Minority Report and Getting Fair Coverage

by Gary Berg-Cross

Early on after the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida there was a notable struggle to get facts and reasoning before public. It took nearly a month for Martin's story to catch fire in the mainstream media. Mainstream, national media initially gave the story little coverage, but black media in particular, and to some degree online social media, kept the story alive. Syndicated columnist George Curry makes the point that black media have a history of covering anti-black violence, which mainstream media sometimes picks up on later.

"The black press plays a unique role, because they know right away and can recognize these kinds of stories and the value of them," Curry says.

Two African-American journalists -- Trymaine Lee of The Huffington Post and Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic, who were among the few to cover the story early. This time they weren’t the only ones. Black American TV anchors like CNN's Don Lemon, MSNBC’s Tamaron Hall (andhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Al Sharpton ) as well as major newspeople like Charles Blow at the New Times and Eugene Robinson and Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart kept the story before the public. With steady coverage there was time to get some reasoned discussion of things like “Stand Your Ground laws” and how they had come to be passed in several states.
It was also an opportunity to make the story personal as Capehart, wrote an "Under Suspicion" opinion piece about the personal tragedy of Trayvon's story, relating it back to his own experiences as an African-American teenager living in Newark, New Jersey. His piece recalled his education about the "don'ts" for an African-American youth - the list of things he shouldn't do, lest he rouse suspicion.

All of this coverage, by the way, aggravated Fox News who had to dreg up a conservative black voice to claim that the focus with its implied message of racial bias, if not hatred was unjustified. I think in contrast that many of the topics discussed were important to hear. In this it reminds me of conversations about other minority’s issues and the increasing coverage they get. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are one such who have spoken in solid support of Trayvon’s family and their quest for justice. Over time the GLBT has been able to get its issues and personal stories before the public.

One can hope that there will be a similar evolution for Atheist et al minorities. This would reflect a growing Secular Humanist media (certainly on the Internet), secular and humanist anchors and prominent newspeople to keep corresponding fairness and justice issues before the Public. The recent coverage of the Reason Rally is a small step with the discussion on UP with Chris Hayes being a good example starting with Chris openly saying that he thinks of himself as an atheist.

Telling a Fuller Story About Sensationalized Claims

By Gary Berg-Cross

Sensational claims have been taken to task here in the Secular Perspectives blog. Luis Granados took on The supposedly scientific Prayer Study proving the existence of God and Robert of rwahrens just had to rant about:

“another of those idiotic news items where they take a common every day item and claim that the government has paid an exorbitant price for it. This one is for muffins. Muffins they claim the government paid $16 for.”

Both blogs expose an instance of a sensationalized claim, seemingly but not really grounded in facts, which advances some popular bias and lingering hope. Wouldn’t it be great if Science could prove that God exists and that we can get what we pray for - or at least what we good people pray for to the right god and not what those fanatics are praying for. Luis shows some of the fraud behind the claim for prayer. The news report that Robert took on week about alleged spending $16 a piece for breakfast muffins and $8 for a cup of coffee for employees attending a conference in Washington two years ago was quickly countered by avalanche of criticism that pointed out it was a half baked report. Only later did papers like the Washington Post report, that the price included not just a muffin, but a continental breakfast of baked goods, fresh fruit, coffee, tea, soft drinks, tax tips as part of the use of the conference space.

Media is prone to over-hyped and controversial news pieces because of the pressing need to increase viewership/readership. On the other hand it may not cover protests such as Wall Street is being occupied against corporate greed. There is a good argument that it did not get adequate coverage till there was a sensationalized violence- see Op-Ed: Wall Street is Occupied protest not getting media coverage

Sensationalism sells and may include reporting about generally insignificant matters and events such as $16 muffins appeal to the emotions are proxies for important arguments such as whether government is too big and wasting money. Equivalent dog whistle stories such as corporate wooing of pols by overpaying for Redskin booths and services may not be given equal treatment.

Consider the quick response to the grand muffin claim after The Washington Post, among other media outlets, pronounced word of the offense in a front page story, based on a Justice Department auditor's report. Senior Republican Senator Chuck Grassley who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee (which has oversight of the Justice Department), said the report was a blueprint for the first cuts that should be made by the "super committee" searching for at least $1.2 trillion in savings. Later NBC's Brian Williams featured the Justice Department's offense in that day evening's news lineup. As rwahrens feared an ill-informed link was made to sensationalized examples of wasteful government spending such as the Lockheed bill for $640 for custom molded toilet seat covers.

Wyatt Kash, Editorial Director of AOL Government contextualized the sensationalization well:

“Regardless, to put the blame totally on government employees, as the auditors and then the media so quickly did, and not at least in part on what and how hotels routinely charge for conferences services, is another example of how easy it has become in America to demonize the federal workforce--a group of dedicated public servants who in reality are working tirelessly to protect our country, provide services to the needy and tackle problems that are bigger than any one of us can solve alone. “

More examples of loud stories include misleading statements, omitting key facts and information and half truths as discussed in my Flexible Thinking in a Time of Imprecise Statements.

