tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/new-york-times-8448/articlesNew York Times – The Conversation2024-02-29T13:39:18Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169672024-02-29T13:39:18Z2024-02-29T13:39:18ZBias hiding in plain sight: Decades of analyses suggest US media skews anti-Palestinian<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572260/original/file-20240130-29-5jyhe6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C17%2C2941%2C1922&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Palestinian families seeking refuge in makeshift tents in vacant areas in Rafah, Gaza Strip. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/palestinian-families-seeking-refuge-from-israeli-attacks-on-news-photo/1965323426?adppopup=true">Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>News organizations are often <a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/newspapers-israel-palestine-bias-new-york-times/">accused of lacking impartiality</a> <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-bbc-is-under-fire-for-its-coverage-of-the-israel-hamas-war-rightly-so/">when covering the Israeli-Palestinian</a> conflict. In November 2023, over <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/11/09/open-letter-journalists-israel-gaza/">750 journalists</a> signed an open letter alleging bias in U.S. newsrooms against Palestinians in the reporting of the ongoing fighting in the Gaza strip. </p>
<p>More recently, two articles in respected U.S. newspapers highlight the debate over bias.</p>
<p>A Feb. 2, 2024, op-ed in The Wall Street Journal described a Michigan city, where many Arab immigrants live, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/welcome-to-dearborn-americas-jihad-capital-pro-hamas-michigan-counterterrorism-a99dba38">as a center of antisemitic terrorism sympathizers</a>. On the same day, another op-ed in The New York Times depicted the U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/30/opinion/thepoint#friedman-middle-east-animals">as a lion engaged in combat</a> with Iran – characterized as a “parasitoid wasp” – and Hamas – portrayed as a “trap-door spider,” executing rapid, predatory maneuvers. The pieces were attacked by critics as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/dearborn-community-says-wsj-article-is-a-distraction/">being Islamaphobic</a> and falling <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/thomas-friedman-animal-kingdom-nyt-rcna137283">back on racist tropes</a>. </p>
<p>Broadcast media is similarly being scrutinized for bias. According to the Guardian, CNN has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias">faced scrutiny for its alleged pro-Israel bias</a>, with claims that Israeli official statements receive expedited clearance and trustful on-air portrayal. Conversely, statements from Palestinians, including those not affiliated with Hamas, are frequently delayed or remain unreported. A notable instance cited by the Guardian involved former Israeli intelligence official Rami Igra asserting on CNN that the entire Palestinian population of Gaza could be considered combatants, a statement allowed to go unchallenged. </p>
<p>From the other side, Jonathan Greenbatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, has accused U.S. media of a bias that <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/anti-defamation-league-director-msnbc-coverage-israel-1235612659/">dehumanizes Israelis while sanitizing Hamas</a>. During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in October 2023, he raised concerns over the networks framing of Hamas, asking, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BXsC-7WSqI">Who’s writing the scipts</a>?” </p>
<p>The issue of bias isn’t confined to the U.S. In the U.K.,the state-funded BBC has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/16/bbc-gets-1500-complaints-over-israel-hamas-coverage-split-50-50-on-each-side">received complaints on its Gaza coverage</a> from both sides as well.</p>
<p>With accusation of bias being levied by both sides in the conflict, what does academic research say about newsroom prejudice?</p>
<p>Support for the assertion of anti-Israeli bias in media occasionally emerges in research. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2016.1244381">2016 study</a> uncovered anti-Israeli bias in German and British newspapers, although results for U.S. publications were mixed. However, when scholars look at media coverage data as a whole, rather than pick and choose, they demonstrate that leading U.S. outlets tend to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1081180X03256999%22%22">more sympathetic toward the Israeli perspective</a> than that of Palestinians.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://iac.gatech.edu/people/person/natalie-khazaal">scholar of media bias and the Arab world</a>, in my own research, I have found that anti-Palestinian bias in the U.S. and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2011.571818">other countries’ media</a> is often subtle, albeit in plain view.</p>
<h2>Measuring bias</h2>
<p>Typically, scholars examine this form of media bias using both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amc.2023.128219">quantitative</a> and qualitative measures of the <a href="https://libguides.lehman.edu/c.php?g=733610&p=5241445">framing, selection and portrayal of news</a>. Content analyses of <a href="https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/study-of-headlines-shows-media-bias-growing-563502/">news articles, headlines and images</a> are common methodologies, seeking patterns that may favor one perspective over the other.</p>
<p>Additionally, scholars examine the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3512176">sources cited and the prominence given to different voices</a>. Historical context, the overall tone and language, how often the media talks about suffering on one side compared with the other – all are indicators used to analyze media bias. </p>
<h2>Historical bias in language and reporting</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/media-and-political-conflict-news-middle-east?format=PB">Several</a> <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reporting-the-Israeli-Arab-Conflict-How-Hegemony-Works/Liebes/p/book/9781138864580">studies</a> scrutinizing U.S. media coverage during the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, spanning from 1987 to 1993, consistently revealed pronounced biases. </p>
<p>The analyses indicated a propensity to emphasize Israeli deaths despite higher Palestinian casualties. The media’s reliance on Israeli sources shaped the narrative, omitting crucial context such as the illegality of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands under peace agreements. Overlooking this fact obscured the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858380">correlation between increasing settlements and a rise in Palestinian attacks</a>, thus compromising a comprehensive understanding.</p>
<p>Throughout the second intifada from 2000 to 2005, the prevalence of bias in media coverage persisted. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://fair.org/home/the-illusion-of-balance/?fbclid=IwAR02QPzY5_l3cg7NwKcZTKyr4ISHxt1PrWJiiWoumHT1nqlb1nAFlcU88rc">study conducted by the independent media watchdog FAIR</a> highlighted a notable instance concerning NPR’s reporting during the initial six months of 2001. While NPR initially presented similar figures of Israeli and Palestinian deaths — 62 versus 51 — FAIR’s comprehensive analysis revealed a stark disparity. When considering the total six-month death toll of 77 versus 148, NPR reported on eight out of 10 Israeli deaths but only three out of 10 Palestinian deaths, creating a skewed impression of balance. </p>
<p>NPR’s ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, <a href="https://fair.org/home/the-illusion-of-balance/?fbclid=IwAR02QPzY5_l3cg7NwKcZTKyr4ISHxt1PrWJiiWoumHT1nqlb1nAFlcU88rc">responded</a> to this assessment saying that numerical equivalence doesn’t always equate to journalistic fairness. </p>
<h2>Selective coverage</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protestors hold a banner which reads 'In Gaza, the State of Israel also kills journalists,' while displaying names and photographs of those killed on the ground.," src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572259/original/file-20240130-29-wp5qc8.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">A large number of journalists have been killed in Palestinian territories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protestors-holding-a-banner-which-reads-as-in-gaza-the-news-photo/1775804380?adppopup=true">Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Selective coverage has the potential to align with Israeli claims of self-defense, as scholars <a href="https://libcat.colorado.edu/Author/Home?author=Friel%2C+Howard%2C+1955-">Howard Friel</a> and <a href="https://politics.princeton.edu/people/richard-falk">Richard Falk</a> highlighted in their 2007 analysis of the <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/products/1998-israel-palestine-on-record">New York Times’ coverage of the second intifada</a>. The framing of attacks in Palestinian territories appeared to reflect a narrative that supported Israel’s stance.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://regener-online.de/journalcco/2003_2/pdf_2003_2/ross_engl.pdf">portrayal of Palestinian suffering</a>, encompassing deaths, home destruction and daily humiliation, tends to be downplayed both in the language used in coverage and by its reduced frequency compared with Israeli experiences. Media law scholar <a href="https://english.wsu.edu/susan-ross/">Susan Dente Ross</a> underscored in her 2003 study how the U.S. media often labeled Palestinians as aggressors rather than victims, thereby <a href="https://regener-online.de/journalcco/2003_2/pdf_2003_2/ross_engl.pdf">normalizing their losses and suffering</a>. </p>
<p>Echoing this perspective, media studies scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.ae/citations?user=iRAw1rUAAAAJ&hl=en">Mohamad Elmasry</a> argued in 2009 that the U.S. media rationalizes Israeli violence as a <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Death-in-the-Middle-East%3A-An-Analysis-of-How-the-in-Elmasry/686de091177e68331f80427b604c0ce030c32ce6">reluctantly understandable aspect of war</a>, framing Israel’s actions as “<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-west-press-context-sacrosanct-palestinians">retaliatory and legitimate</a>” while depicting Palestinian violence as “<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-west-press-context-sacrosanct-palestinians">barbaric and senseless</a>.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816659">displacement</a> of around 750,000 <a href="https://theconversation.com/gaza-bombing-adds-to-the-generations-of-palestinians-displaced-from-their-homes-216142">Palestinians in 1948</a> remains a top Palestinian concern, because it turned about 80% of Palestinians into <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/palestinian-refugees-dispossession">stateless refugees</a>.</p>
<p>“Rarely, however, is the history of how these people became refugees incorporated into the reporting,” and neither is the body of international law and consensus on their rights, states journalism scholar <a href="https://www.qatar.northwestern.edu/directory/profiles/dunsky-marda.html">Marda Dunsky</a>, who conducted the analysis. An analysis of 30 <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/pens-and-swords/9780231133487">major U.S. print and broadcast outlets</a> over four years – from 2000 to 2004 – found that the coverage lacked this important context during the second intifada. </p>
<p>The issue of sources is also contentious. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/073953290602700407">Three in every four major U.S. outlets</a> consistently favor Israeli sources over Palestinian and accord Israeli officials more positive media coverage, according to a 2006 study by scholars <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kuang-Kuo-Chang">Kuang-Kuo Chang</a> and <a href="https://comartsci.msu.edu/our-people/geri-alumit-zeldes">Geri Alumit Zeldes</a>. For the most part, U.S. outlets avoid quoting Palestinian officials, the study noted. </p>
<h2>AI confirms anti-Palestinian bias</h2>
<p>Recently, experts have started to study big data on the media portrayals of the conflict with the help of artificial intelligence. For example, in 2023, MIT’s <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QnYHj40AAAAJ&hl=en">Holly Jackson</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352231178148">conducted a study</a> of 33,000 news articles from 1987-1993 and 2000-2005 – that cover the two intifadas – with the help of state-of-the-art AI technology that provides large-scale historical data.</p>
<p>Jackson confirmed that there was anti-Palestinian bias that persisted during the first and second intifadas. The discernible bias was manifested in the level of objectivity and the tone of language employed by outlets such as The New York Times. The bias was further underscored by the manner in which media outlets attributed sentiments of violence to either side involved in the conflict.</p>
<p>For instance, an article highlighted that “They [Jews] threw rocks at hotels housing Arabs, who hurled objects from their windows in return.” Notably, the article employs the more neutral verb “throw” to portray Israeli violence and the less neutral verb “hurl” to describe Palestinian violence. Journalists sometimes use synonyms; however, the cumulative effect of repeatedly using more negative synonyms for Palestinians and more positive ones for Israelis implies the existence of bias, Jackson noted.</p>
<p>Jackson’s findings revealed a significant disparity, with more than 90% of articles focusing on Israelis compared with less than 50% covering Palestinians. Additionally, the articles used negative language and the passive voice to refer to Palestinians twice as often as Israelis. For example, she reveals that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352231178148">the passive construction “killed” is used</a> in “Palestinian killed as clashes erupt with troops” to avoid specifying the perpetrators of the violence, contrasting with the active “slay” in “Palestinians slay 2 Israeli hikers,” used to emphasize the perpetrators.</p>
<p>The anti-Palestinian sentiment increased from the first intifada to the second, the same study showed. As an illustration, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627798556/thehundredyearswaronpalestine">Palestinian deaths surged from 1,422 to 4,916</a>, a stark increase of three and a half times. They were also four and a half times greater than the 1,100 Israeli casualties. Yet, their reporting failed to correspond proportionately to the heightened occurrences.</p>
<p>How the media reports on events can greatly influence <a href="https://catalog.lib.uchicago.edu/vufind/Record/8530692">public perceptions</a> of what is really going on. Reporting can prime audiences to see a Palestinian fighter in a mask as either an icon of <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9781783710751/more-bad-news-from-israel/">terrorism or a hero</a> resisting occupation, depending on how the news is presented.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Khazaal 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>How the media talks about suffering on one side compared with the other can often reveal bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict coverage, writes a scholar of media bias and the Arab world.Natalie Khazaal, Associate Professor of Arabic and Arab Culture, Georgia Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2221332024-02-28T12:31:46Z2024-02-28T12:31:46ZHow media coverage of presidential primaries fails voters and has helped Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577956/original/file-20240226-26-lub4tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C8%2C5964%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on television screens at a Washington, D.C. bar during the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate on Aug. 23, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-and-florida-gov-ron-news-photo/1635010270?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s common to hear Americans complain about the media throughout presidential elections. Partisans tend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2011.565280">believe the press is biased against their side</a>. These perceptions may lead people to believe the media can affect how people vote.</p>
<p>Political scientists have found some evidence that media bias can push people to <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250002761/leftturn">vote for Democrats</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.122.3.1187">Republicans</a> in presidential contests. But we theorize that media influence is actually stronger in primary elections.</p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>In a general election, most people plan to vote for their party’s candidate, meaning a <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691163635/the-gamble">large portion of the outcome is predetermined</a> and there is less room for media influence. Moreover, in a general election, both major party candidates are inherently newsworthy. There may be <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/">some discrepancies</a> in how much coverage each person gets, but the media cannot simply ignore one of them. </p>
<p>Primaries are different. </p>
<p>When candidates are from the same party, voters cannot rely on their partisanship to make a choice. Instead, they must sift through candidates within one party and learn about them. Since media have more leeway to focus on some people over others in this context, they help choose which candidates voters hear about in the first place.</p>
<p>And those choices are potentially meaningful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a white shirt, dark jacket and tie talking to a crush of reporters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.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>
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<span class="caption">GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump greets reporters in the spin room following a March 3, 2016, debate in Detroit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-donald-trump-greets-news-photo/513647894?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Patterns of primary coverage</h2>
<p>I am a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096522000452">political scientist who researches</a> and teaches about patterns in political media, including how the press has decided which Republican primary candidates to focus on from 2012 until now. </p>
<p>A widely discussed pattern in primary coverage is called <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691163635/the-gamble">“discovery, scrutiny, decline</a>.” When a candidate says something novel, they are “discovered” and receive a burst of coverage. This attention brings momentum, making them subject to “scrutiny,” which then pushes their polling numbers back down and they “decline.” This trend is likely due to the media’s appetite for novelty. </p>
<p>The pattern <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2021.1942016">does not hold for all primaries</a>, but explains some on both the Republican and Democratic side. Additional research also confirms that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">media leads the public in this dynamic rather than vice versa</a>.</p>
<p>Here are the recent presidential primaries that demonstrate changes in the discovery, scrutiny, decline pattern and the media’s process of focusing on some Republican candidates over others. </p>
<h2>2012 – the ‘Bubble Primary’</h2>
<p>The GOP presidential primary in 2012 provides the clearest example of discovery, scrutiny, decline. Though Mitt Romney <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/republican-primary/2012/national">dominated the polls on average</a>, other candidates – such as Herman Cain and Rick Santorum – would occasionally say something noteworthy, get bursts of coverage, then face scrutiny and decline. Reporter Matthew Jaffe called this the “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/the-bubble-primary-republicans-keep-finding-a-new-flavor-of-the-week/">Bubble Primary</a>,” in which a new candidate would float to the top of the pack like a bubble, pop, and then sink. </p>
<h2>2016 – Trump dominates</h2>
<p>There were muted levels of discovery, scrutiny, decline with some candidates <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2021.1942016">in the 2016 GOP primary</a>. For example, Ben Carson, a political outsider with a unique backstory, received a burst of media attention before <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/qpoll-ben-carson-republicans-donald-trump-216321">the scrutiny process kicked in</a> and he then declined in popularity. This pattern was not the central story of this cycle though. </p>
<p>Ultimately, <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-presidential-primaries/">Donald Trump got the majority of Republican news coverage</a>. His constant provocative statements meant the media kept “rediscovering” him, thereby thwarting the “decline” stage. By the end of the general election, The New York Times estimated that Trump dwarfed every other candidate and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html">received nearly US$2 billion in “free media</a>,” an estimated amount a campaign would need to pay in ads rates to get comparable coverage. </p>
<p>If the magnitude of his coverage was unique, so was the effect. Whereas media attention drove sustained public curiosity for other Republican candidates – which is different from support – researchers have found that Trump’s level of coverage actually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">increased his poll numbers</a>, which do indicate support. Trump then <a href="https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/the-insane-news-cycle-of-trumps-presidency-in-1-chart-1513305658">dominated the news cycle into his presidency</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five men debating each other on a stage behind lecterns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GOP presidential candidates, left to right, Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in a debate on Nov. 22, 2011, in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidates-u-s-rep-ron-paul-texas-news-photo/133950841?adppopup=true">Mark Wilson/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2020</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/06/republicans-cancel-primaries-trump-challengers-1483126">The Republican Party canceled some of its primaries in 2020</a>, allowing Trump to run virtually uncontested. </p>
<h2>2024</h2>
<p>Most of the past discovery, scrutiny, decline patterns have taken place while candidates debated and campaigned in the early primary or caucus states. The 2024 GOP primary has been different. </p>
<p>Eight Republican candidates participated in debates while Trump sat them out and focused his campaign efforts elsewhere. Though these debates generated small moments and poll bumps for some candidates – <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/12/vivek-ramaswamy-polls-rise-00110937">such as Vivek Ramaswamy</a> in August 2023 – this time period did not produce a series of clear and obvious flavors of the week. </p>
<p>Instead, prominent outlets seemed to have fixated on a – potential – Republican nominee literally years before debate season: Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who did not declare he was running <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-2024-president-election-run-announcement-twitter-rcna82291">until May 24, 2023</a>. Even though coverage of Trump became more prominent as the primary season picked up in 2023, this early selection of DeSantis is the more unusual story of American media behavior. </p>
<h2>‘Choosing’ DeSantis</h2>
<p>In the months after the 2020 election, <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/08/13/inside-fox-news-desantis-is-the-future-of-the-party-and-hes-taking-advantage/">Fox News asked DeSantis to appear on the network almost every day</a>. New York Times journalists suggested the network was “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/us/politics/desantis-media.html">promoting</a>” his inevitable campaign. </p>
<p>But the New York Times itself published a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/politics/ron-desantis-republican-trump.html">slew of articles</a> that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/opinion/donald-trump-ron-desantis-republican-party.html">increasingly sounded like</a> DeSantis was the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/magazine/ron-desantis.html">inevitable nominee</a>, culminating in the 2022 article “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/opinion/ron-desantis-midterms.html">Did Ron DeSantis Just Become the 2024 Republican Front Runner?</a>” </p>
<p>The New York Post in late 2022 <a href="https://nypost.com/cover/november-9-2022/">featured him on their front page</a> with the title “DeFUTURE.” Though some reporters hedged their language about DeSantis’ prospects, headlines like these are nonetheless signals to the public about a politician’s viability, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2669334">voters use to make decisions</a>.</p>
<p>The abnormally early focus on DeSantis could have been because he was genuinely newsworthy <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/desantis-florida-covid-mandates/index.html">given his controversial COVID-19 policies</a>, he increased viewership or because, as one Fox producer said in an email, he is “<a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/08/13/inside-fox-news-desantis-is-the-future-of-the-party-and-hes-taking-advantage/">the future of the party</a>.” Ultimately, the hype was premature; DeSantis <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-planning-drop-presidential-bid-sunday-rcna134953">dropped out and endorsed Trump</a> before the New Hampshire primary.</p>
<h2>Trump throws a wrench</h2>
<p>What can be made of all this? </p>
<p>The media is influential in telling the public who to consider. In 2012, coverage moved in distinct cycles, leading the public to focus on certain Republicans over others. In 2016, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">Trump benefited from this attention in ways others did not</a>, allowing him to monopolize the spotlight for years and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0708-1">bond with his base</a>. </p>
<p>Trump’s dominance – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">partially a creation of the American press</a> – may have thrown a wrench into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2021.1942016">somewhat normal patterns</a> of primary coverage, as some outlets then seemed to “discover” a new Republican candidate the moment Trump left the Oval Office. </p>
<p>Regardless of why major outlets selected DeSantis early, Trump has shown that when he is actively campaigning, he comes out on top and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/">other Republicans mostly fade into the background</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karyn Amira 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 a general election, most people will vote for their party’s candidate. But in a primary, voters rely on media coverage to help them choose among candidates. And that gives the media influence.Karyn Amira, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217172024-01-25T13:18:54Z2024-01-25T13:18:54ZCould a court really order the destruction of ChatGPT? The New York Times thinks so, and it may be right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571252/original/file-20240124-29-abie1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C44%2C4985%2C3196&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Old media, meet new.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-illustration-the-new-york-times-logo-is-seen-news-photo/1894336797">Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Dec. 27, 2023, The New York Times <a href="https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf">filed a lawsuit</a> against OpenAI alleging that the company committed willful copyright infringement through its generative AI tool ChatGPT. The Times claimed both that ChatGPT was unlawfully trained on vast amounts of text from its articles and that ChatGPT’s output contained language directly taken from its articles.</p>
<p>To remedy this, the Times asked for more than just money: It asked a federal court to order the “destruction” of ChatGPT.</p>
<p>If granted, this request would force OpenAI to delete its trained large language models, such as GPT-4, as well as its training data, which would prevent the company from rebuilding its technology. </p>
<p>This prospect is alarming to the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/6/23948386/chatgpt-active-user-count-openai-developer-conference">100 million people</a> who use ChatGPT every week. And it raises two questions that interest me as a <a href="https://law.indiana.edu/about/people/details/marinotti-jo%C3%A3o.html">law professor</a>. First, can a federal court actually order the destruction of ChatGPT? And second, if it can, will it?</p>
<h2>Destruction in the court</h2>
<p>The answer to the first question is yes. Under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/503">copyright law</a>, courts do have the power to issue destruction orders. </p>
<p>To understand why, consider vinyl records. Their <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/10/23633605/vinyl-records-surpasses-cd-music-sales-us-riaa">resurging popularity</a> has attracted <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/04/06/punk-rock-fan-uncovers-six-year-scam-that-sold-1-6-million-worth-of-counterfeit-vinyl-records-to-collectors/">counterfeiters who sell pirated records</a>. </p>
<p>If a record label sues a counterfeiter for copyright infringement and wins, what happens to the counterfeiter’s inventory? What happens to the master and stamper disks used to mass-produce the counterfeits, and the machinery used to create those disks in the first place?</p>
<p>To address these questions, copyright law grants courts the power to destroy infringing goods and the equipment used to create them. From the law’s perspective, there’s no legal use for a pirated vinyl record. There’s also no legitimate reason for a counterfeiter to keep a pirated master disk. Letting them keep these items would only enable more lawbreaking.</p>
<p>So in some cases, destruction is the only logical legal solution. And if a court decides ChatGPT is like an infringing good or pirating equipment, it could order that it be destroyed. In its complaint, the Times offered arguments that ChatGPT fits both analogies.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kUUievwKEaM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">NBC News reports on The New York Times’ lawsuit.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Copyright law has never been used to destroy AI models, but OpenAI shouldn’t take solace in this fact. The law has been increasingly open to the idea of targeting AI. </p>
