Truthiness in Action
Via John at Americablog, a couple of stories on AP reporter John Solomon. After reporting on Novak’s outing of Valerie Plame with an inaccurate quote (that sounds suspiciously like a GOP talking point), several other spin problems turn up.
… 1. John Solomon’s AP story about Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan leaves out key information.
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2. John Solomon’s February AP story attacking Harry Reid was exposed as having unfairly slanted the story by not noting the not-insignificant fact that Harry Reid never took any action on behalf of the folks who AP claims bought him.
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3. After being shown to have written a sloppy story attacking Harry Reid (point 2 above), AP’s John Solomon writes a third story again refusing to include key information favorable to Reid. …
Cited references throughout, and more from Media Matters. Journalism is a difficult craft and no reporter can get every detail right all the time. For all the professionalism and objectivity that is built into the ethical foundation of the profession (and it is, and it should be), there is, of course, individual and institutional bias that gets expressed at all levels of the industry.
FOX News (which is not news) is about as overt as it can possibly be. But instances like the ones reported and analyzed above deserve a close critical inspection because the AP still maintains a reputation for “objective” news. This subtle micro-watchdogging is part of what makes reporters touchy about blogs and bloggers. But if it’s accurate and fair, it serves the national interest in complete and truthful information. The public needs this kind of close attention so that we can understand who’s making the news and why the end product looks the way it does. It’s a dauntingly intensive proposition. But if we’re going to shoot for real deliberative democracy, it’s going to take a major project in self-directed media criticism and media literacy.
UPDATE: Josh Marshall has more on how this sleight of hand has been carried down the field by the mainstream media. Also, see this note about the Harry-Reid-shaped axe that Solomon is grinding.
UPDATE II: John at Americablog has more. Apparently, the key phrase slipped from the 2nd graph to the 30th where, surprise, most local papers trimmed it for space. Tricks of the trade.
June 11, 2006 at 3:05 pm
[...] The John Solomon story that was catching some blogger attention last week [covered at Big Ink here] spurred Greg Sargent to dig into the deeper issue of the blog-resistant MSM: To the AP, the fact that the blogospheric reaction [to Solomon’s sleight of hand] was overwhelmingly criticial simply didn’t matter a wit. Why? Because at bottom it wants to see blogs as merely a promotional tool, a machine to produce buzz. The big news orgs will strain as hard as possible to see the actual substance of blogospheric criticism as mere background noise. They’re determined to tune it out as relentlessly as you tune out the traffic noise outside your window. [...]