Honor or disgrace…
Why should we care that journalists score low marks, compared to other professions, in a recent Gallup poll about honesty and ethics? Because poll results have a nasty habit of becoming social “facts.”
Journalists scored lower than, for example, bankers, auto mechanics, elected officials, and nursing-home operators.
Any poll merely reflects the opinions of those polled as mediated by the questions asked. If the poll is properly constructed and conducted–and Gallup certainly has the reputation for such–it can represent a temporary snapshot of public opinion. The danger in such polls for journalists (or nursing-home operators) is that the results will be accepted as facts because they are reported as facts of social opinion.
Every day people act in ways that reflect honor or disgrace on their professions. Which will we choose as the salient exemplars?
You cannot have read this weblog for very long and come away from this with the idea that I do not think the press should be criticized. I think the press deserves vigorous criticism for its many transgressions. There are plenty examples of dishonest and unethical behavior in journalism. Attack them with righteous glee! But, as I have said before and still believe, journalism is an honorable profession practiced, for the most part, by people trying to do the right thing.
What happens if we don’t believe this?
Why should we care that journalists score low marks, compared to other professions, in a recent Gallup poll about honesty and ethics? Because poll results have a nasty habit of becoming social “facts.”
Bullshit.
The danger is that the poll reflects a social “fact”, not that it might erroneously create one.
What happens if we don’t believe this?
That’s easy. Reporters are not trusted to perform their watchdog role or even properly inform us.
Hello? That’s where we are.
Along with the glaring hypocrisy of these least trusted men (and women) in America pointing accusatory fingers at others and declaring themselves adjudicators of fact, truth and newsworthiness.
Tim… I’m happy for you to disagree with me. I invite disagreement. I don’t have to be right. But please do not use the term “bullshit” with me. It’s completely unnecessary.
I apologize. I’m assuming that you are taken aback by the initial, and instant, heat represented in the word rather than the word itself.
How about: “I vociferously disagree!”? Can I just write “IVD” and you can read it as “BS”?
… journalism is an honorable profession practiced, for the most part, by people trying to do the right thing.
Either reporters are not honoring thier profession, their profession is not (or no longer) honorable, or they are getting a bum rap. This is a decades long trend.
But I’m sure the proud members of the reality-based community will be able to rationalize how these polls are being mystically influenced by racist, homophobic, bible thumping, gun toting, confederate flag waving, Jesusland wingnuts.
UC scholar (Lakoff) to help Democrats refine message (via QandO)
Tim… Yes, I’m not offended by the word itself or any such word. Geez, you should hear me in class
I was intellectually offended. I don’t pull this stuff out of a hat, you know.
Next time try:
Poppycock!
Nonsense!
Horsefeathers!
I’ll get the point
Apology accepted. And I apologize for being too easily offended (that’s not typical of me).
Okay: Can you imagine one reporter somewhere in America who practices his craft/profession with honesty? Can you imagine two?
re: Either reporters are not honoring their profession, their profession is not (or no longer) honorable, or they are getting a bum rap. This is a decades long trend.
All of them? The entire profession? Some of them, to be sure. And, yes, sometimes we see dishonorable things in the structure of the practice (see the nefarious effects of some of the structural biases.
The question I ask at the end of the entry is important. I’m not asking it rhetorically. I wonder what kind of a democracy we can have if the press is thought to be dishonest and unethical.
re: Okay: Can you imagine one reporter somewhere in America who practices his craft/profession with honesty? Can you imagine two?
Okay Abraham, I won’t condemn all of reporterhood for the sake of 10 righteous reporters.
re: I wonder what kind of a democracy we can have if the press is thought to be dishonest and unethical.
A skeptical one. The important question is how many will turn to apathy or engagement as a result. For example, what happened to the long abused narrative of an apathetic electorate that couldn’t be bothered to vote? If there are around 200 million eligible voters and almost 118 million voted, what does that say about the distrust in the press or their role in the election this year? Maybe nothing.
The neat thing about our republic, and the mythos “that [we] are endowed by [our] Creator with inherent and inalienable rights” is that the press, as is, can be replaced.
If it is important to our democracy to have a citizenry credulous to what the press tells them, rather than distrusting a press perceived as dishonest and unethical, we’ll eventually have one.
FWIW, I think the press is dishonest because they hold themselves in too much regard - as if democracy could not, or would not, replace them as needed for being dysfunctional with something better. I think the press is unethical because they demand higher standards of others than they hold their own - a failure that no profession can withstand.
