News Literacy, Fall 2022: Week 5 Lecture
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News Literacy, Fall 2022: Week 5 Lecture
- 1. Is it TRUE?Part 1: Truth and Verification
- 7. Like scientists, journalists gather evidence and draw conclusions based on the facts they find and know. What we call “truth” changes as evidence accumulates.
- 8. A statement of probability proportional to the evidence. It changes as the evidence changes.
- 10. “…the best obtainable version of the truth.” Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at Stony Brook University on Oct. 16, 2014
- 11. Today’s evidence may be overtaken by tomorrow’s discoveries Journalistic truth is provisional
- 13. The way we understand and describe the world can change
- 17. FOLLOW THE STORY Make judgments and decisions based on the most up-to-date information available
- 18. A process that establishes or confirms the accuracy or truth of something. News organizations hire editors and researchers to check information and assure reports are factual and fair to the facts. Verification
- 20. Truth tests
- 28. What’s an inference from evidence?
- 30. Are the facts put in context?
- 31. Facts surrounding an event or development. Details that put a story in perspective, explain its significance.
- 32. Context
- 33. Jon Stewart gets context
- 34. Is the report transparent?
- 35. In a news story, it is present when reporters are open and honest about . . . 1. How they know what they know 2. What they don’t know – and why
- 36. Common examples of transparency in reporting: “Could not be reached” “Requested anonymity because she feared losing her job” “A reporter attempted to contact the family at home, but no one came to the door.” “The information could not be independently verified.” TRANSPARENCY
- 37. TRANSPARENC Y
- 41. 1. Facts are observable and verifiable pieces of evidence. Journalistic truth is an effort to assemble facts in a fair and reliable way that explains what has happened, subject to further investigation. 2. Journalistic truth relies heavily on context, – the information needed to put facts into perspective. Isolated facts cannot relay the truth and may even mislead us. 3. Not all evidence is equal. Direct evidence is the most compelling. 4. Always ask: What don’t I know? Reliable journalism is transparent about where information comes from and which facts are unknown.
Editor's Notes
- Last time we discussed how to find journalism in the vast wilderness of information. We should ask if there’s a verification process in place. We should ask if the information comes from an outlet that exercises editorial independence. We should ask if the people behind it take responsibility for their work, and own up to their mistakes. Real journalism – the kind that requires websites and social media posts to do more than repeat what others are saying, right or wrong – requires actual reporting. It requires a process of verification – one of the defining attributes of journalism. This week, we look at Verification and the way journalists – a savvy news consumers – weigh evidence.
- Wherever we turn for news and information, we have to pay close attention to the verification process at work (or not). If you turned to Instagram for news, and a friend shared this post by Leonardo DiCaprio—is this news? Well, there was no apparent verification process at work here. This photo was taken by a photographer who died in 2003, so this did not capture the current fires raging in the Amazon. And it’s not true that the rainforest provides 20 percent of the earth’s oxygen. It may seem like nitpicking. There are fires occurring in the Amazon and they’re bad. But facts matter. Getting it right matters. We rely on the news to draw conclusions and make decisions. Leonardo DiCaprio shared another with his 34 million followers that showed a verdant thicket of trees engulfed in smoke. The singer Ricky Martin and President Emmanuel Macron of France also shared that image, but none identified its source. That image appears in a stock photo catalog, which credits it to the photographer Loren McIntyre, an explorer and photojournalist who died in 2003. Further, it’s not true that the Amazon rainforest produces 20 percent of the world’s oxygen. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/world/americas/amazon-rainforest-fire-photos.html
- What is truth? Is it up for debate? Is it subjective? Is it an emotion? According to Newt Gingrich, in this clip from John Oliver’s show, he’ll always go with the political calculation of feelings over facts. Even if crime is down, people may think that crime is on the rise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNdkrtfZP8I
- There’s a word, believe it or not, for this. Truthiness. You couldn’t find it in any dictionary a dozen years ago, but you can now. The word was invented by Stephen Colbert in his Comedy Central show in 2005. Eleven years later, during the 2016 presidential campaign, he returned to the topic and briefly stepped back into his conservative commentator character on his CBS show.
- Another perspective: The truth is not put up to a vote, the truth is not subjective. Something is true or it’s not.
- When we turned to the news and hope to find the truth, what are we looking for? What should we be looking for? What is journalistic truth? Well, it’s a lot like scientific truth …
- What we casually refer to as TRUTH is that collection of evidence that is the justification for our belief that the earth is flat. That belief the earth is flat changes over time as new evidence is discovered. This is one of the key lessons of the lecture…the course…your college education: you’ve got to be open to new ideas because the evidence that justifies our beliefs about truth accumulates over time , which requires us to change our beliefs. If we keep up, our belief about the truth of the shape of the planet earth will become more reliable, or truer.