<p>Consider the Federal Trade Commission’s recent use of <a href="https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ftc-coppa-settlement-requires-deletion-1217192">algorithmic disgorgement</a> as an example. The FTC has forced companies <a href="https://www.dwt.com/-/media/files/blogs/privacy-and-security-blog/2022/03/weight-watchers-kurbo-stipulated-order.pdf">such as WeightWatchers</a> to delete not only unlawfully collected data but also the algorithms and AI models trained on such data. </p>
<h2>Why ChatGPT will likely live another day</h2>
<p>It seems to be only a matter of time before copyright law is used to order the destruction of AI models and datasets. But I don’t think that’s going to happen in this case. Instead, I see three more likely outcomes.</p>
<p>The first and most straightforward is that the two parties could settle. In the case of a successful settlement, which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/04/nyt-ai-copyright-lawsuit-fair-use">may be likely</a>, the lawsuit would be dismissed and no destruction would be ordered.</p>
<p>The second is that the court might side with OpenAI, agreeing that ChatGPT is protected by the copyright doctrine of “<a href="https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/#:%7E:text=Fair%20use%20is%20a%20legal,protected%20works%20in%20certain%20circumstances.">fair use</a>.” If OpenAI can argue that ChatGPT is transformative and that its service does not provide a substitute for The New York Times’ content, it just might win. </p>
<p>The third possibility is that OpenAI loses but the law saves ChatGPT anyway. Courts can order destruction only if two requirements are met: First, destruction must not prevent lawful activities, and second, it must be “<a href="https://casetext.com/case/hounddog-prods-llc-v-empire-film-grp-inc">the only remedy</a>” that could prevent infringement. </p>
<p>That means OpenAI could save ChatGPT by proving either that ChatGPT has legitimate, noninfringing uses or that destroying it isn’t necessary to prevent further copyright violations. </p>
<p>Both outcomes seem possible, but for the sake of argument, imagine that the first requirement for destruction is met. The court could conclude that, because of the articles in ChatGPT’s training data, all uses infringe on the Times’ copyrights – an argument put forth in <a href="https://copyrightalliance.org/current-ai-copyright-cases-part-1/">various other lawsuits</a> against generative AI companies. </p>
<p>In this scenario, the court would issue an injunction ordering OpenAI to stop infringing on copyrights. Would OpenAI violate this order? Probably not. A single counterfeiter in a shady warehouse might try to get away with that, but that’s less likely with a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-talks-raise-new-funding-100-bln-valuation-bloomberg-news-2023-12-22/">US$100 billion company</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, it might try to retrain its AI models without using articles from the Times, or it might develop other software guardrails to prevent further problems. With these possibilities in mind, OpenAI would likely succeed on the second requirement, and the court wouldn’t order the destruction of ChatGPT. </p>
<p>Given all of these hurdles, I think it’s extremely unlikely that any court would order OpenAI to destroy ChatGPT and its training data. But developers should know that courts do have the power to destroy unlawful AI, and they seem increasingly willing to use it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>João Marinotti 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>It may seem extreme, but there’s a reason the law allows it.João Marinotti, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210592024-01-17T17:49:49Z2024-01-17T17:49:49ZHow a New York Times copyright lawsuit against OpenAI could potentially transform how AI and copyright work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569551/original/file-20240116-23-9vwxs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5858%2C3920&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dnipro-ukraine-0507-new-york-times-2361003783">Stas Malyarevsky / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On December 27, 2023, the New York Times (NYT) <a href="https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf">filed a lawsuit</a> in the Federal
District Court in Manhattan <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/01/23/microsoftandopenaiextendpartnership/">against Microsoft</a> and <a href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a>, the creator of <a href="https://chat.openai.com/auth/login">ChatGPT</a>,
alleging that OpenAI had unlawfully used its articles to create artificial intelligence (AI) products.</p>
<p>Citing copyright infringement and the importance of independent journalism to democracy, the newspaper further alleged that even though the defendant, OpenAI, may have “engaged in wide scale copying from many sources, they gave Times content particular emphasis” in training generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPT). This is the kind of technology that underlies products such as the AI chatbot ChatGPT.</p>
<p>The complaint by the New York Times states that OpenAI took millions of copyrighted news articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, how-to guides and more in an attempt to “free ride on the Times’s massive investment in its journalism”.</p>
<p><a href="https://openai.com/blog/openai-and-journalism">In a blog post</a> published by OpenAI on January 8, 2024, the tech company responded to the allegations by emphasising its support of journalism and partnerships with news organisations. It went on to say that the “NYT lawsuit is without merit”. </p>
<p>In the months prior to the complaint being lodged by the New York Times, OpenAI had entered into agreements with large media companies such as <a href="https://openai.com/blog/axel-springer-partnership">Axel-Springer</a> and the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/openai-chatgpt-associated-press-ap-f86f84c5bcc2f3b98074b38521f5f75a">Associated Press</a>, although notably, the Times failed to reach an agreement with the tech company.</p>
<p>The NYT case is important because it is different to other cases involving AI and copyright, such as the case brought by the online photo library <a href="https://newsroom.gettyimages.com/en/getty-images/getty-images-statement">Getty Images against the tech company Stability AI</a> earlier in 2023. In this case, Getty Images alleged that Stability AI processed millions of copyrighted images using a tool called Stable Diffusion, which generates images from text prompts using AI.</p>
<p>The main difference between this case and the New York Times one is that the newspaper’s complaint highlighted <em>actual outputs</em> used by OpenAI to train its AI tools. The Times provided examples of articles that were reproduced almost verbatim.</p>
<h2>Use of material</h2>
<p>The defence available to OpenAI is “fair use” under <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html">the US Copyright Act 1976</a>, section 107. This is because the unlicensed use of copyright material to train generative AI models can serve as a “transformative use” which changes the original material. However, <a href="https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf">the complaint</a> from the New York Times also says that their chatbots bypassed the newspaper’s paywalls to create summaries of articles. </p>
<p>Even though summaries do not infringe copyright, their use could be used by the New York Times to try to demonstrate a negative commercial impact on the newspaper – challenging the fair use defence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="ChatGPT" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569550/original/file-20240116-15-9vwxs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569550/original/file-20240116-15-9vwxs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569550/original/file-20240116-15-9vwxs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569550/original/file-20240116-15-9vwxs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569550/original/file-20240116-15-9vwxs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569550/original/file-20240116-15-9vwxs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569550/original/file-20240116-15-9vwxs9.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"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/screen-smartphone-chatgpt-chat-ai-tool-2261871805">Giulio Benzin / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/08/openai-responds-to-new-york-times-lawsuit.html">This case</a> could ultimately be settled out of court. It is also possible that the Times’ lawsuit was more a <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/new-york-times-co-s-openai-microsoft-suit-is-a-negotiating-tactic">negotiating tactic</a> than a real attempt to go all the way to trial. Whichever way the case proceeds, it could have important implications for both traditional media and AI development. </p>
<p>It also raises the question of the suitability of current copyright laws to deal with AI. In a submission to the <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/126981/pdf/">House of Lords communications and digital select committee</a> on December 5, 2023, OpenAI claimed that “it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without copyrighted materials”. </p>
<p>It went on to say that “limiting training data to public domain books and drawings created more than a century ago might yield an interesting experiment but would not provide AI systems that meet the needs of today’s citizens”.</p>
<h2>Looking for answers</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence">The EU’s AI Act</a> – the world’s first AI Act – might give us insights into some future directions. Among its many articles, there are two provisions particularly relevant to copyright.</p>
<p>The first provision titled, “Obligations for providers of general-purpose AI
models” includes two distinct requirements related to copyright. Section 1(C)
requires providers of general-purpose AI models to put in place a policy to respect EU copyright law.</p>
<p>Section 1(d) requires providers of general purpose AI systems to draw up and make publicly available a detailed summary about content used for training AI systems.</p>
<p><a href="https://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2023/12/11/a-first-look-at-the-copyright-relevant-parts-in-the-final-ai-act-compromise/">While section 1(d)</a> raises some questions, section 1(c) makes it clear that any use of copyright protected content requires the authorisation of the rights holder concerned unless relevant copyright exceptions apply. Where the rights to opt out has been expressly reserved in an appropriate manner, providers of general purpose AI models, such as OpenAI, will need to obtain authorisation from rights holders if they want to carry out text and data mining on their copyrighted works.</p>
<p>Even though <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/01/the-guardian-blocks-chatgpt-owner-openai-from-trawling-its-content">the EU AI Act</a> may not be directly relevant to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/25/new-york-times-cnn-and-abc-block-openais-gptbot-web-crawler-from-scraping-content">New York Times</a> complaint against OpenAI, it illustrates the way in which copyright laws will be designed to deal with this fast-moving technology. In future, we are likely to see more media organisations adopting this law to protect journalism and creativity. In fact, even before the EU AI Act was passed, the New York Times blocked OpenAI from trawling its content. The Guardian followed suit in September 2023 – as did many others.</p>
<p>However, the move did not allow material to be removed from existing training
data sets. Therefore, any copyrighted material used by the training models up until then would have been used in OpenAI’s outputs – which led to negotiations between the New York Times and OpenAI breaking down.</p>
<p>With laws such as those in the EU AI Act now placing legal obligations on general purpose AI models, their future could look more constrained in the way that they use copyrighted works to train and improve their systems. We can expect other jurisdictions to update their copyright laws reflecting similar provisions to that of the EU AI Act in an attempt to protect creativity. As for traditional media, ever since the rise of the internet and social media, news outlets have been challenged in drawing readers to their sites and generative AI has simply exacerbated this issue.</p>
<p>This case will not spell the end of generative AI or copyright. However, it certainly raises questions for the future of AI innovation and the protection of creative content. AI will certainly continue to grow and develop and we will continue to see and experience its many benefits. However, the time has come for policymakers to take serious note of these AI developments and update copyright laws, protecting creators in the process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dinusha Mendis 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>The lawsuit could see other media companies move to protect their copyrighted content.Dinusha Mendis, Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law; Director Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Managament (CIPPM), Bournemouth University, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2205472024-01-10T18:38:32Z2024-01-10T18:38:32ZThe New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI could have major implications for the development of machine intelligence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568421/original/file-20240109-25-7q4sv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5782%2C3846&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-ny-usa-july-5-2406218167">Tada Images / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1954, the Guardian’s science correspondent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/century/1950-1959/Story/0,,105181,00.html">reported on “electronic brains”</a>, which had a form of memory that could let them retrieve information, like airline seat allocations, in a matter of seconds. </p>
<p>Nowadays the idea of computers storing information is so commonplace that we don’t even think about what words like “memory” really mean. Back in the 1950s, however, this language was new to most people, and the idea of an “electronic brain” was heavy with possibility.</p>
<p>In 2024, your microwave has more computing power than anything that was called a
brain in the 1950s, but the world of artificial intelligence is posing fresh challenges for language – and lawyers. Last month, the New York Times newspaper <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html">filed a lawsuit</a> against OpenAI and Microsoft, the owners of popular AI-based text-generation tool <a href="https://chat.openai.com/auth/login">ChatGPT</a>, over their alleged use of the Times’ articles in the data they use to train (improve) and test their systems.</p>
<p>They claim that OpenAI has infringed copyright by using their journalism as part of the process of creating ChatGPT. In doing so, the lawsuit claims, they have created a competing product <a href="https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf">that threatens their business</a>. <a href="https://openai.com/blog/openai-and-journalism">OpenAI’s response</a> so far has been very cautious, but a key tenet outlined in a statement released by the company is that their use of online data falls under the principle known as “fair use”. This is because, OpenAI argues, they transform the work into something new in the process – the text generated by ChatGPT.</p>
<p>At the crux of this issue is the question of data use. What data do companies like
OpenAI have a right to use, and what do concepts like “transform” really
mean in these contexts? Questions like this, surrounding the data we train AI systems, or models, like ChatGPT on, <a href="https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-what-the-law-says-about-who-owns-the-copyright-of-ai-generated-content-200597">remain a fierce</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-a-minefield-for-copyright-law-207473">academic battleground</a>. The law often lags behind the behaviour of industry.</p>
<p>If you’ve used AI to answer emails or summarise work for you, you might see ChatGPT as an end justifying the means. However, it perhaps should worry us if the only way to achieve that is by exempting specific corporate entities from laws that apply to everyone else. </p>
<p>Not only could that change the nature of debate around copyright lawsuits like this one, but it has the potential to change the way societies structure their legal system.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-what-the-law-says-about-who-owns-the-copyright-of-ai-generated-content-200597">ChatGPT: what the law says about who owns the copyright of AI-generated content</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Fundamental questions</h2>
<p>Cases like this can throw up thorny questions about the future of legal systems, but they can also question the future of AI models themselves. The New York Times believes
that ChatGPT <a href="https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf">threatens the long-term existence</a> of the newspaper. On this point, OpenAI says in its statement that it is <a href="https://openai.com/blog/openai-and-journalism">collaborating with news organisations</a> to provide novel opportunities in journalism. It says the company’s goals are to “support a healthy news ecosystem” and to “be a good partner”.</p>
<p>Even if we believe that AI systems are a necessary part of the future for our society, it seems like a bad idea to destroy the sources of data that they were
originally trained on. This is a concern shared by creative endeavours like the New York Times, authors like <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66866577">George R.R. Martin</a>, and also the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/18/magazine/wikipedia-ai-chatgpt.html">online encyclopedia Wikipedia</a>.</p>
<p>Advocates of large-scale data collection – like that used to power Large Language
Models (LLMs), the technology underlying AI chatbots such as ChatGPT – argue that AI systems “transform” the data they train on by “learning” from their datasets and then creating something new.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Sam Altman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568446/original/file-20240109-23-nzhwdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568446/original/file-20240109-23-nzhwdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568446/original/file-20240109-23-nzhwdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568446/original/file-20240109-23-nzhwdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568446/original/file-20240109-23-nzhwdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568446/original/file-20240109-23-nzhwdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568446/original/file-20240109-23-nzhwdi.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">OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has become a recognised name among Silicon Valley’s tech leaders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/openai-ceo-sam-altman-attends-artificial-2366323225">Jamesonwu1972 / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Effectively, what they mean is that researchers <a href="https://openai.com/research/techniques-for-training-large-neural-networks">provide data written by people</a> and
ask these systems to guess the next words in the sentence, as they would when dealing with a real question from a user. By hiding and then revealing these answers, researchers can provide a binary “yes” or “no” answer that helps push AI systems towards accurate predictions. It’s for this reason that LLMs need vast reams of written texts.</p>
<p>If we were to copy the articles from the New York Times’ website and charge people for access, most people would agree this would be “systematic theft on a mass scale” (as the newspaper’s lawsuit puts it). But improving the accuracy of an AI by using data to guide it, as shown above, is more complicated than this. </p>
<p>Firms like OpenAI do not store their training data and so argue that the articles from the New York Times fed into the dataset are not actually being reused. A counter-argument to this defence of AI, though, is that <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/chatgpt-can-leak-source-data-violate-privacy-says-googles-deepmind/">there is evidence</a> that systems such as ChatGPT can “leak” verbatim <a href="https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf">excerpts from their training data</a>. OpenAI says this is <a href="https://openai.com/blog/openai-and-journalism">a “rare bug”</a>.</p>
<p>However, it suggests that these systems do store and memorise some of the data they are trained on – unintentionally – and can regurgitate it verbatim when prompted in specific ways. This would bypass any paywalls a for-profit publication may put in place to protect its intellectual property.</p>
<h2>Language use</h2>
<p>But what is likely to have a longer term impact on the way we approach legislation in cases such as these is our use of language. Most AI researchers will tell you that the word “learning” is a very weighty and inaccurate word to use to describe what AI is actually doing. </p>
<p>The question must be asked whether the law in its current form is sufficient to protect and support people as society experiences a massive shift into the AI age.
Whether something builds on an existing copyrighted piece of work in a manner
different from the original is referred to as “transformative use” and is a defence used by OpenAI.</p>
<p>However, these laws were designed to encourage people to remix, recombine and
experiment with work already released into the outside world. The same laws were not really designed to protect multi-billion-dollar technology products that work at a speed and scale many orders of magnitude greater than any human writer could aspire to.</p>
<p>The problems with many of the defences of large-scale data collection and usage is
that they rely on strange uses of the English language. We say that AI “learns”, that it “understands”, that it can “think”. However, these are analogies, not precise technical language.</p>
<p>Just like in 1954, when people looked at the modern equivalent of a broken
calculator and called it a “brain”, we’re using old language to grapple with completely new concepts. No matter what we call it, systems like ChatGPT do not work like our brains, and AI systems don’t play the same role in society that people play.</p>
<p>Just as we had to develop new words and a new common understanding of technology to make sense of computers in the 1950s, we may need to develop new language and new laws to help protect our society in the 2020s.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Cook 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>The lawsuit poses questions about how generative AI systems are developed.Mike Cook, Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183792024-01-08T17:43:43Z2024-01-08T17:43:43ZMisinformation: how fact-checking journalism is evolving – and having a real impact on the world<p>“Fake news” loves a crisis. It’s clear now that false information has played a role in recent events around the world from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-election-marked-by-disinformation-networks-says-carter-center-2022-11-05/">divisive elections</a> to <a href="https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/misinformation-covid-19-what-did-we-learn-2023-02-21_en">the COVID pandemic</a> to <a href="https://edmo.eu/2023/10/17/edmo-preliminary-analysis-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict-related-disinformation/">the conflict roiling Israel and Gaza</a>.</p>
<p>It is important to counter false claims and false narratives. And research now shows a lot more clarity about how to do this.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/business/media/fact-checkers-misinformation.html">a rather downbeat article</a> in September 2023, the New York Times (NYT) reported that “the momentum behind organizations that aim to combat online falsehoods has started to taper off”. It reported that the number of fact-checking operations around the world had “stagnated”, after rising <a href="https://reporterslab.org/tag/fact-checking-database/">from 11 in 2008 to 424 in 2022</a> and dropping slightly to 417 today.</p>
<p>The NYT report captured some of the well-known challenges fact-checkers face. But it offered a distressingly narrow picture of the work they actually do every day, how the fact-checking community’s approach to countering false information has evolved, and the different ways their work can make a difference in the world. </p>
<p>On numbers alone, the picture is more complex than was presented. <a href="https://africacheck.org/who-we-are/our-team">Africa Check</a>, the first fact-checking organisation in Africa, has grown from a team of two in 2012 to a staff of 40 with offices in four countries today. </p>
<p>The same is true of <a href="https://maldita.es/quienes-somos">Maldita</a> – which started as a Twitter account run by two TV journalists and <a href="https://maldita.es/quienes-somos">today has a staff of more than 50</a>. In some regions, the number of operations has fallen back. In others, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, it is still growing.</p>
<p>A second challenge is one of scale. Since fact-checkers around the world started contributing to a database of checks operated by Google, known as <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/factcheck">Claim Review</a>, they had, as of late September 2023, verified almost 300,000 true and false claims. </p>
<p>That is an impressive number but tiny by comparison with the scale of the problem, which may, of course, be worsened by AI. Groups such as UK fact-checking charity <a href="https://fullfact.org/">Full Fact</a> are <a href="https://fullfact.org/blog/2021/jul/how-does-automated-fact-checking-work/">developing AI</a> to help spot false claims and boost the reach of fact-checks.</p>
<h2>Does fact-checking work?</h2>
<p>A series of studies published over recent years have shown that, while fact-checks will, of course, not alter an individual’s long-held worldview, they can and do have “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2019.1668894">significantly positive overall influence</a>” on reader’s factual understanding and “<a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2104235118">reduce belief in misinformation, often durably so</a>”. </p>
<p>What’s more, two recent studies have shown that so-called “warning labels” attached to online content “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X23001550?dgcid=author">effectively reduce</a> belief and spread of misinformation” and do so <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/t2pmb/">“even for those most distrusting of fact-checkers”</a>.</p>
<p>The problem, correctly identified by the NYT, is that this success “is inconsistent and contingent on many variables”. A first challenge is that those who see and believe misinformation are, often, not the same as those who see and believe the subsequent fact-checks. The two audiences often do not cross over. </p>
<p>Fact-checkers also understand the limits of information as a tool for countering misinformation. They see daily evidence in emails and comment threads that, while some appreciate their work, others reject it. Like countless journalists, fact-checkers accept that their work doesn’t reach everyone it should. Most argue that exposing falsehoods and hoaxes is worth the effort, nevertheless.</p>
<h2>Correcting the record</h2>
<p>But informing the public is only one way fact-checking organisations make a difference. First, research <a href="https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/21568/Nyhan%20Reifler%20AJPS.pdf">confirms</a> what many fact-checkers see firsthand: knowing someone is checking will often push politicians to <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-923X.12898">be more careful</a> with their claims. </p>
<p>Obvious <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/10/meet-bottomless-pinocchio-new-rating-false-claim-repeated-over-over-again/">exceptions aside</a>, many public figures will quietly drop a claim after it’s been debunked – or even issue a mea culpa. This happened this year in Kenya when police apologised “unreservedly” after fact-checkers at AFP news agency caught them using unrelated images of one protest to hunt down those involved in another.</p>
<p>Many operations take a direct approach, contacting media outlets or political campaigns to ask them to <a href="https://fullfact.org/about/interventions/">correct</a> the <a href="https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2018/this-fact-checker-got-several-news-outlets-to-correct-a-false-story-about-a-mini-ice-age/">record</a>. And in many countries, fact-checkers <a href="https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/blog/blog-fact-checking-doesnt-work-way-you-think-it-does">intervene at a structural level</a> to promote a culture of accuracy in key institutions. </p>
<p>British lawmakers last month voted <a href="https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/parliamentary-corrections-process-opened-up-to-mps">to change House of Commons rules</a> on correcting the official record, following a campaign by the <a href="https://twitter.com/FullFact/status/1716845679325155561">fact-checkers Full Fact</a>.</p>
<p>In some regions, fact-checkers work with statistical agencies, advocate for open government, <a href="https://factsfirst.ph/about">operate broad coalitions against misinformation</a> and run media literacy programs. In the Arabic-language world, the Jordan-based <a href="https://arabfcn.net/en/about-us/">Arab Fact-Checkers Network</a> trains media in in-house fact-checking, to reduce the spread of false information prior to publication. In Europe, the <a href="https://eufactcheckingproject.com/">European Fact-Checking Standards Network</a>, has a team who work on public policy – something not possible in many parts of the world.</p>
<p>This growing breadth of approaches reflects how our understanding of false information has changed. </p>
<p>As Tom Rosenstiel of the University of Maryland <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/10/19/the-future-of-truth-and-misinformation-online/">noted in 2017</a>: “Misinformation is not like plumbing, a problem you fix. It is a social condition, like crime, that you must constantly monitor and adjust to.” It also reflects the different organisational cultures of operations set up by media companies, and by civil society and academic institutions.</p>
