/">an endangered species</a>. In part that’s because the <a href="https://archives.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american.php">digital revolution eliminated the advertising</a> that subsidized newsrooms.</p>
<p>But as the Knight Foundation has documented, those financial problems are compounded by <a href="https://www.knightfoundation.org/reports/indicators-of-news-media-trust">a credibility crisis</a>.
“Most U.S. adults, including more than nine in 10 Republicans, say they personally have lost trust in the news media in recent years,” the foundation reported in September 2018. </p>
<p>There may be lots of reasons for this but it certainly doesn’t help that <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2018/">more Americans are getting their news from social media feeds</a> that intermingle journalism with the kind of propaganda that is keeping Facebook <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46904935">busy playing whack-a-mole</a> with trolls, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/real-consequences-fake-news-stories-brain-cant-ignore">sent a deluded man with a gun to a neighborhood pizza restaurant</a> in Washington, D.C. and stoked protests on a college campus with <a href="https://www.komu.com/mobile/story.cfm?id=92872-report-russians-meddled-in-mizzou-protests-using-fake-social-media-accounts">incendiary fake tweets</a>.</p>
<p>As a profession, <a href="https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-20736-isoj-panelists-say-journalists-must-overcome-lack-trust-media">journalists are becoming increasingly aware</a> of the need to advocate for, and try to uphold, standards that differentiate them from those who merely make information available. </p>
<p>The New York Times did exactly that in 2010, when it ran stories based on documents obtained from WikiLeaks. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29editornote.html">An editor’s note</a> explained why the Times believed publication to be in the public interest, how the paper gave government officials a chance to respond before publication, and how it redacted “information that would endanger confidential informants or compromise national security.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The New York Times introduction to its publication of WikiLeaks material on the Afghan war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/middleeast/23intro.html">New York Times screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Times wrote that it shared its rationale for making the redactions with WikiLeaks “in the hope that they would similarly edit the documents,” but Assange does not appear to have been impressed. He followed no journalistic practices or journalism ethics in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publishes-cache-unredacted-cables">subsequent data dumps</a>. </p>
<p>When WikiLeaks posted the emails of Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign staffers in 2016, <a href="https://gizmodo.com/wikileaks-just-published-tons-of-personal-data-like-a-b-1784140603">it included</a> home and email addresses, and credit card, Social Security and passport numbers, as well as the details of a staffer’s suicide attempt.</p>
<h2>Deserving a privilege</h2>
<p>In insisting that <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/journals/wikileaks-and-espionage-act-1917/">journalists should not be prosecuted for disclosing classified information</a> or for refusing to reveal confidential sources to grand juries, the press is seeking a privilege in both the legal and literal meaning of the term. </p>
<p>It’s not a privilege if everyone gets it. There has to be something special about what journalists do, and how and why they do it, that makes them worthy of a privilege that others don’t receive.</p>
<p>So far, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download">charges against Assange</a> are for conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network. As <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-committee-analysis-of-u-s-government-indictment-of-julian-assange/">Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press writes</a>, that “isn’t something that a newsroom lawyer would counsel a reporter to do.” </p>
<p>Rottman’s measured analysis also notes another concern for data reporters: The 1984 law at the heart of the Assange indictment, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030">Computer Fraud and Abuse Act</a> could, if interpreted in an overbroad fashion, endanger journalists (or other members of the public, <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-suing-the-federal-government-to-be-free-to-do-our-research-74676">such as academics</a>) who use computer programming to “scrape” otherwise hard-to-analyze information from public government websites. But that’s not the issue here.</p>
<p>Nor, significantly, is Assange charged with publishing on the WikiLeaks website documents obtained through that hack. Legal decisions have long offered a great deal of protection to those who publish information, nowhere near as much to those who seek access to government information or facilities, and virtually none to those who steal information. </p>
<p>The best way for press and press freedom organizations to ensure the Assange case doesn’t set precedent that interferes with the public’s right to access important information – even information the government doesn’t want to reveal – is through friend of the court briefs. </p>
<p>Editorial boards rushing to make Assange a poster boy for press freedom, as former New York Times lawyer and First Amendment icon James Goodale <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2019/04/more-than-a-data-dump-julian-assange/">recently suggested they should,</a> will only provoke lawmakers into pushing more proposals like the <a href="http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/Display/20192020/HB/734">journalism review board</a>. Thankfully, that died earlier this month when the Georgia legislature adjourned without acting on it. </p>
<p>Journalists are justifiably concerned that <a href="https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/ethics-journalism-act-georgia-welch.php">more such attacks are likely</a>. Heading them off will require journalists to help their audience understand and appreciate the professional and ethical standards that distinguish real reporters from mere disseminators. </p>
<p>In a digital age, the latter are a dime a dozen. It’s the reporters who need to be protected and defended.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s dangerous for the press to take up Julian Assange’s cause, two journalism scholars write. Assange is no journalist, they say, and making him out to be one is likely to damage press freedoms.Kathy Kiely, Professor and Lee Hills Chair of Free Press Studies, University of Missouri-ColumbiaLaurel Leff, Associate Professor of Journalism, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1046302018-11-27T11:37:17Z2018-11-27T11:37:17ZHow local journalism can upend the ‘fake news’ narrative<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248015/original/file-20181129-170235-1uca3tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Texas Tribune reporter Jay Root interviews New Mexico State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn along Highway 652 near the Texas-New Mexico border.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune/Courtesy of NewsMatch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally,” Edelman, the global PR and marketing firm <a href="https://www.edelman.com/news-awards/2018-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-record-breaking-drop-trust-in-the-us">concluded</a> in its annual worldwide study on trust in institutions like the media, business and government.</p>
<p>These international findings are in line with <a href="https://medium.com/trust-media-and-democracy/10-reasons-why-americans-dont-trust-the-media-d0630c125b9e">recent data</a> coming out of the U.S. A 2016 Gallup poll <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx">reported</a> that just 32 percent of Americans trusted the mass media, while an <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/americans-views-media-2018-08-07">Ipsos poll</a> from summer 2018 found that nearly one-third of Americans agreed that the news media is the “enemy of the people.” </p>
<p>How did it come to this? </p>
<p>First, it’s important to recognize that our <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/NicNewman/2015-reuters-institute-digital-news-report-slides-49424275/25">national media</a>, just like <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/30/17622894/ezra-klein-show-book-recommendations-sam-rosenfeld-party-polarization-democrat-republican">our politics</a>, has become highly partisan. </p>
<p>Second, it’s necessary to acknowledge that existing media business models <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2018/10/21/how-media-business-models-fuel-polarization-rs.cnn/video/playlists/reliable-sources-highlights/?utm_source=CNN+Media%3A+Reliable+Sources&utm_campaign=18697f50ae-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_09_11_04_47_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e95cdc16a9-18697f50ae-82750929">fuel this polarization</a>. The drumbeat of an us-versus-them narrative has created what <a href="https://twitter.com/dixontim">Tim Dixon</a>, co-author of a new study titled “<a href="https://hiddentribes.us/">The Hidden Tribes of America</a>,” calls a “cartoonish view of the other side.” </p>
<p>So what can be done to remedy this state of affairs?</p>
<p>Moving forward, I believe that local journalism – a key focus of <a href="http://www.damianradcliffe.com/writing">my research</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianradcliffe">journalistic background</a> – can play an important role in turning the tide and tackling this media malaise. </p>
<h2>The trust factor</h2>
