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The Crisis in Journalism Is Here
Back in the early 1980’s two budding disasters were about to hit the media world — my career in television and the arrival of the personal computer. The first disaster was mitigated to a great degree but the second one is just now beginning to hit its stride. Let me explain.
One of the first things I did upon graduating with a degree in Mass Media was to purchase a subscription to Broadcasting magazine (now rebranded as Broadcasting & Cable) In the back section on electronic journalism in one issue was an article I remember as being titled, “The Coming Crisis in Journalism.” The author cautioned that digital compositing of images was going to reach a point where even the most cynical and demanding journalist could be duped into running a story that simply wasn’t true because he couldn’t deny the images he was being shown by a source.
In the late ’80s the Knoll brothers, Thomas (a Ph.D. student at Michigan) and John (a pioneer in image manipulation at Industrial Light and Magic), created Image-Pro, a set of computer tools that would eventually emerge commercially as Photoshop when they sold the idea to Adobe Software. But the “coming crisis” would prove slow in coming.
It wasn’t until home computer equipment became powerful enough to replicate the things folks were seeing in the movies that the real mischief was about to begin. Suddenly kids (and I do mean kids) were doing things in the basement that would have taken millions of dollars to pull off just a decade earlier. And not just in photography and graphic arts but in video as well.
Which brings us to today and the Age of Trump.
Donald Trump is an essential part of this equation, primarily because he is the most reviled political figure since Richard Nixon. Whereas George W. Bush had his share of lunatic detractors on the fringes of the far left, Trump has made the lunatics mainstream, not only on the left but on the right as well because he has upended decades of conservative dogma.
Bury My Heart on the Dakota Pipeline Access Project
Here’s the most recent example. When the President ordered a reversal of his predecessor’s decision not to build the Dakota Access Pipeline, someone took a publicity still from the 2007 HBO movie Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, cropped it, digitally added snow and haybales and announced to the world that the Feds and local LEOs were burning down the encampments set up by Native American protesters.
It was a little too clumsy. Not many professional journalists bit on that one but it still was widely shared on social media by the people who truly wanted to believe it was true.
One bit of fakery that was picked up originated with the husband and wife film making team of Laura Moss and Brendan O’Brien. Using public domain footage they created two “commercials” for the non-existent campaign of the President’s father for New York City mayor. After they were uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo, independent producer Devin Landin shared them on Facebook with the following description, “See if you can catch all the subtle allusions in this ad for Fred Trump. (Spoiler: they’re not subtle at all!) What is it they say about apples and trees and distance?”
Hillary Clinton’s rabid chihuahua, Sidney Blumenthal ran with it from there. Writing in The London Review of Books, Blumenthal wrote:
In 1969, Fred Trump plotted to run for mayor of New York against John Lindsay, a silk-stocking liberal Republican. The reason was simple: in the wake of a New York State Investigations Commission inquiry that uncovered Fred’s overbilling scams, the Lindsay administration had deprived him of a development deal at Coney Island. He made two test television commercials. One of them, called ‘Dope Man’, featured a drug-addled black youth wandering the streets. ‘With four more years of John Lindsay,’ the narrator intoned, ‘he will be coming to your neighbourhood soon.’ The ad flashed to the anxious faces of two well-dressed white women. ‘Vote for Fred Trump. He’s for us.’ The other commercial, ‘Real New Yorkers’, showed scenes of ‘real’ people from across the city, all of them white. Fred Trump, the narrator said, ‘is a real New Yorker too’. In the end he didn’t run, but his campaign themes were bequeathed to his son.
The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler, the man who writes their “Fact Checker” column shared them on Twitter until someone pointed out an anachronism in the videos. Supposedly produced in 1969 they carried “Paid For” disclaimers not in use until the early part of the 21st Century.
The London Review of Books deleted the reference in Blumenthal’s essay and put in this “correction”:
A paragraph referring to Fred Trump’s campaign for mayor of New York, although it accurately reflected Trump’s racial attitudes and his hostility towards Mayor John Lindsay, has been removed because the campaign ads referred to appear to be clever fakes.
Oh, my. They went full Dan Rather there, didn’t they? “Fake” but “accurate.”
Daniel Payne, writing in The Federalist, recently listed 16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won, which includes stories that were even repeated on this website.
Which brings me back to the Ivanka Trump/Nordstroms controversy from earlier this week. Two Wall Street Journal reporters wrote that it was purely a business decision and that was backed up by internal Nordstrom documents. Since no one from Nordstrom actually commented on the record, how did these reporters verify the provenance of these documents? Even if they had seen previous examples (that are no doubt computer-generated in the first place) would they know false documents if they saw them? Probably not. But because it ran in the Journal no one stops and asks if it’s true. I’m not saying that is or isn’t. But it was a single-sourced story and the track record of the truth is getting poorer and poorer. So, don’t disparage me if I take anything and everything with a grain of salt. No. These days I usually need a salt block.
It’s getting harder and harder to kick in the needed amnesia to believe anything that comes from the media. They’ve shot the wad of their credibility and we’re all poorer for it.
