Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
Not saying that it is. The point was not to question this particular report, but to use it as example how easily the press could be misled by “evidence.” Just because someone hands you something doesn’t mean it’s real. The power to create misleading or purely false documentation is in the hands of nearly everyone. And that is why single-sourced, nobody on the record stories should always be viewed with great suspicion.
As for the WSJ having conservative ownership, that’s a hollow argument. The ownership is the same as the Fox Television Network and 20th Century Fox movie studios that spill out a lot of liberal filth. Ownership rarely exhibits daily editorial control of any media content.
That a department store is not a political operation is also not a reasonable assumption for you to make. For progressives, all things are political. Like the bathrooms of Target, which you may happen to know is a department store. Or the bathrooms of an arena in Charlotte, where the business of the National Basketball Association reneged on holding the 2017 All-Star game – for political reasons.
You may declare any and all businesses “non-political” but progressives are unlikely to pay attention.
This story has documents. Documents don’t require multiple sources. If you think the WSJ is proffering fake documents, that’s a very serious charge. Let’s see some evidence. Otherwise, you’re just speculating to make your point.
That’s true except in the case of Rupert’s news operations. They are all conservative.
That’s a ridiculous comparison. That was a protest over a law, not a particular product. Come on. Stay on topic. P.S. the law only affected public spaces. Target elected to build the bathrooms on their own. And it backfired on them. But again, this is off topic.
As I said, if progressives declined to buy Ivanka’s product, that’s not Nordstrom’s fault. Are they supposed to lose money to support a cause?
Never go full Rather.
No? How’d those Texas Air National Guard documents work out for CBS?
What you have is an antiquated notion of journalism and sourcing. Which is specifically why I say this is a “crisis,” and not just a “problem.” The vast majority of people no longer trust the media and with good reason. They’ve been lied to, misled, or been kept in the dark too long. If they no longer have the trust of the people it’s because they’ve worked hard to earn that distrust.
But again, at no point did I ever make the accusation you claim I do. But even if I did, proving the veracity of facts presented is not the reader’s job. It’s the job of the reporter to get someone from the company to go on the record and avouch for their authenticity. When media says, “these are the facts,” they need to prove it. Journalism is not “here is my story, now you prove me wrong.”
To say that the NBA or Target’s reaction was more justified because it was a reaction to North Carolina’s bathroom law is absurd as well. In the NBA’s case the league broke a legally binding contract. The league demanded from the taxpayers of North Carolina $33M in renovations to the Charlotte Arena in exchange for the All-Star Game. Here is a business fleecing the public purse and demanding veto over state law?
As for Target, they announced a national policy, not one limited to North Carolina. It was a progressive political position taken by a business. It happens all the time.
You just cannot say a business is not a political operation. When you’re stranded on the savanna you can say you have no interest in the lions. That doesn’t mean the lions aren’t interested in you.
PS – I can’t go “off topic.” It’s my topic!
And they ended Dan Rather’s career. The system worked then and I expect it would work here too. If you have evidence that the WSJ has forged documents, you should make your case. It worked wonders for the Powerline guys. Otherwise, shhhh.
Maybe it’s antiquated. Got a better one? If you do, I would expect there’s money to be made. Get on it, son.
Hmm, that sounds suspiciously like an “antiquated notion of journalism and sourcing.” Thought that was out the window now?
P.S. Clearly someone ID’d the docs as legit. That’s all they need, in my opinion more importantly in the opinion of the WSJ editors and lawyers.
Never used the word justified. I used the word different because it’s an entirely different situation. If the NBA broke a contract, then the great state of North Carolina should sue them. I’m guessing the reason they didn’t is because the NBA had a force majure clause in the contract.
So what? That’s their prerogative. Some businesses are progressive, some (Hobby Lobby) aren’t. But most businesses are loathe to stop carrying products that sell. For whatever reason, Ivanka’s weren’t. And we have the docs (yes, I know — you think they were FORGED by the agenda laden WSJ!) to prove it.
I don’t get the metaphor. Ivanka sells shoes and handbags. Nordstom’s couldn’t move them. Occam’s razor.
Sure you can.
That is exactly the problem. The crisis that has befallen the media is trust with the public. Because the public knows what I know, that the media is always ripe for manipulation and technology is available to anyone that wants to do it. That an editor or lawyer signed off on it is not proof.
Editors, executive producers, lawyers have signed off on hundreds of stories that don’t pass muster.
That is why single sourced and anonymous sourced stories are no longer worthy of trust. The old ways aren’t going to cut it anymore.
As far as the metaphor is concerned, the point is you can claim anything is non-political. If the progressives want to make it political, it is political.
You’re lumping all of the media into one basket and I don’t think that’s fair or accurate. The WSJ is not the same outfit as Breitbart and I judge them very differently.
To that end, I’ve worked at the WSJ, I’ve seen the systems they have in place, and I know several of the editors, including Gerald Baker, the EIC. I trust them. Maybe you don’t. OK, that’s your call.
Look, all systems built by humans can fail. Planes crash, trains derail, newspapers print erroneous stories. But you’re supposing that there is an agenda at play in this Ivanka story. I don’t see it if for no other reason than it’s just not important enough to go through the effort to fake it. At least Dan Rather tried to take down a sitting President. What would be the possible motive here? To screw up Ivanka’s P&L? Again, Occam’s razor.
