How News Reporting Really Works: Part 1

(This is the first of a four-part series)
I recently had an email discussion, concerning American society and politics, with a Taiwanese student. His perceptions of American politics weren’t exactly wrong, so to speak; but they were wildly exaggerated. Because I used to be a journalist, and I had taken journalism courses, I think I know the cause of his misperceptions. I believe the problem is systemic—that the problem caused by the way news is gathered and reported.
Let’s take a case in point.
According to a recent CNN survey, 56% of the American people see the federal government as an immediate threat to their liberties. That’s large enough a percentage to call it a mainstream view. Now take a look at this video news clip, and remember that this clip and the survey I just mentioned were generated by the same source: CNN. In this video clip, a CNN reporter characterizes the people who hold those concerns as being far outside of the mainstream.
What accounts for that disconnect between CNN’s polls and CNN’s reporting? One cause is that news reporting has become a form of entertainment; and, like other forms of entertainment, broadcast news programs compete for advertising dollars. Another is that, as a general rule, news reporters aren’t hired because they understand the issues; they’re hired because they can write well or can present themselves well on camera. Another is, although the camera doesn’t lie, the camera does exaggerate. Yet another cause is that there’s more news to report than means to report it; thus, the individual viewpoints of editors, reporters, and even headline writers tend to filter and slant the news. Advertisers also play a role in how news is reported. Finally, newspaper readers and television viewers—that means you and I—also play a role in slanting the news.
Today, let’s take a look at one of those causes: that the camera exaggerates.
Suppose you were shown two photographs of audiences attending speeches. In one, three fourths of the seats are empty, a few of the members of the audience are slumping in their seats, and one or two are yawning. In the other, audience members are closely packed, all the seats are filled, and everyone is leaning forward, obviously interested in what the speaker is saying.
You could be excused for believing that the second speech was more interesting and better attended than the first. Forgive me, but I tricked you. Both photos were taken at the same speech. The photos depict different parts of the audience at different times during the speech. A snapshot of how a small part of the audience looked over a period of 1/16 of a second or less gave you the impression of how all of the audience members reacted during the whole speech.
Now think about the Tea Party loudmouth you saw in the video clip. In the minds of those unfamiliar with the issues involved, one babbling loudmouth was representative of the entire crowd of perhaps 100,000 people.
Of course, the reporter in the clip showed herself willfully misinformed, but I’ll address the cause of reporter self deception in another article in this series. (I call this problem the Malie Bruton effect, after the reporter who spent two hours interviewing a folk religion scholar and, in her newspaper article, presented him as a practicing witch.)
So, why did the reporter head for someone who seemed pretty low on the food chain instead of someone more coherent? Part of the answer has to do with the nature of brief news reports. It takes longer to give an intelligent, well-thought-out answer than it does to rant and babble incoherently. When you have only seven minutes to make a news report, you pass by the rational-looking ones and head for the kooks. If you see someone whose knuckles drag the ground, you’ve hit pay dirt. Besides, let’s face it: Intelligent people aren’t interesting enough to drive up ratings and draw in advertising dollars.
Something like that also happens with interviews in which interviewees reasonably state their case. Many years ago, Martin Luther King was interviewed concerning his hopes for the future. By most accounts, he was pretty reasonable to all sides. When the interview was mentioned on the nightly news, however, his reference to “black power,” in a clip lasting only a few seconds, was the only thing that made the news. News reporting of that sort was credited with creating the black power movement.
That was the only part of the speech reported because that was the only part of the speech that made a good sound bite. People who get all or most of the news from the broadcast media are given sound bites in place of rational discourse. That’s only one of the ways that news reporting distorts the news.
We can find the solution within ourselves. Contrary to what the movies suggest, investigative journalism is rare. We have to be our own investigative journalists. The Truth is out there, but so are misinformation and disinformation. We have to be discriminating in selecting our sources.
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How News Reporting Really Works: Part 2