<p>Traditionally, the most important function of the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fourth%20estate">Fourth Estate</a> has been seen as watchdog reporting – journalism that holds authority to account. </p>
<p>But, this type of journalism is not exclusive to larger publications. </p>
<p>The impact and potential importance of these efforts at a local level <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTozHjnf3IGLh6dLC7FRxRvlR50TL5Nq2EBfEDKZU4W4vugqVhL7Yk_WynZrX29F-955ziSTjq9XND8/pubhtml">can be seen</a> each week in the “<a href="https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001jNS0O4Ui3OO7md-9Ryd0WOKdq14U-VfK9aIRH18MLku7VRyaaHESUptkwHw-8FO3X8Dhpw6_U4bO-hrpYrIzmYZy_m-F01qUfYYiFg0mDpo%3D">Local Matters</a>” newsletter founded by the journalists <a href="https://joeycranney.com/">Joey Cranney</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/aglorios">Alexandra Glorioso</a> and <a href="http://www.brettmmurphy.com/">Brett Murphy</a>. </p>
<p>It was also recognized last year when Art Cullen of The Storm Lake Times <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/art-cullen">won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing</a>. The twice-weekly newspaper in Iowa has nine-person staff and covers a town with a population of 10,000. </p>
<p>Yet Cullen beat fellow finalists from bigger papers - the Houston Chronicle and Washington Post - because he “successfully challenged powerful corporate agricultural interests in Iowa” in “editorials fueled by tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing.”</p>
<p><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1081180X05283795">Research shows</a>, however, that audiences don’t just want local news outlets to be watchdogs. They want them to be a “good neighbor” too. </p>
<p>Local journalists are often the only journalists that most people will ever meet. So they play a significant role in how the wider profession is perceived.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://twitter.com/cate_m_may?lang=en">Caitlyn May</a>, editor of the <a href="https://www.cgsentinel.com/">Cottage Grove Sentinel</a> in Oregon, this means “it’s essential that journalists leave the office and go out into the community.” One way she does this is by holding a monthly, informal, “Meet the Editor” discussion at a local coffee shop.</p>
<p>Other outlets, such as the <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/">Dallas Morning News</a> with their <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/life/curious-texas/2017/12/18/curious-texas-wonder-texas-people-call-home">Curious Texas</a> project, and KUOW Public Radio in Puget Sound, Washington, are partnering with a start-up called <a href="https://www.wearehearken.com/">Hearken</a> to encourage audiences to submit <a href="http://kuow.org/post/there-really-giant-octopus-under-tacoma-narrows-bridge">questions they want answered</a> or suggest topics that they want local journalists to cover.</p>
<p><a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ebnyhan/media-trust-report-2018.pdf">Poynter’s 2018 Media Trust Survey</a> identified that trust in local media is considerably higher than for national media. By blending watchdog reporting with community engagement, newsrooms can build on this foundation. </p>
<h2>Local news on shaky ground</h2>
<p>But what happens when local media disappears?</p>
<p>“Our sense of community and our trust in democracy at all levels suffer when journalism is lost or diminished,” researchers at the University of North Carolina <a href="https://www.poynter.org/news/about-1300-us-communities-have-totally-lost-news-coverage-unc-news-desert-study-finds">wrote in a recent report</a>. </p>
<p>“In an age of fake news and divisive politics,” they added, “the fate of communities across the country – and of grassroots democracy itself – is linked to the vitality of local journalism.” </p>
<p>Indeed, data suggests a correlation between <a href="http://www.journalism.org/2016/11/03/civic-engagement-strongly-tied-to-local-news-habits/">consumption of local news and civic engagement</a>. This reinforces <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009365096023002002">earlier research</a> linking local media consumption and “institutionalized participation.” </p>
<p>Put another way, if you consume local news, you’re more likely to vote, contact local officials and participate in other forms of civic and democratic engagement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248016/original/file-20181129-170220-ct3xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248016/original/file-20181129-170220-ct3xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248016/original/file-20181129-170220-ct3xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248016/original/file-20181129-170220-ct3xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248016/original/file-20181129-170220-ct3xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248016/original/file-20181129-170220-ct3xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248016/original/file-20181129-170220-ct3xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alex Rozier of Mississippi Today speaks to Anthony Edwards about food insecurity in Fayette, Miss. in September 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric J. Shelton for Mississippi Today/Courtesy of NewsMatch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although many local newsrooms are going through a period of <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-local-news-on-the-cusp-of-a-renaissance-85711">reinvention and reinvigoration</a>, the sector needs to be on a more even <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-05/local-news-is-dying-and-it-s-taking-small-town-america-with-it">financial keel</a> if it is to successfully move forward. Outlets have to consistently produce high quality work in order to demonstrate their unique value to communities.</p>
<p>This isn’t necessarily easy at a time when their are fewer journalists. Nearly half of all newsroom jobs – more than 20,000 of them – <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/newsonomics-the-halving-of-americas-daily-newsrooms/">have disappeared</a> in the past 20 years.</p>
<p>Recent research has highlighted the potential impact of these cuts at the local level. </p>
<p><a href="https://dewitt.sanford.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Assessing-Local-Journalism_100-Communities.pdf">Data produced by Duke University</a> found that “less than half of the news provided by local media outlets is original. Only 17 percent is "truly local” in the sense that it’s actually about events that have taken place within the city or town. </p>
<p>Journalism professor and researcher <a href="https://twitter.com/JesseHolcomb">Jesse Holcomb</a> has <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/digital-adaptation-in-local-news.php/">noted that local news outlets</a> are still struggling to adapt to digital. He likens the internet to “an ill-fitting suit: functional, but not made for them.”</p>
<p>Holcomb’s analysis of 1,808 local news outlets revealed that less than half offer video content or newsletters. About one-in-10 local news outlets don’t even have a website.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.usnewsdeserts.com/">The Expanding News Deserts</a> report, published in October by journalism professor <a href="https://twitter.com/businessofnews">Penny Muse Abernathy</a>, showed that 171 U.S. counties do not have a local newspaper at all. </p>
<p>Nearly half all counties in the U.S. – 1,449 – have only one newspaper, and it’s usually a weekly. Their research <a href="http://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/">identified</a> a net loss of almost 1,800 local newspapers since 2004. </p>
<p>Diminished resources – which may, in turn, lead to a less ambitious editorial mission – can have a profound impact on the <a href="https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/public-finance-local-news.php">health</a> of our communities and <a href="https://www.poynter.org/2018/during-the-midterm-elections-local-fact-checking-was-scant/499707">democracy</a>. </p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>To succeed, local news providers must be <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-local-news-on-the-cusp-of-a-renaissance-85711">relentlessly local</a> and offer something different if they want people to pay for their product. </p>
<p>They also need to be more visible, embracing opportunities for real life engagement and consciously <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/11/whites-more-likely-than-nonwhites-to-have-spoken-to-a-local-journalist/">diversifying the range of people they interview</a>.</p>
<p>According to a 2006 study by journalism professors Don Heider, Maxwell McCombs and Paula Poindexter, this means that <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTozHjnf3IGLh6dLC7FRxRvlR50TL5Nq2EBfEDKZU4W4vugqVhL7Yk_WynZrX29F-955ziSTjq9XND8/pubhtml">investigative and watchdog reporting</a> should appear alongside stories that <a href="https://casestudies496d.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/heider1.pdf">demonstrate</a> “caring about your community, highlighting interesting people and groups in the community, understanding the local community, and offering solutions to community problems.” </p>
<p>That way, local journalists <a href="https://www.poynter.org/news/tiny-family-run-newspaper-wins-pulitzer-prize-taking-big-business">act as a check on those in power</a> and create an <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/page/draining_oregon_day_1.html">informed citizenry</a>, while also fostering <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=tq3ACQAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq=how+local+journalism+creates+sense+of+community&source=bl&ots=FTCymItZ0Z&sig=oDiDtKucaYe1NjdlxIxWuFgQHqM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjziuy9qfjWAhUBKGMKHd4VAs0Q6AEIUTAG#v=onepage&q=how%20">a sense of community</a>.</p>