This posting was about an entire industry that is in crisis because public trust in it has cratered. To that end, the old ways of doing business are no longer sufficient. If you’re in a hole, then rule number one is stop digging. Change or die.
I did not claim the story was fake, either in the original posting or elsewhere in the comments. I merely used it as an example of how any story, large or small, is vulnerable because of the technology that’s now in virtually everyone’s hands. Only one person in this thread has made that connection in his own head and that’s you. For some reason you have taken it down the rabbit hole, either out of personal loyalty to the people at The Journal, your own personal distaste of all things Trump, or a combination of the two.
Who does? Asymmetric information is total now. There is no broadly credible screening mechanism. There is no way to know what is real, except ones own experience.
I think @ejhill qualified his observation and stayed short of alleging any conspiracy?
Meanwhile, WSJ reporters are pushing to get more anti-Trump like their brethren…
EJ, it appears that Jonathan Tobin at National Review has observed the same things as you ….
This crisis (and I agree it is a crisis) has been building for decades. I fired my local newspaper in 1995, long before photoshop on the internet was a thing. Why? Because I caught them lying about the pros- and cons- of gun control and concealed carry in the context of South Carolina’s debate over shall-issue reform. { This was a watershed moment in my long journey from liberal youth to conservative middle age. }
Photoshop and Blender are tools that let the masses play in the propaganda game, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. The knowledge and dispersed skills that make crowd-sourced propaganda possible have also educated the public about other propaganda methods, and the “journalists” who’ve been responsible for promoting them. Especially the big one: Lying by omission.
I have close family in the newspaper business, and I can practically see reality bending around them, they’re so deep in the bubble. They have no idea how reviled their profession has become.
Good examples. Most of the green screen compositing is almost seamless and would not be noticed unless one were carefully looking. So was some of the small scale purer CGI (adding in snowfall, etc.). The large scale purer CGI (e.g., the burning ship) was more noticeably fake.
It would be pretty to think the TANG documents ended Dan Rather’s career. They did not. They did not even end his career at CBS. Rather resigned to protest Mary Mapes well-deserved firing. Dan Rather is teaching journalistic ethics courses now. And according to him he did nothing wrong.
Your example underscores EJ Hill’s point.
Seawriter
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/11/fake-news-king-dan-rather-relies-on-fake-news-to-criticize-trump-transition
Fake news King Dan Rather relies on fake news …
Let me one last observation about the dangers reporters face in authenticating their sources.
As Yeti points out, in the old days a reporter only had to ask himself a couple of questions: What’s the source’s motives and is the story big enough to lie about. The oft cited Occam’s razor (i.e., the simplest and most straightforward answer is most often the truth) held them in good stead.
But that was a culture that no longer exists. Now is the day of the jackass, when the ultimate thrill is creating something that goes viral. How many likes, how many tweets, how many mentions did you get? Big or small, smart or stupid, clever or crass, the new catchphrase is “Watch this,” followed by a hefty dose of “Hold my beer.”
I want the media to regain its credibility. It is essential for our democracy. Asking them to step up their game, to be more cautious and thorough, to throw out rules that no longer work, should not be viewed as a sin.
Editor Note:
Personalizing, playing the man.They effectively ended his career at CBS long before he wanted it to end. Yes, he stayed on at CBS for a while (because Rather pleaded with them and CBS was loathe to have to pay him out without at least some work product), but he was relegate to the dreaded human interest and pet stories for the remainder of his career there. [redacted]
Nice try on your part, but you are deflecting. His career was not ended. He chose to take it in a different direction. I do not believe I am the one who has to try harder. Not when Dan Rather is teaching ethics to journalists.
Seawriter
Editor Note:
Playing the man.If you think Dan Rather, Cronkite’s hand pick heir and the inheritor of Edward R. Murrow’s Tiffany Network news department is happy that he’s ending his career teaching news ethics online, and pontificating on Facebook, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. I can go on that site and start teaching a course called Open Heart Surgery For Beginners. That doesn’t make me a cardiologist. [redacted]
Keep digging that hole. You will get to China eventually.
Seawriter
I think you only want the media to report using the same criteria you’d use. These are people, not robots (although I’m sure the robots will be here soon enough). Biases are part of being human. Always have.
What’s the problem here? An ongoing conversation between an editor and his reporters about how to best cover a President who has his own well documented issues with the truth (5 million illegal voters, the biggest inauguration crowds in history, etc, etc). Seems to me this is exactly what you want in a news organization.
P.S. I note with some irony that EJ is now a fan of The Huffington Post (!). I can only assume it’s because they published a story that supports his narrative. Huh. Interesting how that works…
Good answer!
Editor Note:
Playing the man.[redacted] If you claim a story isn’t true for whatever reason, then what is it?
No. Just a fan of this MZHemingway person. (Z for Zelda?)
Stricken; argumentative.
I think she will be in the co-host chair on the podcast this week.
Ha!
I have seen a great OP in this post, where the CEO of Ricochet came in and made this personal, and attacked the OP in several posts, one of which questions the OP’s motives. I am pleased to see the Editors were able to say something, but this looks really, really bad.
If the goal is to drive away the likes of EJHill by questioning his motives, then Ricochet is sick.