When did people become entitled to their own ‘facts’?
BOSTON — If you ever wondered why God invented the delete button, let me pass along the e-mail that arrived on the wings of various listservs directed at the Mainstream Media.
“How much do we love you?” the author asked the MSM. “Let me count the ways: You lie, omit, distort and skew what otherwise should be unbiased accounts of ALL news, not just what furthers the interests of the ‘fringe left.’”
As my finger hovered over “block sender,” I scanned the list of wrongs. No. 1 was the charge that we, the MSM, had hidden the fact that Bill Ayers was the real author of “Dreams from My Father.”
This myth had been careening around the Internet for some time but came back to life after a conservative blogger confronted Ayers at an airport. In a fit of snark, Ayers “confessed.”
“Michelle asked me to … I wrote it,” he said, adding, “And if you can prove it we can split the royalties.”
GOTCHA! Let it not be said that right-wing bloggers are encumbered by a sense of humor. Or a fact-checker. Ayers’ authorship was about as true as the drive-a-stake-in-that-rumor that Obama had been born in Kenya. That fantasy was ranked in The New Yorker magazine as somewhere between “a belief in Santa Claus and ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’”
The birth myth was, in turn, matched by Glenn Beck’s assertion that under Obamacare you could either buy coverage or go to jail. And neck and neck with the fanciful claim by Sarah Palin that health care reform would mean “death panels” for the elderly.
Well, I hold the lack of these truths to be self-evident. Which doesn’t mean they aren’t believed.
My amazement at this grows from a strange, lingering attachment to facts. This is probably a result of having begun as a fact-checker for Newsweek. Facts—along with their enforcers, editors—have long been the guides and saviors of my career that’s more than 46 years long.
Now I’m planning the next phase of my life. This may be why I’m struck by how much hard facts have softened in this time, how much less they seem to matter.
“Truthiness” has exploded alongside a new media that is decidedly not mainstream, that flows into as many rivulets as there are cable channels, points on the radio dial, and unvetted bloggers.
It’s now possible to find a group somewhere in Googleland that will agree with anything. Any outlier can find a tribe and a “fact”—Global warming is a hoax! Evolution is a fraud!—that reinforces his own belief.
There is a sense that we don’t need science or editing or fact-checking as long as we have crowd-sourcing. We don’t have to build opinions on facts; we can build facts on opinions.
This is not just common on blogs but on right-wing talk shows where hosts have gone rogue. What price exactly has Glenn Beck paid for playing loose with facts? Did only Jon Stewart catch Sean Hannity using video from one (large) teabag rally to illustrate another (small) rally?
This fact-free standard is held up (or down) by politicians who follow their lead. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, for example, isn’t about to challenge those “death panel” believers who rally to his FreedomWorks flag: “If people want to believe that … it’s O.K. with me.”
Whatever.
I’m not suggesting that newspapers—once defined as the first rough draft of history—are without errors. But there are prices to pay and corrections to be made and standards to be met. When was the last time an Internet birther ran a correction or lost his job?
Those of us who have spent our lives in journalism wake up to daily reports of troubles: newsrooms cut, papers bankrupt. My first employer, Newsweek, no longer covers news. My second, the Detroit Free Press, has cut back home delivery. I have watched my third employer, The Boston Globe, grow and shrink.
Hardest of all is to witness the evaporation of a profession that’s been the vetting agent for the “reality-based community.” A craft that has struggled to be right as often and rigorously as possible.
In a “60 Minutes”/Vanity Fair poll last month, readers were asked what professions are likely to disappear. Of the likely candidates, 28 percent chose tobacco farmers, but 26 percent picked newspaper reporters. Only 3 percent thought fact-checkers would become extinct.
Well, I have “news” for you. When the reporters go, so do the facts. And their checkers.
Ellen Goodman is a columnist for the Boston Globe. Her e-mail address is ellengoodman1@me.com.
Dec 7, 2009 at 9:55 a.m.
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dub,
If you don't like the left-wing view read Kraut and O'Reilly
WEEKLY in the Gazette.
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Dec 5, 2009 at 4:49 p.m.
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The postmodern worldview, aint it a treat?
Dec 4, 2009 at 4:45 p.m.
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theres noooooo way the tobacco farmers are out of work. big tobacco will realize the potential profit to them from marijuana before the tobacco farmer becomes extinct. once big tobacco gets on board with their lobbyists you will all be welcome to stop into 'kids cafe' for a free coffee and pull from the hooka:)
Dec 4, 2009 at 11:14 a.m.
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When Kerry said that he was against it before he voted for it (or was he for it before he voted against it? I forget!), such a statement is rightly bound to label one a "flip-flopper". That is a classic example, isn’t it? I'm glad to see your statement "after additional facts were know", which acknowledges that the facts available to Bush and the Congress were unknowingly incomplete, even in error. Yet still the "loyal opposition" accused Bush of lying "after additional facts were known" and continues to do so to this very day.
I thought that the swift boat guys had a contestable point that they had every right to make the electorate aware of so that the electorate could decide for itself who to believe. If the swift boaters had conspired against Kerry with lies, wouldn’t we know that by now since it’s been 5 years? However, if the swift boaters ever are shown to have lied, I will cry foul, just as I cry foul that some people claim that Obama was not born in America. And if it can be shown that the pending Healthcare Reform does not establish “death panels” even if they are called something else, I will also cry foul. But it seems to me that there are only 2 ways to save money on health care (the purpose of reform), make heath care workers work for less or ration health care (meaning that someone has to decide who gets treatment and who doesn’t). Considering the unlikelihood of the former what with union influences and all, I sincerely doubt that I’ll be crying foul about death panels.