<p>And local journalists don’t just help communities make sense of the world around them. They’re also a proxy for the wider news industry. </p>
<p>It’s harder to believe that everything is “fake news” when the journalist you meet at back-to-school night, your kid’s football practice, or in the local coffee shop is not just your neighbor, but someone who is also reporting on important local stories that you know to be true.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104630/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damian Radcliffe continues to engage in freelance creative and consulting work related to his expertise on media and technology matters. He is a member of the Online News Association and has received funding from the Agora Journalism Center and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism to research developments into business models, innovation and civic engagement in local media.</span></em></p>A recent survey found that Americans trust local media outlets far more than national ones.Damian Radcliffe, Caroline S. Chambers Professor in Journalism, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1055302018-10-24T13:08:41Z2018-10-24T13:08:41ZJamal Khashoggi: why stating the truth is getting a lot of journalists killed<p>It took a while for <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/jamal-khashoggi-obituary-xjpkf0hgs">obituaries to start appearing</a> for murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – and there is still some uncertainty over the manner of his death. Turkish authorities are so far declining to release either sound or video of the assassination – both of which they are <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/17/turkey-has-not-yet-shared-khashoggi-audio-video-evidence-with-us.html">alleged to possess</a>.</p>
<p>But as the wrangling continues, it is worth stepping back for a longer view of why this state murder of a journalist is important. More than 230 media workers <a href="https://cpj.org/data/killed">have been killed</a> around the world over the past three years and, according to press freedom organisations, in many cases there was <a href="https://rsf.org/en/barometer">clear state involvement</a>. </p>
<p>Interestingly, given its strident calls for justice in Khashoggi’s case, one of the worst regimes in terms of freedom of the press at the moment is Turkey – which Reporters without Borders labels the “<a href="https://rsf.org/en/turkey">world’s biggest prison for professional journalists</a>”.</p>
<p>Some are saying that Khashoggi’s murder <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/jamal-khashoggi-disappearance-trend-fight">marks</a> the end of rules-based global order. Maybe that’s because it suggests authoritarian leaders can silence their critics with impunity. And when the US president quite clearly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/opinion/khashoggi-saudi-trump-arms-sales.html?fbclid=IwAR0cDkhFeZeirLr7ui64jSoocqaXCkDUtY3Ezx5YKAg0reid8NQRvbsTQOo">privileges trade over human rights</a> – as he appeared to do initially with Khashoggi – it should be deeply worrying for anyone concerned about press freedom and political accountability.</p>
<p>According to the latest reports, Trump now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/23/jamal-khashoggi-trump-cover-up-sanctions-visas">seems to accept</a> the involvement of the Saudi leadership. But there is little evidence of concern for free expression. Instead, he has complained about the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/khashoggi-cover-up-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">quality of the cover-up</a>, and expressed disappointment at the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/politics/trump-khashoggi-dead.html">publicity rather than the killing</a>, saying: “This one has caught the imagination of the world, unfortunately.” </p>
<p>At around the same time that the Khashoggi story was gathering pace, the US president showed what he thinks of journalists with whom he doesn’t see eye to eye, when he took time out during a rally in Montana to praise the local Republican senator, Greg Gianforte – who is up for re-election in November – for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/trump-greg-gianforte-assault-guardian-ben-jacobs">assaulting Guardian journalist</a> Ben Jacobs in 2017.</p>
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<p>Both Khashoggi and Jacobs remind us that the problem of suppressing free expression through violence toward the media is widespread and increasing – and certain nations who pay lip service to the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/united-states">notion of press freedom</a> have enabled an environment of state impunity for attacks on media workers.</p>
<h2>Death in Belgrade</h2>
<p>In April 2019 a momentous 20-year anniversary will pass with little notice – an anniversary which, to my mind, marks the more realistic start of the end of global order. It marked the moment that the US, supposedly the dominant defender of global press freedom, switched – in an explosive instant – to become a press predator. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ruins of the RTS in Belgrade which was bombed by NATO aircraft in 1999.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WhiteWriter via Flickr.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>This was the destruction in 1999, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/airwar20.htm">by US-led NATO forces</a>, of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02p66lg">Serbian public broadcaster</a> in Belgrade, resulting in the murder of 16 civilian media workers who shared the misfortune of being on the wrong night shift. A <a href="https://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990423l.htm">NATO spokesman said</a> the next day they had be bombed because the US and its NATO partners did not approve of “their version of the news”.</p>
<p>It was the first shot in a decade-long US campaign of violence against media workers resulting in at least 46 media deaths, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan between 1999 and 2007 – a period documented <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745334172/war-reporters-under-threat/">in my 2014 book</a> War Reporters Under Threat: The United States and Media Freedom. The US is culpable of further injuries and detentions of journalists and other media workers in this period along with increasing harassment and surveillance of journalists since, at home and abroad.</p>
<p>My research analysed 12 cases of US military attacks on media facilities resulting in 20 deaths and 26 further media worker deaths linked to US government employees (but not part of an attack on a specific media facility). Most of those were shootings of journalists as they reported, and many received little public attention. As with the 2003 shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad where international journalists were staying, in which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/apr/09/pressandpublishing.Iraqandthemedia">three media workers were killed</a>, there may not have been a deliberate plan to target media workers. But I believe there was certainly negligence by the US government – and likely violations of international law in every case. </p>
<p>And, despite determined efforts by the <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/1/us_pressured_spain_to_drop_case">relatives of murdered journalists</a>, <a href="https://www.ifex.org/iraq/2005/11/24/ifj_calls_for_re_opening_of_investigation/">press freedom advocates</a> and, occasionally, from the governments of other states – including Italy and Spain – whose citizens had been killed, the US has enjoyed utter impunity for those deaths. This has effectively provided a blank cheque to governments everywhere by making clear that attacks on the press will not be challenged or punished if the US has anything to do with it. </p>
<p>Only once has the murder of a journalist by a close ally of the US in the Middle East been investigated and declared unlawful, when an inquest into the death of British journalist James Miller <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/apr/06/israel.television">concluded he had been murdered</a>. To date, <a href="https://cpj.org/data/people/james-miller/">nobody has faced prosecution</a> for the murder.</p>
<h2>War on reporters</h2>
<p>Holding states to account for violence against media workers depends on robust international legal structures – and Britain’s <a href="https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/news/blog/brexit-begun-and-so-has-fight-keep-our-rights">withdrawal from the EU</a> and recent US attacks on the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-un-general-assembly-1.4837265">mission of the United Nations</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45474864">International Criminal Court</a> will certainly undermine these.</p>
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<p>Journalists reporting on the US president’s unusual political rallies have been penned in and his supporters have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/02/donald-trump-un-media-press-freedom-journalist-danger">encouraged to taunt and threaten them</a>). Trump’s populist condemnation of proper and necessary watchdog journalism by media organisations has set the stage for longstanding US hostility to journalism to become a new wave of state-tolerated or sanctioned anti-press violence. </p>
<p>As someone whose job involves preparing students for a career in journalism, I have to live with the knowledge that we’re in a new era of news, where reporters can be targeted with impunity – even with the encouragement of world leaders – for simply doing their jobs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Paterson receives funding from AHRC, British Academy.