(This is the second of a four-part series.)
From time to time, we hear that the news media is “biased.” What does that mean, and is it true?
Let’s look at the first question first. Depending on your area of study, a bias may also be called a conceptual framework (academic literature), an attitude (or value)(psychology), or a frame of reference (social science). In all of these areas, some frame of reference is needed as a yardstick for measuring (or a dowsing rod for finding) the truth.
Let’s say you were upset because someone stole your candy and wouldn’t give it back. In any discussion of what to do about it, you would assume that everyone within earshot held the attitude that property can be owned. No one would even consider discussing the issue unless one of your listeners came from a culture in which people had never heard of private property.
In a moment, I’ll give you a link to a video showing a real-life impasse between two people who had different frames of reference on a controversial political issue. First, though, let’s take a look at what psychologists call Rokeach’s Onion.
Each of us has countless opinions. When asked to back up our opinions, we often give facts, but the facts always come with certain beliefs on which our opinions are based. If, for example, you asked a constitutionalist why he calls a certain government action an “intrusion,” he’ll give you facts, but he’ll also cite a well-known theory (such as Social Contract Theory) or law (such as the Tenth Amendment). He may not know what the theory is called, but he understands the basic idea of it.
When asked to defend his belief in Social Contract Theory or the Tenth Amendment, though, he’s usually stumped. He has never thought to defend it, and he has never thought it needed defense. Until you brought it up, he may never have realized that it, in some way, applied to the belief he’s asked to defend. This is called an attitude. Three examples of attitudes are the right to own property (or lack of that right), that all men are created equal (or not), and, for that matter, that there is such a thing as a right.
To Thomas Jefferson, an attitude was something that is regarded as a “self-evident truth.” It’s taken on faith and can neither be proven nor disproven. Of course, if a person has a “bad attitude,” his attitude only seems like a self-evident truth.
Now take a look at this video clip of a CNN reporter and a Tea Party protestor “talking past” each other. In the reporter’s frame of reference, government is the source of our rights; in the protestor’s frame of reference, God (or Nature) is the source of our rights. Obviously, neither had given the idea much thought, but they’re acting on those attitudes just the same.
Because of the reporter’s frame of reference, she presented the “stimulus package” as a gift from specific government leaders, as if it had come from their pockets. The protestor, in his babbling way, showed that he realized that the money was borrowed from the people and that it amounted to “double taxation.” That is, the taxpayer must repay the debt, even after losing some of the value of his money to the inflation of the currency. He also seemed to know that the government can’t give more than it takes; the reporter clearly did not recognize that fact.
The CNN reporter also subscribed to the Leviathan theory of government. She suggested that the people we elect to make our laws are free to pass any law they wish. The protestor clearly subscribed to the republican view that we elect leaders to represent us and that we’re not electing them to do as they wish.
The babbling protestor’s biggest mistake was his attempt to frame his views in lofty quotes. He probably would have done a better job of presenting his views if he had used the same words he uses when he talks with his friends and acquaintances.
The CNN reporter’s biggest mistake was that she made no attempt to understand the man’s frame of reference. (That’s mainly what people mean when they accuse reporters of bias.) Instead, she berated the man for being ungrateful for what she saw as the generosity of government leaders. She further suggested that the protests amount to fringe elements claiming that they shouldn’t be required to pay their fair share (whatever that means) in taxes.
We should remind CNN that 56% of the American people—that’s around 170 million people—can not honestly be called fringe something-or-other. You can’t find that many “right wingers” in America.
Over a hundred million liberals, conservatives, libertarians, Southern agrarians, and non-aligned Americans are uniting to take our country back from the banksters, war profiteers, and other perps in the Wall Street/Washington crime syndicate. As Benjamin Franklin said, “We must all hang together or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” This November we can, and must, sweep the rats out of Congress, topple the Axis of Evil, and reclaim our country.
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How News Reporting Really Works, Part 3

Hanlon's Razor runs something like, “Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.” Someone has added, “But don't rule out malice.” Parts 3 and 4 of this series of articles will cover each in its turn. In this article, we're looking at stupidity as an explanation for how the news media get their stories wrong.
In saying that reporters are often stupid, I don't mean that they lack intelligence, or that they have a monopoly on stupidity. As Forrest Gump pointed out,“Stupid is as stupid does.” (And whom did Tom Hanks support in the last election?) It's worth reading Jim Longworth's commentary in which he gives five defining characteristics of stupidity and claims that America is suffering from an epidemic of stupidity.
For starters, reporters don't get their jobs because they understand the things they report. They get their jobs because they can write well enough to be understood and because they're willing to accept the low pay that most reporters receive.
Don't expect reporters to dig for the "real" news in their stories. Investigative reporting is rare and takes more time than most editors allow. The reporter doesn't have time to get the truth; he has only enough time to get a story. He quickly writes it and files it. The next day, it's another story and another deadline.
When a news reporter arrives on the scene, he finds many more facts than he can possibly cover in a story, so he decides on the spot which facts are important enough to report and which aren't. He writes in a style known as inverted pyramid style. In the first paragraph he places what he thinks is the most important information (though it may not be) which must include who, what, when, and where. The "why" and“how" is left to his discretion.
If he fails to understand the frame of reference for the people on whom he's reporting, he's likely to get the "why” and "how" completely wrong. If he does that, he risks getting the story wrong.
Here's an example:
In 1986, Dr. Lee Yuan-tseh received the Nobel Prize for chemistry. The news media acted as if Taiwan's educational system had received the prize. After all, Dr. Lee was, as the story spinners wrote, a product of Taiwan’s educational system. To this day, the media frequently give Taiwan's educational system credit for Dr. Lee's accomplishments. The truth is Dr. Lee, in his view, had to fight Taiwan's educational system every step of the way. Here are his comments.
Reporters write to please their editors, and editors edit to please media owners and advertisers. I'll discuss those guys in the next article.
There are many more stories out there than there are reporters to cover them or newspaper space to print them. How are some stories selected for reporting and all others are ignored?
The editor decides which reporter to send to cover which story. It's more a business decision than a matter of journalistic responsibility.
When Elvis Presley supposedly died, news anchor Dan Rather saw it as less important than some economic news of the day. On that occasion at least, he was choosing journalistic responsibility over ratings. If a news program gets the lead story “wrong,” he has lost his viewers for the rest of the program, and his advertisers won't like that. CBS lost viewers that day. (Please be patient; I'll discuss ulterior motives for editors in the next article in this series.)
The last person to touch a newspaper story is the headline writer. Years ago, I saw a newspaper article reporting the death of a man who had been a leader in the French Underground during World War II. The headline read, “Ex-Nazi Leader Dies.”
I recently heard the following joke about how news stories are written:
An Iranian was visiting Paris when he saw a vicious dog attacking a little girl. At the risk of his own life, he fought the dog to the death. A newspaper reporter praised his heroism and said, “I can see the headlines now: ‘Brave Parisian saves little girl from vicious dog.’”
The Iranian explained that he wasn’t from Paris. “Brave Frenchman, then?” No, he wasn't French. “How about, ‘Brave European'?” No, he wasn't European. He was a Muslim from Iran.
The next day's newspaper headline read, “Islamic terrorist kills little girl's dog.”

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