- Here’s the phrase you need to hang onto: Scientific truth is a statement of probability proportional to the evidence. It will change over time as the evidence changes.
- Both disciplines employ a system of peer review. In journalism, there is “peer review” before in the form of editing and after publication or broadcast in the form of competitors and commentators. It’s not nice, but a reporter’s finest day is figuring out, the day after getting scooped, that the story they were scooped on was wrong. That competitive culture is what sanitizes mistakes. Mess up and your competitors will be sure to highlight it. Within a news organization, journalists and editors check one another’s work—chiefly for accuracy. Verification is a team sport. But since the news is a competitive business, outlets also check each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNTsbZCj7H4
- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the famous Watergate investigative reporters take a pragmatic view. Journalistic truth, they said when speaking at Stony Brook University, is “the best obtainable version of the truth.”
- For the purposes of this course, we expect you to understand that Journalistic truth is provisional, which means it may change. Rational beliefs may be logical conclusions from the evidence available, but at least they are justifiable if based on the best available evidence. In other words, the freshest In other words, what journalists believe is that what we call “truth” is actually provisional. It will change as new evidence comes to light. We can never be completely satisfied with today’s “version of the Truth.” We must always be on the lookout for better evidence.
- Captain Kirk may have been able to defeat the planet-eating “Doomsday Machine,” but not even the Starship Enterprise could reshape the universe as dramatically as Provisional Truth.
- Based on observation of orbits of other objects, astronomers long theorized a ninth planet and in 1930, an Arizona observatory confirmed it with photos. But then in 2006, newer and more sophisticated images showed it is just another object in the Kuiper belt…a mere dwarf planet. Around the same time, the IAU realized it had no precise meaning of the term planet. So they voted Pluto out. WHAT? You can’t just change facts like that, can you? If they don’t know for sure, why didn’t they wait until they knew for sure, …those astronomers? ASK:So how long should the International Astronomical Union have waited to tell people about Pluto’s discovery…76 years? ASK: Why should we publish or teach changeable truths?
- The Jussie Smollett story. We’re still trying to figure out what really happened. The news media has covered the story as it’s developed, tracking the many twists and turns. Though there’s apparent suspicion that the attack was a staged hoax, that’s still unconfirmed and the Chicago PD are still treating Smollett as a victim. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/arts/television/jussie-smollett-attack-timeline.html?smid=tw-nytimesarts&smtyp=cur
- Onlookers have channeled their confusion into anger at the press. Author Brad Thor has called the coverage fake news. Is that fair? Sopan Deb, of the NY Times, responds, pointing out that journalists are responsible for covering what happened, based on the best available evidence. Authorities were treating Smollett as a victim, and they continue to do so. https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1096955778106298368
- ANIMATION: Typewriter effect adds the key message: Follow the story over time. Fornews consumers, the LESSON is: FOLLOW THE STORY OVER TIME!!!! Our knowledge, those verified beliefs in which we are reasonable confident, depends on what information is available…and that changes over time. We must be vigilant, and tireless in the pursuit of better and more complete information, always ready to revise our beliefs and update them according to the latest evidence. And that means looking for journalists who are tireless and open to reversing their account, if the latest evidence demands it. (With each click, repeat the phrase)
- Follow the story over time, especially breaking news Actionable: make decisions on most up-to-date information
- Let’s start with verification, a concept we explored in depth in the past two lectures. Verification is a process that establishes or confirms the accuracy or truth of something. News organizations hire editors and researchers to check information and assure reports are factual and fair.
- Here’s a case that makes the point (Video begins on click)
- The strongest and most reliable evidence is direct evidence — eyewitness testimony, physical evidence like a fingerprint or DNA, a, photo, audio or video recording that establishes a fact.
- The strongest and most reliable evidence is direct evidence — eyewitness testimony, physical evidence like a fingerprint or DNA, a document, photo, audio or video recording that establishes a fact.
- Documents and records may take many forms—like the internal Facebook emails and court documents described in this CBS report. The documents show that Facebook employees were aware that children were unknowingly charging parents’ accounts, and did nothing to correct the problem. They even had a name for it: “friendly fraud.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRlsYyv6I04
- The strongest and most reliable evidence is direct evidence — eyewitness testimony, physical evidence like a fingerprint or DNA, a document, photo, audio or video recording that establishes a fact.