Published in Journalism
Z. is for Ziegler, which is her maiden name. I am also a Mollie fan. She is missed around here.
My problem with the MSM isn’t that “they make it all up”, or “it’s all lies”. If the Los Angeles Times reports that eleven tuna boats were seized by the DEA, and here’s a statement by the Ventura County Sheriff, I believe ’em. If they say there’s a dissident faction in Space X and it’s causing friction in Hawthorne, they’re probably right.
My issue with them is judgment about what’s important to put in the paper. The LAT really, really believes that the death of a 98 year old radical is an important moment in our civic life, because this Stalin stooge “worked for peace”. Or that what’s about to flip control of the government to the GOP is a sideshow, a byproduct of racism. Or that we need to convert transportation to electricity, then we need to study how electricity might cause nerve damage, then we need to build more hospitals for all the damaged individuals who live near the electric lines (this is not a joke; it’s an actual LAT story), then we need to make sure the new hospitals are located out of racial equity, then we have to make sure that mass transit runs to them, then we have to make sure enough of the new facilities are named after disadvantaged people of the distant past.
The facts aren’t the problem; the deranged sense of priorities is.
Multi-liking this point.
I made a few pointed jokes that were correctly redacted. His motives were never questioned nor did I attack him. We’ve had an offline conversation about it as well.
I think this is a very fair point. We need more politically diverse newsrooms.
Breaking: fair and balanced journalism lives another day at the WSJ:
The thing about journalism that I notice is the way the Associated Press keeps working editorial content into the middle of news articles. Shame on them.
I hope it was civil. ;)
To say Trump said the crowd was the biggest in history is a prime example of fake news. Sean Spicer said that the audience, both in person and around the world, was the largest in history.
And for everyone else, I’d like you to notice that while, yes, Blue Yeti is the boss, he doesn’t expect everyone who works for him to think the same way that he does. It should be fairly obvious to everyone that I am the most pro-Trump member of the Ricochet staff. (And just to clarify — contributors do not “work for” Ricochet. But nonetheless, we have many contributors in varying degrees of support or opposition to the administration.) I’m grateful for a work environment in which I can disagree with my boss on political or policy issues. That often isn’t possible on the Left.
Unfortunately, this particular bit of fake news was also to be found here on Ricochet. Attempts to correct it were dismissed or misunderstood. The crisis in journalism is, indeed, here.
I ordered Max to write this comment (except for the part where he accused me of spreading fake news).
P.S. Here’s the direct quote from Spicer: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in-person and around the globe.” So he was in fact claiming that the local crowd was the largest. Nope.
I think you italicized the wrong words. :-D
“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in-person and around the globe.” The “largest audience” is inclusive of “in-person” and “around the globe.” The “audience” comprises “in-person” and “around the globe.”
One could make the argument that the syntax is unclear, except for that Spicer repeatedly stated afterward that he meant the total audience.
The Federalist did a good roundup:
http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/06/16-fake-news-stories-reporters-have-run-since-trump-won/
John Fund wrote about how the New York Times lied about a speech that Steve Bannon gave:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444839/washington-aims-destroy-steve-bannon-hysterical-character-assassination
Yes, this has been explained several times, as I noted above, but to no avail. One more time is probably not going to do the trick, Max.
Seems like he made that decision after the fact, but OK, I’ll give you that one. I note you have not refuted the 3-5 million illegal votes claim.
Yeti,
This appears to me to questioning EJ’s motives. If that was not your intent, understand that coupled with the snarky comments, it looks that way. The PS was not needed to make your point in the post. It would have been better to attack the source directly, instead of deriding EJ as being a “fan”.
Just two cents on how one customer sees it,
Bryan
Right. But that doesn’t matter to those who insist on interpreting in the most hostile manner possible. This is also part of the crisis. People are being misled intentionally. It’s quite clear.
As to ‘documents’ reporting Ivanka Trump’s line of clothing sales reports, I’d be very interested in hearing how they are definitive. How detailed were these reports? These things can be, and are, manipulated constantly in the retail fashion world. The numbers are extremely difficult to make definitive because of initial costs, payment deals, initial markup, sales discounts, and other contractual buy-back/return policies. There are seasonal variations and things must be compared to overall sales data for the period to be fair. Prominence in display and merchandising is also a factor. Then there is the calculation that some other line would do better in it’s place, the cost of terminating the relationship with a designer and more. So these decisions are never made on some “document(s)” alone. It is as much an art as a science. To declare that there are some definitive documents that corroborate this decision is pretty lame if you understand the fashion world.
So I’d not just take some reporters word after seeing some documents alone. EJ is perfectly justified in questioning this ‘fact’ as reported by the WSJ.
Since the number of illegal votes is not known, I’m not sure how this could have ever been declared as a “fact”, nor could it be disproved as such. It’s probably a best case estimate based upon how voting totals change after safeguards are put in place.
And surely you can see that this was a masterful stroke on the part of President Trump: he got the press talking about a subject they have to date complete ignored and denied even existed: voter fraud.