(neither funded research project is related to this essay).</span></em></p>The death of the Saudi columnist shows the hazards faced by journalists – especially if the US doesn’t like what they do.Chris Paterson, Senior Lecturer in International Communication, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1004452018-10-03T10:33:44Z2018-10-03T10:33:44Z4 things journalists can do to rebuild trust with the public<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239049/original/file-20181002-101585-1kqsmgc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A traveler reads a newspaper.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Newark-Airport/9991d1698e304431bdbec089aad1606f/61/0">AP Photo/Julio Cortez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In August, nearly 400 news outlets <a href="https://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2018/08/freepress/?p1=HP_special">made the case for the importance</a> of journalism in response to President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/media/trump-media-enemy-of-the-people.html">repeated claim</a> that the media is “the enemy of the people.”</p>
<p>In #FreePress editorials published in newspapers across the country, writers stressed journalism’s role in a democracy, and that a free press is essential to a free society.</p>
<p>The message came at a time when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trumps-attacks-on-media-blamed-for-decline-in-us-standing-in-press-freedom-survey/2018/04/25/7c940722-48a7-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html?utm_term=.ce2ade24d72d">anti-press rhetoric is soaring</a> and concerns about inaccuracy and bias in the news have meant Americans’ trust in the media is lingering near <a href="https://www.knightfoundation.org/reports/indicators-of-news-media-trust">all-time lows</a>. </p>
<p>Yet our research suggests that if news organizations are truly going to close the trust gap, they must go beyond explanations of what journalism means to democracy and directly make the case for what it means to citizens.</p>
<p>As researchers and journalists, we launched <a href="http://journalism.uoregon.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2018-Agora-Report-Update.pdf">The 32 Percent Project</a> to explore how citizens define trust and how news organizations can better earn it. Named for the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx">percentage</a> of Americans who had confidence in the news media in 2016, the project was guided by the principle that the best way to discover what citizens want is to ask them. </p>
<p>We held public conversations with 54 people in four communities across the country, asking questions about what news organizations should do to increase public trust. Here are four insights from those conversations:</p>
<h2>1. Open up the black box</h2>
<p>How do reporters decide what goes into a news story? Where is the line between fact and opinion? Are the advertisers who fund the news determining what reporters cover? </p>
<p>To many journalists, the answers to these questions may seem self-evident. To many non-journalists, they are a mystery. Many workshop participants reported that they have little knowledge of how news is produced, which makes them skeptical of what they read, hear and see. </p>
<p>If news organizations are going to earn their trust, citizens said they must take active steps to communicate both their mission and their methods. Participants said this could mean anything from making unedited interviews available to explaining journalistic terms to opening newsrooms for public tours.</p>
<p>When it comes to restoring trust between citizens and the press, a community college student in California said journalists need to prioritize authentic, clear communication.</p>
<p>“You don’t want people to talk at you,” the student said. “You want people to talk with you.”</p>
<h2>2. Create a shared mission</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239050/original/file-20181002-101570-1vuwcwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Newseum visitors browse newspaper front pages displayed outside the museum in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</span></span>
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<p>Many journalists <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1387071">view themselves</a> as independent watchdogs of powerful institutions, which means they may produce articles critical of those institutions and their leaders. And while conversation participants reported that they value the watchdog function, many said news organizations must first establish their role as a good neighbor.</p>
<p>Citizens wanted to know that a news outlet explicitly shares the community’s values and that everyone is working together toward a shared goal. To some, that meant doing journalism as a member of a community rather than as an outside observer. To others, it meant demanding that news organizations place their public service mission ahead of short-term profits.</p>
<p>Journalists, they said, must approach their work as a more direct service to community members, and devote time, money and energy to building deep, reciprocal relationships with their readers, viewers and listeners. </p>
<p>Without a sense of common mission, many participants said they’d continue to see news organizations as working for advertisers – not for them. </p>
<h2>3. No diversity, no trust</h2>
<p>Across all conversations, participants said they did not see themselves or their lives reflected in the news they consume. They said journalists understandably produce stories that arise from their personal backgrounds and experiences, but noted that <a href="https://www.asne.org//Files/census/2017%20ASNE%20diversity%20survey%20tables.pdf">people of color</a> and those who live in <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048">rural areas</a>, for example, are not well represented in media organizations. Homogeneous newsrooms, they said, tend to produce homogeneous stories.</p>
<p>This conveys to those groups that the news isn’t for them, participants said, while depriving all news consumers of a richer picture of American life.</p>
<p>“It’s one of the reasons why rural and small-town people are trusting the media less and less,” said a participant in rural Illinois. “When they see the coverage of their own setting, either the interpretation is off or they’re really missing some important piece of the story.” </p>
<p>Diversity, we found, is fundamental to earning trust. If newsrooms want to gain credibility, they must broadly and authentically mirror the makeup of their audience.</p>
<h2>4. Emphasize the positive</h2>
<p>One of the most common complaints we heard was that the news is too negative. And though stories about crime, car crashes and corruption may earn an audience’s attention, they don’t appear to do much to earn long-term trust.</p>
<p>“When there is something good going in my neighborhood, I don’t see it,” said a community activist in Boston. “But if somebody shoots somebody, oh, first page.” </p>
<p>Research participants said they want the news to more closely reflect the general positive sense they experience in their day-to-day lives. But that doesn’t mean they’re interested solely in feel-good coverage. Rather, many participants pointed to a need for more stories that focus on solutions to problems rather than just the problems.</p>
<h2>Takeaways</h2>
<p>If news organizations want to earn public trust, a compelling place to start would be to mirror the characteristics of trusted interpersonal relationships. That means being consistent, transparent, authentic, positive and conveying a respect for diversity alongside a sense of shared mission.</p>
<p>“Journalism is a relationship,” said a participant in suburban Los Angeles. “It’s not a product.”</p>
<p>One of the #FreePress editorials to best capture that spirit came from the San Diego Union-Tribune. The author took <a href="http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/sd-why-san-diego-union-tribune-published-free-press-editorial-20180816-htmlstory.html">the opportunity to highlight</a> the paper’s recently launched “Our Journalism, Explained” section, which engages readers in a conversation about the paper’s journalistic standards and practices.</p>
<p>As the editorial suggests and our research confirmed, trust isn’t something news organizations can simply ask for – it’s something they must repeatedly earn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100445/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The 32 Percent Project was funded by a grant from the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work was funded by a grant from the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. </span></em></p>Researchers set out across four cities to ask the public, what it would it take to rebuild your trust in the media? Here’s what they said.Lisa Heyamoto, Senior Instructor of Journalism, University of OregonTodd Milbourn, Instructor of Journalism, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021552018-09-13T10:47:56Z2018-09-13T10:47:56ZLessons from White House disinformation a century ago: ‘It’s dangerous to believe your own propaganda’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235446/original/file-20180907-90578-r5riyx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1917%2C939&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bolshevik leaders Nikolai Lenin and Leon Trotsky</span> </figcaption></figure><p>One hundred years ago, the U.S. government published <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015025039804;view=1up;seq=5">documents</a> that fueled the mounting Red Scare, helped justify the American military invasion of Russia and poisoned American-Russian relations for years to come.</p>
