Be a Better News Consumer
Everyone complains about the supply side of journalism. But the Atlanta shootings demonstrates problems on the demand side.
If there’s one thing that brings us together as Americans, it’s that everyone seems to hate the press. Conservatives have been complaining about liberal bias for decades; leftists and liberals have more recently charged that the mainstream media actually favors the right. But few people seem to believe in an objective media anymore (or at least they pretend not to believe in it- at least some complaints about the media by political actors are what liberal media critic Eric Alterman calls “working the refs”, an attempt to push the media to compensate for their criticism by shading more towards their side).
But while all these would be press critics congratulate themselves for their “savvy” understanding of what the media is like, I get the feeling that less and less people out there actually know how to read a news report. This week’s tragedy in Atlanta presented a stark example of it.
What do I mean by “how to read a news report”? Well, let me digress a little and tell you about the supermarket tabloids, such as the National Enquirer. Most of what they cover, of course, is celebrity journalism (although they sometimes venture into political coverage- the extramarital affairs of Bill Clinton and John Edwards were first reported by supermarket tabloids). And, as you probably know, not everything you read in the National Enquirer is accurate. It’s worth noting why you know that. It’s not because it is impossible to cover celebrities without being inaccurate- the Los Angeles Times, for instance, covers the entertainment industry and has a far better batting average than the Enquirer. It’s also not because anything sold at a supermarket checkstand necessarily has to be inaccurate. And it’s actually also not because the Enquirer routinely makes stuff up- in fact, they are sometimes right (e.g., John Edwards) and if they made everything up, they’d be sued out of business, because even under the tough standard for public figure libel suits, completely fabricating stories can give rise to significant defamation judgments.
What makes the Enquirer less accurate is that their sourcing standards are less rigorous than the mainstream media. The mainstream media, while not foolproof and certainly subject to manipulation, has real standards that prevent a lot of unreliable information from making it into the paper or onto the air. First of all, unless information is indisputable, a single source is almost never sufficient for publication. It needs to be confirmed. In addition, many times, anonymity is not granted, and even where it is, information is given as to why the anonymous source has reason to know the facts. Accordingly, many times reporters are told things, can’t confirm them, and they never make it into the paper. This actually frustrates people in the business sometimes, as some of these rumors are actually true. But you can’t print or air rumors.
In contrast, the Enquirer routinely runs stories based on a single source, demanding complete anonymity, who may simply be repeating hearsay. The “close pal” of a celebrity tells the Enquirer that the celebrity’s marriage is on the rocks, and the Enquirer prints it. Sometimes it turns out to be right; often it turns out to be wrong. But the readers don’t really care; they are reading the Enquirer for entertainment, and they realize that some of the stuff they are reading is second- or third-hand and unreliable.
Now, back to the Atlanta shootings. Within a few hours of the shootings, a Korean language newspaper reported that the shooter had a Facebook page containing bigoted anti-China statements, and that a “friend of an employee" of one of the massage parlors said the shooter had yelled out “I want to kill all the Asians” before opening fire. The Facebook reporting was quickly debunked; it’s easy to check out if something like that is faked. But “I want to kill all the Asians” spread like wildfire, retweeted and repeated by ostensibly very smart, very politically plugged in people. I noticed immediately that no American newspaper or reputable news organization had confirmed the story or published it. No matter. People kept repeating it. Many people are still repeating it even now.
But by now, we must know the report was inaccurate. Not only the simple fact that no mainstream outlet has confirmed it (mainstream outlets have reporters all over this story, are surely aware of the rumor, and would absolutely love to be the first English language source to confirm this blockbuster story), but also that we now have statements from state and federal law enforcement, and from the shooter’s friends and acquaintances, that suggest that he had what was the obvious motive from the start- to kill people he perceived as sex workers. This is a story that is at least as old as Jack the Ripper.
Of course, part of what happened was simply motivated reasoning. To people who wanted to declare that despite what was staring everyone in the face, these HAD to be racially motivated murders, the “I want to kill all the Asians” report was irresistible. But a lot of people sincerely bought it, and you have to ask yourself why. Why would people accept that a story that no mainstream outlet confirmed, and that was based on a single, unnamed source, who wasn’t even the person who heard it (he was reporting supposed hearsay from another person who was an employee, also not identified in the story)? I think there’s a failure of the public to critically engage with news stories. People are convinced that they understand the media to such a great extent that they can declaim about its supposed biases and ethical lapses, but if you can’t spot a story with no reliable sourcing, you really need to re-take News Consuming 101 before moving up to elective Media Criticism.
I think these two things are actually related. I think that people have gotten so concerned with media NARRATIVES (“Is the media covering this story in a way that is disrespectful of the victims of racial hate crimes?”) that they are failing to absorb the FACTS being reported. The old journalism saw is that a good story covers all the W’s- who, what, where, when, and why. But many readers are skipping right ahead to the why and lobbing criticisms of the media, without engaging the other 4 W’s.
We need to be better media consumers. Slow down. Especially in a breaking news situation. Gather facts. Let things play out. There will be plenty of time to analyze the larger meaning of a situation, as well as how it is reported. But we need to start by recognizing what is a well-reported story and what isn’t. Had people done so, the unconfirmed “I want to kill all the Asians” report would have never had legs.