The answer to dishonest or partisan journalism cannot be more partisan journalism, which would only harm our credibility and make civil discourse even less possible. The response to administration insults cannot be to remake ourselves in the mold of their accusations.
…So far, I believe The Post has been setting the standard in this difficult job. It is not boasting for me to say so, because as editorial page editor I have no input in The Post’s news coverage. I am only a reader, like all of you.
Of course, I disagree the the Post has been setting a standard. And in fact, as of now, the Post’s web site is telling readers that the shooting at a Mosque in Quebec is a Trump-inspired hate crime.
the context of the attack was inescapable, coming after a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric, behavior and vandalism in the United States and Canada, amid a heated debate about President Trump’s executive order temporarily shutting U.S. borders to refugees and migrants from seven mostly Muslim countries.
It could turn out that the shooters were inspired by Trump. I have no idea. But I think that this way of framing the story is at best premature. And if it turns out to be wrong, it is irresponsible. Just stick to the facts, and spare us the “context.”
UPDATE: Unlike the Post story, which mentions Trump several times, the Globe and Mail account, which includes more facts and only facts, does not mention his name once.
UPDATE 2: Currently, the suspect is described in other media as anti-immigrant. If it holds up, it goes a long way toward exonerating the Post.
If you can’t see the WaPo’s obvious bias, then nothing would convince you they are biased. Like most major media outlets, they see Trump and his supporters as Stupid/Evil, and they evaluate every fact through that lens.
Propaganda doesn’t work very well if the very content you are propagating declares the publisher to be in the propaganda business. One has to affirmatively deny it, and claim that the reported content is generated by reliable and objective mechanisms, no matter what the authors and editors think about it.
“If you can’t see the WaPo’s obvious bias, then nothing would convince you they are biased. Like most major media outlets, they see Trump and his supporters as Stupid/Evil, and they evaluate every fact through that lens.”
what do you even mean by bias in this case? if the reality is that trump and most of his supporters are stupid/evil/deluded, then what is the unbiased way to act as a journalist? is it unbiased to repeat WH talking points as headlines without providing context for the blatant manipulation? is it unbiased to let KellyAnn be quoted or interviewed without being attacked for her clear lies?
the unbiased reality is that most trump supporters are confused, to a greater degree than the typical political supporter. when the WH amps media manipulation up to 11, there’s really no choice but to be oppositional.
The bias is in the framing of the story, the adjectives chosen, and the headlines (the last not always the fault of the author, btw.). Even Vox has had it with the WaPo’s anti-Trump tones:
http://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/27/14405542/washington-post-state-department-resignations
No. A quarter of all voters are deplorable. Get it straight.
Yes, of course, Trump, with all his “America First” rhetoric, is responsible for anti-Islamic terrorism (assuming that’s what it was) by French speakers in a foreign country.
FWIW, last I saw, the Quebec incident appears to be Muslim-on-Muslim terrorism.
” Currently, the suspect is described in other media as anti-immigrant. If it holds up, it goes a long way toward exonerating the Post.”
Then by this metric we should likewise blame the actions of crazy immigrant terrorists DIRECTLY on pro-immigrant policy makers? It seems like few people would do that.
I don’t remember anyone of note saying Pulse was because of Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi. When police were ambushed, people blamed the BLM rhetoric and thd media for sure, but I don’t remember newspapers saying Obama was directly to blame. Crazy people do crazy things because they are crazy.
And of course, Trump is likely an effect more than a cause. He chose his rhetoric because his constituency was not being serviced by the people who jumped the shark in their pro-immigration rhetoric.
He has also not said anything that was anti-immigrant, per se. He says things so they get heard that way, possibly by both sides, but his target is obviously millions of nationalists, not a handful of wackos.
I don’t see why it will exonerate the post, they made the statements before the facts were known and before they or anyone else knows the man’s reasoning. Also it appears this guy has been unhinged for many years, well before trump and his campaign.
Getting back to media bias more generally, the notion of “The Narrative” is extremely useful. Hope I’m not just repeating myself here.
John Schindler has written about “The cancer of advocacy journalism”which partakes of The Narrative.
https://20committee.com/2014/12/09/the-cancer-of-advocacy-journalism/
Most of what I know about the Narrative I’ve learned from Steve Sailer. I thought this was one of his best takes on it:
http://takimag.com/article/from_orwell_to_gladwell_and_back_steve_sailer/print#axzz4XIMiaScn
He finds the Narrative usefully defined here by Stephen Hunter:
http://leadandgold.blogspot.com/2011/05/insider-explains-narrative.html
Arnold,
You are better than your quip that “it goes a long way toward exonerating the Post.” There is no excuse for any writing that blames a person for another person’s murderous actions when no such relationship between the persons nor their actions exists.
I’m loathe to pile on but I think the claim of exoneration is stretching it too far. As bad as Trump’s anti-immigration policy is, there’s such a thing as personal responsibility for violence such as murder conducted in another country.
It’s too early to know the murderer’s motives but an equally premature view could cut the other way – that this madman was incensed by Troudeau’s tolerent policies.
Prof. Arnold, one thing I respect about you is your ability to write blog posts that do not slavishly react to the 24 hour news cycle. You once asserted (IIRC) that you plan your posts about three days ahead of time, so that at time t you post an entry that you wrote at (t – 3 days). It shows.
Many bloggers seem to write on the events of the moment. It may be required for journalists. In that case The Narrative seems to emerge with some spontaneity–perhaps it comes out effortlessly. The journalist’s mission often seems to be to tell the public what happened but also what to think.
My own tendency (at least something to aspire to) is to read the newspaper a few days after it comes out. Obviously, this will not work with radio or TV consumption. Sometimes my resolve crumbles and I read current news, but I find it less psychologically destabilizing to maintain a few days separation between the event and my learning about it. Or sometimes longer.
Occasionally find myself teaching a unit on a topic like the Yugoslav Wars of Dissolution or the Rwandan Genocide. I never paid all that much attention to those things when they happened–often they were on the fringe of my consciousness. The generated headlines. At the time I couldn’t indulge any deep fascination with them because of my coursework or research.
In retrospect, perhaps two or three years after those events they started to resolve into some sort of coherent story in my head, rather than largely being images, place names, photos on the cover of _The Economist_, etc.
Deirdre McCloskey once commented on her perspective–this was during an economic history seminar while she was explaining some of her work on English Open Fields.
As I recall (it’s in my lecture notes but where are they), Deirdre said this:
“For me as an historian, the First World War is nearly a current event.”
Bob Dylan made a similar point in his book “Chronicles”. When he was living in the Village in the 60’s, he was reading about the Civil War and other happenings in the 19th century. He considered them all current events. Later on, he sang “I need a dump truck mama to unload my head”. He must have overdosed on current events.
Well, WaPo may be setting the standard for not remaking itself in response to administration insults.