I might begin an answer to my question this way:
If the press is thought dishonest and unethical, then the people would need to find an honest and ethical source of information in order to gather the information, knowledge, and wisdom to run their government. Citizens cannot participate in, or run, a government without credible information.
What would that source of information be?
I can imagine many answers to that question, but most of them involve merely procedural variations. It seems to me that without access to power, we cannot trust information. IOW, we need something that can get at the information possessed by power.
At the moment, I see no credible substitute for reporters practising journalism. Bloggers? No way. The only ones with access to power are journalists or those already in power. The rest of us are commenting on what’s produced by those already plugged into the system.
The press (as currently constituted) CAN be replaced. I don’t think journalism cannot be replaced.
Re: FWIW I understand this. And–surprise–I agree to a certain extent. And I suspect this is EXACTLY what the poll takers are responding to. You’ll notice that I have criticized the press for these same things many times on Rhetorica.
re It seems to me that without access to power, we cannot trust information.
Not true, or
Poppycock!
Nonsense!
Horsefeathers!
Power != information
Power is a subset of information, not the other way around and power does not describe the accuracy or trustworthiness of the information.
Information is held everywhere by everyone. Each has bits and pieces of relative accuracy and value.
re: IOW, we need something that can get at the information possessed by power.
Yes, this is important for understanding either the perception those in power are operating with or the perception that those in power want us to operate with - or, of course, both. But there are other sources of information than those that hold power and a failure of the press today is a dominance of he said/she said from power sources.
re: You’ll notice that I have criticized the press for these same things many times on Rhetorica.
Honor or disgrace…?
Does the power/information relationship track with authorized knower?
If authorized knowers have access to mass media, is the role of the reporter as gatekeeper diminished? (Jarvis’ First Law of Media)
re: authorized knower
Ah, now we’re into rhetoric
Yes, this is one of the big problems with journalism as currently practiced. As you say, there are many venues for information; it belongs to all of us, or, rather, we all have our piece of information. The press does us all a disservice by privileging an authorized knower.
But I’m really talking about something more nuts-and-bolts, i.e. getting into that smoky back room. You and I can’t do it. So who’s going to? And what happens to us if we don’t trust the ones who get in?
re: “Power is a subset of information, not the other way around and power does not describe the accuracy or trustworthiness of the information.”
It seems to me to be both at the same time, or they arise together. Certainly power does not describe the accuracy or trustworthiness of the information. But power may control information.
How do you trust what’s said anonymously about what happened in the smokey back room? If light was allowed to freely escape from the smokey back room, it’s not really a smokey back room anymore, is it?
re: But power may control information.
My take: Information can be leveraged.
The dynamic by which information, the lack of it, or misinformation can be leveraged is not always predictable.
The known known, the known unknown, the unknown unknown - and what I call the unrealized - the unknown known. The unknown known is information we possess but have not processed, or have incorrectly/imperfectly processed.
Here’s an off-the-cuff thought on the relationship of power and information:
Power is the ability to misuse information and remain an authorized knower.
Or this: Power is the ability to create information, thus establishing an authorized knower.
I do not suppose yours and mine are mutually exclusive.
I do not suppose yours and mine are mutually exclusive.
No, but I would try to distinguish between power and value. I think a lot of information is created without a power gain by the creator.
And to remove this discussion from the purely academic:
Slew of journalists under legal siege for not revealing sources
Some thoughts on the article linked above and how it relates:
30 years ago, elected officials were using the same argument to defend their profession that you are using today to defend reporters.
30 years ago, the public and press lobbied for legislative and judicial changes to bring greater transparency to a government they did not trust and perceived as unethical.
30 years ago, the press benefitted from a public trust that empowered reporters to act as a check on government.
That was 30 years ago.
The public is lobbying government to shove some transparency down the throats of reporters they no longer trust and perceive as unethical.
Democracy? Checks and balances on the extra-constitutional 4th Estate? Republicanism and federalism regulating interstate mass media monopolies?
re: Or this: Power is the ability to create information, thus establishing an authorized knower.
The more I think about it, I’d turn that around …
Power is the ability to create an authorized knower, thus establishing an information source.
Tim… I agree! Sometimes it’s one; sometimes it’s another. But I understand having a penchant for one over the other.
Well, Andrew, that feels like a pretty good test drive of the new blog on this topic.
Steering felt tight, brakes felt strong and turn signals all seemed to work ok.
I consider the tires kicked.
Thanks for putting forward a great product, as usual!
Tim… Very cool. Thanks for being a good reader!
blahblah,yaddahyaddah,yammeryammer,taking it for a test drive, kick the wheels, hey, how much do you want for it?
Ooooops…look who’s back
I’ll take a million.