<p>Newspapers across the United States began to publish the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030431/1918-09-15/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=09%2F15%2F1918&index=10&date2=09%2F15%2F1918&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Bolshevik&proxdistance=5&state=&rows=20&ortext=Bolshevik+&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1">fake papers</a> on Sept. 15, 1918. </p>
<p>Unbeknownst to the government, the documents were forgeries. They were created by Russian political interests whose party affiliation remains obscure, but whose objectives were clear. The documents were part of a Russian disinformation campaign – a common propaganda tactic during World War I – to discredit the Bolsheviks, who had just seized power in Russia after leading a Marxist revolution. </p>
<p>The publication of the documents was a classic case of the American government accepting bogus information because it confirmed its preconceptions and justified actions it wished to take. </p>
<p>We are scholars who work at the intersection of media and politics. We believe the incident illustrates the base power of disinformation lies not in technology, which many blame for the rise of counterfeit information today, but in weakness in human nature. The desire to confirm their beliefs about the Bolsheviks led top U.S. leaders to ignore credible and persistent warnings of the documents’ inaccuracy and aggressively assert government authority to discredit those few who questioned them. </p>
<h2>The Sisson documents</h2>
<p>By 1918, World War I had raged on for nearly four years, and the Russians, who fought on the side of the U.S. and others against Germany, had experienced two recent revolutions. </p>
<p>The first revolution ousted the Czarist regime. The second, led by Bolshevik leaders Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, ousted the provisional government. </p>
<p>Despite the chaos, the U.S. and Allies desperately needed Russia to continue fighting. But the Bolsheviks were intent on taking an exhausted Russian military out of the war and promised to begin peace talks with Germany once in power.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/committee-public-information">The Committee on Public Information</a>, which operated as an American propaganda ministry during the war, sent Edgar Sisson, a former muckraking journalist, to Petrograd in November 1917, before the Bolsheviks seized power. He was to use publicity tools, which included press releases, films and speeches, to urge Russians to remain in the war. </p>
<p>By the time he arrived, the Bolsheviks were in power. A month later, they began peace negotiations with Germany. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235449/original/file-20180907-90565-snrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235449/original/file-20180907-90565-snrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235449/original/file-20180907-90565-snrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235449/original/file-20180907-90565-snrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235449/original/file-20180907-90565-snrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235449/original/file-20180907-90565-snrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235449/original/file-20180907-90565-snrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">President Woodrow Wilson wanted to build a case against the Bolsheviks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
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<p>The peace talks played into widespread rumors in Russia and elsewhere that Lenin and Trotsky were paid German agents. Before its ouster, the Russian provisional government tried to use the rumors to discredit the Bolsheviks and hasten their demise. But the rumors had never been proven.</p>
<p>This all seemed to change, however, in February 1918.</p>
<p>Raymond Robins, head of the American Red Cross Commission in Russia, gave Sisson confidential documents that implied Germans financed and directed the Bolsheviks. Sisson deemed the documents valid despite Robins’ doubts.</p>
<p>President Woodrow Wilson and the State Department encouraged Sisson to collect evidence that Lenin and his comrades were German pawns, which would support the administration’s anti-Bolshevik policies. </p>
<p>By the time he left Russia in March, Sisson had collected <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_hundred_red_days.html?id=woDLMR9lJg0C">68 documents</a>, mostly with the help of a shadowy figure, Evgeni Petrovich Semenov. Semenov, a former secret service agent in the provisional government, told Sisson he lifted the papers from Bolshevik headquarters. </p>
<h2>Documents make news in the US</h2>
<p><a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/09/15/112640794.pdf">American press coverage</a> of Sisson’s story was sensational. Most stories appeared on the front page and were published in installments during the week. They accepted the government view of Bolshevik treachery. </p>
<p>The government’s timing of the release was politically strategic. Wilson had by this time agreed to an Allied military intervention in Russia for the purpose of protecting stockpiles of Allied war material and ensuring the safe travel of anti-German forces through Siberia to the Eastern Front. </p>
<p>In August and September, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=B1n_ydotyMsC&dq=when+the+united+states+invaded+russia">U.S. troops were arriving in Russia</a>. This move constituted a threat to the Bolshevik government and violated Wilson’s promise of self-determination. </p>
<p>But the fake documents legitimized intervention by suggesting that the Bolshevik stooges were not representative of the Russian people. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235450/original/file-20180907-90574-1ga4mff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235450/original/file-20180907-90574-1ga4mff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235450/original/file-20180907-90574-1ga4mff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235450/original/file-20180907-90574-1ga4mff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235450/original/file-20180907-90574-1ga4mff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235450/original/file-20180907-90574-1ga4mff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235450/original/file-20180907-90574-1ga4mff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The New York Times, Sept. 15, 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York Times archive</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Compliant journalists</h2>
<p>The documents presented a problem that often arises in national security reporting. </p>
<p>With little time or expertise to properly determine an account’s authenticity, journalists often rely solely on the government’s word. When a majority of the public is mentally prepared to accept the government’s account because it conforms to their preconceptions, the government can easily beat back doubts by calling doubters disloyal and un-American. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=HbE3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1064&dq=John+Reed,+%E2%80%9COn+Intervention,%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&q=John%20Reed%2C%20%E2%80%9COn%20Intervention%2C%E2%80%9D&f=false">reasoned analysis</a> of the documents published in a pamphlet by the Liberator, left-wing journalist John Reed showed they were probably forgeries and said they falsely justified military intervention in Russia. </p>
<p>George Creel, the head of the Committee on Public Information, sought to discredit Reed by labeling him the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/063.html">“center of the Bolsheviki movement in this country</a>.”</p>
<p>Mostly, though, Creel evoked government authority as the chief basis for accepting the validity of the documents when they were questioned. This was the case with the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1918-09-22/ed-1/seq-25/#date1=09%2F22%2F1918&index=0&date2=09%2F22%2F1918&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn83030213&lccn=sn83030212&lccn=sn83030214&words=Evening+Post&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=%22EVENING+POST%22&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1">lone establishment newspaper</a> that challenged the authenticity of the documents, the New York Evening Post. </p>