<p>The picture, in summary, is more complex than was suggested, and in many, if not all, parts of the world, more hopeful too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Cunliffe-Jones is a member of the advisory board of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), based at the Poynter Institute, founder of the fact-checking organisation Africa Check, and was senior advisor to the Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) in 2023. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Graves 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>Artificial intelligence is likely to make the ‘fake news’ problem worse. But it can also be used to help us counter misinformation.Peter Cunliffe-Jones, Visiting Researcher & Co-Director Chevening African Media Freedom Fellowship, University of WestminsterLucas Graves, Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183332024-01-04T13:48:10Z2024-01-04T13:48:10ZPundits: Central to democracy, or partisan spewers of opinion who destroy trust<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565215/original/file-20231212-27-v6t3dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C5%2C3508%2C2047&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two pundits – Jonah Goldberg, left, and Paul Begala, second from right – discuss politics with journalists Kristen Holmes and Jake Tapper.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Walter Lippmann, who lived from 1889 to 1974, was an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10457090109600716">early and prime example of the public intellectual as pundit</a> commenting on news of the day. </p>
<p>Lippmann, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote a syndicated column on national and international affairs. He advocated a philosophy in which honest reflection on common experiences would lift citizens out of their parochial worldviews. </p>
<p>A pundit is someone who offers commentary in the media on a particular subject area. A gallery of legacy newspaper pundits would include a more raucous wing. Turn a corner and the cranky “Sage of Baltimore,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/13/hl-mencken-predicted-a-moron-in-the-white-house">H. L. Mencken</a>, appears. The satirist and cultural critic, who was born in 1880 and died in 1956, lived for most of his life in a neighborhood of old West Baltimore. </p>
<p>He was suspicious of representative democracy and predicted in 1920: “On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” </p>
<p>The syndicated humorist <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/R/M/au5427740.html">Mike Royko</a> would bring a more working-class sensibility to his targets. He began writing columns for a U.S. Air Force newspaper in 1955 and would eventually produce more than 7,500 daily columns for Chicago newspapers. Among his targets was Frank Sinatra, whom the columnist once accused of commandeering Chicago police for personal security. </p>
<p>Molly Ivins appears next, promising in 2003 “even more bushwhacking.” She co-wrote <a href="https://knopfdoubleday.com/?s=molly+ivins">“Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America”</a> in conjunction with newspaper columns that were frequently critical of the president, a fellow Texan. </p>
<p>Holding politicians and institutions accountable often requires combative voices. What kind of commentary is needed now, though, when so much political talk is degrading and divisive? I ask this question as a former editorial writer who studies <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2022.2045401">how journalism operates as a political institution</a>. I want to suggest that pundits support democracy when their combat is driven by ideas rather than tribal identities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman working in a home office at her desk with a cat on her shoulder, seen from her back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564524/original/file-20231208-17-wllymv.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">Rear view of newspaper columnist Molly Ivins working at a computer as her pet Siamese cat hangs over one shoulder in her office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rear-view-of-newspaper-columnist-molly-ivins-working-at-news-photo/50469187?adppopup=true">Mark Perlstein/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pundit proliferation</h2>
<p>Punditry became a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Sound_and_Fury.html?id=u5JZAAAAMAAJ">more central feature of democracy</a> with the expansion of mass media in the 20th century. While Lippmann emphasized the civic value of commentary, punditry would prove its commercial value, too. </p>
<p>Mass media in the 1950s featured <a href="https://web-p-ebscohost-com.colorado.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=13&sid=f8bbd7ef-5211-4413-b69b-825d6c454075%40redis">radio hosts who delighted in browbeating callers</a>. Those hosts were rewarded with increased ratings. Radio and television punditry also helped stations to fill air time with relatively modest production costs. </p>
<p>The New York Times is not representative of mainstream newspapers, but <a href="https://voegelinview.com/the-public-intellectual-between-philosophy-and-politics/">its expansion of opinion journalism</a> over the last few decades is illustrative. The paper published just two columnists in the early 1950s. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/107769901008700204">By 1994, the Times featured eight</a>. A similar expansion occurred at The Washington Post and many regional newspapers across the country. </p>
<p>The rise of a television pundit class in the 1960s established a <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2003052">new type of celebrity</a>, thanks largely to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/nyregion/29buckley.html">William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line,” which ran from 1966 to 1999</a>. Leaning back in a chair, clipboard in hand, eyes darting, the conservative author typically treated guests politely on the public affairs show. </p>
<p>Lippmann’s vision of the pundit as public intellectual sought to preserve “the traditions of civility” during the advent of broadcast media. The aspiration was hardly a source of inspiration for “The McLaughlin Group” and other <a href="https://ajrarchive.org/Article.asp?id=3356">shout shows</a> launched in the 1980s. Shout shows are televised, short-form debates. Conversations quickly turn into confrontations. </p>
<h2>Incentives to punch up</h2>
<p>Columnists cannot replicate the visceral experience of the shout shows, although <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/news-grazers/book237055">the ability of readers to graze online</a> heightens the incentive to punch up punditry. Deadlines, of course, are another barrier to high-minded commentary. Lippmann explained that a column is produced by a “puzzled man” who draws “sketches in the sand, which the sea will wash away.” </p>
<p>Punditry today carries a negative connotation, as it conjures “talking heads” spewing opinions. Turn on CNN or Fox News any time of day to see examples. The term “pundit,” though, is derived from the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/pundit-2016-02-24">Sanskrit word “pandrita,” meaning “learned</a>.” </p>
<p>Many pundits are not trained in journalism. Instead, they bring expertise from many other realms. However, when they appear in a journalistic setting, they can be evaluated based on the principles that responsible journalists adhere to: <a href="https://newsliteracymatters.com/2019/10/25/q-are-pundits-journalists/">verification, independence and accountability</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The McLaughlin Group’ was one of the first ‘shout shows’ that began on television in the 1980s.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The same historical forces that add to the diversity of candidates during election cycles have put <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/arts/02iht-02pund.11607826.html">pressure on cable channels to diversify</a> the pundits they feature. Punditry has become democratized but also institutionalized. University communications staff offers experts on just about any topic. Think tanks with ideological agendas make their own experts available to provide analyses that appear considered and neutral. </p>
<p>Cable news, online news and the legacy press offer punditry to <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/news-grazers/book237055">distracted and increasingly fragmented audiences</a>. As a <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/journalism/michael-mcdevitt">scholar of political communication</a>, I believe punditry is likely to become more specialized in catering to particular interests. This trend works against Lippmann’s principle of commentary that offers reflection on common experiences. </p>
<h2>Pundits and democracy</h2>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-social-and-political-trust-9780190274801?q=oxford%20handbook%20of%20social%20and%20political%20trust&lang=en&cc=us">Trust in politics</a> is preserved when citizens perceive that leaders, institutions and fellow citizens abide by the rules of the game. Commentary that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2022.2045401">oversimplifies policy disagreement</a> erodes the trust that citizens have for each other, especially when opponents are belittled. </p>
<p>Lippmann was prescient about what scholars today describe as “<a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050517-114628">democratic backsliding</a>,” a process marked by the failure of government to solve problems accompanied by decline in the quality of political discourse. </p>
<p>Pundits contribute to democratic backsliding when they cultivate dystopian views of politics. The best example is the relentless negativity that characterized commentary on presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016. As media scholar <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/">Thomas Patterson</a> wrote, “When everything and everybody is portrayed as deeply flawed, there’s no sense making distinctions on that score, which works to the advantage of those who are more deeply flawed.”</p>
<p>In an influential 2005 study, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/new-videomalaise-effects-of-televised-incivility-on-political-trust/093762E57EF0CFA2E4A0328572DE0009">Diana Mutz and Byron Reeves</a> asked: “Is watching politicians and pundits hurl insults at one another on television merely a harmless pastime, or does it have consequences for how people think about politics and government?” </p>
<p>The authors staged experiments in which professional actors played congressional candidates sitting together in a television studio. Participants in the study watched different versions of the mock talk show. Candidates expressed the same issue positions, using the same words, and in the civil version were always polite. In the uncivil version, raised voices, rolling of the eyes and gratuitous asides demonstrated candidates’ lack of respect for each other. </p>
<p>The authors reported that “political differences of opinion do not, in and of themselves, harm attitudes toward politics and politicians. However, political trust is adversely affected by levels of incivility in these exchanges.” Participants exposed to the uncivil exchanges scored lower for trust in politicians, Congress and the political system. </p>
<h2>Supporting democracy</h2>
<p>What are the alternatives, then, to the polarizing pundit? Many political theorists insist that there is <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ct/article-abstract/16/4/411/4098648">democratic value in heated commentary</a> that calls out injustice. </p>
<p>Media scholar <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0093650220921314">Patricia Rossini</a> suggests that in evaluating political expression, people should be concerned not so much about tone as tolerance. </p>
<p>Audiences should also keep in mind the incentives of pundits, especially when commentators use their platforms to nurture relationships with <a href="https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-6765.12502">politicians who undermine democracy</a>. </p>
<p>Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” regularly featured the celebrity candidate Trump in 2015. The Washington Post took notice of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/12/10/the-many-times-donald-trump-and-morning-joe-yukked-it-up/">“many times Donald Trump and ‘Morning Joe’ yukked it up”</a>. Scarborough would later feud with Trump, but at the time, Trump was useful in attracting viewers. </p>
<p>Pundits can play a productive role by focusing on issues rather than identities.
Americans are divided not so much by policies as <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo27527354.html">mega-identities</a> that combine the political with race and religion. Recent scholarship has demonstrated that issue polarization is less of a problem as long as opponents see <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15205436.2022.2119870">humanity in the other side</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218333/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike McDevitt 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>Pundits are everywhere, giving their analyses of current events, politics and the state of the world. You’ll hear a lot more from them this election year. Is their rank opinion good for democracy?Mike McDevitt, Professor of journalism and media studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139042023-11-12T19:15:32Z2023-11-12T19:15:32ZChristos Tsiolkas’s new novel celebrates a quiet ethics of care in a culturally noisy world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556473/original/file-20231030-21-lggqyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C2537%2C1709&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christos Tsiolkas</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Enticknap/Allen & Unwin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Christos Tsiolkas’s eighth novel, <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-In-Between-9781761470011/">The In-Between</a>, is a work of social realism set in the immediate present – a return to the form and style of some of his most popular novels. </p>
<p>This follows his experiment with cinematic techniques and authorial presence in <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-Seven-and-a-Half-9781761470288/">7 ½</a> (2021), and the significant historical shift of <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-Damascus-9781760879143/">Damascus</a> (2019), which was based around the gospels and letters of St Paul, and focused on characters one or two generations from the death of Christ. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556543/original/file-20231030-27-9qhojf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>But The In-Between’s scope is smaller, more intimate than Tsiolkas’s earlier social-realist works, like <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-Slap-9781741758207/">The Slap</a> (2010) and <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-Barracuda-9781760291358/">Barracuda</a> (2015), which were concerned with big themes about national and global identities. </p>
<p>Tsiolkas described both of those as “social problem” or “condition of Australia” novels. By contrast, The In-Between is more interested in the individual experience, individual relationships, and our individual influences on one another.</p>
<p>Perhaps for this reason, The In-Between is structured as a series of vignettes, or crucial scenes in the lives of its protagonists – a kind of spotlighting of moments, each set on an intimate stage.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: The In-Between – Christos Tsiolkas (Allen & Unwin)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The primary focus throughout is on Perry and Ivan, men in their mid-fifties who embark upon a new relationship, each harbouring and attempting to overcome the hurts and resentments of the past. </p>
<p>But these dominant scenes are intercut – via Tsiolkas’s enduring interest in cinematic style – by glimpses into the lives of other characters, seen and understood only for a moment before they are gone from the narrative. </p>
<p>The effect is to show webs of interconnection between everyone in our ordinary lives, attending to the ways we cross paths, and the impacts of one person on another, whether big or small. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/christos-tsiolkas-the-blasphemous-artist-and-barracuda-61434">Christos Tsiolkas, the 'blasphemous' artist and Barracuda</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Betrayal, hurt and the news media</h2>
<p>Ultimately, these interactions or encounters emphasise the importance of kindness and tolerance. We each occupy our own world, which is naturally all-important and all-encompassing to its protagonist: the self. But those worlds do bump into one another. We must try our best, the novel suggests, to make those bumps gentle, or bear the repercussions.</p>
<p>These consequences of our own weaknesses, and those of others, resonate years after the fact, for both perpetrator and victim. Ivan recalls how his 19-year-old daughter had determined to retain her strength and composure after a sexual assault. Ivan himself must endure self-loathing at his own uncontrolled violence, towards a lover who betrayed him. </p>
<p>Both Perry and the wife of his married former lover, Gerard, must live with the memory of Gerard’s cruel and selfish taunts, which intrude on the present. </p>
<p>And a middle-aged man must suffer the guilty knowledge his brattish tantrum likely caused the heart attack that killed his doting mother. The simple lament, “But I love you”, is repeated, as if to emphasise the horror of realising the hurt a trusted other can inflict.</p>
<p>An evolution of this interest in betrayal and hurt lies in the novel’s meditations on the value of the news media, especially post-COVID. Ivan, in particular, detests the news, because “none of it was trustworthy […] every network and media service was compromised by venality and ideology”.</p>
<p>If you can’t trust a source that frames itself as objective to refrain from petty hurt and injustice, then why engage with it, he insists: “It doesn’t make me happy.” But Evelyn, a friend of a friend, argues with him: “I read to know where injustices are occurring in my world.” But there is a flaw in her logic, Perry observes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>And what knowledge of the world does The New York Times give you? […] I’m not going to hear anything about Australia in The New York Times, am I?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His point is that large global news corporations may report on major national or international events, but they don’t tell us the news that is, arguably, most important: what’s happening in those webs of interconnection closest to us. His argument implies: how big can a community of care and of knowledge truly be?</p>
<h2>Class and the cultural cringe</h2>
<p>Such an interest in the world at large appears to be an extension of the Australian “cultural cringe”, now manifested as an insistence by some characters on Australia’s racism and conservatism. </p>
<p>For them, Australia is written off – “a racist shithole”. These are characters “in-between” class, “middle-class Australians” with a “tendency […] to endlessly deride their own country”, demonstrating a “habit” shared by “the bourgeoisie the world over”, as Perry observes. “Cosmopolitan Europeans are just as annoying in their shallow, condescending generalisations,” he continues.</p>
<p>Such generalisations pepper the narrative, and are even shared by Perry himself, who thinks, for instance, “<em>Touts les australiens sont comme des enfants</em>”. (All Australians are like children.) Meanwhile, a Greek taxi driver criticises Australians’ insularity and their reluctance to learn even a few words of his language. A guest in a restaurant (misidentifying the men’s nationality) mocks Ivan for making a loud expression of approval: “It’s morning and the Englishman is already drunk.”</p>
<p>These kinds of derision represent criticism without an ethic of care, or tolerance for the other. Instead, Tsiolkas celebrates – as he does in all of his work – those who create, tend, or share. Especially when this is constituted by manual labour: the work of the hands. </p>
<p>Stu, Ivan’s workmate, a gardener and landscaper, possesses an “odour” that “is harsh, defiant, that compound of sweat and tobacco and earth, the masculine scents simultaneously sour and stirring”. For Tsiolkas, this is always the mark of authenticity and honesty. </p>
<p>Anna, an elderly client of Ivan’s, is similarly valued: appreciated for her uncritical generosity and hospitality, for the coffee and cakes she serves, for her devotion to her family and her extension of this to all in her immediate community. </p>
<p>Anna’s difficult decision to renovate the “fertile wonder” of her garden, replacing it with landscaping that will be easier for her to tend, is an example of the broader way her ethic of care seems to be dwindling in the contemporary world. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556545/original/file-20231030-19-k525e8.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>
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<span class="caption">For Tsiolkas, the work of the hands is ‘always the mark of authenticity and honesty’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lisa Fotios/Pexels</span></span>
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<p>Another young couple for whom Ivan works represent selfishness at worst, individualism at best. The young woman never invites the landscapers inside (as Anna had done), never offers them a drink or use of the bathroom. Similarly, Ivan is forced out of his own carefully renovated home after his former lover demands his financial share in the property after their split. </p>
<p>But Ivan’s daughter’s decision to purchase a small house in a once-industrial suburb suggests the counter to this loss. Kat will invest in the home, and by extension, in the suburb – as will other young families like her own. The gardens and houses will be tended. The suburb and its community will be revived. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-class-is-often-avoided-in-public-debate-but-its-essential-for-understanding-inequality-187777">The concept of class is often avoided in public debate, but it's essential for understanding inequality</a>
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<hr>
<h2>Choosing imperfect love</h2>
<p>Like Tsiolkas’s most recent novel, <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-Seven-and-a-Half-9781761065330/">7 ½</a>, The In-Between insists on the simple power of choosing love: of accepting flaws, mistakes, imperfections, and choosing love anyway. </p>
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<p>This morality was gestured towards at the end of <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-Slap-9781741758207/">The Slap</a>, and perhaps too in <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-jesus-man-9780091839420">The Jesus Man</a> and <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Christos-Tsiolkas-Barracuda-9781760291358/">Barracuda</a>, all of which emphasise some kind of friendship, community or connection as antidotes to the weaknesses of fear and hostility. </p>
<p>The happiness Perry and Ivan seek throughout the novel can ultimately, it seems, only be found when we truly accept the other as they are and accept the past as it occurred – instead of living with bitterness, petty aggression, old hurts and quarrels, or masking and lying out of malice. </p>
<p>Yet, at the same time, the novel presents a sense of the arbitrariness and pointlessness of such connections. Anna’s abrupt death is one such instance - her “joyous laughter”, so “solid”, such a “guide” for Ivan, is snuffed out in a moment. </p>
<p>Another comes in the final paragraphs of the novel, as an apparently loving couple move into and then out of the narrative’s spotlight: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They are there, a faint silhouette in the black of the night, impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. There is that faint impression. Then there is the merging, the disappearing, and the belonging to the night. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is an echo of <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-a-room-of-ones-own-virginia-woolfs-feminist-call-to-arms-145398">Virginia Woolf’s</a> concept of “moments of being” here. In a sense, the reader is encouraged to recognise those intimate webs of interconnection – even as they also bear witness to life’s inevitable chaos. </p>
<p>Life is fleeting, love is fleeting, the scene suggests. But it still matters, even if life is simply a series of moments “in-between”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213904/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Gildersleeve 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>Christos Tsiolkas’s new novel is more interested in individuals and our influences on one another than on Australia’s social problems.Jessica Gildersleeve, Professor of English Literature, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2089372023-09-01T06:32:55Z2023-09-01T06:32:55ZAustralia tops the world for podcast listening. Why do we love them so much?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545468/original/file-20230830-28-vpdtsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7360%2C4912&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“We’re here because this moment demands an explanation.”</p>
<p>So begins the first ever episode of New York Times’ The Daily podcast, delivered by host Michael Barbaro in his now famous style. It arrived on Wednesday February 1, 2017 – less than a fortnight after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States.</p>
<p>By the end of Trump’s term, it was wildly popular, reportedly attracting some <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/04/media/the-daily-podcast/index.html">four million daily downloads</a> and referred to as the newspaper’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/30/hear-all-about-it-how-daily-news-podcasts-became-publishings-new-hope">new front page</a>”.</p>
<p>The Daily’s success inspired many other news outlets to develop podcasts, including in Australia, with the likes of ABC’s The Signal (since replaced by ABC News Daily), Schwartz Media’s 7am, and Guardian Australia’s Full Story launching from 2018.</p>
<p>According to 2023 data from The Infinite Dial – which tracks digital media use internationally – Australia has now surpassed the US <a href="https://www.commercialradio.com.au/Research/Infinite-Dial-Australia/2023">to be a world leader in podcast listening</a>, with 43% of the population aged 12 and over having listened to a podcast in the past month.</p>
<p>Australia also has the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/Digital_News_Report_2023.pdf">third highest rate of news podcast listening</a>, behind the US and Sweden, with 14% of news consumers listening to news podcasts in the past month.</p>
<p>Despite these trends, there’s been limited research on news podcast listening in Australia. My <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ajr_00120_7">recent research</a>, published in June, found news podcast listeners in Australia tend to be politically left-leaning, wealthier, and more highly educated than average.</p>
<p>I also found they tend to be politically active, and value news podcasts for enabling them to better participate in democratic life.</p>
<p>Interestingly, listeners didn’t appear to trust podcasts more than other forms of news in general, with 61.1% reporting “the same” level of trust. However, they reported a high level of trust in news they choose to consume.</p>
<p>The rise of news podcasts happened amid a volatile political climate. In 2023, as Trump prepares for another run for president, and with a political storm brewing in Australia as we approach a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament, there are good reasons to consider the role this podcast genre plays in democracy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-obama-podcast-host-how-podcasting-became-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry-142920">Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry</a>
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<h2>From radio to podcast news</h2>
<p>Radio news developed slowly following the invention of mass broadcasting in the early 1920s. It began with announcers reading press agency reports on air, giving rise to an authoritative and detached presenting style, reflecting the journalistic value of objectivity. While formats have differed, this has characterised radio news for much of its history.</p>
<p>Podcasting emerged in the early 2000s out of the disruption caused by the internet, and particularly the ability of users to generate and share content.</p>
<p>The lack of time constraints compared to radio meant podcast episodes could go for any length. And because they could be downloaded, listeners could engage with content in their own time, on their own terms.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1606122360922378241"}"></div></p>
<p>Slate’s Political Gabfest (2005-) was one of the first “native” podcasts – that is, produced specially for digital consumption – exploring news and politics. But it wasn’t until 2014, with podcasting’s breakout moment in true-crime sensation Serial, that news podcasts began to take off.</p>
<p>The Daily grew out of the New York Times’ election podcast The Run-Up. It pioneered the format known as the “daily deep dive” – defined by the Reuters Institute <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-11/Newman%20and%20Gallo%20-%20Podcasts%20and%20the%20Impact%20of%20Coronavirus%20FINAL%20%282%29.pdf">as</a> “heavily produced using sound design and narrative storytelling techniques”.</p>
<p>Many news podcasts since have similarly deployed narrative storytelling and immersive sound design to explore issues in the news. This has been championed as offering a more “human” <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512786.2021.1882874">approach</a> to the news, featuring personal presenting styles and the harnessing of emotion.</p>
<h2>Media fragmentation and politics</h2>
<p>Reuters’ 2023 Digital News Report <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-06/Digital_News_Report_2023.pdf">notes</a> how in the podcasting sphere “news jostles for attention with lifestyle and specialist shows”. This may explain the degree of ambivalence around trust in news podcasts, with a wide variety of offerings categorised as “news” in podcast players such as Apple Podcasts.</p>
<p>Podcasting is difficult to regulate, and there’s a risk of the medium being used to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/28/joe-rogan-hosts-alex-jones-on-spotify-podcast-despite-ban">spread dangerous messages</a>, as has happened across social media generally.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-is-rife-and-causing-deeper-polarisation-heres-how-social-media-users-can-help-curb-it-210189">Misinformation is rife and causing deeper polarisation – here's how social media users can help curb it</a>
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<p>In his <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Bruce-Wolpe-Trump's-Australia-9781761068096">new book</a>, Bruce Wolpe, Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre, considers what a second Trump presidency would mean for Australia. He notes the corrosive influence of Trump and his Fox News acolytes on public trust, and warns that Australia should prepare for an emboldening of the populist right-wing sentiment that accompanied his rise on the political scene.</p>