Advocates can get away with this because we live in a time of head spinning news overload. In our news cycle one story steps on the previous so rapildy that we don’t have to reflective on the core information that often is no more than half truth and innuendo. See my Stressed Buffet Offered by the Hurricane, News Quake for more on this phenomena.

Some Transparency into Conservative Media Influence and Methods

by Gary Berg-Cross

As I’ve said before, our tribe of Secular Humanists, atheists, freethinker etc. are (by and large) a skeptical and critical-thinking lot. We like to know how things work and what’s behind it. We don’t like a superficial story and learn from experience and we like to pass on insights that come from that experience. We don’t like people who bend the facts or hype things into hot button stories. We like the Greek and Enlightenment constructions of fairness and balance more than what comes from ideological media. We are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to alternative views but are willing to adopt hypotheses based in evidence. But even for us living in a torrent of “information” sometimes it takes a scandalous crisis to provide transparency to expose how things really work and confirm lingering suspicions. For a brief time scandal raises attention enough to get the news media to pierce through the din of what seems like distracted coverage of important topics. In such circumstances non-main stream analysis gets presented and events sometimes confirm minority-view hypotheses. We see the uncomfortable reality of how things like power and ideology weave together to make business as usual.

Examples of post-crisis illuminations include the eventual exposure of how the Iraq war was sold to us by the Bush Administration’s with a mix of co-opted news media, the relations people financial interests and politicians or financial institutions and rating agencies that precipitated an economic crash and rolling unemployment as far as the political eye can see. In each case bad policy and politics had disastrous consequences and we many of us got the story from the 4th estate too late. Maybe these should have been obvious to us, and it was to some, but skeptical voices were generally muted in the larger conversation while the megaphone was turned up for official policy. Sadly our largely corporate media largely reflected an inside elite view with a fine tuned skepticism that was largely reserved for non-conformist voices (see my Thoughtful and Shallow Skepticism more more on this aspect of skepticism. Afterwards we get closer to the real story leading to a feeling of frustration and new questions. Matt Taibbi framed the new post-Wall Street meltdown question in the title of his Rolling Stone article - Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? He is not the only one to observe that no top banker (or bank) has faced serious consequences for their actions in the financial crisis:

Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars.

Yet inside the institutions and media many knew that there would be an eventual problem. They were just afraid to be the first to blow the whistle. There can be consequences for bucking the consensus of powerful people before it is fashionable. There is all that opposition that can be thrown at a skeptical voice. You can be sued, for example - Analyst Was Punished For Blowing The Whistle On Wall Street . Indeed when powerful people escape responsibility for their actions it is a message to future whistle blowers and allies. The message is "don’t bother; we punish the messenger of bad news". This is sometimes describe as “no good deed goes unpunished”. At the least groups with power can drag it out so that many can’t sustain the effort. In 2004, a Wall Street banker blew the whistle on abusive tax shelters used by Enron and other big companies. He testified about his experience before Congress (anonymously as “Mr. ABC”) noting that a big problem with whistle blowing is that even federal agency’s seem intimidated about battle giant companies. After all, the big guys have networks of friends in high places, loud lobby voices and the ear of the Media (think Fox and the Wall Street Journal). There is “resistance to take seriously outside information from knowledgeable insiders.” This side of Wikileaks not everyone yields to the threat, but it is likely that many are chilled. In the 2010 election we lost many progressive voices including a very ethical Russ Feingold, who opposed against FISA, and a vigorous Alan Grayson, who was outspoken against things like Too Big to Fail banks. Neither endeared them to various lobby groups backed by enormous financial power of multinational/national corporations and out of state interests. There are host of organized interests that can go after people. Some are targeted by religious groups, others by the NRA gun lobby, anti-government groups or financial interests. The message is to not speak up on issues of the dogs will come out. That was the case with Feingold & Grayson and earlier with Cynthia McKinney who was targeted by AIPAC for calling for a degree of fairness and balance in our Middle East policy. For all of these reasons important topics go without serious discussion.

I was reminded of this complex of reporting, intimidation, political connections and punishment when I read about the scandal around Murdock’s British News of the World (NOW), a rough and tumble tabloid, famous for manufacturing the wrong kind of news, but also part of a news group pushing a political ideology.

Here in the States we have seen the propaganda techniques used to influence the American public. Now one (and probably more than one) British component of the News Corp empire seems to have slipped from the merely sleazy, indecent and immoral to the illegal. Phone hacking of private voice mail which apparently has been going on six years since the London bombings, which saw 52 people murdered and 700 injured. Reluctantly it seems after being pressed to stop earlier investigations, the police are investigating whether the mobile phones of several of those who lost family members in those attacks were hacked by private investigators hired by the News of the World. Getting the inside scoop never seemed so sleazy and we are now hear that as many as 4000 people may have had their phone messages listened to. The British accepted a loss or privacy for celebrities, but finally the scope of invasion has exceeded the public taste and the dam has broken. For a discussion of various privacy issues involved see What price privacy now?).

