We Don’t Need No Stinking Balance. We Need the Truth.
Would you really use the same scale to measure BS and gold?
by
Myra Jolivet, SMPS
I hesitated to blame my former colleagues, the esteemed members of the Fourth Estate, for the deterioration and manipulation of facts in today’s news reporting. However, any news organization that would consider hiring an election denier willing to overthrow a fair election is part of the problem—they all are. Our political system is now a kaleidoscope of normalized destructive lies because of misguided editorial decisions to seek balance rather than truth.
Was NBC serious, or was it a bad dream?
I remember this:
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of accurate, fair, and thorough information. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.
The Society declares these four principles as the foundation of ethical journalism and encourages their use in its practice by all people in all media.
· Seek Truth and Report It
· Minimize Harm
· Act Independently
· Be Accountable and Transparent
I got into the business in the late 1970s, paying dues at small-town TV stations and learning a craft that seemed easier in a college textbook than in a real newsroom. We had to find the truth, present it with sources, and fight the clock to get it on the air. If we didn’t know our source, some producer yelled, “Find it,” or your story was dropped and didn’t see the light of day.
I’m not sure the word “attribution” still exists because I haven’t heard it used in decades. The result of all this fast-food news has made it a breeding ground for unethical acts and a source of confusion for the voting public. When media members don’t require supported facts, the result is an information shit show of unfounded accusations, taglines, and lies.
Few institutions are more critical to a democratic society than a free and independent media. Such freedom requires the public, elected officials, and civic organizations to support truth, fairness, and balance in reporting and to insist that media outlets honor the principles that empower them. (this use of balance comes with truth and fairness)
Nicholas Johnson, former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission
When I entered the world of television news decades ago, the charge was to seek facts, not feelings. If we knew information was false, we had an obligation to the audience to identify it as such or not report it. This was why we refused to report claims by those harshly known as the tin foil hat callers. We were not obligated to present their side of visitors from Mars scanning their bodies.
One evening at KHOU TV in Houston, an inebriated caller asked if he could do the night's weather. The producer asked if he was a meteorologist; he replied, “What’s that?” Call over. There was no obligation to offer him airtime for his perspective. Experience and expertise still mattered.
Unlike a town hall meeting, protest, or political rally, television news is supposed to have a higher calling: to wade through the bull and find the facts.
In the 1970s, producers, executive producers, and news directors were former AP, UPI, or network reporters heading toward retirement. They came to small-town TV stations and terrorized those of us in our first jobs, fresh from the soft spaces of a college classroom where stories were due in two days versus two hours in the real world.
Those old guys fascinated and horrified me. For one, they could smoke the same cigar for a week. They also had BS meters that worked overtime. They could smell a lie before it entered the studio.
I remember covering the story of some treatment plant. (It was too long ago to remember the details.) I worked hard and thought it was a solid piece. When it was edited, and the news director reviewed it, he said, “Great piece . . .. if you’re doing PR for the company. Start over.” I did. Sadly, that piece would’ve made it on air today.
At a time when images of Murrow still haunted newsrooms, it was clear we were under no obligation to present everyone’s version of the truth. We had the more challenging, higher calling of checking sources and facts to discern if we were being given a PR job, or the truth. It made deadlines fiercer and the job harder. But it also provided the entire news organization with a BS meter that guarded the public against most of the intentional lies created to control them for one reason or another. That’s what advertising was for.
To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful. Edward R. Murrow
NBC hit the motherload of dysfunction when it decided it was a good idea to hire an election denier—against all proof of no election fraud—as a political commentator. If it weren’t so pathetic a decision, it would be funny. What was the thinking? Are we so balanced that we hire liars? Right…
My Black girl's mind tells a different story; an in-house election denier within NBC wanted to give voice to the lies. But does the in-house denier understand the full agenda of the trump crowd? It’s not a free press, for damn sure. It’s not a free anything, but free reign for a handful of their cult leaders to cheat the public, steal money and resources, and undermine a system that gives voice to people unlike them. That means overthrowing the media, as well. Nothin’ holy in that. And if you’d buy a Bible from that con, I have a bridge in San Francisco you can put a down payment on.
New rule for journalists: Stop working on balance. It is quicksand. There’s no balancing lies against truth. And learn to identify and disqualify snake oil sales from real news. I’d rather see a worthless car chase over an interview with a red hat-wearing, altered-reality pimp.
For the sake of God and country, please don’t hire those who are today’s more dangerous version of the tin foil hat crowd. Most of them have shown us that they’re intentional liars bent on overthrowing the U.S. as we know it.
And for God’s sake, raise your standards.