- Madison Marriage, reporter for the Financial Times, covered her bases here. She made herself a witness to what occurred at the Presidents Club fundraiser. She also recorded audio and video, and interviewed other witnesses. https://www.ft.com/content/075d679e-0033-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TODYX6fNRYk
- Sometimes there is no silver bullet that unequivocally proves or disproves something. In those cases, journalists have to rely on what’s known as indirect evidence, which is one step removed or “arm’s length” evidence. It often comes from secondhand witnesses or experts.
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/10/16/why-your-brain-treats-oreos-like-a-drug/#412e61beab00
- If there is one cautionary tale about the difference between direct and indirect evidence that every News Literacy student leaves this course remembering, it is the case of Brian Thevenot’s coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a decade ago, in New Orleans. The guards told the reporter the freezer in the domed stadium where so many had sought refuge was filled with dead bodies. He believed them. It turned out that the guards had told him what they had heard, and it just wasn’t true. Yes, he should have asked them to open the freezer. (Hell, he should, at the very least, have asked them if they had opened the freezer.) His lapse has given us a metaphor we will use throughout the rest of this semester. Don’t just ask what we know – ask how do we know it? Is there proof? Or …. Did they open the freezer? (You get the buttons, by the way, at the final.)
- ANIMATION: Slide opens with Red Box “The News”. With each click another of the types of context appears. A set of facts about some event that happened today takes on much more meaning, accuracy even, when the writer gives you context, such as the HISTORY that led to the event, COMPARISON to similar events, CONNECTION between these players and outside parties, and responsible PREDICTIONS of what comes next. With all context, today’s isolated event makes more sense.
- Here’s a video clip from the Daily Show in which Jon Stewart explains Context as only he can.
- When ordinary news consumers finish reading or watching a news story, they might ask themselves what they just learned. Critically thinking news consumers don’t just ask themselves “what do I know?” They ask, “How do I know it?” and “What don’t I know?” The best news stories answer those questions. And they do it by being transparent about the newsgathering process.
- Transparency has lots of analogies in your every day life: At the on-campus grill, the cooks make your omelets and cheeseburgers as you watch. Letting you see the process is supposed to make you feel better about the food. Fed Ex lets you log onto its website to see each stage in your package’s progress from you to your Grandmother. Tracking the shipment lets you see the steps they took to deliver it. That’s what we mean by transparency in journalism: The journalist letting you see the steps taken to assemble the story. CLICK HERE TO SHOW QUOTES Here is a list of common statements by which journalists make their work transparent…open to the public: --Could not be reached --Requested anonymity because she feared for her job. --A reporter tried to contact the family at their home, but no one came to the door. -The information could not be independently verified. We’ll circle back to this concept.
- NPR, understanding the provisional nature of journalistic truth, has added a helpful example of transparency at the conclusion of breaking news stories.
- An image began to circulate on social media Saturday afternoon claiming to show one of the Paris attackers wearing a suicide bomb vest. The image was even shared by one of the largest — though unofficial — pro-ISIS channels on Telegram, the app that the extremist group used to take credit for the attacks in Paris. When examined closely, the image appears to have been photoshopped. It includes many elements that would be unlikely for a member of a radical Islamist sect. Veerender Jubbal, a Canadian man who is Sikh, then tweeted that the selfie actually showed him — not a radical Islamist terrorist. Jubbal tweeted the original bathroom selfie as proof. He attributed the faked image to supporters of Gamergate, a controversial online movement. He has been sparring with its followers on the internet for a year. He briefly left Twitter earlier this year.
- When the verification process fails, there often are consequences. In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013, Reddit users went on a manhunt, scouring photos from the scene to identify the perpetrators. Run by someone with the user-name “Oops777” (seriously! Look it up!) a sub-reddit called “findbostonbombers” set out to harness the power of crowd-sourcing to do what the police couldn’t seem to do: find the bombers. Using police descriptions of the people being sought, Reddit users settled on pictures of a young runner, then used Facebook and other facial recognition technologies to identify the suspect: Salah Barhoun. On April 18 (2013), three days after the bombing, The New York Post, following Reddit, slapped Salhoun’s picture on the cover, declaring him a suspect. But when the surviving suspect was caught the next day, not only was Barhoun not the bomber. He had never been a suspect.
- After Rolling Stone’s account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia fell apart – the magazine turned to the editors of the Columbia Journalism Review to figure out how a story that had gone through the magazine’s editors and fact-checkers could have gone so horribly wrong. In the end, the Columbia Journalism School investigation concluded that the failure was avoidable. “The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking.” The story and its eventual retraction is the subject of your next homework assignment. As a news consumer, does it shake your confidence in what you read in the press?