“Journalism ceases to exist when it requires lying”
The omission of not just pertinent but vital facts = just making things up: Ask CNN.
An editor I knew years ago used to reprimand young reporters for using the word “could” as a basis for news stories.
“A bomb ‘could’ fall on Calgary. It hasn’t, there’s no sign it will, and if or when it does, we’ll report the news,” was his well-honed refrain.
The intent was to teach newbies the difference between speculation and sound reporting. Of course, speculation itself can occasionally be a source of essential journalism. Financial, real estate, sometimes political, and even scientific speculation can be inherently newsworthy provided each involves real world events addressed by credible sources.
Most “could happen” stories, however, are a function of reporters desperate for news being too lazy to go out and dig some up. The result is frequently a species of embarrassing idiocy.
A classic of the genre burned into my memory decades ago when it appeared on the front page of Canada’s self-styled national newspaper, which reported: “Canadians are bracing for a federal election, and one could come as early as September – or it could come later, the Globe and Mail has learned.”
It clearly did not occur to either the reporter responsible, or any of the legions of editors then employed by the Globe, that Canadian readers bracing for an election had learned absolutely nothing from that nonsensical front-page guesswork.
Not all such speculation stories are as useless, stupid and essentially harmless. Some are truly pernicious. An immediate example is a CNN story that appeared, and spread like wildfire, after the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear weapons sites on June 21.
An aggregate 360,000 pounds of bombs had fallen on two of the sites. Yet only two days later, CNN published its story based on a leaked document (and the usual “sources whose names are not being used because they are not authorized to speak”) saying the raid achieved extremely limited results. The reporting was picked up by the Associated Press and appeared on Canadian news sites.
It was outrageous. How could any self-respecting editor let such a transparently speculative story see the light of day? On the basis of journalistic instinct and common sense alone, the reporters and editors responsible should have been sent to the woodshed for re-education – or at least back out into the field to get corroborating evidence.
Among the warning-flag questions that should have instantly gone up is this: How could so much ordnance be dropped all at once on extremely limited targets without doing overwhelming damage? Into the bargain, when each of the 30,000-pound bombs was specifically designed to penetrate 200 feet of reinforced concrete and 100 feet of earth and rock, the aggregate effect surely had to be more than just rattling grandma’s teeth and making the lights flicker.
Here’s a second obvious question: Who could possibly know the extent of the damage within 24 hours when no international inspectors have been allowed into Iran itself, never mind allowed to reach the bomb sites?
But there’s even more that makes CNN’s speculative story so pernicious. As the Wall Street Journal reported on June 26, the leaked document itself took those very caveats into account.
“A person familiar with the (Defense Intelligence Agency) report . . . said the document states in its first paragraph that it is a preliminary assessment based on reporting available just 24 hours after the strike and wasn’t coordinated with other agencies within the intelligence community. It also states that a full damage assessment would require days to weeks to collect the necessary data to make a proper judgement,” the WSJ reported.
It quotes an official from the agency describing the leaked report as an early battle damage assessment that is “low confidence – not a final conclusion.”
Predictably the document ignited a raucous political debate, further fuelled by President Trumps equally as-yet-unverified claims of “total obliteration” at the sites, and was waved around by those eager to make hay where the sun has not yet even shone. That might be politics these days. It should not be journalism. In fact, it’s the negation of journalism.
Journalism ceases to exist when it requires lying.
The very speculation that produced the CNN story required a lie of omission, i.e., failing to acknowledge the leaked document’s own qualifiers. At a less obvious level, the CNN story violated the precepts of journalism by underhandedly obliterating the essential bulwarks separating opinion from reportage.
Reporting and opinion writing are equally legitimate forms of journalism. And here I disagree with The Rewrite’s El Supremo, Peter Menzies, that the necessary division between the two makes it untenable for a single journalist to operate in both spheres. Mr. Menzies wrote recently that once he became a member of the Calgary Herald editorial board many years ago, he ceased to engage in reporting in order to uphold journalistic ethics and integrity.
I don’t think that’s true or necessary. Indeed, I know it isn’t. I can say so with confidence because of a comment a veteran editor made to me personally years ago: “When you write a column about a subject, I know exactly where you stand. When you write news stories about the same subject, there isn’t a word that tells me where you stand.”
Encouraging as that personal experience has been, there is an even more compelling example from one of the greatest Canadian journalists: the late Christie Blatchford. I worked alongside Christie on several stories when we were both in the old Toronto Sun chain – she as the opinion writer, me as the dogs body event chaser and quote nabber.
In her columns, there was never any doubt where she stood on anything. But in her heart, soul, mind, body and being, Christie Blatchford remained first, last and always a reporter. When we discussed stories at the end of a given day, before she went off to opine and I went off to file news, she was all about the facts, ma’am: What happened, who said what, what was real?
Those simple questions are a straightforward test for distinguishing what you believe from what you can report as a reporter. Alas, it’s a test that far too many fail who continue to call themselves journalists. So, 360,000 pounds of bombs can fall and, we’re breathlessly told, do no real damage. It “could” happen. And therefore, in the new journalistic mind, it did.
(Peter Stockland has worked at senior levels of Canadian journalism for decades. He is currently researching an oral history of sudden death.)
Firstly, CNN is an entertainment channel. What they peddle isn't journalism; it is a form of entertainment. They have to "spin" stories to maintain their audience, which is primarily composed of Democrats (the political party versions, not actual people who believe in democracy). I know they like to call themselves journalists, but they're not.
Journalists should report facts backed by evidence and not get into opinion in a supposedly impartial news report.