<p>In the face of this, independent and rigorous journalism, supported by a well-funded ABC, has an important role to play.</p>
<p>As my study highlights, it’s important to acknowledge news podcast listeners tend to be from the higher social classes. There’s an impetus, then, to ensure coverage includes the perspectives of those who might not otherwise be well represented across the media sphere.</p>
<p>This has particular importance in relation to issues like the upcoming referendum, with a risk of it being used to fan the flames of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/21/linda-burney-says-indigenous-voice-not-about-culture-wars-such-as-abolishing-australia-day">culture wars</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-joe-rogan-and-why-does-spotify-love-him-so-much-176014">Who is Joe Rogan, and why does Spotify love him so much?</a>
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<p>At their best, news podcasts can engage us meaningfully in important issues, transporting us to unexpected places and highlighting the human impact at the heart of news stories, supported by facts and informed analysis.</p>
<p>With Australians among the most active news podcast listeners globally, there’s reason to have hope they can play a productive role in helping us navigate politically uncertain times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan Bird receives funding through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.</span></em></p>New research finds Australian listeners value news podcasts for enabling them to better participate in democratic life.Dylan Bird, PhD candidate, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082722023-07-10T12:29:10Z2023-07-10T12:29:10Z‘Idiots,’ ‘criminals’ and ‘scum’ – nasty politics highest in US since the Civil War<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536078/original/file-20230706-15-1575vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C5991%2C3961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former U.S. President Donald Trump at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors summit in June 2023 in Philadelphia. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-former-u-s-president-news-photo/1506161556?adppopup=true">Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Joe Biden, “together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy.” </p>
<p><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-republicans-conjure-familiar-enemy-attacking-democrats-marxists-100187077">This is what Donald Trump said</a> to his supporters hours after pleading not guilty in federal court in June 2023 to his mishandling of classified documents. </p>
<p>The indictment of a former president was shocking, but Trump’s words were not. Twenty years ago, his rhetoric would have been unusual coming from any member of Congress, let alone a party leader. Yet language like this from the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/politics/cnn-poll-republican-primary-field/index.html">leading Republican presidential candidate</a> is becoming remarkably common in American politics. </p>
<p>It’s not just Republicans. In 2019, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker appeared on a talk show bemoaning Trump’s rhetoric and the lack of civility in politics. But he then went on to <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/454311-cory-booker-my-testosterone-sometimes-makes-me-want-to-punch-trump/">call Trump</a> a “physically weak specimen” and said that his own “testosterone makes me want to” punch Trump.</p>
<p>How bad have things gotten? In <a href="https://www.zeitzoff.com/book-project.html">my new book</a>, I show that the level of nastiness in U.S. politics has increased dramatically. As an indication of that, I collected historical data from The New York Times on the relative frequency of stories involving Congress that contained keywords associated with nasty politics such as “smear,” “brawl” and “slander.” I found that nasty politics is more prevalent than at any time since the U.S. Civil War. </p>
<p>Particularly following the Jan. 6. insurrection by Trump’s supporters, journalists and scholars have focused on the rise of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/us/politics/republican-violent-rhetoric.html">politics of menace</a>. In May 2023, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger testified before Congress and <a href="https://wtop.com/congress/2023/05/u-s-capitol-police-facing-more-threats-while-understaffed/">said that</a> one of the biggest challenges the U.S. Capitol Police face today “is dealing with the sheer increase in the number of threats against the members of Congress. It’s gone up over 400% over the last six years.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A balding man in a dark blazer and blue shirt standing against a yellow wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536074/original/file-20230706-29-jtwzj7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&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">The Aug. 25, 2017, booking photo of U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, a Montana Republican who was later convicted of assaulting Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs. Gianforte is now Montana’s governor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AssaultChargeGianforte/c65894c8f1414bd0ae3cd66a45399418/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20%20(Gianforte%20reporter)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=32&currentItemNo=6">Gallatin County Detention Center via AP, File</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>From insults to actual violence</h2>
<p>“Nasty politics” is an umbrella term for the <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/30/yes-political-rhetoric-can-incite-violence-222019/">aggressive rhetoric</a> and occasional actual violence that politicians use against domestic political opponents and other domestic groups. </p>
<p>Insults are the least threatening and most common form of nasty politics. These include politicians’ references to opponents as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/27/liz-cheney-electing-idiots/">idiots</a>,” “<a href="https://www.axios.com/2019/09/25/adam-schiff-ukraine-trump-transcript-impeachment">criminals</a>” or “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/467131-trump-blasts-never-trump-republicans-as-human-scum/">scum</a>.” Leveling accusations or using conspiracy theories to claim an opponent is engaging in <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/28/democrats-trump-russia-investigation-congress-1025919">something nefarious</a> is also common in nasty politics. </p>
<p>Less common – and more ominous – are threats to <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sheerafrenkel/12-people-who-actually-jailed-their-political-opponents">jail political opponents</a> or encouraging one’s supporters to commit violence against those opponents. </p>
<p>In 2021, Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/11/18/1056761894/rep-paul-gosar-is-censured-over-an-anime-video-depicting-him-of-killing-aoc">tweeted</a> out an anime cartoon video of his likeness killing Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. </p>
<p>The rarest and most extreme examples of nasty politics entail politicians actively engaging in violence themselves. For instance, in 2017, Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/happened-republican-greg-gianforte-body-slammed-reporter/story?id=58610691">body-slammed</a> a reporter from The Guardian. Gianforte would later win his 2018 election and is the current governor of Montana.</p>
<p>But nasty politics is not just a U.S. phenomenon. </p>
<h2>Deadly words</h2>
<p>In 2016, then-candidate Rodrigo Duterte famously promised Philippine voters that when he was president he would kill 100,000 drug dealers and that “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/world/asia/rodrigo-duterte-philippines.html">fish will grow fat</a>” from all the bodies in Manila Bay. </p>
<p>In 2017, in a speech on the one-year anniversary of the failed coup attempt against him, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20170715-erdogan-turkey-threatens-chop-off-traitors-heads-coup-anniversary-speech">threatened</a> to “chop off the heads of those traitors.” </p>
<p>Before Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-721498">murdered by a far-right Jewish extremist</a> in 1995, then-opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu railed against Rabin’s support for territorial compromise with Palestinians. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Netanyahu compared Rabin’s potential peace deal with Palestinians to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/05/opinion/peace-in-our-time.html">Neville Chamberlain’s</a> appeasement of the Nazis before World War II. In the lead-up to the assassination, Netanyahu spoke at several right-wing rallies at which his supporters held up posters of Rabin in a Nazi uniform, and Netanyahu himself even marched next to a coffin that said “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/opinion/incitement-movie.html">Rabin kills Zionism</a>.” </p>
<p>In Ukraine before the 2022 Russian invasion, the Ukrainian parliament, known as the Rada, many times resembled a meeting of <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-parliament-fight/24934282.html">rival soccer hooligans</a> rather than a functioning legislature. Fights among rivals regularly broke out, including the occasional egging and smoke bomb. In 2012, a full-blown legislative riot occurred in the Rada over the status of the Russian language in Ukraine, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/world/europe/ukraine-parliament-debate-over-language-escalates-into-a-brawl.html">rival lawmakers punching and choking one another</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a blue striped shirt, standing among a number of people, raises his clenched fist." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536076/original/file-20230706-17-zoq2h1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Philippines presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte clenches his fist during a campaign visit to Silang township, Philippines, on April 22, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PhilippinesElectionsDuterte/756a5ca3edf046aa91b239aacdb16e0f/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20(persons.person_featured:%22Rodrigo%20Duterte%22)%20AND%20Duterte&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=&totalCount=502&currentItemNo=14">AP Photo/Bullit Marquez</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Voters don’t like it</h2>
<p>The conventional wisdom for the reason politicians go nasty is that while voters find mudslinging or political brawling distasteful, it’s actually <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/304141-the-dirty-secret-about-negative-campaign-ads-they/">effective</a>. Or that although they won’t admit it, voters secretly like nasty politics. </p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/01/662730647/poll-nearly-4-in-5-voters-concerned-incivility-will-lead-to-violence">polling</a> consistently shows the opposite. </p>
<p>Voters don’t like it when politicians go nasty, are worried it could lead to violence, and reduce their support for those who do use it. That’s what I found in countless surveys in the U.S., Ukraine and Israel, where I did research for my book. Other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000140">research in the U.S.</a> finds that even ardent Trump supporters reduced their approval for him when he used uncivil language.</p>
<p>So why do politicians use nasty politics? </p>
<p>First, nasty politics grabs attention. </p>
<p>Nasty rhetoric is more likely to get covered in the media, or to get likes, clicks or shares on social media than its civil counterpart. For Trump, some of his most-shared tweets were one <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/trump-antifa-terrorist-group.html">labeling antifa</a> a “terrorist” organization and a clip of him <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/02/trump-body-slam-cnn-tweet-violence-reporters-wrestlemania">body-slamming</a> a pro wrestler with CNN’s logo superimposed. </p>
<p>Second, given their attention-grabbing nature, nasty politics can be a particularly important tool for opposition or outsider politicians. These politicians who don’t have the name recognition, or access to the same resources as party leaders, can use nasty politics to get noticed and build a following. </p>
<p>Third, and perhaps most important, nasty politics can be used to signal toughness. This toughness is something that voters seek out when they <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/authoritarian-dynamic/7620B99124ED2DBFC6394444838F455A">feel threatened</a>. This sentiment was best captured in a <a href="https://twitter.com/JerryFalwellJr/status/1045853333007798272?s=20">September 2018 tweet</a> from the Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., a Trump ally: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Conservatives & Christians need to stop electing “nice guys”. They might make great Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters like @realDonaldTrump at every level of government b/c the liberal fascists Dems are playing for keeps & many Repub leaders are a bunch of wimps!</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>From nasty words to worse</h2>
<p>Nasty politics has important implications for democracy. </p>
<p>It can be a legitimate tool for opposition and outsider politicians to call attention to bad behavior. But it can also be used as a cynical, dangerous tool by incumbents to cling to power that can lead to violence. </p>
<p>For example, in the lead-up to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump and his supporters concocted a baseless conspiracy that the 2020 election would be stolen. He <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/07/trump-incitement-inflammatory-rhetoric-capitol-riot">implored his supporters</a> to come to Washington on Jan. 6 as part of a rally to support the baseless conspiracy and “Stop the Steal,” and urged followers to “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html">Be There. Will Be Wild!</a>” foreshadowing the violence that was to come. </p>
<p>Perhaps most ominously for the near future of U.S. democracy, the growing Trump legal troubles have escalated to violent rhetoric. </p>
<p>After Trump’s indictment in June, Republican U.S. <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAndyBiggsAZ/status/1667241900938502146">Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona tweeted: “We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye</a>.”</p>
<p>The uptick in nasty politics in the U.S. is both a symptom of the country’s deeply divided politics and a harbinger of future threats to democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Zeitzoff has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation</span></em></p>Studies show, though, that voters don’t like all that nastiness.Thomas Zeitzoff, Associate Professor, School of Public Affairs, American 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>
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</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/1940452022-11-15T19:08:31Z2022-11-15T19:08:31ZShe Said is a formidable retelling of the journalism which sparked #MeToo – but also shows us how far we have to go<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495244/original/file-20221115-17-34nu4o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C1888%2C998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is no spoiler alert in the Hollywood adaptation of the award-winning book She Said. </p>
<p>We know the story and the perpetrator, which is unusual. 80% of sexual violence cases <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reporting-on-Sexual-Violence-in-the-MeToo-Era/Baker-Rodrigues/p/book/9781032115511?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmaibBhCAARIsAKUlaKRK0Qb-EqNehsVFE-1ZdVkrajv2-GGGbVotljelU-1VDl5y41dOzDoaAm1kEALw_wcB">go unreported</a>. Perpetrators are rarely charged and continue to participate in society.</p>
<p>The perpetrator in She Said is the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
In 2020, Weinstein was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women in New York, and was sentenced to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/nyregion/harvey-weinstein-sentencing.html">23 years in prison</a>.</p>
<p>She Said is based on the <a href="https://www.shesaidthebook.com/">2019 book</a> of the same name by New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. </p>
<p>Their Pulitzer prize winning investigative reporting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html">in 2017</a>, along with Ronan Farrow’s reporting for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">The New Yorker</a>, uncovered Weinstein’s predatory behaviour and helped to ignite the #MeToo movement. </p>
<p>She Said follows in the footsteps of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/29/spotlight-wins-best-picture-oscar">Spotlight</a> (2015) and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/01/24/oscar-nominations-2017-complete-coverage/">The Post</a> (2017), films reflecting rigorous journalism: months of research, fact checking and persuading people to go on the record.</p>
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<p>But newsrooms are overwhelmingly headed up by male senior staff. This <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reporting-on-Sexual-Violence-in-the-MeToo-Era/Baker-Rodrigues/p/book/9781032115511?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmaibBhCAARIsAKUlaKRK0Qb-EqNehsVFE-1ZdVkrajv2-GGGbVotljelU-1VDl5y41dOzDoaAm1kEALw_wcB">impacts</a> on whether stories about sexual abuse are covered and how they are covered. </p>
<p>She Said shines an important light on the need for rigorous journalism in holding the powerful to account.</p>
<hr>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weinstein-conviction-a-partial-victory-for-metoo-but-must-not-overshadow-work-still-to-be-done-132434">Weinstein conviction a partial victory for #MeToo, but must not overshadow work still to be done</a>
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<h2>A formidable cast and crew</h2>
<p>She Said was created by a formidable female cast and crew. Director Maria Schrader, cinematographer Natasha Braier and writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz adapt the journalists’ fourth estate ethos with emotional intelligence. </p>
<p>Patricia Clarkson is savvy as the paper’s editor, Rebecca Corbett, who guides Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Twohey (Carey Mulligan) through gruelling months of rejections, trying to bypass the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-weinstein-nondisclosure-agreements-20171023-story.html">nondisclosure agreements</a> (NDAs) signed by Weinstein’s survivors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three women in a hallway" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495245/original/file-20221115-17-qdi4i8.jpeg?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">The story is adapted with a keen emotional intelligence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span>
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<p>Mulligan is cool and sophisticated as Twohey forensically grills Weinstein’s lawyer about the NDAs, while suffering from post natal depression after having her first baby. </p>
<p>Kazan is diligently feisty as Kantor, a mother of two young girls who is shocked when she finds out her eldest discusses what rape is at school. </p>
<p>Disheartened by the manipulative misogyny in the Weinstein saga, Kantor is frustrated by the women who are reluctant to go on the record. One of these women, the actor <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-25/metoo-leaders-respond-to-harvey-weinstein-conviction/11997372">Ashley Judd</a>, eventually shared her story about Weinstein’s sexual misconduct and plays herself in the film.</p>
<p>Throughout the film, we watch as the code of silence continues: victim-survivors are reluctant to come forward about accusations for fear of the ramifications they will face. </p>
<p>In a 2019 documentary about Weinstein, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1fKna9l38">Untouchable</a>, he is reported saying to journalists who have been chasing the allegations for 15 years: “Don’t you know who I am!?”.</p>
<p>Despite the US legal system giving journalists <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/152732/imagine-trumps-america-australias-severe-defamation-laws">broad leeway</a> when publishing allegations that may be construed as defamatory, Weinstein’s behaviour went unchecked for decades. </p>
<h2>#MeToo</h2>
<p>She Said ends when the story about Weinstein by Kantor and Twohey is published in the New York Times in October 2017. </p>
<p>African American activist <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250621757/unbound">Tarana Burke</a> began the MeToo movement in 2006 to address the sexual violence against Black women and girls. In 2017, in response to the Weinstein reporting, Alyssa Milano used this phrase to tweet about predatory sexual behaviour by men in Hollywood. </p>
<p>There would go on to be <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reporting-on-Sexual-Violence-in-the-MeToo-Era/Baker-Rodrigues/p/book/9781032115511?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmaibBhCAARIsAKUlaKRK0Qb-EqNehsVFE-1ZdVkrajv2-GGGbVotljelU-1VDl5y41dOzDoaAm1kEALw_wcB">85 million tweets</a> about #MeToo.</p>
<p>This hashtag became a prominent example of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318">digital feminism activism</a>, where citizen activists created hashtags to highlight social issues the media was failing to report on. With “<a href="https://archives.cjr.org/realtalk/hashtag_journalism.php">hashtag journalism</a>”, reporters followed Twitter-led hashtag trends to assess what issues to cover in the news cycle. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495246/original/file-20221115-15-vqsivk.jpeg?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">With ‘hashtag journalism’, reporters looked towards Twitter to see what stories they should tell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the diversity of stories which came out of the #MeToo hashtag, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Reporting-on-Sexual-Violence-in-the-MeToo-Era/Baker-Rodrigues/p/book/9781032115511?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmaibBhCAARIsAKUlaKRK0Qb-EqNehsVFE-1ZdVkrajv2-GGGbVotljelU-1VDl5y41dOzDoaAm1kEALw_wcB">initial reportage</a> was primarily focused on white, middle-class women. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/TaranaBurke/status/976623902368632833">Burke said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have no expectation of mainstream media to tell the stories of marginalised people unless it serves them. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The ‘Weinstein effect’</h2>
<p>She Said vaguely reflects on the need for diversity in this reporting, but focuses on other difficulties of working in this space. </p>
<p>Kantor and Twohey come up against defamation issues, as well as the NDAs signed by the women. The film suggests certain laws need to be revised so journalists can continue to shine a light on injustices. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2018.1456155">Weinstein effect</a>” is the name which has been given to the increased reporting on systemic abuse following the journalism of Kantor, Twohey and Farrow.</p>
<p>Dozens of prominent men in the US have been held to account through the media. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four people at an office desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495248/original/file-20221115-25-wy86u1.jpeg?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">There has been an increase in reporting on sexual assault, dubbed the ‘Weinstein effect’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Australia, there is a lower level of protection from litigation, which has lead to an environment where there was been less reportage on those accused of sexual assault. </p>
<p>In both countries, those reporting on sexual violence are also <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003220411-8/significance-intersectionality-united-states-media-coverage-metoo-2-0-movement-carly-gieseler?context=ubx&refId=903b9e3c-bde0-4f9a-bfdd-b4289c02ba1d">increasingly aware</a> that journalism must consider factors tied to race, sexuality and socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>
<p>There have been significant legal changes, too. Since #MeToo, 17 states in the US have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2022/03/21/five-years-after-metoo-ndas-are-still-silencing-victims/?sh=4df90598588b">restricted the use</a> of NDAs, so more victim-survivors can speak out. </p>
<p>In Australia, we have seen the <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r6916_first-reps/toc_pdf/22093b01.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">Respect at Work Bill</a>, making employers legally responsible for eliminating workplace sexual harassment. </p>
<p>She Said is a compelling reminder of the catalyst for these changes. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-has-changed-the-media-landscape-but-in-australia-there-is-still-much-to-be-done-111612">#MeToo has changed the media landscape, but in Australia there is still much to be done</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>She Said is in Australian cinemas now.</em></p>
<p><em>The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Jean Baker 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>Based on the 2019 book, She Said follows journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey as they report on Harvey Weinstein.Andrea Jean Baker, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1832912022-06-02T19:06:50Z2022-06-02T19:06:50Z50 years after ‘Napalm Girl,’ myths distort the reality behind a horrific photo of the Vietnam War and exaggerate its impact<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466616/original/file-20220601-49160-94jy38.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2995%2C2164&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, near Trang Bang, Vietnam, after a South Vietnamese plane on June 8, 1972, accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on its own troops and civilians.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GermanyKimPhucPeacePrize/363b61fefe084ae0aa1109b82ddb9df5/photo?Query=Phan%20Thi%20Kim%20Phuc&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=102&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Nick Ut, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The “Napalm Girl” photograph of terror-stricken Vietnamese children fleeing an errant aerial attack on their village, taken 50 years ago this month, has rightly been called “<a href="https://www.independent.com/2013/08/08/witness-power-picture-received-emmy-nom/">a picture that doesn’t rest</a>.” </p>
<p>It is one of those exceptional visual artifacts that draws attention and even controversy years after it was made. </p>
<p>In May 2022, for example, Nick Ut, the photographer who captured the image, and the photo’s central figure, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/retired-ap-photographer-ut-pope-napalm-girl-photo-84644513">made news at the Vatican</a> as they presented a poster-size reproduction of the prize-winning image to Pope Francis, who has <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/20/pope-ukraine-russia-00018704">emphasized the evils of warfare</a>. </p>
<p>In 2016, Facebook stirred <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/facebook-under-fire-censoring-iconic-napalm-girl-photo-n645526">controversy</a> by deleting “Napalm Girl” from a commentary posted at the network because the photograph shows the then-9-year-old Kim Phuc entirely naked. She had torn away her burning clothes as she and other terrified children ran from their village, Trang Bang, on June 8, 1972. Facebook retracted the decision amid an international uproar about the social network’s <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2016/09/facebook-censors-napalm-girl-photo-changes-mind-has-no-idea-what-its-doing.html">free speech policies</a>.</p>
<p>Such episodes signal how “Napalm Girl” is much more than powerful evidence of war’s indiscriminate effects on civilians. The <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1973">Pulitzer Prize-winning image</a>, formally known as “The Terror of War,” has also given rise to tenacious <a href="https://mediamythalert.com/2009/11/02/media-myths-faqs/">media-driven myths</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a young girl stands next to a man who has a camera slung from his neck. Both are smiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466623/original/file-20220601-49132-5movf7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phan Thi Kim Phuc, left, is visited by AP photographer Nick Ut in 1973. After taking the photograph of her fleeing in agony in 1972, Ut transported her to a hospital.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/KIM%20PHUC%20AP%20PHOTOGRAPHER%20UT/daacb8b6eee6da11af9f0014c2589dfb?Query=Phan%20Thi%20Kim%20Phuc&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=102&currentItemNo=15">AP photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Widely believed – often exaggerated</h2>
<p>What are media myths?</p>
<p>These are well-known stories about or by the news media that are widely believed and often retold but which, under scrutiny, dissolve as apocryphal or wildly exaggerated.</p>
<p>The distorting effects of four media myths have become attached to the photograph, which Ut made when he was a 21-year-old photographer for The Associated Press. </p>
<p>Prominent among the myths of the “Napalm Girl,” which I address and dismantle in my book “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520291294">Getting It Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism</a>,” is that U.S.-piloted or guided warplanes dropped the napalm, a gelatinous, incendiary substance, at Trang Bang. </p>
<p>Not so. </p>
<p>The napalm attack was carried out by propeller-driven Skyraider aircraft of the South Vietnamese Air Force trying to roust communist forces dug in near the village – as news accounts at the time made clear.</p>
<p>The headline over The New York Times’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/09/archives/south-vietnamese-drop-napalm-on-own-troops.html">report</a> from Trang Bang said: “South Vietnamese Drop Napalm on Own Troops.” <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2118/chicagotribune0609720000.pdf?1654103223">The Chicago Tribune front page of June 9, 1972, </a> stated the “napalm [was] dropped by a Vietnamese air force Skyraider diving onto the wrong target.” Christopher Wain, a veteran British journalist, wrote <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2119/IndianapolisStar_front.pdf?1654105513">in a dispatch for United Press International</a>: “These were South Vietnamese planes dropping napalm on South Vietnamese peasants and troops.” </p>