<p>In letters found at the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/063.html">National Archives</a>, Creel said the Post gave “aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States.” He expressed surprise that the New York Evening Post refused to accept evidence put forth by the government. And he told the paper’s owner that his editor had acted as an advocate of Lenin and Trotsky. He said the paper behaved as if it, too, had taken German money.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235451/original/file-20180907-90553-1y9mq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235451/original/file-20180907-90553-1y9mq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235451/original/file-20180907-90553-1y9mq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235451/original/file-20180907-90553-1y9mq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235451/original/file-20180907-90553-1y9mq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235451/original/file-20180907-90553-1y9mq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235451/original/file-20180907-90553-1y9mq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edgar Sisson of the Committee on Public Information.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The New York Evening Post, he complained bitterly, was demanding “the Government should take the witness stand.”</p>
<p>The credulous acceptance of the documents by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684527.2017.1294643">the press</a> can be traced to the effectiveness of extensive wartime propaganda by the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/happy-100th-birthday-information-warfare/2014/08/01/3786e262-1732-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html">Committee on Public Information</a>, which we have been studying for the past several years. One of the committee’s chief propaganda messages was widespread German spying and treachery in the United States and abroad. </p>
<p>It was an easy step, when nudged by the government, to believe the Germans enlisted godless Bolsheviks in their cause. </p>
<p>As the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PbsmtAEACAAJ&dq=literary+digest+september+1918&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU--Lji5vdAhVGC6wKHSL_D-MQ6AEIKTAA">Literary Digest</a> magazine observed, editors found “great satisfaction in adding legal proof to their moral certainty, and when the Government guarantees the authenticity of the documents proving that Lenin and Trotzky are German agents, it gives them an opportunity to speak their minds without hesitation and without reserve.” </p>
<p>Congress, too, was willing to endorse this view. The Democratic majority in the Senate used a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Brewing_and_Liquor_Interests_and_German.html?id=JnZIAQAAIAAJ">special subcommittee</a> to emphasize Bolshevik-German ties. They found witnesses who testified the Bolsheviki movement was a branch of the German government. </p>
<h2>Power in plausibility</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/237884">George Kennan</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/151612?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">other historians</a> have concluded the Sisson documents are “unquestionable forgeries,” but this does not mean they were devoid of truth. </p>
<p>As with all effective disinformation, their power lay in their plausibility. The documents’ authors enhanced their forgeries with facts.
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UBnv9I_guMUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Unknown+Lenin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG9Ibvk5vdAhUBOKwKHb_CAwMQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Unknown%20Lenin&f=false">Germans did help the Bolsheviks</a>, funneling millions of Deutsche marks to them during the war. </p>
<p>But, as <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078682/">one diplomat</a> noted, the Bolsheviks would have accepted money from anyone. More important, the Bolsheviks sought to foment a communist revolution in Germany as soon as they could.</p>
<p>For those who spread disinformation, then, it is often not a matter of being tricked into believing the information they have spread. Creel, Sisson and others recklessly ignored warnings the documents were false. They wanted to believe the conspiracy, so they did. </p>
<p>Today, we call this <a href="https://theconversation.com/confirmation-bias-a-psychological-phenomenon-that-helps-explain-why-pundits-got-it-wrong-68781">confirmation bias</a>. </p>
<p>The United States’ path to war with Iraq in 2003 eerily recalled that element of the Sisson documents. To make the case for an invasion, the George W. Bush administration relied heavily on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-kykEEiazfgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Isikoff+and+Corn,+Hubris,+49%5C&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwitqvWflJvdAhVGmK0KHfYNDgMQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Isikoff%20and%20Corn%2C%20Hubris%2C%2049%5C&f=false">Ahmadi Chalabi</a>, an exiled Iraqi politician, and fellow Iraqi dissidents who wanted Saddam Hussein ousted. </p>
<p>Chalabi lined up a parade of Iraq defectors to provide compelling – and inaccurate – stories of Hussein’s terrorist connections and his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. In addition to selling the invasion to the public, the campaign solidified the administration’s conviction that it was right to do what it wanted to do. </p>
<p>“It’s dangerous,” Chalabi was known to say from time to time, “if you believe your own propaganda.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forged documents were used by the US government 100 years ago to justify hostile actions against Russia. All but one US newspaper accepted the government’s propaganda. The lessons for today are stark.John Maxwell Hamilton, Global Scholar at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC and Hopkins P Breazeale Professor, Manship School of Mass Communications, Louisiana State University Meghan Menard McCune, Ph.D. candidate, Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1027562018-09-10T10:36:32Z2018-09-10T10:36:32ZViolence against the media isn’t new – history shows why it largely disappeared and has now returned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235407/original/file-20180907-90571-h4ffen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Capital Gazette in Annapolis lost five staffers in a shooting</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Patrick Semansky</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Another news outlet has been attacked in the United States. </p>
<p>A man <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/05/us/dallas-news-kdfw-truck-crash/index.html">rammed his car repeatedly</a> into Fox affiliate KDFW in Dallas, Texas, on Sept. 5. We can now add this to the growing list of recent attacks on — and violent threats to — the media.</p>
<p>A man recently <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/08/30/california-man-arrested-charges-threatening-shoot-boston-globe-employees/EejiWXLNscUR8AxDB3y7RL/story.html">called The Boston Globe</a> and threatened “to shoot you [expletives] in the head … shoot every [expletive] one of you.” Apparently, the Globe’s defense of quality journalism infuriated him. </p>
<p>At CNN, anchors report <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/08/05/brian-stelter-journalists-receiving-death-threats-vpx.cnn">an uptick in death threats</a>. And, most tragically of all, there was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/us/capital-gazette-annapolis-shooting.html">the shooting of five employees</a> in the office of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, on June 28.</p>
<p>Mental illness, isolation, easy access to weaponry, a renewed white supremacy movement and other variables clearly contribute to the increase in both violent rhetoric and actual violence. </p>
<p>But what these occurrences share, and what they’re illustrating, is a profound hatred towards purveyors of journalism. </p>
<p>This isn’t news. Violent acts against the media are as old as our nation. Perhaps Americans are just not accustomed to seeing the violence because most of them grew up in the second half of the 20th century, an era largely devoid of the partisan rancor that was once a hallmark of American journalism – and which seems to have returned. </p>
<h2>Ugly history</h2>
<p>As media historian <a href="https://media.illinois.edu/john-nerone">John Nerone</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Against-Press-Policing-History/dp/0195086988">writes</a>, attacks on the media occur regularly throughout our history. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-0100783">James Rivington</a>, an 18th-century loyalist printer in New York City, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1918851?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">barely escaped being tarred and feathered</a> by the Sons of Liberty, who ransacked his home. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235410/original/file-20180907-90565-wd6y9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235410/original/file-20180907-90565-wd6y9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235410/original/file-20180907-90565-wd6y9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235410/original/file-20180907-90565-wd6y9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235410/original/file-20180907-90565-wd6y9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235410/original/file-20180907-90565-wd6y9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235410/original/file-20180907-90565-wd6y9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York newspaper publisher and loyalist James Rivington was hanged in effigy in 1775.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://earlyamericanists.com/2016/04/20/james-rivington-printer-loyalist-spy/">The Junto</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 19th century, attacks on the press were common. Violence and journalism were intertwined in American culture, largely because of the partisan politics most newspapers propagated. </p>
