Robert Gale Ongley

Month: November 2020

  • HAS JOURNALISM BEEN ABANDONED? (PART THREE)

    In working toward an answer to the above question, we have established that news organizations have become increasingly biased in their reporting and thus less trusted by the public at large. Political agendas leaning left or right result in a slanting of the information provided to sway our opinion in a direction desired by those running those media outlets.

    The goal of this final post on this topic is to address what this accusation is really saying and to see just how much truth there is to it. To do so, let’s take a look at the source.

    Rush Limbaugh

    It was on a recent broadcast of this conservative talk show host that I heard him make this declaration. It was probably in October of this year. Chances are he’s been saying this for a long time and that it has been echoed by other conservative talking heads. On Limbaugh’s website, I found the text of one conversation he had with a caller on September 25, 2020. The title for this on the website is “We’re in the Midst of a Violent Revolution Started by the Left, Not by Us!”

    Limbaugh refers to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer, and an interview he did with Anderson Cooper of CNN. He was asked by Cooper about whether he was surprised that the president said he might not be accepting of a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the election. Friedman said “it’s stunning, but it’s not surprising.” He went on to say that we have a president saying he will either win the election or delegitimize the election. Limbaugh questioned the sanity of the journalist, claiming Trump didn’t say those things and that Hillary Clinton had actually suggested to Biden that he never concede if he lost the election.

    Limbaugh continued, stating that the mainstream media doesn’t understand how it is perceived. “I’ll tell you how you’re seen. You’re not seen as fair. You’re not seen as objective. It isn’t even biased. It’s so far beyond bias what you people are. You have abandoned journalism. You have all become activists who exist for one reason, and that is to defeat, however you think it’s necessary, Donald Trump. And journalism obviously is not enough to get that done, so you’ve had to become activists.”

    It has been a longstanding complaint of Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts that the media is liberal and doesn’t offer balanced coverage of world affairs, international or domestic. I hadn’t heard them make this charge, though, that journalism has simply been abandoned for the sake of furthering their agenda. Limbaugh and the others probably consider themselves journalists who are giving us the truth. Fox News trumpets their “fair and balanced” coverage. The approach by all of these conservative media toward journalism has long been called into question for its lack of objectivity.

    Where Do We Stand?

    While I do believe there are valid grounds supporting claims of biased journalism on both sides and plenty of reporting that is plain sensationalism, I think it’s going too far to say journalism has been abandoned.

    A friend of mine who is a writer and publisher went on a cruise with an organization of journalists shortly after Trump was elected. There was a great deal of concern about his attitude toward the press. They feared for the direction of the country and for their freedom to express the truth as they saw it. While they may have had an agenda that leaned left and even openly favored one side over the other, there was still an intention on the part of these journalists to use some degree of truth and honesty in giving us the news.

    I realize now that Limbaugh was targeting journalists for their reporting of political and social events, not necessarily all of what goes on in the world. Local news is reported and investigated with far less agenda in my opinion. Coverage of non-political matters such as philanthropy or sports or human interest stories or daily weather requires no slants, so they are usually straight journalism. No opinions needed. Still, even in the political and social arena, I believe a great deal of journalistic reporting occurs without commentary.

    There must be many examples of this in today’s world. The COVID-19 pandemic has been politicized and there are many opinions about it from many sides, but I see in local news a reporting of the facts (as they understand them) based on official numbers. Field correspondents covering war and weather catastrophes are out there providing an accurate picture of the events they’re covering. Investigative reports into hallowed organizations such as the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America and the Red Cross have given us truths that needed to be revealed when no one wanted to hear them. This is journalism.

    Don’t Give Up

    May the pendulum swing back the other way. We need more unbiased presentation of the news, less agenda-driven journalism. We could certainly use more information on how to build unity, less divisive commentary. But journalism has not been abandoned and we should not abandon a pursuit of the truth. We should demand it.

  • HAS JOURNALISM BEEN ABANDONED? (PART TWO)

    At the end of the first installment of this article, we had established that trust of the media is very low. The question of whether journalism has been abandoned by journalists deserves greater examination without prejudice. That’s where we begin.

    Truth Decay

    The first stop on my journey into the state of journalism is The RAND Corporation. On their website, we read who they are. “The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.”

    In 2018, RAND published a book by Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich titled TRUTH DECAY: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life. The authors define truth decay as “a set of four interrelated trends: an increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. These trends have many causes, but this report focuses on four: characteristics of human cognitive processing, such as cognitive bias; changes in the information system, including social media and the 24-hour news cycle; competing demands on the education system that diminish time spent on media literacy and critical thinking; and polarization, both political and demographic. The most damaging consequences of Truth Decay include the erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis, alienation and disengagement of individuals from political and civic institutions, and uncertainty over national policy.”

    When CNN was launched in 1980, it became the first all-news network and the first 24-hour news network on television. While there is always something happening on our planet, it doesn’t necessarily qualify as news. Ratings are important to any television network and such things as scientific breakthroughs, new inventions or personal accomplishments usually don’t make the grade. Repeating what are deemed as major stories, which often have to do with war and all manner of violence or conflict of some kind, needs to occur so we are all aware of the events that could ruin our sense of peace and security. Okay, I’m letting my cynicism filter through here, but no one can deny that bad news trumps good news in the news universe. So, the big stories are repeated.

    Somewhere along the timeline, CNN executives must have realized it would be interesting to have newscasters, contributors and guests editorialize about the news. Enter opinionated broadcasts. Of course, this wasn’t new. There had been op-ed pieces as part of the newspaper business for a long time. Radio was doing talk shows with political argument since at least the 1940s. Commentators on TV had been analyzing the news since Meet the Press back in 1947. Only thing is, there is a big difference in the discourse of those shows and what we see on cable news networks now. Kavanagh writes, ““Journalism in the U.S. has become more subjective and consists less of the detailed event- or context-based reporting that used to characterize news coverage.”

    This phenomena has become so pronounced now that some news outlets are clearly compromised in their presentation of current events. Our recent election coverage is an excellent example. Trump boasts months beforehand that the only way he can lose is if the election is “rigged.” He then took actions that could hamstring the U.S. Postal Service when it comes to mail-in ballots. He demanded the vote count be stopped in certain places and made claims of voter fraud. To date, none of the lawsuits he has had filed have found any traction in the courts. They’re finding no factual basis for these claims. The media responded along partisan lines, with the mainstream outlets calling his claims false and baseless from the outset and the conservative commentators jumping on the Trump bandwagon without waiting to see if there is any credible evidence of irregularities in our traditionally stable and secure election proceedings.

    With constant bombardment of information from television, radio, the internet and social media, we find it more difficult to discern what is true. Journalists, whether concentrating on just the facts or offering stories based on something less than factual, have a tough sell to a tough crowd. Paul Simon’s lyric from The Boxer, “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” is ringing true.

    Murky Waters

    We’re swimming in a sea of doubt amid sharks with opinions for teeth. It must be frustrating for old school journalists who doggedly pursue their work with integrity and high purpose. Is it still the norm that a journalist confirms a story with a second source instead of publishing or broadcasting on the word of just one? With all the competition for breaking news and headline-worthy content, there must be tremendous pressure on journalists to produce.

    In our final installment on whether journalism has been abandoned, we’ll search for the source of this allegation and explore the depth of its validity.