<p>The myth of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna52992082">American culpability</a> at Trang Bang began taking hold during the 1972 presidential campaign, when Democratic candidate George McGovern referred to the photograph in a televised speech. The napalm that badly burned Kim Phuc, he declared, had been “dropped in the name of America.” </p>
<p>McGovern’s metaphoric claim anticipated similar assertions, including Susan Sontag’s statement in her 1973 book “On Photography,” that Kim Phuc had been “sprayed by American napalm.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A headline on a New York Times story from June 9, 1972, said 'South Vietnamese Drop Napalm on Own Troops'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466625/original/file-20220601-49050-37lmoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=275&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 headline of June 9, 1972, clearly reported it was a South Vietnamese attack that sprayed napalm on troops and civilians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/06/09/79469704.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0">New York Times archive</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hastened the war’s end?</h2>
<p>Two other related media myths rest on assumptions that “Napalm Girl” was so powerful that it must have <a href="https://mediamythalert.com/2017/03/14/napalm-girl-photograph-changed-us-and-our-stomach-for-war-but-how/">exerted powerful effects</a> on its audiences. These myths claim that the photograph <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/28/goya-etchings-louvre-disasters-of-war-exhibition">hastened an end to the war</a> and that it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/03/09/ukraine-war-photos/">turned U.S. public opinion</a> against the conflict. </p>
<p>Neither is accurate.</p>
<p>Although most U.S. combat forces were out of Vietnam by the time Ut took the photograph, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/05/29/these-are-americas-9-longest-foreign-wars/">war went on for nearly three more years</a>. <a href="https://www.ap.org/explore/fall-of-saigon/">The end came in April 1975</a>, when communist forces overran South Vietnam and seized its capital.</p>
<p>Americans’ views about the war had <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/2299/Americans-Look-Back-Vietnam-War.aspx">turned negative</a> long before June 1972, as measured by a survey question the Gallup Organization posed periodically. The question – essentially a proxy for Americans’ views about Vietnam – was whether sending U.S. troops there had been a mistake. When the question was <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/2299/Americans-Look-Back-Vietnam-War.aspx">first asked in summer 1965, only 24%</a> of respondents said yes, sending in troops had been a mistake. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/2299/Americans-Look-Back-Vietnam-War.aspx">But by mid-May 1971</a> – more than a year before “Napalm Girl” was made – 61% of respondents said yes, sending troops had been mistaken policy. </p>
<p>In short, public opinion turned against the war long before “Napalm Girl” entered popular consciousness.</p>
<h2>Ubiquitous? Not exactly</h2>
<p>Another myth is that “Napalm Girl” appeared on newspaper front pages <a href="https://petapixel.com/2012/09/19/interview-with-nick-ut-the-photojournalist-who-shot-the-iconic-photo-napalm-girl/">everywhere</a> in America. </p>
<p>Many large U.S. daily newspapers did publish the photograph. But many newspapers abstained, perhaps because it depicted frontal nudity.</p>
<p>In a review I conducted with a research assistant of 40 leading daily U.S. newspapers – all of which were Associated Press subscribers – 21 titles placed “Napalm Girl” on the front page. </p>
<p>But 14 newspapers – more than one-third of the sample – did not publish “Napalm Girl” at all in the days immediately after its distribution. These included papers in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and Newark.</p>
<p>Only three of the 40 newspapers examined – The Boston Globe, the New York Post and The New York Times – published editorials specifically addressing the photograph. The editorial in the New York Post, then a liberal-minded newspaper, was prophetic in saying: </p>
<p>“The picture of the children will never leave anyone who saw it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183291/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell 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 ‘Napalm Girl’ photo is much more than powerful evidence of war’s indiscriminate effects on civilians. It also shows how false assertions can get traction in the media.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1762992022-02-03T14:56:52Z2022-02-03T14:56:52ZWordle: how a simple game of letters became part of the New York Times’ business plan<p>In just a few months, a simple five-letter puzzle has earned its creator a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60208463">seven-figure sum</a>. The growth of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/dec/23/what-is-wordle-the-new-viral-word-game-delighting-the-internet">Wordle</a>, in which players attempt to work out a mystery word, has been rapid. </p>
<p>At the start of November 2021, the online game was played by just 90 people. By the start of 2022, that number <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/11/wordle-creator-overwhelmed-by-global-success-of-hit-puzzle">was 300,000</a>, increasing to 2 million soon after. It has reached a level of popularity that made the New York Times value it at <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/01/31/new-york-times-buys-puzzle-game-wordle-for-low-seven-figures/?sh=591da57510db">over US$1 million</a> (£738,000).</p>
<p>Part of the game’s value to users – and therefore to the publishers of the New York Times – is its simplicity. It is quick to play, easy to understand and provides a few moments of stimulating distraction.</p>
<p>For anyone yet to try it, it involves six chances to work out a mystery five-letter word. After each guess, the colour of the letter squares changes to show how close the attempt was to the mystery word.</p>
<p>It is designed to be played just once a day, with the same word for all players, anywhere in the world. This creates both scarcity and community simultaneously, meaning users are attracted by a shared sense of achievement and don’t feel they are addicted or wasting time. </p>
<p>Many of my students begin their day with a quick Wordle. Asked to explain the appeal, one replied: “It wakes my brain up, and is much better than going on social media or reading the news.” Another told me: “It kick starts my day.” </p>
<p>This mental equivalent of a healthy breakfast has become iconic in a short space of time. A <a href="https://twitter.com/dominos/status/1486853886489026560">pizza brand</a> and a <a href="https://twitter.com/BanquetRecords/status/1484208930943348748?s=20&t=AN8tkqEn4u8dcZFJ8f7GOQ">rock band</a> have both used the game’s now familiar grid as part of their marketing material. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1486853886489026560"}"></div></p>
<p>And marketing is essentially what the New York Times is doing by taking ownership of Wordle from its inventor, Josh Wardle. The newspaper is interested not in the game’s letters, but its numbers – using the Wordle’s popularity to increase the size of the Times’ online audience. This is what digital platforms refer to as “reach”.</p>
<p>Wordle is especially useful in terms of reach because of the way fans share their successes and failures through social media. This vital development was incorporated in December 2021 after a <a href="https://www.theverge.com/tldr/22881995/wordle-emoji-results-auto-generated-tell-a-story">player in New Zealand</a> used a grid of coloured emoji squares to show her daily progress without giving away the answer. </p>
<p>The sharing amplifies the user’s sense of achievement, at the same time as creating a sense of belonging among the Wordle community – now a powerful force in retaining the authenticity of the game – and making more people aware of Wordle’s existence. </p>
<h2>Spreading the word</h2>
<p>Facebook (now Meta) <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50838013">understood the potential</a> of gaining large audiences through multi-billion-dollar purchases of popular social media platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp. And a similar thing has been done by the New York Times.</p>
<p>Owning Wordle gives it an opportunity to get millions of people, many of whom form part of their target demographic, to visit their site (which will host the game) every day. The expectation (hope) is that a sizeable proportion will decide to become New York Times subscribers. </p>
<p>Achieving a similar reach through traditional paid advertising would cost the New York Times considerably more than the purchase price of Wordle. The publishers aim to have <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-02/new-york-times-sets-new-goal-of-15-million-subscribers-by-2027">10 million subscriptions by 2025</a>, so buying a popular game to help in this quest makes good commercial sense.</p>
<p>There are other commercial opportunities too. Although the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/business/media/new-york-times-wordle.html">New York Times said</a>, it intends to keep the game free “initially”, they appear to be keeping their options open for future revenue channels. </p>
<p>It is an understandable position given that the online casual gaming industry was valued at <a href="https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/the-games-market-in-2021-the-year-in-numbers-esports-cloud-gaming/">US$93.2 billion in 2021</a>. Wordle, with its short game time, fits into the fastest area of growth, known as “hypercasual”, which is usually funded by <a href="https://www.deconstructoroffun.com/blog/2021/1/12/2021-predictions2the-hypercasual-party">lucrative advertising</a> deals. In that context, given its popularity, Wordle can be considered a significant asset.</p>
<p>Other options for monetising online games include making people pay to play (premium), operating a basic free version with an upgrade (freemium), or bringing advertising and product sales into the equation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="New York Times HQ." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444316/original/file-20220203-19-19k708u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444316/original/file-20220203-19-19k708u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444316/original/file-20220203-19-19k708u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444316/original/file-20220203-19-19k708u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444316/original/file-20220203-19-19k708u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444316/original/file-20220203-19-19k708u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444316/original/file-20220203-19-19k708u.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 sign of the Times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-ny-usa-july-11-453303859">Shutterstock/Osugi</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A decade ago, Farmville (the farm-based simulation social game) was the most popular online game. It used a freemium model to generate revenues worth <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2011/07/05/even-with-half-the-users-zyngas-farmville-made-more-money-than-ever-before-in-q1/">hundreds of millions of dollars</a>, with the largest of those coming from the sale of digital products – paid add-ons to the game itself. That made sense for a game designed to be played many times a day, but for Wordle’s short duration format, there seems to be little scope for digital products. </p>
<p>Physical products may be an option, such as a board game, or perhaps merchandise, but there are only so many Wordle mugs that can be sold. Creating a premium version is also tricky with such a straightforward and accessible format. </p>
<p>It would mean building a paid-for app and convincing players to download it, potentially losing many users along the way. In-game advertising is another less drastic option, but that could prove tricky to implement without the ads getting in the way of the currently clean user experience, again a key element of the game’s simplicity and broad appeal. The most obvious revenue provider would be to put the game inside the New York Times paywall, currently priced at US$25 per quarter for digital-only, and hope they can bring over plenty of users. </p>
<p>However, any of these options are challenging. As is the case with many online games, Wordle has a loyal and active user base who expect it to remain quick, simple and free. There is considerable risk that attempts to monetise Wordle beyond its capacity to get eyes on the New York Times could simply alienate users and drive them elsewhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Brill 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>For the news publisher, the key word is ‘subscribers’.Mark Brill, Senior Lecturer in Future Media and Creativity, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1574732021-04-02T12:16:53Z2021-04-02T12:16:53Z60 years after Bay of Pigs, New York Times role – and myth – made clear<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392866/original/file-20210331-23-8d40xr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C3091%2C2108&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bay of Pigs debacle: Watched by armed guards, grim-faced US-backed invaders are marched off to prison after their capture by Fidel Castro's forces.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/havana-cuba-watched-by-armed-guards-grim-faced-invaders-are-news-photo/515411326?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sixty years ago, The New York Times is said to have muzzled itself in reporting about plans for the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bay-of-Pigs-invasion">CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion</a>, earning a lasting niche of dishonor in the history of American journalism. </p>
<p>The Bay of Pigs-New York Times suppression tale has been cited in <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/215359/freedom-of-speech-by-david-k-shipler/">books</a>, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2004-05-05-0405050193-story.html">newspapers</a>, on cable news shows and <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/max-hastings-60-years-later-cuba-s-bay-of-pigs-is-a-cautionary-tale">elsewhere</a> as a study in self-censorship and its consequences. </p>
<p>Had the Times resisted the requests of President John F. Kennedy, had it printed all it knew about the pending invasion of Cuba, the suppression tale goes, the ill-fated assault might have been scrapped and the U.S. spared a foreign policy debacle.</p>
<p>The suppression tale makes for a <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2008-03-28-0803270121-story,amp.html">timeless lesson</a> about the perils for news organizations in yielding to government pressure and withholding vital if sensitive information, ostensibly because of national security implications. When government officials invoke national security, publishing secret material becomes a thorny matter for news outlets. </p>
<p>Yet in the case of the Times and the Bay of Pigs, the object lesson is not relevant.</p>
<p>That’s because the suppression narrative is exaggerated. It’s a <a href="https://mediamythalert.com/2009/11/02/media-myths-faqs/">media-driven myth</a> – one of many well-known tales about the news media which, under scrutiny, dissolve as false or fanciful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kennedy and Great Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on the presidential yacht." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392881/original/file-20210331-23-zhi280.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan were together at the time Kennedy was rumored to have called editors at The New York Times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHP/1961/Month%2004/Day%2006/JFKWHP-1961-04-06-B">JFK Presidential Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Widely known, often retold</h2>
<p>As I discuss in “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520291294">Getting It Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism</a>,” the Times did not suppress reports about the approaching invasion, which was launched April 17, 1961, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/video/187489/News-footage-relations-breakdown-Cuban-invasion-Bay">failed to dislodge Cuban dictator Fidel Castro</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, the Times reports about preparations for the assault were detailed and often prominently displayed on the front page. Readers could tell what was coming, if not always in specific detail.</p>
<p>Moreover, there is no evidence Kennedy knew in advance about the Times report published April 7, 1961, a front-page article about invasion preparations that lies at the heart of the suppression myth. </p>
<p>There is no evidence that Kennedy or anyone in his administration lobbied or persuaded the Times to hold back or significantly dilute that story, as many accounts have claimed.</p>
<p>The April 7 article was written by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/22/world/tad-szulc-74-dies-times-correspondent-who-uncovered-bay-of-pigs-imbroglio.html">Tad Szulc</a>, a veteran foreign correspondent who reported from Miami that an assault by CIA-trained Cuban rebels was imminent. </p>
<h2>Modest and judicious edits</h2>
<p>According to subsequent accounts by senior editors at the Times, references to imminence and the CIA were removed before the article was published.</p>
<p>They reasoned that “imminent” was more prediction than fact. <a href="https://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/fact-checking-keller-on-nyt-bay-of-pigs-suppression-myth/">The managing editor, Turner Catledge</a>, later wrote that he “was hesitant to specify the CIA when we might not be able to document the charge.” The term “United States officials” was substituted. Both decisions were modest and judicious. </p>
<p>Dispute arose among Times editors internally about trimming to a single column the headline that accompanied Szulc’s story. A headline spanning four columns had been planned. </p>
<p>The size of a newspaper headline typically corresponds to an article’s relative significance. A four-column headline would have signaled “a story of exceptional importance,” former Times reporter and editor Harrison E. Salisbury noted in “<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/09/25/winners-and-losers-at-the-times/">Without Fear or Favor: The New York Times and Its Times</a>,” an insider’s account. Four-column display was infrequent, although not unheard of, on the Times’ front pages of the early 1960s. </p>
<p>But without a reference to the invasion’s imminence, a four-column headline was difficult to justify. Even so, Szulc’s lengthy article received prominent placement at the top of the Times’ front page. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/040761cuba-invasion.html">Anti-Castro Units Trained To Fight At Florida Bases</a>,” the headline read.</p>
<p>It’s highly unlikely that Kennedy made a private appeal to anyone at the Times on April 6, 1961, the day Szulc’s dispatch was filed, edited and readied for publication. White House logs show no telephone calls to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/28/obituaries/turner-catledge-dies-at-82-former-editor-of-the-times.html">Catledge</a> or other senior Times executives on April 6, according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.</p>
<h2>Little opportunity to call</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="'Anti-Castro Units trained to fight at Florida bases,' reads the headline on a New York Times story published before the Bay of Pigs invasion." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1846&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392875/original/file-20210331-21-y1rrsi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1846&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of reporter Tad Szulc’s stories for The New York Times before the Bay of Pigs invasion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mediamythalert.com/2011/04/06/busting-the-nytimes-suppression-myth-50-years-on/">Media Myth Alert</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The president spent the last half of the afternoon that day playing host to Harold Macmillan, the British prime minister, on a cruise aboard the presidential yacht down the Potomac River. It was nearly 6:30 p.m. when Kennedy returned to the White House. </p>
<p>That left scant opportunity for him to have called Times executives before the newspaper’s first edition went to press.</p>
<p>Salisbury’s “Without Fear or Favor” offers a detailed discussion about internal deliberations on Szulc’s article and his account is adamant.</p>
<p>“The government in April 1961,” Salisbury wrote, “did not … know that The Times was going to publish the Szulc story although it was aware that The Times and other newsmen were probing in Miami. Nor did President Kennedy telephone [senior Times officials] about the story. … The action which The Times took [in editing Szulc’s report] was on its own responsibility,” the result of internal discussions.</p>
<p>“Most important,” Salisbury added, “The Times had not killed Szulc’s story … The Times believed it was more important to publish than to withhold. Publish it did.”</p>
<p>The run-up to the Bay of Pigs was no one-off story. Indeed, the ongoing nature of the Times’ pre-invasion coverage is almost never noted when the <a href="https://mediamythalert.com/2011/04/06/busting-the-nytimes-suppression-myth-50-years-on/">suppression myth</a> is told.</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>After publishing Szulc’s article, the Times expanded its reporting about the pending invasion. Its front page of April 9, 1961, for example, carried a story by Szulc that Cuban exile leaders were trying to reconcile their rivalries while “preparing a thrust” against Castro. </p>
<p>“The first assumption of the [leaders’] plans,” Szulc wrote, “is that an invasion by a ‘liberation army,’ now in the final stages of training in Central America and in Louisiana, will succeed with the aid of an internal uprising in Cuba.” </p>
<p>With that, Szulc broadly described the objectives of a mission that brought 1,400 armed exiles to landing beaches in southwest Cuba. </p>
<p>Their assault was crushed within three days.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell 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 New York Times gave in to White House pressure and did not publish crucial information about an impending US-backed invasion of Cuba. It’s an old story, much repeated – but it’s wrong.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1480482020-10-15T20:26:42Z2020-10-15T20:26:42ZNew York Times ‘Caliphate’ podcast controversy challenges brash methods of foreign correspondents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363558/original/file-20201014-21-1r0i5eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C67%2C4835%2C3143&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The podcast Caliphate explored the war on terror and ISIS on the ground in Syria and Iraq. In this March 12, 2020 photo, a man rides a motorcycle in northwestern Syria the current focus of the 10-year civil war.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest scandal to hit United States news media <a href="https://thewire.in/media/caliphate-rukmini-callimachi-new-york-times-podcast">involves Rukmini Callimachi, a dogged <em>New York Times</em> foreign correspondent</a> who is the journalist behind the <em>New York Times</em> serial podcast <em>Caliphate.</em> The scandal also puts into the spotlight the little-known dynamic between reporters and “<a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/fixers.php">fixers</a>” — local journalists who help foreign correspondents with reporting, finding sources and translating interviews. </p>
<p><em>Caliphate</em> examined the rise of the Islamic State terror movement, and when it premiered two years ago, it attracted widespread listenership, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/business/media/new-york-times-caliphate-podcast.html">earned critical acclaim</a> and was honoured with some of the industry’s top awards. As a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/rukmini-callimachi-new-york-times">Callimachi was praised</a> for her “relentless on-the-ground and online reporting.”</p>
<p>But last month, the central character of the series <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7350363/rcmp-arrests-abu-huzayfah-for-faking-past/">was arrested in Canada under a false-terrorism code</a> for allegedly spinning a tale about being a member of ISIS. According to the charge, Abu Huzayfah, whose real name is Shehroze Chaudhry, may never have even travelled to Syria, and the stories he told of murder and mayhem that gripped audiences were likely invented.</p>
<p>While there is no evidence Callimachi falsified any of her reporting, she appears to be guilty of what social scientists call “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/confirmation-bias">confirmation bias</a>” — and what the rest of us might call “wishful thinking.”</p>
<p>Callimachi worked largely with local journalists who spoke the local languages. According to one former colleague, who asked to remain anonymous, she often blocked her fixers from interacting with her editors: instead she presented herself as the “hero of her reporting … queen of the beat.”</p>
<p>This attitude resonates with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2019.1638292">the findings of a global survey of foreign correspondents and fixers</a> my colleague Shayna Plaut and I conducted. We found troubling signs of a power dynamic that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.813">puts fixers in subservient positions</a> where they face more danger, receive less pay and often have little editorial agency over the resulting works of journalism.</p>
<h2>Power dynamics of reporting: Survey</h2>
<p>While Callimachi’s approach to storytelling seems modern — with her successful use of social media and her narrative style of writing that makes geopolitical issues resonate with audiences — her approach to reporting is decidedly old school. </p>
<p>Several colleagues of Callimachi from the <em>Times</em> used the term “neo-colonial” in describing her approach to dealing with fixers, referring to exerting her privilege as the outsider and treating local colleagues as support staff.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A glass building - with The New York Times written across it. In the foreground, a yellow cab." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363778/original/file-20201015-15-166qete.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363778/original/file-20201015-15-166qete.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363778/original/file-20201015-15-166qete.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363778/original/file-20201015-15-166qete.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363778/original/file-20201015-15-166qete.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363778/original/file-20201015-15-166qete.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363778/original/file-20201015-15-166qete.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&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 building in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Callimachi hired Derek Henry Flood, a freelance journalist based in Syria, to visit the markets of a town in the country’s north and seek evidence of Abu Huzayfah’s involvement with terrorism. </p>
<p>When Flood pointed out to Callimachi that ISIS had been forced from that region two years earlier, she disregarded his warnings and sent him on the potentially dangerous assignment anyway. “She only wanted things that very narrowly supported this kid in Canada [and his] wild stories,” Flood said in a recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/business/media/new-york-times-rukmini-callimachi-caliphate.html"><em>New York Times</em></a> interview. </p>
<p>In our survey of more than 450 journalists from 71 countries — the largest study of fixers ever undertaken — we found similar <a href="https://niemanreports.org/articles/fixing-the-journalist-fixer-relationship/">disconnects between correspondents and fixers</a> over their respective roles and responsibilities. </p>
<p>While 80 per cent of fixers said they had challenged the editorial focus of their partner correspondent, only 44 per cent of journalists recalled being questioned by their fixers. </p>
<p>Similarly, only half the journalists surveyed admitted to being corrected by a fixer. But fixers said they correct correspondents 80 per cent of the time. </p>
<h2>Politics of reporting</h2>
<p>In reviewing Callimachi’s work — and in discussions with several of her colleagues — I saw evidence of a reporter who often came to her assignments with a pre-conceived idea of a good story. She encouraged local journalists working for her to bend to her vision of that story. </p>
<p>Shortly after joining the <em>Times</em>, Callimachi worked with Karam Shoumali, a Syrian journalist at the paper’s Istanbul bureau. They reported on a story about ISIS hostages and a man named Louai Abo Aljoud, who told the reporters that he was held by ISIS and “made eye contact with the American hostages being held by the Islamic State militant group” at a prison in Aleppo. If true, this would have been an important witness to an important moment, but Shoumali raised concerns about the source’s credibility. </p>
<p>As he was translating during the interview, Shoumali said certain statements did not line up with other facts. But Callimachi shot back, asking him to simply translate. Shoumali reportedly tried again to warn Callimachi about the source’s credibility. Instead of heeding the warning, she focused on connecting with the photo desk to get a picture of the main character for her story. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/world/middleeast/the-cost-of-the-us-ban-on-paying-for-hostages.html">piece ran with a prominent photo</a> on the front page of the paper.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/caliphate-podcast-and-its-fallout-reveal-the-extent-of-islamophobia-147644">‘Caliphate’ podcast and its fallout reveal the extent of Islamophobia</a>
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<p>Several of Callimachi’s other peers also raised concerns about her reporting. Chris Chivers, a long-time war correspondent, told the foreign editor that Callimachi’s approach to covering ISIS was sensational and inaccurate. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/business/media/new-york-times-rukmini-callimachi-caliphate.html">Ben Smith’s <em>Times</em> story</a>, Chivers told another editor that allowing this behaviour to continue would “burn this place down.”</p>
<p>Both the bureau chiefs in Baghdad and Beirut at the time also questioned Callimachi’s reporting and professionalism, but were overruled by senior editors. </p>
<h2>Getting bylines for ‘fixers’</h2>