I never heard a number more than 3 million. That’s the high end of their claim. I did some research already. The headlines say it, then in the body of the story there are no quotes, just reports that he “said” 3-5 million. CNN and WaPo both claim he said it in headlines but there’s no quote anywhere in the story. I’m suspicious now whenever there is no actual quote. Sometimes I see speculation planted in a long question, then if it isn’t singled-out and disclaimed, it’s taken as fact by these people.
I’m seeing this more and more these days. Often it is egregious misrepresentation of what was actually said. In the case of ambiguity they take the worst interpretation and run with it despite subsequent clarifications.
Other times they just frame the context themselves and use three to five words cherry-picked from a quote.
So the claim that he said 3-5 million is false itself.
It’s really sad to see people who should know better fall for this and repeat it.
Word salad. The reason the press is talking about it is because it’s an absurd claim by the President. If Trump makes the claim that there are 3 to 5 million illegal votes being cast, then it’s incumbent on him to provide the evidence. If I say the moon is made of cheese, it’s not the press’s job to investigate it. I have to bring the proof.
It’s amazing this new limbo zone that Trump and the media are stuck in. Trump makes a speculative claim (it’s obviously speculation because there has been no comprehensive study) based on how many illegals are registered to vote (11 million?) and past known instances of voter fraud. It might be 3 million, it might be one million, it might be 100,000. But it’s not zero. Can we agree on that? Ok, now we are just “negotiating price” as the man said to the woman who agreed to sleep with him for a million dollars.
But the media claims there’s no evidence and therefore it’s false, or “debunked” as I saw in one headline. This itself is false.
Bad analogy. We know there’s voter fraud, we just don’t know how much. If we knew that some of the moon was made of cheese, it wouldn’t be bad speculation or beyond reason to speculate that a lot of the moon might be made of cheese. To say that it’s impossible for there to be more cheese on the moon because there’s no evidence that a whole continent on the moon was made of cheese – maybe even Swiss, or possibly Gouda – is irrational on it’s face.
The press doesn’t want to get into an honest discussion about this. They only need to ask, “how do you know those figures are accurate?” The answer is, we don’t, let’s find out. They have given this answer. Instead the press wants to claim Trump is making unsubstantiated and wild claims about voter fraud and it’s been debunked. It hasn’t been debunked. And it’s interesting that they’d rather say it’s debunked than actually do it.
The point of the cheese analogy is to wonder why the press or anyone else should waste their time running down baseless claims that no one had ever made just because Trump says it. The press doesn’t want to claim it, they are only reporting it.
P.S. here’s the dishonest Fox News reporting on the 3-5 million illegal votes claim.
You just wasted my time. I had to read that report and watch the video to be sure that there was no quote. And sure enough there wasn’t. Did you read my comment? Maybe the problem here is that you don’t read. Was I not clear? You just slap on a link that is exactly the kind of report I’m referring to. My argument stands and is fortified by you blithe dismissals and appeal to authority.
And it’s not a “baseless claim” at all. There is voter fraud, millions of illegals are registered to vote. We actually don’t know how many votes were fraudulently cast.
Now I’m sure the press doesn’t want to “waste it’s time” chasing down allegations of voter fraud because that would affect their electoral results for decades to come.
I guarantee you if Republicans had been able to import millions of immigrants from Cuba and other communist countries who were inclined to vote for them for an amnesty pact, the media, AKA Democrats, would be very interested in voter fraud.
Well, I had to look up “word salad”:
“a confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases, specifically (in psychiatry) as a form of speech indicative of advanced schizophrenia.”
I don’t think I’m the confused one. You might not agree with what Trump is doing, but I don’t see how that makes my opinion confused or unintelligible.
There is ZERO evidence of mass voter fraud. Zero. Not from pollsters, not from other Republican politicians, not from Republicans involved with the process of tallying votes. But sure, keep claiming it. I’m sure it’s good for rallying the base and for creating conditions to make any future election suspect no matter what the outcome.
John Fund: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/368234/voter-fraud-weve-got-proof-its-easy-john-fund
The claim is 3 to 5 million illegal votes, not the handful that is documented in this piece.
I’m with Yeti on that one. Millions of illegals? No. I don’t see a drop of evidence for anything on that scale or even one hundredth of that scale. I don’t let Elizabeth Warren do my thinking for me, but I don’t leave it to Mark Levin either.
Sure, I get aggravated with Dems who claim that nothing could disturb the impermeable shield that has never let so much as a vote go by, blah blah, when the same people went nuts in 2000 over loose standards at the polls. There’s nothing racial about it; People registered to vote in more than one state can be as white as can be; I don’t care if they’re committing fraud by voting once in New York and once in Florida. Vote fraud is real, and it was an issue decades before Trump brought it up. Let’s wipe it out.
Thousands of votes could be at stake. Millions? Gimme the proof. No, “hey, it could have happened” isn’t proof.
Wouldn’t it be so convenient if it turned out that the whole system is rigged? Maybe too convenient? Remember how supposedly there was a pill that could turn water into gasoline but the oil companies wouldn’t let us find out about it? Don’t circulate stories unless you’re convinced there’s honest-to-God backup.
Both media and governments have lied to me.
Both have lost my trust.