<p>Abolitionist and newspaper editor <a href="http://www.colby.edu/lovejoyaward/the-story-of-elijah-parish-lovejoy/">Elijah Lovejoy was murdered</a> in Alton, Illinois, in 1837. A pro-slavery mob broke into his jail cell – where he had been placed for his protection – and lynched him. One year earlier, in New York City, The New York Herald’s <a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/content/james-gordon-bennett-%E2%80%94-beneficent-rascal">James Gordon Bennett</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qHMVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&dq=%22James+Watson+Webb,+caught+up+with+Bennett%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwist__CyafdAhWFmVkKHZd0Ay8Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22James%20Watson%20Webb%2C%20caught%20up%20with%20Bennett%22&f=false">was savagely beaten by his rival</a>, James Watson Webb. Webb edited New York City’s best-selling newspaper, The Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, and he’d grown tired of Bennett’s attacks in his popular newspaper column. </p>
<p>When Ida B. Wells-Barnett published anti-lynching reports in Memphis in 1892, a white mob <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett">destroyed her press and threatened to kill her</a>. </p>
<p>Lovejoy and Wells-Barnett are remembered because they would later be recognized as civil rights pioneers. But the violent confrontation between two of New York City’s most prominent newspaper editors is less well-known, in part, because it occurred at a time when violence against the press wasn’t uncommon.</p>
<p>In the early days of the Republic, U.S. newspapers were not only observably partisan, they were subsidized by political parties. Because newspapers around the U.S. often represented specific political parties, news reports would be politically framed and competing outlets – often serving the rival political party – would be demeaned. </p>
<p>Countless local editors, like Bennett, were attacked. Some, like Lovejoy, were killed for their work. These attacks on journalists were so common that Mark Twain, who worked as a journalist, lampooned them in his classic short story “<a href="https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/journalism-in-tennessee">Journalism in Tennessee</a>.”</p>
<p>Twain’s satire about press violence tells the story of a young editor reporting to the office of The Morning Glory and Johnson County War-Whoop for his first day of work. When he turns in a brief roundup of local news reported by other outlets, his boss is surprised. </p>
<p>“Thunder and lightning!” he says. “Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!” </p>
<p>The chief editor rewrites the piece, insulting and threatening the editors of the rival newspapers. Calling them scoundrels and liars, he excoriates them for “dissemination of falsehood, calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity.” </p>
<p>“Now that is the way to write,” his boss says upon completion of the piece. “Peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods.”</p>
<h2>The ‘News From Nowhere’</h2>
<p>“Mush-and-milk journalism” that outraged Twain’s fictitious newspaper editor is inoffensive, neutral and seemingly objective. </p>
<p>It’s that kind of centrist journalism that developed in the 20th century – what journalist and political scientist Edward Jay Epstein called “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/News_from_nowhere_television_and_the_new.html?id=IyDuAAAAMAAJ">News From Nowhere</a>” — that many of us grew up on.</p>
<p>The evolution of technology, commercial imperatives and new modes of distribution combined to create American journalism’s era of objectivity. </p>
<p>Selling newspapers to millions in mass audiences, and transmitting identical reports to newspapers around the U.S. via the telegraph, both required neutering any clearly biased news reporting. </p>
<p>Regulatory mandates like the <a href="http://www.museum.tv/eotv/publicintere.htm">public interest standard</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fairness-doctrine-in-one-post/2011/08/23/gIQAN8CXZJ_blog.html?utm_term=.7526d6e95140">Fairness Doctrine</a> followed the development of radio and television. They further enshrined a “just-the-facts” sensibility in American journalism. </p>
<p>From our vantage point as historians in 2018, we can now see this era of objectivity lasted from about 1930 to 2000, beginning with the introduction of broadcast journalism via radio to the emergence of the multichannel cable television universe and the web’s development. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235414/original/file-20180907-90571-tgazko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235414/original/file-20180907-90571-tgazko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235414/original/file-20180907-90571-tgazko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235414/original/file-20180907-90571-tgazko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235414/original/file-20180907-90571-tgazko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235414/original/file-20180907-90571-tgazko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235414/original/file-20180907-90571-tgazko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Walter Cronkite delivering the news on May, 24, 1978.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP/Richard Drew</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In those decades, journalism became less partisan to be more palatable to mass audiences. Every weeknight, CBS broadcast journalist <a href="http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1603550;jsessionid=1DDDB49E4C139A4DFC2423D5FBEFECC4?from=..%2F18%2F18-03570.html&from_nm=Sinatra%2C+Frank">Walter Cronkite</a> soberly told Americans what they needed to know about the events of the day. </p>
<p>And, in this original network era, opinion was separated from reporting and clearly labeled – whether it was on-air commentaries delivered by <a href="http://www.museum.tv/eotv/sevareideri.htm">Eric Sevareid</a> or on specially designated “editorial” or “opinion” pages in newspapers.</p>
<p>Such segregation of reporting and opinion was not the norm in American journalism history. It was a new idea that quickly gained traction because it proved so commercially advantageous. </p>
<p>Creating audiences in the millions, and then the tens of millions – on television – <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674695870">generated unimagined sums</a> of advertising revenue. Removing opinions from most reporting produced enormous profits for television networks, radio stations and daily newspapers. It became commonplace. Americans grew accustomed to it.</p>
<h2>Back to the old ways</h2>
<p>It appears the cycle has now turned. </p>
<p>Outlets like Fox News, MSNBC, and even some daily newspapers, are no longer as careful about monitoring the injection of subjectivity into journalism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235415/original/file-20180907-90568-6awxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235415/original/file-20180907-90568-6awxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235415/original/file-20180907-90568-6awxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235415/original/file-20180907-90568-6awxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235415/original/file-20180907-90568-6awxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235415/original/file-20180907-90568-6awxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235415/original/file-20180907-90568-6awxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Partisan cable news hosts Rachel Maddow, a progressive and conservative Sean Hannity, right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP photo</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But they are not entirely to blame. Today’s audiences feel empowered by their autonomy, because they have an enormous number of available and competing media outlets. They can now watch and consume news that best matches their worldview, rather than an homogenized news product designed to be palatable to the masses. </p>
<p>Noting the higher ratings and subscription numbers that accompany this increasing partisanship, <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20160812">news outlets react accordingly</a>. Even more, social media technologies allow audiences to engage with news media like never before, often cultivating a climate of uncivil online discourse. This only intensifies the partisan rancor mirroring 19th-century levels. </p>
<p>Does the end of the depoliticized mass audience era of journalism directly correlate to what seems to be a return of violence against the media? </p>
<p>Until the four journalists were killed in Annapolis early this year (the fifth staffer was not a journalist), <a href="https://cpj.org/data/killed/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&cc_fips%5B%5D=US&start_year=1992&end_year=2018&group_by=year">only seven had been killed</a> in the last 26 years. </p>