<p>The words of a experienced fixer in Brazil, whom we interviewed for our survey, captures a common sentiment about the relationship between fixers and western journalists: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[Reporters] come with a very preconceived idea of things and what they need … they have the idea, and it’s my role to try to get what they need.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another experienced local journalist with one of the American news networks noted the neo-colonial nature of “fixing” for western media: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Unfortunately [the foreign correspondents] still look at us as ‘brown’ people with funny accents, and though I have reported and done some of the most important and daring stories for [the network], it is a struggle to get a producer credit. Meanwhile, white kids — years my junior — get their names up [in the credits].”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More than three-quarters of the fixers in our survey said they would like to have public credit for their work, but rarely receive it. A comprehensive review of Callimachi’s output through her six years with the <em>New York Times</em> shows she rarely shared her bylines with local reporters. Many other senior foreign correspondents at the paper routinely do share bylines with people who had previously been relegated to an “Additional reporting by …” credit. </p>
<p>Because the <em>Times</em> has an ongoing investigation into Callimachi’s reporting, she was prohibited from speaking on the record to <em>The Conversation</em>. </p>
<p>Canadian federal authorities, in the meantime, are pursuing her source, Shehroze Chaudhry, under a little-used law that criminalizes terrorist hoaxes. While perpetrating hoaxes in journalism is not punishable by law, it is the kind of crime that ends careers.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a story originally published on Oct. 15, 2020. It clarifies that Callimachi rarely shared bylines with local reporters. The original article also included a story about Karam Shoumali when he was at the ‘Times’ Bagdad bureau. Actually, he was with the Istanbul bureau at the time.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Klein 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>The latest scandal to hit news media involves Rukmini Callimachi, the journalist behind the New York Times podcast “Caliphate.” The scandal spotlights the dynamic between reporters and “fixers.”Peter Klein, Professor, School of Journalism, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1476442020-10-14T18:11:48Z2020-10-14T18:11:48Z‘Caliphate’ podcast and its fallout reveal the extent of Islamophobia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363493/original/file-20201014-13-1yszdjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6536%2C4362&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An anti-Islamic protester during a demonstration at Toronto City Hall on March 4, 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Sept. 25, the RCMP <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7350363/rcmp-arrests-abu-huzayfah-for-faking-past/">arrested Shehroze Chaudhry</a>, a Muslim man, for allegedly fabricating his affiliation with the Islamic State group (ISIS). Chaudhry — popularly referred to by his supposed nom de guerre, Abu Huzayfah — had been the subject of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/02/canada-isis-killer-story-police-hoax">numerous news stories</a> since 2017. </p>
<p>Most notably, in 2018, Chaudhry was the focus of Rukmini Callimachi’s award-winning <em>New York Times</em> podcast, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/podcasts/caliphate-isis-rukmini-callimachi.html"><em>Caliphate</em></a>. In it Chaudhry provided graphic details of his role within ISIS, the veracity of which is now being questioned. Chaudhry had previously been interrogated about his involvement with ISIS by Canadian national security agencies but was not charged. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Callimachi’s misleading reporting at the <em>Times</em> prompted <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/house/sitting-297/hansard">debates in Parliament</a>, raising fears about an “ISIS terrorist” and “despicable animal … freely walking the streets of Toronto.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC News interviewed Rukmini Callimachi in 2018 about Shehroze Chaudhry’s changing story.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ensuing <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/tories-want-action-against-self-confessed-isis-recruit-reportedly-living-in-toronto-1.3926046">media attention</a> fed into <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6035676/ipsos-poll-detained-isis-fighters/">panic about the risk posed by returning “foreign fighters,”</a> individuals — mainly Muslim women and men — who travelled to Iraq and Syria to support ISIS. </p>
<p>In response to the <em>Times</em> podcast, the Canadian government <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/his-confession-about-being-an-isis-executioner-enraged-canadians-now-police-say-he-made-it-up-1.5126981">reversed plans to repatriate Canadian foreign fighters</a> and their families detained in Kurdish-controlled Syrian prison camps.</p>
<h2>Callimachi’s gaffe is a symptom</h2>
<p>Chaudhry’s case has raised questions about the <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/his-confession-about-being-an-isis-executioner-enraged-canadians-now-police-say-he-made-it-up-1.5126981">abruptness of his arrest</a>, the <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/caliphate-huzayfah-times-callimachi-isis.html">merit of a terrorism hoax charge</a>, the substantial <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/159561/rukmini-callimachi-fooled-fake-terrorist">role of the media in the War on Terror</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/06/29/bring-me-back-canada/plight-canadians-held-northeast-syria-alleged-isis-links">Canada’s obligations to its citizens, including 26 children, held in Syrian prison camps</a>. </p>
<p>But the reporting and policy reaction to Chaudhry’s alleged falsehoods reveals a sociopolitical climate where a different standard is applied to the threat posed by Muslims. Chaudhry’s case is not an outlier, but rather a symptom of the system. Callimachi’s faux pas is then just another story of Islamophobia.</p>
<p>Edward Said introduced the concept of <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/05/20/orientalism-then-and-now/">Orientalism</a> to capture how western societies imagine and produce reductive and racist representations of Muslims and Arabs. Our research on national security policies in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-613620200000025007">Canada</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13047">United Kingdom</a> suggests that Islamophobia informs and legitimizes an Orientalist approach in the reporting of Muslim terrorism suspects and produces racialized national security policies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-arabian-nights-stories-morphed-into-stereotypes-123983">How the Arabian Nights stories morphed into stereotypes</a>
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<h2>Islamophobia is more than hate</h2>
<p>Chaudhry’s case reveals how Islamophobia operates beyond individualized instances of discrimination against Muslims. The view that Islamophobia is merely an “irrational fear of Muslims,” as a <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/CHPC/Reports/RP9315686/chpcrp10/chpcrp10-e.pdf">2018 report by the House of Commons suggests</a>, is simplistic and outdated. </p>
<p>According to legal scholars <a href="https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/unblj/article/view/29035/1882524225">Reem Bahdi and Azeezah Kanji</a>, Islamophobia “is historically rooted in Orientalism, draws on and perpetuates stereotypes about a Muslim propensity for violence, … is state-driven and persists through a dialectical process of private and state action.” </p>
<p>In our research, we outline how Muslims are racialized through the War on Terror: “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396820951055">appearance as well as expressions attributed to Muslim bodies and Islam are framed within a social order which sees these as backward, foreign and threatening</a>.”</p>
<p>Rather than abstract disdain for Islam or Muslims, Islamophobia manifests as “<a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399577/what-is-islamophobia/">concrete social action</a>” by the national security industry, populist politicians, journalists, experts, think tanks and others who benefit from portraying Muslims as “<a href="https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/unblj/article/view/29035/1882524225">inherently violent … alien and inassimilable</a>.” </p>
<p>In this, any political movement connected to — or perceived as connected to — Islam is not only viewed as antithetical to democracy, but as a threat to democracy’s very existence. This Islamophobia was especially evident in coverage by Callimachi, whose success skyrocketed after the <em>Caliphate</em> podcast.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Brn5RnsjPqQ","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Muslims and risk</h2>
<p>Islamophobia is useful to understand how the dangerousness and riskiness of Muslims is constructed. </p>
<p>First, Muslim beliefs and actions are thought to present the potential of regressiveness and violence. This establishes the basis of “<a href="http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Esj6/mamdanigoodmuslimbadmuslim.pdf">good Muslim, bad Muslim</a>”: Muslims are considered “good” if they integrate and continuously perform their role as model citizens. But their potential of becoming a “bad” Muslim — who could radicalize toward terrorism — is never fully eradicated. </p>
<p>Through this lens, despite <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/isis-canadian-recruit-returns-1.4281860">interrogations</a> by Canadian authorities and journalists, Chaudhry was presented as an ISIS terrorist before ever being charged.</p>
<p>Second, Islamophobia represents Muslims as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512109102435">dangerous internal foreigners</a>,” whose rights can be overlooked in the name of national security. This explains why Canadian Muslims in Syrian prisons are not even considered <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7108763/returning-canadians-isis-suspects-rights-group/">worthy of repatriation</a> to stand trial. </p>
<p>Finally, the Orientalist framing of the bad Muslim is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2016.1178485">the basis of counterterrorism practice</a> — and perpetuated by academic scholarship — reinforcing the status of Muslims as a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2013.867714">suspect community</a>.”</p>
<h2>The media in the War on Terror</h2>
<p>Today, national governments, media conglomerates and security industries profit from the potential of catastrophe, and so perpetuate a present that is always “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2017.1362028">at-risk</a>.” </p>
<p>News coverage plays a significant role in normalizing constant risk; counterterrorism and counter-extremism institutions rely on this to establish their legitimacy among the public.</p>
<p>The media’s role in advancing Islamophobia cannot be understated. Media narratives that portray Muslims in <a href="https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.487.591&rep=rep1&type=pdf">dehumanizing</a> and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1748048516656305">violent</a> terms establish public consensus about the danger of Muslims. </p>
<p>Incidences of terrorism by Muslim perpetrators <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9090274">receive more media attention and their motivations are linked to their ethnic and religious background</a>. This feeds into a “<a href="https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-and-theorists/moral-panics/">moral panic</a>” around Muslims, where media sensationalism and governments stigmatize Muslims as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659007087270">deviant and a threat to social and moral order</a>. </p>
<p>Chaudhry’s case is not about an <a href="https://sahelblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/02/rukmini-callimachis-broken-clock-moment-in-timbuktu/">ignorant</a> or <a href="https://thebaffler.com/alienated/stalking-the-story">irresponsible</a> reporter telling a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/09/new-york-times-has-its-hands-full-with-review-caliphate/">poorly fact-checked story</a>. It is about the complicity of media and governments in vilifying Muslims to the point that it is reasonable to paint Muslims as terrorists before they ever stand trial. </p>
<p>Chaudhry’s alleged hoax — from its rise to an award-winning <em>New York Times</em> story to affecting Canadian national security policy — reveals a lot about Islamophobia today. This is the same Islamophobia that dehumanizes Canadian Muslims and casts them as potentially dangerous.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-and-hate-crimes-continue-to-rise-in-canada-110635">Islamophobia and hate crimes continue to rise in Canada</a>
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</p>
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<p>Ultimately, Islamophobia presents real harm to Muslims. It emboldens deadly anti-Muslim violence as seen in the <a href="https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/quebec-city-mosque-shooting">2017 Quebec City mosque shootings</a>, the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mosque-stabbing-suspect-1.5732078">murder of Mohamed-Aslim Zafis</a> and most recently the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/downtown-toronto-mosque-shut-down-violent-messages-police-investigating-muslims-council-1.5759840">violent threats made against a Toronto mosque</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fahad Ahmad receives funding from SSHRC and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tarek Younis 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>The need for security agencies and the media to view and present Islam and Muslims as constant potential threats feeds into a dangerously violent and deadly Islamophobia.Fahad Ahmad, PhD Candidate in Public Policy, Carleton UniversityTarek Younis, Lecturer, Psychology, Middlesex UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1471412020-10-01T20:04:49Z2020-10-01T20:04:49ZVital Signs: how to time a bombshell like Trump’s tax returns<p>It’s unlikely <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/">The New York Times</a>’ publication of Donald Trump’s tax records just before the first presidential candidates’ debate was a coincidence.</p>
<p>This looks like a classic example of what political scientists and commentators call an “October Surprise” – a news story deliberately timed to influence the US presidential election. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-us-presidential-debate-was-pure-chaos-heres-what-our-experts-thought-147178">The first US presidential debate was pure chaos. Here's what our experts thought</a>
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<p>Much is at stake – the presidency, as well the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate. What is in the minds of voters before they vote is crucial. This gives interested parties great incentive to strategically time the release of information they might have been holding on to for some time. </p>
<p>A well-timed “bombshell” can sway the outcome. But what is the best timing? The first Tuesday in November is still a long way off. Why not wait?</p>
<h2>Remember what happened last election</h2>
<p>Remember 2016, when both Trump and rival Hillary Clinton faced last-minute scandals. </p>
<p>Trump had his “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcZcTnykYbw">Access Hollywood tape</a>”, featuring him talking crudely about women. The Washington Post published the tape on October 7, two days before his second debate with Clinton. Given the recording was from 2005, it is hard to conclude the timing of the Post’s publication wasn’t strategic – if not by the newspaper then by the source of the material.</p>
<p>But this October Surprise arguably proved far less damaging than the bombshell that hit Clinton just 11 days before the election, when FBI director James Comey announced the bureau was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while US Secretary of State. </p>
<p>The FBI had previously investigated and deemed Clinton and her team extremely careless in not using secure government emails to handle classified information. But it recommended no charges. The case was reopened when more emails, sent by Clinton aide Huma Abedin on the laptop of her husband Anthony Weiner, were found. Making the story even juicier was that the FBI found the emails while investigating Weiner for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl. </p>
<p>While there is no suggestion Comey’s announcement was a deliberate October Surprise, its timing certainly didn’t help Clinton. Nothing came of the reopened case. Had Comey made the announcement a few weeks earlier, the election might have gone to Clinton.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-weiner-is-wonderful-61272">Why Weiner is Wonderful</a>
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<h2>Credibility versus scrutiny</h2>
<p>The superficial lesson from 2016 might appear to be that the closer to the election you can drop a bombshell, the better. </p>
<p>Indeed analysis of political scandals since the late 1970s show more occur with as as an election get closer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360651/original/file-20200929-22-lqo04b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gabriele Gratton, Richard Holden and Anton Kolotolin, 'When to Drop a Bombshell', Review of Economic Studies, 85(4), 2018: 2139-2172.</span></span>
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<p>But too many scandals bunched too close to an election is likely to blunt their impact. Voters might rationally assume scandals are more likely to be fake the closer they erupt to election day. They have good reason to be sceptical. It is also rational for anyone wanting to influence the outcome with fake news to deny voters the time to distinguish between fact and fiction. </p>
<p>So when is the best time to drop a bombshell for maximum impact? </p>
<p>My analysis with colleagues Gabriele Gratton and Anton Kolotilin (in the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/85/4/2139/4725011">Review of Economic Studies</a>) shows fake scandals are more likely closer to elections. This includes “Billygate” claims in October 1980 that President Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy was a Libyan agent of influence, and “Filegate” claims in 1996 the Clinton White House had improperly acquired access to FBI files on political opponents.</p>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Distribution of real and fake scandal claims concerning US presidents and candidates." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361007/original/file-20201001-25-sl0ipt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Distribution of real and fake scandal claims concerning US presidents and candidates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/richardholden/assets/online_appendix_a.pdf">Gratton, Holden and Kolotilin (2017), 'When to Drop a Bombshell',</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<hr>
<p>So there is a strategic trade-off between credibility and scrutiny.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On the one hand, dropping the bombshell earlier is more credible, in that it signals that its sender has nothing to hide. On the other hand, it exposes the bombshell to scrutiny for a longer period of time — possibly revealing that the bombshell is a fake.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Time adds credibility</h2>
<p>What, then, to make of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">New York Times</a>’ bombshell on September 27, two days before Trump’s first debate with Joe Biden, that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Donald J. Trump paid [US]$750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another [US]$750.</p>
<p>He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Only the Times knows when it first could have run this story. But it has released its story far enough before election day that there is time for a good deal of scrutiny. Given the nature of the story, the newspaper’s claims are likely to be proven true or false quickly. The lead time is reason to have confidence in the story’s accuracy. </p>
<p>Adding to the story’s credibility is what economists call a high “prior belief” about Trump being someone who lies and cheats.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-washington-to-trump-all-presidents-have-told-lies-but-only-some-have-told-them-for-the-right-reasons-145995">From Washington to Trump, all presidents have told lies (but only some have told them for the right reasons)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We can probably count on more than a few more bombshells about Trump or Biden as November 3 draws closer. </p>
<p>But the basic strategic considerations highlighted by our model suggests the closer a bombshell drops to election day, the greater the reason to question its credibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Holden 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>The closer to the election you can drop a bombshell, the better, right? Not necessarily.Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1459612020-09-23T12:31:53Z2020-09-23T12:31:53ZWhen noted journalists bashed political polls as nothing more than ‘a fragmentary snapshot’ of a moment in time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359350/original/file-20200922-22-48n9u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C7%2C5100%2C3428&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Legendary New York City columnist Jimmy Breslin, right, ready to do shoe-leather journalistic research in a bar, said preelection polls were "monstrous frauds."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-journalist-and-writer-jimmy-breslin-with-a-copy-of-news-photo/149309915?adppopup=true">Michael Brennan/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Poll-bashing – the aggressive, even extreme lambasting of pollsters and their work – used to be blood sport among prominent American journalists.</p>
<p>Mike Royko, one of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/04/30/famed-chicago-columnist-mike-royko-dies-at-age-64/72e75663-21c3-4ee2-b4af-22fb6ab10cbd/">Chicago’s most famous if cantankerous</a> journalists, was a poll-basher. <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-10-28-9204070637-story.html">He advised</a> readers of his Chicago Tribune column in 1992, “If a pollster calls you, lie your head off. No harm will be done, and some good might come of it.”</p>
<p>Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post, also was a poll-basher. From the late 1990s into mid-2000s, she conducted an <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0010/24/tl.00.html">intermittent and ultimately failed campaign</a> “to get the dominance of polling out of our political life.” The “Partnership for a Poll-Free America,” she called it. </p>
<p>Jimmy Breslin, a blustery and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/business/media/jimmy-breslin-dead-ny-columnist-author.html">legendary columnist</a> for New York City newspapers, was a poll-basher, too. </p>
<p>“Anybody who believes these national political polls are giving you facts is a gullible fool,” Breslin stormed in his Newsday column in 2004. <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2004/09/14/say-what-24/">He called preelection polls “monstrous frauds</a>” because at the time they did not reach the comparatively few households having only cellphones. They do now, but in 2004, Breslin figured the polls were missing younger, cellphone-using voters whose support, he wrongly predicted, would send Democrat John Kerry to the White House. </p>
<p>Royko, Huffington and Breslin were among the well-known journalists who resented preelection polls and didn’t mind saying so. They did not denounce polls every day, but their resentment ran deep. And they had plenty of company in journalism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Mike Royko, having breakfast and a cigarette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359349/original/file-20200922-24-qrtg30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mike Royko, the grouchy Chicago Tribune columnist, was a noted poll-basher.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/JOURNALISTMIKEROYKO/2c2e901f9ce5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=Mike%20AND%20Royko&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=1">AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Fragmentary snapshot’</h2>
<p>Eric <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/10/arts/eric-sevareid-79-is-dead-commentator-and-reporter.html">Sevareid</a>, the longtime CBS News commentator, confessed to “a secret glee and relief when the polls go wrong.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/15/archives/walter-lippmann-political-analyst-dead-at-85-walter-lippmann.html">Walter Lippmann</a>, one of journalism’s titans, wrote in 1936 at the dawn of modern opinion research, “I should be very happy if all the polls turned out to be wrong.” Election polls, he said, were “a nuisance.”</p>
<p>Poll-bashing, which I consider in my latest book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520300963/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7">Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections</a>,” arose from several sources, including doubts whether polls really could read the American mind. </p>
<p>Broadcast legend Edward R. Murrow expressed such sentiments in 1952, after polls failed to anticipate Dwight Eisenhower’s <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_3783000/3783245.stm">landslide election</a> to the presidency. The lopsided result, Murrow said on CBS Radio, signaled that voters “are mysterious and their motives are not to be measured by mechanical means.” Those who believe that Americans are predictable, Murrow said, “have been undone again.”</p>
<p>Other journalists resented the challenge polling posed to “<a href="https://pressthink.org/2015/04/good-old-fashioned-shoe-leather-reporting/">shoe-leather</a>” reporting, the celebrated reportorial technique of direct observation. </p>
<p><a href="https://niemanreports.org/articles/a-political-reporters-toolbox/">“Cover voters, not polls,”</a> was advice the now-defunct Committee of Concerned Journalists offered years ago. “It is voters — what they think, how they live, what they are worried about — that are important (and also more interesting).” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/business/media/haynes-johnson-journalist-and-author-dies-at-81.html">Haynes Johnson</a> of The Washington Post was an advocate of shoe-leather reporting, and a harsh critic of polls. During presidential election campaigns in the 1970s and ’80s, Johnson turned out long, interview-based articles about the moods of American voters. </p>
<p>After Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter in 1980 in a near-landslide that <a href="https://swampland.time.com/2012/10/31/remembering-1980-are-the-polls-missing-something/">no pollster saw coming</a>, Johnson <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/11/16/election-day-had-a-few-lessons-to-teach-the-out-of-touch-set/4de0feae-d9b9-4802-8d15-30e81e13714a/">scoffed</a>, “Polls are no substitute for hard reporting. In many cases, as it turns out, reporters would have been better served by relying on their own legwork, which in turn produces their own political instincts, than on the presumably scientific samples of voters supplied by the pollsters.” </p>
<p>In a C-SPAN interview in 1991, Johnson declared, <a href="http://booknotes.org/Watch/16899-1/Haynes-Johnson">“I hate the polls,”</a> adding that he wished “we would disband all polls” because they offer only “a little fragmentary snapshot of a moment in time.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A reporter taking notes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359373/original/file-20200922-14-z2hb7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359373/original/file-20200922-14-z2hb7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359373/original/file-20200922-14-z2hb7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359373/original/file-20200922-14-z2hb7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359373/original/file-20200922-14-z2hb7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359373/original/file-20200922-14-z2hb7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359373/original/file-20200922-14-z2hb7q.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">The journalists who criticized political polling thought real reporting did a better job of reflecting voters’ opinions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/writing-notebook-reporter-royalty-free-image/514688797?adppopup=true">snowflock/Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Poll-bashing eases</h2>
<p>Over the past three or four presidential election cycles, though, virulent poll-bashing has ebbed in American journalism. </p>
<p>It’s not that journalists have become more polite. And it’s not as if preelection polling has become immune from error. Far from it.</p>
<p>A number of factors explain the ebbing of poll-bashing. Outspoken critics like Royko, Breslin and Johnson are dead. Huffington is no longer associated with what is now HuffPost. </p>
<p>Each election cycle serves in effect to reconfirm the importance of poll-taking at major newsgathering organizations such as The New York Times and CBS News, where such operations <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/us/pollpage-intro.html">date to the mid-1970s</a>.</p>
<p>The decline of poll-bashing also has coincided with the rise of the data journalist, best personified by Nate Silver, founder of the election forecasting and analysis site <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/">FiveThirtyEight.com</a>.</p>
<p>Silver became a sort of celebrity after his poll-based forecast model <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10silver.html">accurately predicted</a> the outcomes in 49 states in the 2008 presidential election. That status only deepened when his model <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/nate-silver-election-forecasts-right">correctly anticipated</a> how all 50 states would vote in the election in 2012, when content at Silver’s site was licensed by The New York Times. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Silver’s forecast went askew in 2016, <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/">projecting Hillary Clinton would win</a> the presidency with 302 electoral votes, a haul that was to include Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Donald Trump won those states by narrow margins and, with them, the White House.</p>
<p>Because few if any prominent journalists figured Trump had any chance of winning the election, the postelection bashing of Silver was <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/155761/fall-nate-silver">mostly subdued</a>. </p>