I haven’t compiled any statistics about Fox news coverage to know whether they devoted less than ½ the coverage to torture and no-bid contracts as ACORN, but I believe that at least they have covered those 2 items in detail, unlike so many news outlets that ignored the ACORN story until they couldn’t anymore like they are doing with what the English are calling Climategate. So yes, I get Goodman’s picture, distorted as it is.
Dec 4, 2009 at 10:10 a.m.
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Here's a news flash: if you don't pay taxes, which you pay if you don't buy health insurance, you go to jail. You really need a reference for that?
Global temperatures: http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming...
Dec 4, 2009 at 9:25 a.m.
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Yeah...only fox news is biased and plays loose with facts.
Dec 4, 2009 at 8:55 a.m.
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billnewbie,
I have a question for you...
Did you cry foul when Fox labeled Kerry as a flip-flopper? Knowing that Kerry did change his mind after additional facts were know...
Did you cry foul regarding the swift boat guys? Did Fox? Rush, Hannity, etc...
Did Fox spend 1/2 the time on no-bid contracts and torture as they did on Acorn? Did you cry foul? Did you complain when the swift boat authors wrote a completely inaccurate book about Obama and Hannity put them on the show and presented it as fact?
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I think the point of the article is that Fox is called Fox NEWS. She doesn't name them but by naming Beck...you get the picture.
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That said, this is a case of pot calling the kettle black.
Dec 4, 2009 at 12:28 a.m.
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NASA might not have anything to do with the e-mails, but it turns out they are not complying with FOI requests on the data used to make their conclusions on global warming.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009...
Dec 3, 2009 at 8:45 p.m.
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Bush told the truth as the facts were known at the time. The same facts that the Congress had when they approved the action. The same facts that the British had when they agreed to join our effort. The mantra I referred to was created as nothing more than a political ploy to regain power by those who wanted it so desperately. They, Goodman included, had no problem with deceptive political ploys in opposition to the President's agenda then. But now that their oxen are being regularly gored they cry foul. You reap what you sow.
Dec 3, 2009 at 6:36 p.m.
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billnewbie,
How many days since GW declared, "mission accomplished"?
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How often is that reported?
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How many brave American soldiers died last week?
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How often is that reported?
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Failing to report something is just as bad as lying.
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Besides, are you claiming Bush told the truth regarding Iraq?
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Dec 3, 2009 at 6:08 p.m.
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The House bill says if you have the means to buy health insurance, and don`t, they can tax you 2.5% of your income, up to the cost of what the insurance is. It stops there. If you choose not to pay the tax, the IRS steps in. In only 17% of cases are tax deadbeats sent to jail, the rest face civil penalties. On another subject, "NASA estimates that global temperatures have risen a total of 2.3 degrees since 1895, and that 13 of the warmest years since 1850 have occurred in the last 14 years." The climate has not been cooling, but the rate of rise has slowed in the last ten years. NASA also says 2010 could be the warmest on record. NASA has nothing to do with English e-mails written a decade ago.
Dec 3, 2009 at 4:22 p.m.
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kinsohn: could you please direct me to the place where I can verify that the health care bill (the senate one or the house one?) would require people who don't buy health insurance to go to jail? Thanks!
Dec 3, 2009 at 3:45 p.m.
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Actually Kin thats a myth that in Columbus's time they thought the earth was flat. The more common myth is that the church was standing its dogmatic ground that the earth was flat based on certain biblical passages, this was only a myth, the size of the earth was in question, not the shape.
Dec 3, 2009 at 1:31 p.m.
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Looks like this leftie, while decrying other people being entitled to their own facts, is serving herself up her own facts.
The House bill would throw you in jail if you don't buy health insurance. That is a fact.
It's also a fact that the globe has been cooling the last 10 years and there is no proof of man-made global warming (or climate change or whatever they call it these days). That's why they have to rely on scientific 'consensus', much like there was a scientific 'consesus' that the earth was flat in Columbus' day. That's a fact.
Looks like if this reporter goes, we'll all have a few more facts.
Dec 3, 2009 at 1:05 p.m.
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But wait haven't there been professors stepping down left and right down due to the fact they hid results showing global cooling? And Glen Beck saying people would get thrown in jail indicates people who opt out of health coverage under obamacare would be fined and if they don't pay a fine would be subject to arrest. Where are the misconceptions?
Dec 3, 2009 at 12:40 p.m.
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Wasn't Ms. Goodman one of the leading purveyors of the "Bush lied, people died" canard? Yes. I believe she was. Isn't it funny how she has acquired a new-found respect for the truth now that her choice for President has taken power? Or is it just that lying about any republican's or conservative's agenda is perfectly acceptable?
The fact is that if a lie is repeated often enough, many people will begin to believe it. That's why we heard that "Bush lied, people died" mantra so often. It is also true that if a truth is castigated and ridiculed often enough then many people will tend to disbelieve it. I'll never forget that during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, my brother (a die-hard Clintonista) got quite disgusted with me when I related an internet news item I had seen about Lewinsky's "semen stained dress". For weeks he castigated me for giving that matter any credibility at all. Then finally when the truth of the story was verified, the prevailing rationale was that it was just an unimportant dalliance, a private matter that means nothing to the country. So, if these contentions of "death panels" and jail time for the stubbornly uninsured have any veracity at all, I suppose the game plan is to deny it while a rational justification takes shape some time after the legislation is signed into law. Or maybe they'll just say "it's too late now, tough luck".
Dec 3, 2009 at 1:21 a.m.
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The problem is most news delivered is not from a journalist...they are now rip-and-read stars, commentators, and entertainers. As the industry changes so does the credibility.
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