I would like to share a few thoughts about accusations made by critics of the mainstream media (known collectively as legacy media or sometimes Fake News).
Anonymous Sources
Information sources that are unidentified to the public are not anonymous to the newspaper's reporter or the news manager or television news broadcaster responsible for printing or airing stories based on them. The Associated Press identifies itself on its website as “an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business.”
According to the same website, material from anonymous sources may be used only if:
The material is information and not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the report
The information is not available except under the conditions of anonymity imposed by the source.
The source is reliable, and in a position to have direct knowledge of the information.
The website goes on to state that “reporters who intend to use material from anonymous sources must get approval from their news manager before sending the story to the desk. The manager is responsible for vetting the material and ensuring it meets AP guidelines. The manager must know the identity of the source and is obligated, like the reporter, to keep the source's identity confidential. Only after they are assured that the source material has been vetted by a manager should editors and producers allow it to be used.”
The website goes on to say more about the conditions when a request for anonymity is accepted and what the conditions of that anonymity may be.
The fact that a source is identified as “anonymous” does not mean that it was a note slipped under an office door or stuck under the windshield of a reporter’s car.
Other AP guidelines focus on other parts of developing or reporting a news story. The point is – there are rules, and reputable news outlets follow them. These are things taught in every school of journalism.
Sourcing in General
AP guidelines also tell us that a reported story must have two independent sources. If you remember the 1976 Watergate blockbuster All the President’s Men, you’ll recall Dustin Hoffman (Carl Bernstein) and Robert Redford (Bob Woodward) pleading with Jason Robards (Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee) to allow them to move forward with a part of the story that turned out to lead them astray. During this encounter/argument, the reporters argued that they had two valid sources. Bradlee let them publish despite his reservations about one of the sources. They got the story wrong and the entire investigation was derailed for a while because of this error.
You have probably also noticed that sometimes cable TV news organizations report the findings of the research done by another TV show or newspaper. When they do this, they sometimes add a tagline that goes something like this: “This information has not been independently confirmed by MSNBC news.” Reputable news organizations don’t simply take the word even of highly-respected publications. They have their own reputations to maintain, and they do that by applying the highest possible standards before they broadcast a news story. They do not just share information willy-nilly without vetting it.
Why This Matters
I’ve been thinking about all of this in connection with the evolving revelations about how the Fox “News” Network has veered from these standards. Not only do they not perform the basic sort of vetting serious news organizations routinely perform – they admit, not to mistakes in judgment, but to intentional deceit in the pursuit of profits. They have spent 30 years shouting that we should not trust the mainstream media, and they have accomplished their goal. According to Gallup polling data, the percentage of the population who say they trust the mass media “a great deal or a fair amount” has fallen from a high of over 75% in 1977 to a low of 32% in 2016 (it has ticked up two percentage points since then). On the other side of the question, the percentage who report that they have “none at all” trust in the mass media has risen from about 5% in 1972 to 38% today.
We used to relegate the irresponsible journalism now practiced by Fox – the most-watched “news” network out of all cable programming – to the checkout aisle in our local supermarket. Their breathless National Enquirer reporting on “Cher’s Alien Baby” has as much credibility as the junk purveyed by Fox these days. But because we didn’t take these supermarket tabloids seriously, they didn’t impact our national political dialogue. Fox does impact it – to the point that when Fox announces something that its viewers don’t like – say hypothetically, that Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 – Fox viewers don’t change their minds. They change the channel, screaming that Fox has been corrupted by the Deep State or something. So Fox lies to keep its audience.
Fox may be in the “Find Out” state of “F**k Around and Find Out.” The current lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems is forcing the executives at Fox to reveal that they were lying and that they knew they were lying when they pushed election disinformation on a trusting public before, during, and after the 2020 election. Their dishonesty stretches further back than 2020 – it started when people like Rush Limbaugh took outrageous behavior public and were rewarded for it. The result is that people like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeannine Pirro, and other Fox personalities (I won’t give them news titles) engage in Jerry Spring behavior and call it journalism.
The damage this has inflicted is deep and serious. It will have generational consequences. It has led to the election of buffoons to the House of Representatives; the same voters who get their “news” from Fox also vote for Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and George Santos. These are seriously unserious political figures who appeal to voters through their performances, not their ideas. This describes Fox as well.
It’s no accident that the prime-time programming for Vox is run through its entertainment division rather than its news division.
One of the things that our children should be learning in school is critical thinking; a second is how to do research. As we fail to provide adequate funding to public schools these skills will continue to deteriorate and the result will be generations of people who listen to the nonsense of Fox (and others) and will think that it is fact. Woe is us ... if we don't stop this slide into Wonderland. Soon we'll we electing the Mad Hatter president. Oops. Did that.
I needed an emoji for (super like). Thanks, karen. Great article.