<p>In 2016, after all, polling failure was also <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/513735-why-polling-failure-is-often-journalistic-failure">journalistic failure</a>, as polls and poll-based forecasts helped cement the media narrative that Clinton was the odds-on favorite to win.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell 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 was a time when well-known journalists resented preelection polls and didn’t mind saying so. One even said he felt “secret glee and relief when the polls go wrong.” Why did they feel this way?W. Joseph Campbell, Professor of Communication Studies, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1429202020-07-29T02:12:01Z2020-07-29T02:12:01ZMichelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349552/original/file-20200727-21-1jty5gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3653%2C2482&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Spotify</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“You kind of fail your way to success,” observed Matt Lieber, head of podcast operations at Spotify, at this year’s <a href="https://www.audiocraft.com.au/the-festival">Audiocraft festival</a>, an annual weekend of panels about podcasting. Normally held in Sydney, this year, thanks to COVID-19, the festival shifted online.</p>
<p>Lieber was talking about StartUp, his podcast about establishing Gimlet Media in 2014. Lieber and his business partner, Alex Blumberg, wanted to develop a podcast studio that would become “<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40515119/gimlet-media-is-one-step-closer-to-becoming-the-hbo-of-audio">the HBO of audio</a>”.</p>
<p>Last year, Gimlet hit the jackpot. It was acquired by Spotify for <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/spotify-gimlet-media-podcast-deal.html">US$230 million</a> (A$322 million). </p>
<p>While podcasts have been alive on the internet since 2004 (“But what to call it? Audioblogging? Podcasting? GuerillaMedia?” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/feb/12/broadcasting.digitalmedia">asked</a> the Guardian), 2014’s Serial is <a href="https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/whats-behind-the-great-podcast-renaissance.html">largely credited</a> with starting a new boom for the form.</p>
<p>Serial hit <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/serial-season-3-50-milllion-downloads.html">420 million</a> downloads in late 2018; S-Town, from the same production company, had <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2017/05/s-town-podcast-40-million-downloads.html">40 million</a> downloads in its first month.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BANqsJcBAf7","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Last week, the New York Times (whose own The Daily has surpassed <a href="https://www.nytco.com/press/the-daily-hits-one-billion-downloads/">one billion downloads</a>) acquired Serial Productions for <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/23/the-new-york-times-is-buying-the-production-studio-behind-serial-for-25m/">US$25 million</a> (A$35 million). </p>
<p>What was once on the fringes of the internet is now a multi-billion dollar industry. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-s-town-invites-empathy-not-voyeurism-76510">Why S-Town invites empathy not voyeurism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The growing numbers</h2>
<p>For a long time, podcasting was touted as the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/how-podcasting-is-shaping-democracy/524028/">most democratic</a> and accessible mode of journalism and public engagement. </p>
<p>On podcasts, hobbyists could indulge a passion for Greek legends, friends could riff on their favourite books, celebrities could show their human side, and media organisations could share stories too unwieldy for a newspaper or television format.</p>
<p>The early low-budget, niche podcasts were a far cry from shows like Serial or The Joe Rogan Experience. (Hosted by comedian Joe Rogan, the latter show has a reported <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263927/joe-rogan-spotify-experience-exclusive-content-episodes-youtube">190 million downloads</a> a month and was acquired by Spotify in May for around <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-strikes-exclusive-podcast-deal-with-joe-rogan-11589913814">US$100 million</a> (A$140 million).</p>
<p>While some Spotify shows are still available on other podcasting services, productions like The Joe Rogan Experience and the platform’s latest offering, The Michelle Obama Podcast, are available exclusively on Spotify. </p>
<p>Obama’s podcast, which launches today, features conversations on the “relationships that shape us” – not surprisingly, her first guest is her husband.</p>
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<p>Spotify’s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/21265005/spotify-joe-rogan-experience-podcast-deal-apple-gimlet-media-ringer">known investment</a> in acquiring podcasts over the past 18 months comes to around US$696 million (A$975 million). This figure doesn’t include the unknown price Spotify has paid in deals with <a href="https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/barack-michelle-obama-spotify-podcast-1203234767/">the Obamas</a> and <a href="https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/kim-kardashian-west-spotify-podcast-1234641221/">Kim Kardashian West</a> to produce original shows, nor the money Spotify is <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/spotify-aims-become-worlds-no-1-audio-platform-1256162">investing in-house</a>.</p>
<p>While Rogan and Obama’s podcasts are (for now) free to listen to, they will tempt people over to the platform and – Spotify hopes – create paying subscribers. Obama’s 2018 memoir, Becoming, has sold <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47704987">over 10 million copies</a>: that is a lot of potential listeners.</p>
<p>Far away from these mega-investment dollars, independent producers are still creating smaller shows for devoted audiences. Many attending Audiocraft were these independent producers, seeking to learn more about the art, craft and business of bringing their podcast ideas to life. </p>
<p>Such aspirations were mocked by a recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN0njKIeK5M">ABC skit</a> with celebrities begging people not to turn to podcasting under quarantine. </p>
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<p>The skit polarised viewers: older folk laughed, but younger people bristled, seeing it as an entitled elite trying to police what should be a wide open space without gatekeepers. </p>
<p>This divide is a growing tension among podcast producers.</p>
<h2>Pushing boundaries</h2>
<p>The other big commercial contender in podcasting is the Amazon-owned Audible, which has similarly gone on a “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/amazon-wants-to-build-your-favorite-podcast">multimillion-dollar shopping spree</a>” for podcasts over the past few years.</p>
<p>With Spotify locking listeners into their platform, and Audible’s podcasts only available to paying subscribers we are a far cry from the <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/podcasting-shows-the-value-of-an-open-internet/">open internet ideals</a> the form was built on. </p>
<p>Yet, even in this world of multi-million dollar deals, independent producers are still asserting their right to shape the industry. </p>
<p>Renay Richardson, a black British podcaster whose passionate presentation at Audiocraft wowed the audience, founded <a href="https://www.broccolicontent.com/">Broccoli Content</a> to advance diversity in podcasting. This year, she launched an <a href="https://www.equalityinaudiopact.co.uk/">Audio Pledge</a> demanding equity in pay and representation for minority voices. </p>
<p>It has so far been signed by over 250 organisations, including Spotify and the BBC.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1285925969338019843"}"></div></p>
<h2>An intimate artform</h2>
<p>According to Spotify’s Matt Lieber, podcast listeners want to hear a story, learn something new, and find someone you would want to hang out with. One festival session ticked all three boxes. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.birdseyeviewpodcast.net/">Bird’s Eye View</a> was made in Darwin Correctional Centre over two years. Funded by the Northern Territory government and the Australia Council and independently distributed, Birds Eye View gives a remarkable insight into the lives of incarcerated women.</p>
<p>With raw empathy, the podcast shares moving stories of women talking about abuse, addiction and crime on the outside along with darkly humorous stories of life on the inside. It’s a testament to deep relationships formed over a long and immersive production time. </p>
<p>The payoff is the compelling personal storytelling at which podcasting excels.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B-ynJKpjjvb","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Some producers fear with the industry so rapidly growing, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/spotify-wants-to-become-the-youtube-of-podcasts-it-would-be-terrible-for-the-industry/2020/05/27/394aec7c-a054-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html">market forces</a> could choke creativity and innovation. </p>
<p>An old adage holds that if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. If the big podcasting platforms figure that one out we will all be the poorer. </p>
<p>Podcasting’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/03/its-boom-time-for-podcasts-but-will-going-mainstream-kill-the-magic">special ingredients</a> have long been the authenticity of its wide range of voices and the intimate relationship they engender with the audience, speaking directly into our ears. If those defining characteristics get subverted in a push for profit, much of podcasting’s magic will be lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan McHugh will receive consultancy funding from Lockdown Productions, which will be making a podcast with Audible Australia. She has also received funding for podcast production from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, the Supreme Court of Victoria and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Podcasts were once a niche hobby of the internet. Now (thanks to Spotify), Michelle Obama is joining the fray.Siobhan McHugh, Associate Professor, Journalism, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401562020-07-09T12:13:52Z2020-07-09T12:13:52ZWhen Trump pushed hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, hundreds of thousands of prescriptions followed despite little evidence that it worked<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346160/original/file-20200707-26-imzchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C68%2C4587%2C2977&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As public figures and some in the media touted hydroxychloroquine, prescriptions skyrocketed. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/white-pills-spilling-out-of-prescription-bottle-royalty-free-image/1161234835?adppopup=true&uiloc=thumbnail_same_series_adp&uiloc=thumbnail_same_series_adp"> Grace Cary / Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In late March and early April, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-fauci-coronavirus-hloroquine-azithromycin_n_5e768e4fc5b6eab77949660d">President Trump repeatedly proclaimed that hydroxychloroquine</a> could prevent or treat COVID-19. Within days, the number of prescriptions for the drug skyrocketed even though evidence it could safely prevent or treat the disease was at the time very weak. </p>
<p>A casual remark by a president who is not in any way a medical expert somehow led thousands of U.S. physicians to write prescriptions for a drug that had never before been used to treat a viral illness. What could be happening here? </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://health.ucdavis.edu/team/internalmedicine/373/richard-kravitz---health-policy---internal-medicine-sacramento">general internist</a> at the University of California, Davis health center, I have seen thousands of patients in both inpatient and outpatient settings. As a researcher, I have focused on how <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=u8ZMXTMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">patients influence what physicians do</a>, and consequently, I often find myself asking how the larger world influences what patients think. </p>
<p>Through my research, I’ve found that the process of prescribing medication is more complicated than most people realize. In the real world, it’s a mix of the current state of medical knowledge and a negotiation between what the patient wants or asks for and the habits and beliefs of the physician. It is a human experience, and can be influenced by things like advertising, media and even politics. </p>
<p>I think the hydroxychloroquine situation perfectly illustrates how much the outside world shapes patients’ views of their own health care. It also shows how, particularly when the science is uncertain, patients’ views strongly affect what their doctors do.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346161/original/file-20200707-194418-1qu50y5.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">President Trump has repeatedly and consistently touted the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine despite shaky scientific evidence at best, even going so far as to announce that he was taking it as a preventative measure against the coronavirus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Trump/3357c55019e6411687156a1db305332c/22/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The hydroxychloroquine boom</h2>
<p>On March 21 President Trump touted hydroxychloroquine – and its biochemical cousin, chloroquine – as <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/488796-trump-steps-up-effort-to-tout-malaria-drug-as-coronavirus-game">potential “game changers”</a> in the battle against COVID-19. Two months later, he announced on national television that he had been <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/498375-trump-says-hes-been-taking-hydroxychloroquine">taking the drug himself</a> as a preventative treatment.</p>
<p>During the 10-week period between Feb. 17 and April 27 doctors wrote approximately <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.9184">483,000 more prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine</a> than in the same time period in 2019. The week after President Trump mentioned the drug during a press conference, prescriptions were up more than <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.9184">200% compared to the previous year</a>. The vast majority of excess prescriptions were written between March 14 and April 4, but as news spread about shortages of the drug and the lack of evidence to support its use, prescribing returned quickly to normal. </p>
<p>Research now shows that this once-promising drug likely <a href="https://theconversation.com/hydroxychloroquine-for-covid-19-a-new-review-of-several-studies-shows-flaws-in-research-and-no-benefit-137869">isn’t effective for preventing or treating COVID 19</a>, but the damage was already done. Hundreds of thousands of Americans unnecessarily took medicine that <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/targeted-update-safety-and-efficacy-of-hydroxychloroquine-or-chloroquine-for-treatment-of-covid-19">can have dangerous side effects</a>. Additionally, many people with an actual medical need to take hydroxychloroquine – like those living with lupus and related autoimmune diseases – found themselves <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/20/hospitals-doctors-are-wiping-out-supplies-an-unproven-coronavirus-treatment/">unable to obtain the drugs they needed</a>.</p>
<p>What explains the sharp rise, and equally precipitous fall, of hydroxychloroquine prescriptions?</p>
<h2>Amplification of shaky science</h2>
<p>The hydroxychloroquine story is in part connected to the way information about prescription drugs in the United States is produced and disseminated. This process greatly influences what the public thinks about drugs. </p>
<p>First, the clinical research supporting the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 was <a href="https://theconversation.com/hydroxychloroquine-for-covid-19-a-new-review-of-several-studies-shows-flaws-in-research-and-no-benefit-137869">shaky from the start</a>. The initial studies were very small, and likely because of the pressure from the pandemic, the research was <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-research-done-too-fast-is-testing-publishing-safeguards-bad-science-is-getting-through-134653">rushed through the usual safeguards like peer review</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p>
<p>Second, influential individuals and organizations played on the public’s perceptions. President Trump was certainly a factor, but media outlets – notably <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sean-hannity-gov-cuomo-stop-denying-new-yorkers-hydroxychloroquine">Fox News</a> and <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/hydroxychloroquine-most-effective-coronavirus-treatment-poll/">the New York Post</a> oversold the apparent benefits and downplayed the ample uncertainty surrounding the treatment at the time. Even The New York Times may have inadvertently contributed to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/health/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-malaria.html">initial prescribing stampede</a> by covering the science before it was peer–reviewed, even though they clearly stated the shortcomings of the research.</p>
<p>The truth is that researchers, academic institutions, medical journals and the media all face powerful incentives to portray the latest research findings as more earthshaking than they actually are. Under normal circumstances, numerous mechanisms exist to blunt some of the worst overhyping and many sources of medical information do their best to be accurate in what they report. But in the midst of a pandemic, the urgency of the moment can overwhelm these defenses and good intentions. Bad science can be spread far and wide by normally credible sources.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346162/original/file-20200707-194405-hv9un6.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">Why were doctors prescribing hydroxychloroquine to patients when the science was still so shaky?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-doctor-talking-to-patient-royalty-free-image/532726150?adppopup=true">LWA-Dann Tardif / Stone via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>From public interest to actual prescriptions</h2>
<p>It would be one thing if patients could get unproven medications like hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 on their own. But physicians are supposed to be the guardians at the gate of medicine. Why were doctors writing prescriptions for a drug to fight COVID-19 without evidence that it worked?</p>
<p>Some physicians were likely overeager early adopters. Additionally, some hospitals – including my own at the University of California, Davis – made hydroxychloroquine available to COVID-19-positive inpatients during the early days of the epidemic. However, early adopters constitute a low percentage of all prescribers - generally <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3768086">less than 10% according to one study</a> – and cumulative U.S. hospitalizations through April 25 totaled <a href="https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/COVID19_3.html">no more than 150,000</a>. With almost a half million extra prescriptions filled over that time, these explanations cannot fully explain the surge.</p>
<p>Substantial research, including my own, shows that when patients ask for drugs by name, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.16.1995">doctors will frequently prescribe them</a>. A reasonable hypothesis is that many of the excess hydroxychloroquine prescriptions filled in the weeks after President Trump’s remarks resulted from patients asking about or explicitly requesting hydroxychloroquine from their primary care physicians.</p>
<p>Over a decade ago, my colleagues and I ran an experiment where we sent actors pretending to have symptoms of depression to see physicians. Some of the actors explicitly asked for drugs while others did not. The results were striking. Patients requesting antidepressants were more than <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.16.1995">twice as likely to receive them</a>, regardless of whether their symptoms warranted the drugs or not.</p>
<p>These results should not be overinterpreted - we would not have found the same results in a study where patients with broken bones asked for chemotherapy, for example. But much of medical practice occurs in the gray zone of limited evidence. It is these gray areas where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.324.7332.278">media and advertising most influence patients</a>, who in turn influence physicians. With research on treatments for COVID-19 coming out at an incredible rate, the health effects of the virus still largely a mystery and people’s lives on the line, the gray zone for COVID-19 treatments is massive.</p>
<p>In the case of hydroxychloroquine, the combination of shaky science, loud public proponents like the president and the influence patients have on physicians likely resulted in close to half a million prescriptions before the public health benefits and risks were adequately understood.</p>
<p>Research on hydroxychloroquine has accumulated, and now most experts agree that <a href="https://theconversation.com/hydroxychloroquine-for-covid-19-a-new-review-of-several-studies-shows-flaws-in-research-and-no-benefit-137869">it likely isn’t effective</a> as a COVID-19 treatment – with some studies even suggesting that it <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.medj.2020.06.001">may be harmful</a>. But new drugs and treatments to fight this deadly virus are going to continue to emerge in the coming months and years. The media, politicians, doctors and patients must all maintain a critical stance and acknowledge the influence they have on each other.</p>
<p>Waiting for solid evidence in the form of randomized studies takes patience. But the alternative is to wander into a therapeutic fog where potential harms lurk alongside potential benefits. This is never a good idea, and it is especially dangerous now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard L. Kravitz received funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>When news reports tout a drug, people get interested, even if the benefits are unproven. Patient hopes, requests and demands can easily turn into real prescriptions in their doctor’s office.Richard L. Kravitz, Professor of Health Policy and Internal Medicine, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1397042020-06-23T12:20:51Z2020-06-23T12:20:51ZDoes coronavirus aid to news outlets undermine journalistic credibility?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343006/original/file-20200619-43196-i62y4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C98%2C5335%2C3523&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than two dozen newsrooms have shut down and stopped the presses during the pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/conveyor-belt-with-newspapers-in-a-printery-royalty-free-image/648822915?adppopup=true"> Tom Werner/Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news business, like every other, is struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic. The economic crisis has forced more than two dozen small-town <a href="https://www.poynter.org/locally/2020/the-coronavirus-has-closed-more-than-25-local-newsrooms-across-america-and-counting/">newsrooms to shut down</a> and has accelerated media job losses – including hundreds of layoffs at outlets as varied as Condé Nast, BuzzFeed, Vice, The Economist, and virtually every newspaper chain. </p>
<p>As a result, publishers have been among those in line to apply for loans from the <a href="https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/paycheck-protection-program-ppp">Paycheck Protection Program</a>, an emergency funding package administered by the federal Small Business Administration. </p>
<p>News organizations have received millions in coronavirus stimulus aid. The <a href="https://www.cpb.org/pressroom/CPB-Announces-Distribution-Plan-CARES-Act-Funds">Corporation for Public Broadcasting received US$75 million</a> from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which it planned to distribute to public media across the country. The <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/seattle-times-co-gets-nearly-10-million-in-federal-coronavirus-aid-funds/">Seattle Times received $10 million</a>. Axios, a well-respected inside-the-Beltway political news outlet, <a href="https://www.editorandpublisher.com/news/the-ppp-divide-while-venture-backed-publishers-get-ppp-loans-many-bootstrapped-publishers-havent/">received $4.8 million</a>. The list goes on and includes The Conversation, which received $367,000.</p>
<p>But of course, journalism isn’t just any other business. It comes with a <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/#:%7E:text=Congress%20shall%20make%20no%20law,for%20a%20redress%20of%20grievances.">First Amendment</a> culture that situates the press as, among other things, an <a href="https://www.mlive.com/opinion/2018/08/a_free_press.html">independent government watchdog</a>, an institution that’s supposed to keep its distance from other power centers. </p>
<p>Does taking government money mean editors, broadcasters and publishers owe the government something? Do these grants create a conflict of interest in an industry whose credibility rests on its independence?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343007/original/file-20200619-43229-1wu6bxg.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>
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<span class="caption">Does taking money from the government compromise journalists?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/paycheck-protection-program-royalty-free-image/1221703830?adppopup=true">Kameleon007/Getty</a></span>
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<h2>Concern is justified</h2>
<p>In a Wall Street Journal story about the Paycheck Protection Program, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/many-newspapers-want-coronavirus-stimulus-four-out-of-five-cant-get-it-11587987059">an executive at Gannett Co.</a>, the country’s largest newspaper chain, with 261 daily papers, was quoted as saying, “We are always open to considering ways to sustain journalism. However, we would never allow ourselves to be perceived as dependent on or influenced by government funding.” Parent companies such as Gannett, which own multiple news outlets across the country, are presently not eligible for PPP aid. But the concern for independence continues to be a driving one at such companies. </p>
<p>Soon after receiving PPP money, <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-%09returns-ppp-loan-a4595591-e5fc-41a6-ba00-cc7602cc50d6.html">Axios decided to return it</a>, saying “the program has become divisive, turning into a public debate about the worthiness of specific industries or companies,” and that an alternative source of capital for Axios had emerged.</p>
<p>Journalism professionals and supporters are right to be concerned about the conflict-of-interest questions raised by PPP support. In journalism, credibility is paramount: If audiences no longer see journalists as reliable sources of independent news, the whole enterprise is questioned. </p>
<p>This is why <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213901/corporate-media-and-the-threat-to-democracy-by-robert-w-mcchesney/">corporate media ownership is a serious ethical concern</a> – parent companies (i.e., Walt Disney) <a href="https://ajrarchive.org/Article.asp?id=237">are tempted to harness their media outlets (i.e., ABC News) to promote other corporate products</a> (i.e., books, movies and music from Disney-owned publishers, studios and record labels).</p>
<p>The concern to protect credibility is also why individual <a href="https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp">journalists routinely refrain from being active in issues they cover, such as politics</a>. Journalistic credibility also is protected in part by keeping an arms-length relationship with any person or group, including government, that might have an interest in shaping the news or try to leverage favorable treatment with access, junkets, scoops – or stimulus aid.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://www.bellisario.psu.edu/people/individual/patrick-lee-plaisance">a former journalist</a> and a <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/media-ethics/book239341">media ethics scholar</a> who has deeply explored such ethical dilemmas, I suggest that PPP aid need not undermine journalistic credibility.</p>
<h2>Keep the faith</h2>
<p>In the news business, conflicts of interest have historically been taken quite seriously, since they can undermine the very heart of the enterprise: journalistic credibility. </p>
<p>Countless conflict-of-interest policies, both in the public and private sector, are intended to protect journalistic autonomy and credibility in varying ways – from explicit requirements to avoid conflicts, to requirements to at least disclose them. </p>
<p>Since 1896, when New York Times owner Adolph S. Ochs declared his paper would report the news “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Without_Fear_Or_Favor.html?id=g6Y8AAAACAAJ">without fear or favor</a>,” most reporters, editors, broadcasters and publishers have been keenly aware that they can lose the faith of their audiences if their news reports are perceived as driven by special interests. </p>
<p>Almost all mainstream news organizations have clear conflict-of-interest guidelines. The newsroom at most outlets doesn’t talk to the advertising department – a divide long considered a “<a href="https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/bloomberg_news_and_the_problem.php">church and state</a>” separation to ensure advertisers don’t get special news treatment. <a href="https://www.spj.org/ethics-papers-politics.asp">Politics reporters are not allowed to participate</a> in political events or have political bumper stickers on their cars.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343008/original/file-20200619-43191-18fcxyt.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">This is not likely to be a journalist’s car.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/car-covered-in-democratic-party-candidate-bumper-sticker-news-photo/1081425586?adppopup=true">Joseph Prezioso//AFP via Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Managing conflicts</h2>
<p>Despite all this professional rhetoric, journalistic independence has regularly been called into question and undermined. Perceived conflicts such as corporate ownership, coddling of advertisers, and favoritism regularly crop up, and special interests influence news coverage in all kinds of ways. </p>