<p>When consumers of MSNBC are baffled by the apparent ignorance of Fox News viewers, and Fox News viewers are sure MSNBC’s fans are dupes, we’ve returned to the world Twain described.</p>
<p>It might be impossible to return to the more civil, professional and respectful era of journalism that many Americans grew up in. But we can, and should, recognize the historic futility of killing the messenger.</p>
<p>Destroying Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s press did nothing to stop the anti-lynching movement, and the murder of Elijah Lovejoy spread the abolitionist message much further than Lovejoy himself ever could.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102756/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Violence against journalists is on the rise. Many people don’t realize that such acts have a long tradition in the US, where partisan rancor was once a hallmark of American journalism.Jennifer E. Moore, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Minnesota DuluthMichael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1027412018-09-06T10:08:28Z2018-09-06T10:08:28ZWhat we (don’t) get from yet another book ‘exposing’ Donald Trump<p>If anyone is surprised by the portrait of president Donald Trump in investigative journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fear/Bob-Woodward/9781501175510">Fear: Trump in the White House</a>, they’ve been living under a log. The way Trump treats <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/donald-trump-leaked-recording-women">women</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/undocumented-youth-divided-over-how-to-fight-back-against-trump-immigration-clampdown-81726">immigrants</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/children-have-been-separated-from-their-families-for-generations-why-trumps-policy-was-different-98587">children</a>, and <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/will-president-trump-banish-the-white-house-press-corps">the press</a> is clearly beyond the pale, but it’s also well-established. So it pays to ask what yet another long tale of Trump’s transgressions can do for society – and for journalism.</p>
<p>Do we really need to hear more about Donald Trump’s behaviour? What is there that we don’t already know? And what has anyone, including the media, done with this knowledge anyway?</p>
<p>The much-anticipated release of this tell-all by Woodward, who together with Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story, has predictably sent the press and everyone across the US political spectrum into tremors of excitement. This latest work of political insiderdom has provided the mainstream media with “scoops” – that is, offered up a clutch of juicy quotes to journalists who’ve read select excerpts from the nearly 450-page book.</p>
<p>The Huffington Post’s <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-bob-woodward-fear_us_5b8ea3fae4b0511db3dc8956?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=HvEeBUgoBPAKG418KAjXyQ">list</a> of outré comments allegedly made by the president, deftly titled “The Wildest Things About Trump From Bob Woodward’s New Book”, includes illuminating snippets such as Trump’s alleged mocking of attorney general Jeff Sessions’ accent: “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner … He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”</p>
<p>Other accounts excerpted by HuffPo touch on more serious topics. Following Trump’s statement that “both sides” were responsible for the violence at an August 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Woodward reports that “advisers urged him to make another speech condemning white supremacists and neo-Nazis”. According to Woodward, after Trump made the speech “he almost immediately told aides, ‘That was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve made’ and the ‘worst speech I’ve ever given’”.</p>
<p>These sorts of remarks are clearly unedifying to say the least. But the matter of whether or not people love or hate them – and, more importantly, the ideas behind them – is not changed or challenged by journalism that merely “covers” them. This is no substitute for journalism that examines the influence of such comments and actions on social change. Instead, the media too often sticks to its habit of idle voyeurism, poring over the details of what someone might have said.</p>
<h2>A way with secrets</h2>
<p>Woodward’s book is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodwards-new-book-reveals-a-nervous-breakdown-of-trumps-presidency/2018/09/04/b27a389e-ac60-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html">advertised by his employer</a>, The Washington Post, as being “drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants and witnesses that were conducted on ‘deep background’, meaning the information could be used but he would not reveal who provided it.”</p>
<p>But the book comes on the heels of more than a dozen related titles by journalists this year alone. And they all tackle the same topics: misogyny, xenophobia, racial hatred, corporate greed. They are all based on personal experiences and stories of those whose names should not be mentioned. They all pretty much tell us the same thing: that Trump is a cruel, inept and unfit president. What more is there to know about him, and do we really want or need to know?</p>
<p>Covering the lives of politicians and of the political press itself has been a longstanding function of US journalism. How well journalists have followed through with critical assessments of policy action, inaction and injustice, however, is left to critique. Woodward has been at the centre of covering US presidents and policy, making a career out of persuading insiders to sit down for interviews and obtaining exclusive access to documents.</p>
<p>The implications of Woodward’s “deep background” methodology are often glossed over by journalists and journalism scholars. Instead of being interrogated on the ethical issues deep background work presents regarding the identity of sources and how Woodward got to them, it is simply accepted as the price that must be paid for juicy detail.</p>
<p>These types of journalistic tactics aren’t much criticised by the mainstream press, and it’s even given a pass to use them by the political sources it uses. It’s simply part of doing business. In fact, such sources apparently like being on background not only to protect their identities, but because having secrets to leak is a mark of their power in Washington.</p>
<h2>Toothless insiderism</h2>
<p>This style of journalism has worked for Woodward, who became one of the world’s most celebrated reporters off the back of the Watergate investigation conducted with colleague Carl Bernstein, although a handful of people have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/why-bradleegate-matters-woodward-and-bernsteins-deception/257487">questioned</a> the some of the techniques they deployed.</p>
<p>Deep background became even more influential in the emotional telling of how president George W Bush handled (or didn’t) the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Woodward’s 2004 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/may/08/highereducation.iraq">Plan of Attack</a>, in which he detailed the ineptitude and calculations of the Bush Administration before and following the attacks, is a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/books/review/plan-of-attack-all-the-presidents-mentors.html">mix</a> of unsourced quotes dishing out both great praise for the president and to-be-expected criticism.</p>
<p>That book, however, wasn’t as bad as Woodward’s 2002 <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bush_at_War.html?id=BRzVPPstf3EC&redir_esc=y">Bush at War</a>, which was also based on unnamed sources and lengthy private conversations with Bush himself. In the end, Woodward looked, in the words of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/dec/01/highereducation.news">one critic</a>, like “pretty Pooh Bear in the end, a cuddly old muddler slopping around in a honey pot of sources”.</p>
<p>Journalism has been under attack for misunderstanding the influence of Trump and his supporters. In my opinion, it should also be under scrutiny for celebrating the very kind of salacious “insider journalism” that Woodward’s latest work exemplifies.</p>
<p>Having now read shelves upon shelves of Trump-bashing texts (and admittedly <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Trump-Presidency-Journalism-and-Democracy/Gutsche-Jr/p/book/9781138307384">writing some myself</a>), it’s time to change tack. What’s needed is journalism that joins the dots of bad language, misfires, and intentional wrongdoing to larger systems of power and to individuals who can be held accountable. As a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/dec/01/highereducation.news">reviewer of Woodward’s Bush love story</a> put it in 2002: “Why am I being told all this? What does it mean? It isn’t investigation, just cross-referenced compilation. If you want to hit gold, do your own digging.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert E Gutsche Jr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bob Woodward’s supposedly explosive findings about Trump are not what we need.Robert E Gutsche Jr, Senior Lecturer in Critical Digital Media Practice, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.