<p>The Washington Post has been criticized for the apparent conflict posed by its sale to Amazon executive Jeff Bezos. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/business/media/washington-post-jeff-bezos.html">Bezos has insisted on a hands-off approach</a> to the newsroom, and while <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/04/treasury-suggests-review-postal-rates-not-just-amazon/">Amazon-related Post stories often disclose Bezos’ ownership</a>, the bigger concern is the unwritten culture created by the arrangement. <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/washington-post-anonymous-amazon-bezos_n_5c056c68e4b07aec575158d6">Post journalists</a> may be less inclined to see Amazon practices as newsworthy because of Bezos’ largesse.</p>
<p>Getting aid from the federal government to help stay in business ought to concern any self-respecting journalist. But forgoing the stimulus altogether is not the only, nor even the best, option. </p>
<p>Many conflicts can be managed responsibly. While a concern on its face, the ethical question posed by receiving PPP money from the federal Small Business Administration is not the same as that posed by revenue from advertisers who might want to coerce friendly news coverage.</p>
<p>Regarding the latter, such concerns about conflicts of interest are troubling precisely because they tend to pose ongoing threats to journalistic independence: run a story anytime in the future that displeases the company, and they will pull their advertising or, at public media outlets, their sponsorship.</p>
<h2>What’s the threat?</h2>
<p>The case of PPP aid is both much more diffuse and a one-off occurrence: It is difficult to discern the news “agenda” that such a sprawling government bureaucracy – one intended as more of an administrative body than a policymaking office – might attach to a one-time disbursement of aid. </p>
<p>And what is the threat to journalistic independence posed once the money is disbursed? </p>
<p>Short of a blatant refund demand after an unflattering story about PPP administrator the Small Business Administration, which seems unlikely, there would be little leverage available to the SBA such as that with ongoing advertising contracts. A local auto dealership can pull its advertising out of punitive pique, and that would be the end of the matter; a federal agency attempting to do so would run squarely into strong First Amendment prohibitions.</p>
<p>What journalistic recipients of PPP money can and should do is to be fully <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08900520701315855">transparent</a> to audiences. Publishers should disclose their motive for applying to the program and how the money is spent. They should invite public discussion of any conflict-of-interest concerns, and announce steps in case a conflict involving news coverage arises (such as promises to include a disclosure in stories involving the SBA).</p>
<p>Perceived, as well as actual, threats to journalistic independence should never be taken lightly. But the apparent conflict of interest posed by PPP aid to newsrooms can be managed by transparency, rather than outright avoidance.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to state the proper source of the government funds – the CARES Act – given to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation has received funds from the Paycheck Protection Program.</em></p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Lee Plaisance 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>Does taking government money mean journalists owe the government something? A media ethics scholar examines the ethical questions about news organizations getting government help during the pandemic.Patrick Lee Plaisance, Don W. Davis Professor of Ethics, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409012020-06-22T12:17:38Z2020-06-22T12:17:38ZJournalists believe news and opinion are separate, but readers can’t tell the difference<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342803/original/file-20200618-41238-19j01o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Readers don't always know how to distinguish fact from opinion.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gatehouse-media-owned-palm-beach-post-and-the-gannett-co-news-photo/1166289246?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The New York Times opinion editor James Bennet resigned recently after the paper published <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">a controversial opinion essay</a> by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton that advocated using the military to put down protests. </p>
<p>The essay sparked outrage among the public as well as among younger reporters at the paper. Many of those staffers participated in <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/this-puts-black-people-in-danger-new-york-times-staffers-band-together-to-protest-tom-cottons-anti-protest-editorial/">a social media campaign</a> aimed at the paper’s leadership, asking for factual corrections and an editor’s note explaining what was wrong with the essay.</p>
<p>Eventually, the staff uprising forced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/james-bennet-resigns-nytimes-op-ed.html">Bennet’s departure</a>. </p>
<p>Cotton’s column was published on the opinion pages – not the news pages. But that’s a distinction often lost on the public, whose criticisms during the recent incident were often directed <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonFarmer15/status/1269729759946330113?s=20">at the paper as a whole</a>, including its news coverage. All of which raises a longstanding question: What’s the difference between the news and opinion side of a news organization? </p>
<p>It is a tenet of American journalism that reporters working for the news sections of newspapers remain entirely independent of the opinion sections. But the <a href="https://newslit.org/get-smart/did-you-know-news-opinion/">divide between news and opinion is not as clear to many readers</a> as journalists believe that it is. </p>
<p>And because American news consumers have become accustomed to the ideal of objectivity in news, the idea that opinions bleed into the news report potentially leads readers to suspect that reporters have a political agenda, which damages their credibility, and that of their news organizations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342987/original/file-20200619-43187-190thvb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=702&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 op-ed column by Sen. Tom Cotton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html">New York Times screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How news and opinion grew apart</h2>
<p>Long before newspapers became institutions for collecting and distributing news, they were instruments for the personal expression of individuals – their owners. There was little thought given to whether or not opinion and fact were intermingled. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/pennsylvania-gazette/#:%7E:text=Pennsylvania%20Gazette,Pennsylvania%20Gazette%20from%20Samuel%20Keimer.">Benjamin Franklin ran the Pennsylvania Gazette</a> from 1729 to 1748 as a vehicle for his own political and scientific ideas and even just his day-to-day observations. The <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/">Gazette of the United States</a>, first published in 1789, was the most prominent Federalist paper of its time and was funded in part by Alexander Hamilton, whose letters and essays it published anonymously.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342986/original/file-20200619-43187-1r8xor9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Front page of the inaugural issue of the Gazette of the United States, from April 15, 1789.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/1789-04-15/ed-1/seq-1/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 19th century, newspapers were <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/07/16/from-tom-paine-to-glenn-greenwald-we-need-partisan-journalism/">often nakedly partisan</a>, since many of them were funded by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/party-press-era">political parties</a>. </p>
<p>Over the course of the 19th century, though, newspapers began to seek a popular audience. As they grew in circulation, some began to emphasize their independence from faction. </p>
<p>Coupled with the rise of journalism schools and press organizations, this independence enshrined “fact” and “truth” as what scholar Barbie Zelizer calls <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1479142042000180953">“God-terms” of journalism</a> by the early 20th century.</p>
<p>Newspaper owners never wanted to give up their influence on public opinion, however. As news became the main product of the newspaper, publishers established editorial pages, where they could continue to endorse their favorite politicians or push for pet causes. </p>
<p>These pages are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/about-the-times-editorial-board">typically run by editorial boards</a>, which are staffs of writers, often with individual areas of expertise (economics or foreign policy or, in smaller papers, state politics), who draft editorial essays. They are then voted on by the board, which usually includes the publisher. They’re then published, usually with no author attribution, as the official opinions of the newspaper. There are variations on this process: Often the editorial board will decide on topics and the paper’s opinion before these writers get to work on their drafts.</p>
<p>James Bennet, The New York Times opinion editor who resigned, acknowledged in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/reader-center/editorial-board-explainer.html">an article on the paper’s website</a> that was published in January 2020, months before the Cotton essay, that “the role of the editorial board can be confusing, particularly to readers who don’t know The Times well.”</p>
<p>Through most the 20th century, newspapers reassured their readers and their reporters that there was a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3118032">“wall” between the news and opinion sides</a> of their operations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342807/original/file-20200618-41204-9c3jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unbiased journalism is a relatively new phenomenon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-walk-by-the-front-of-the-new-york-times-building-on-news-photo/1027689402?adppopup=true">Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Publishers relied on this idea of separation to insist that their news reporting was fair and independent, and they believed that readers understood that separation.</p>
<p>This is a particularly American way of operating. Readers in <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2015/04/28/our-partisan-press-does-it-matter-to-journalism-or-politics/">other countries</a> usually expect their newspapers to have a point of view, representing a particular party or ideology.</p>
<h2>The creation of the op-ed page</h2>
<p>One way that newspapers found to allow a greater range of opinion in its pages was to create an op-ed page, which publishes opinions by individuals, not those of the editorial board. As journalism historian <a href="https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=cmj_facpub">Michael Socolow recounts</a>, John Oakes, the editorial page editor of The New York Times in 1970, created the first op-ed page because, he felt, “a newspaper most effectively fulfills its social and civic responsibilities by challenging authority, acting independently, and inviting dissent.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.seattletimescompany.com/editorial/howtoread.htm">“Op-ed” is short for “opposite the editorial page,”</a> not “opinion and editorial” or opinions that are opposite from those of the editorial page. Literally, the name comes from the fact that it was located across from – opposite – the editorial page in the print newspaper.</p>
<p>The op-ed page of a print newspaper typically includes the newspaper’s opinion columnists. These are employees of the paper who write regularly. The paper also usually publishes a selection of opinion pieces from outside writers. Newspapers around the country emulated the Times after the op-ed page debuted.</p>
<h2>Online opinions, changing norms and blurred lines</h2>
<p>With the expansion of opinion pages online, the Times was <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-publisher-ag-sulzberger-laments-loss-of-a-talent-like-james-bennet">publishing 120 opinion pieces a week</a> at the time of James Bennet’s resignation.</p>
<p>While the move online allows The New York Times op-ed page to vastly increase its output, it also creates a problem: Opinion stories <a href="https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2017/news-or-opinion-online-its-hard-to-tell/">no longer look clearly different</a> from news stories. </p>
<p>With many readers coming to news sites from social media links, they may not pay attention to the subtle clues that mark a story published by the opinion staff. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342985/original/file-20200619-43209-6uq3f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=402&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 Washington Post homepage on June 19, 2020. Opinions at top right; reporting to the left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/?reload=true">Screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Add to this the fact that even readers who go to a paper’s homepage are met with news and opinion stories displayed graphically at the same level, connoting the same level of importance. And reporters share analysis and opinion on Twitter, further confusing readers. </p>
<p>The news sections of the paper also increasingly run <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13pubed.html">stories that contain a level of news analysis</a> that casual readers might not be able to distinguish from what The New York Times designates as opinion.</p>
<p>In 1970, when the op-ed page debuted in The New York Times, <a href="http://media-cmi.com/downloads/Sixty_Years_Daily_Newspaper_Circulation_Trends_050611.pdf">daily newspaper circulation was equivalent to 98% of U.S. households</a>. By 2010, that number had dropped below 40% and has continued to dip since then.</p>
<p>Even if readers in 1970 could clearly differentiate between news and opinion, they likely do not have the same level of critical engagement when news exists online and in almost unmanageable volume. </p>
<p>If news organizations such as The New York Times continue to maintain that a robust opinion section, separate from their news reports, serves to further the public conversation, then those institutions will need to do a better job of explaining to news consumers where – or if – the “wall” between news and opinion exists.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin M. Lerner 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>It is a tenet of American journalism that reporters working for the news sections of newspapers remain entirely independent of the opinion sections. But that wall may be invisible to readers.Kevin M. Lerner, Assistant Professor of Journalism, Marist CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1404292020-06-11T19:55:42Z2020-06-11T19:55:42ZVital Signs: the ‘marketplace for ideas’ can fail<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341113/original/file-20200611-114109-1l3isv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=585%2C0%2C4692%2C2385&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is no shortage of repugnant and dangerous ideas in the world. An age old question is whether free speech will see good ideas win out over bad.</p>
<p>The proposition that good ideas eventually triumph in “the marketplace for ideas” dates at least to 1644, when John Milton wrote in his anti-censorship tract <a href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Emilton/reading_room/areopagitica/text.html">Areopagitica</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it was perhaps first explicitly stated by United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1919, in his dissent to a 7–2 ruling in the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/250/616/#tab-opinion-1928349">Abrams v United States</a> case involving the first amendment right to freedom of speech.</p>
<p>Holmes wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Old though this question may be, it is one that confronts us time and again. Is it more dangerous to stifle expression of a seemingly dangerous idea, or to let it be freely expressed?</p>
<p>It is central to the controversy over the New York Times publishing on June 3 an idea many found repugnant.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341086/original/file-20200611-114070-14ny50r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341086/original/file-20200611-114070-14ny50r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341086/original/file-20200611-114070-14ny50r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341086/original/file-20200611-114070-14ny50r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341086/original/file-20200611-114070-14ny50r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341086/original/file-20200611-114070-14ny50r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341086/original/file-20200611-114070-14ny50r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A screen grab of the Tom Cotton article on the New York Times website.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">New York Times</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<hr>
<p>That idea was “an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers” as a response to widespread Black Lives Matter demonstrations and isolated outbreaks of violence and looting. It was advocated in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">op-ed piece</a> by a US senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-publishing-tom-cotton-the-new-york-times-has-made-a-terrible-error-of-judgment-140065">In publishing Tom Cotton, the New York Times has made a terrible error of judgment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Editorial page editor James Bennet <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/james-bennet-resigns-nytimes-op-ed.html">resigned</a> as part of the paper’s mea culpa. A champion of the “marketplace of ideas” might argue the New York Times did the right thing, or at least nothing wrong.</p>
<p>So what would an economist, whose job is to understand market behaviour, say? </p>
<h2>Economists and markets</h2>
<p>Now economists generally like markets. </p>
<p>The most celebrated result in all of economics – the “First Welfare Theorem” formalised by Nobel laureates <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1907353?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu</a> – states that with the right conditions competitive markets will allocate resources with maximum efficiency.</p>
<p>Yet economists – especially and including Arrow and Debreu – are all too aware that markets don’t always function well in reality. Information is often “asymmetric”, such as a seller knowing more about a product’s quality than the buyer. There are “externalities”, costs incurred by third parties, such as environmental harms not factored into market prices. Plenty of markets are not sufficiently competitive.</p>
<p>The failure of markets for insurance, used cars and many other things has been <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24712687?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">well-documented</a>. </p>
<p>Why, then, why should we have faith in the marketplace for ideas?</p>
<h2>Ideas are not products</h2>
<p>Over the past two decades economists have been developing formal models that can speak to competition in ideas. </p>
<p>The stepping-off point is to note the nature of competition in an ideas market is fundamentally different from competition in a product market.</p>
<p>With products, sellers compete for customers by setting the price for their products. As the economists <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Research/Shapiro/pdfs/jepmedia.pdf">Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two firms compete [in the product market] if their products are substitutes from the perspective of consumers. A change in the price of one affects the purchasing behaviour of the other’s customers. This kind of competition is important because it limits firms’ ability to raise price above marginal cost.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ideas differ in the following way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two firms compete in [an information market] if 1) they cover the same events and 2) at least some consumers will learn the facts reported by both. A change in the set of facts one reports affects the information of the other’s customers. This kind of competition limits firms’ ability to control consumers’ beliefs.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A form of prisoner’s dilemma</h2>
<p>The cleanest formal model of competition between parties trying to control people’s beliefs comes from a <a href="https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/emir.kamenica/documents/CompetitionInPersuasion.pdf">2017 paper</a> by Matthew Gentzkow and Emir Kamenica (a former classmate and University of Chicago colleague of mine).</p>
<p>The “marketplace for ideas” notion holds that when there are more senders of information, more information will be communicated to consumers.</p>
<p>Gentzkow and Kamenica showed this is not necessarily so. It all depends on the nature of the strategic interaction between the senders of information.</p>
<p>Senders might be caught in a kind of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/game-theory/The-prisoners-dilemma">Prisoner’s Dilemma</a>, the game theory concept made famous by the movie A Beautiful Mind. It would be socially productive for more information to be revealed, but the private incentives of the senders lead to less revelation. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-john-nash-and-his-equilibrium-theory-42343">The legacy of John Nash and his equilibrium theory</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>For example, consider two pharmaceuticals makers with drugs only they know the effectiveness of. One half of their market is customers who will only buy pharmaceuticals they believe likely to work well. The other half wants their drugs to work too, but they’ll also buy if it might only partially work.</p>
<p>In this case each maker has an incentive to withhold information about the efficacy of their product, even though they and the consumers would be better off if they and the rival revealed more information. It’s just like the consequences of unilateral action as shown in A Beautiful Mind.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LJS7Igvk6ZM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>If strategic interaction in the marketplace for ideas takes this form then competition does not lead to good arguments winning out.</p>
<p>Gentzkow and Kamenica show the crucial condition for competition to lead to more information being revealed is this: each sender must be able to unilaterally deviate to some outcome more informative for consumers. In the drug example, this would be each maker disclosing the efficacy of their own drug <em>and</em> that of their competitor.</p>
<p>Whether this happens in practice depends on important details about the nature of the ideas being discussed, what types of information are permissible by law, and of course whether those receiving information are rational.</p>
<p>In short, the answer to whether the marketplace for ideas leads good ideas to win out is: it depends.</p>
<h2>Open discussion is not enough</h2>
<p>Just because the marketplace for ideas doesn’t always work doesn’t mean it never works. There are deeply important non-economic reasons to value freedom of speech that extend beyond how much information gets revealed.</p>
<p>But modern economics teaches us that competition in the marketplace for ideas is different than competition in the market for ordinary goods and services. We should not always conclude that odious ideas will be consigned to the dustbin of history simply through open discussion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Holden 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>Competition in the marketplace for ideas is different to competition in the market for ordinary goods and services. Bad ideas don’t necessarily get trashed.Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1400652020-06-04T09:24:09Z2020-06-04T09:24:09ZIn publishing Tom Cotton, the New York Times has made a terrible error of judgment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339711/original/file-20200604-67351-1ccg28v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=155%2C0%2C3838%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a newspaper with the authority of The New York Times chooses to publish a party-political essay calculated to further inflame the violence wracking cities across America, serious questions arise.</p>
<p>On June 3 the Times published in its opinion section an essay by a Republican senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, headlined “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage">Send in the troops</a>”.</p>
<p>It argued the case, plentifully coloured by party-political asides, in support of US President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/01/politics/troops-deploying-washington-dc/index.html">threat to mobilise the US military</a> against the protests triggered by the police killing of George Floyd.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-trump-attacks-the-press-he-attacks-the-american-people-and-their-constitution-139863">When Trump attacks the press, he attacks the American people and their Constitution</a>
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</em>
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<p>The newspaper’s decision provoked a stream of protests on social media, including from several journalists on its own staff. Some simply stated that they disagreed with Cotton. But for others, their objections ran far deeper.</p>
<p>Many expressed concern that it endangered the safety of Times journalists, in particular those who are black. In circumstances where the police are already turning their violence on journalists covering the protests, this is a well-founded objection.</p>
<p>Nikole Hannah-Jones, a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary last month, tweeted:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1268334601166106624"}"></div></p>
<p>The NewsGuild of New York, the union that represents many Times journalists, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/business/tom-cotton-op-ed.html">said</a> in a statement: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is a particularly vulnerable moment in American history. Cotton’s Op-Ed pours gasoline on the fire. Media organizations have a responsibility to hold power to account, not amplify voices of power without context and caution.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the face of these cogent criticisms, it might have been expected the Times would publish a coherent and substantial account of its reasons for running the Cotton essay. It has not. It has left it to the editorial page editor, James Bennet, to respond, and he has contented himself with <a href="https://twitter.com/JBennet/status/1268328278730866689">a Twitter thread</a>.</p>
<p>His reasoning, if it can be dignified with the term, can be summarised in these statements from that thread:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Times Opinion owes it to our readers to show them counter-arguments, particularly those made by people in a position to set policy. </p>
<p>We understand that many readers find Senator Cotton’s argument painful, even dangerous. We believe that is one reason it requires public scrutiny and debate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These reasons can be swiftly disposed of before moving on to questions he did not bother to mention.</p>
<p><em>Counter-arguments</em>: by all means, but why from a party-political source at this time in American history, when party-political polarisation is as deep as at any time in the post-civil war era? Why not invite a non-party source, perhaps an expert in national security, to make the case for military intervention?</p>
<p><em>From a person in a position to set policy</em>: just about the strongest reason not to run such a piece. It aligns the paper closely with those in power, an abrogation of the paper’s independence from government.</p>
<p><em>Scrutiny and debate</em>: government is better scrutinised at arm’s length, and the public debate that has ensued is not about the merits of military intervention, but about the inflammatory content of the essay and the Times’s decision to run it.</p>
<p>Now for the questions Bennet did not mention.</p>
<p>Did the Times solicit the essay from Cotton or did he offer it?</p>
<p>To what extent, if at all, did the Times consider the likely foreseeable consequences of running such a clearly partisan essay on so volatile an issue?</p>
<p>What consequences did it anticipate?</p>
<p>How did it balance the obvious risks of aggravating an already violent situation against the public-interest grounds Bennet has advanced?</p>
<p>Did it ask itself why a senator, with the powerful platform of the US Senate at his disposal, would seek to harness the authority of The New York Times to his cause?</p>
<p>Did it perceive that in lending its authority to this essay, it would be handing a valuable propaganda tool to the White House?</p>
<p>The newspaper’s blithe public disregard for these questions is unsettling.</p>
<p>In the three-and-a-half tumultuous years of the Trump presidency, America’s serious national newspapers -– the Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times -– have been a remarkable bulwark in defence of American democracy.</p>
<p>Along with the judiciary, they have discharged their institutional responsibilities fearlessly. They have kept an unflinching gaze on the Trump presidency and faced down his intimidatory tactics.</p>
<p>With Congress paralysed by partisan divisions, it is these two institutions that have made America’s democratic arrangements work.</p>
<p>Yet the strains are beginning to show.</p>
<p>The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/journalists-at-several-protests-were-injured-arrested-by-police-while-trying-to-cover-the-story/2020/05/31/bfbc322a-a342-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html">reported this week</a>, in the context of police attacks on the media covering the riots, that “the norms have broken down”. </p>
<p>In these circumstances, the decision by the Times to publish the Cotton essay is worse than just a bad editorial call.</p>
<p>At a critical juncture in this crisis, it suggests a failure of nerve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller 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>At this critical juncture in American history, the decision to publish a piece to “send in the troops” suggests a failure of nerve from an esteemed publication.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.