Among employees NOW is infamous for relentless pressure for attention gathering “results” (aka News) including paying police officers for information. But it may be part of a much larger cultural picture of how powerful interests operate and have compromised if not corrupted society at several levels. According to a government report the younger James Murdoch approved a 700,000-pound payment to a phone-hacking victim that was accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement. This smells of an organize a "cover-up." Consistent with this, there are claims that NOW paid off police officers investigating this and that police backed off of investigations and cooperated with NOW for favorable news NOW coverage. There are reports that this was partly due to bribes, but also to avoid being the target of unfavorable press and/or to avoid political pressure. Why political pressure? Well Murdock's empire can apply so much pressure that candidates don't even temp crossing him. Prime Minster Cameron's has links with former Murdoch executives most notably Andy Coulson, deputy editor of NOW in 2000. In 2007, Coulson was hired by David Cameron as the Conservative Party's director of communication. He was tasked with the Foxian idea of bringing a bit of tabloid liveliness to Cameron's staid party. Or you could say make it more like the contemporary Republican Party. Andy Coulson became a key adviser in Cameron’s campaign. Cameron needed a press person and as a Labor party leader put it:

"Coulson is ruthless and will go to any lengths to serve his master. I will be his master and he my attack dog" It worked and Cameron is now a PM. Coulson knew how to get the message out to the people, but also how to make the opposition look bad.

Pols need to avoid such negative coverage (based in oppositional analysis) and thus we have see even liberal politicians courting Murdock’s media. For decades British pols have had to had to develop some working (if not close) relations with Murdock if only to avoid being tarred in the tabloids. Labor’s Tony Blair flew to Australia to address a meeting of News Corp executive in the mid-1990s as he sought to woo Mr. Murdoch for his up eventual campaign. Hillary Clinton seemed to have a similar “understanding” with Murdock during her campaign:

"They have a respectful and cordial relationship. He has respect for the work she has done on behalf of New York. I wouldn't say it was illustrative of a close ongoing relationship.” See Rupert Murdoch Loves Hillary Clinton.

It's a forms of soft corruption and acceptance of a dubious practice. I personally saw some changed atmosphere when in 2008 I had conservative friends of mine smilingly tell me that I would be surprised of who they liked in the Democratic primary. Like Murdock they were switching from all those negative things they said and believed about Hillary in the 90s. That’s when conservatives marshaled supporters and paid consultants to investigate the Clinton’s. People look into all aspects of a target's life including legal or criminal, medical, educational, financial, public, private and military service and voting records, as well as prior media coverage. Now it's emails and voice mail too. For Hillary that opposition research and propaganda was then. Now she is RELATIVELY OK.

But the message is chilling to other candidates who on the liberal side risk being knocked out over things that don’t seem to trouble Newt G or others.

So it is a good thing to be getting a bit of transparency into how power media and politics works. Hopefully people will pay attention and assimilate the message. Be skeptical and consider the sources.

For a time the public is being informed about the way things work. Hopefully we won’t be distracted by the next Big News Thing such as politician’s bus trips or the details of a big religious breakfast meeting. There are more important things to understand in these times and we can't afford to lose fair, and on balance, quality people like a Feingold or a Grayson.

Costly Signaling for Lay Skeptics

Let's say you're an average person, of average intelligence, average education, with an average job, and you've run across several news articles.

One says that an asteroid has just been detected that will hit the earth in 2015. Another says that taking vitamin B3 daily can improve your cholesterol levels. A third says that increasing defense spending will help balance the budget. Another says that evidence of extraterrestrial life has been found in an Antarctic meteorite. A fifth one says that the Gospel of Mark has been dated as having been written between 40 and 50 CE. And finally, a story that people who prayed to a statue of Krishna have been cured of cancer and blindness.

How do you, as a lay person with a full-time day job, determine which ones to believe, and which ones to disregard?

I don't have a good answer, by the way. I'm hoping you can suggest something in the comments.

All such articles are trying to "sell" you an idea, in a broad, general sense. Sometimes the selling is literal, as when a company tries to convince you that you're a pathetic malodorous loser who'll never be accepted by the in-crowd or find true love unless you buy their product. Other times, it's metaphorical: "I want you to know this, because..." well, that's the question, isn't it? "Because we'll all benefit if people who will implement these ideas get elected." "Because I'll make a ton of money if you help elect people who'll implement these ideas." "Because I care about you and your health." "Because this will help save your soul from eternal damnation." "Because this idea, while bland, is true, and I think it's better if we know the truth."

It would be great if there were a single source to which one could turn to to get the truth, or if news articles came with a little checkmark, the way Twitter shows that "neilhimself" is the famous Neil Gaiman, while "NeilGaiman" is someone else. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The problem is that true ideas and false ideas can look an awful lot like each other.

But it occurs to me that nature has come up with a solution to this problem. In sexual species, males often try to communicate that "you should mate with me; I'll provide our offspring with plenty of food, and they'll be resistant to parasites and predation." In such cases, it's often advantageous to lie: a male who convinces a female he's in it for the long haul can impregnate her, then ditch her to impregnate someone else. Preferably while some other male sucker gets stuck caring for the liar's offspring.

So what's a female to do? How does she figure out who's serious about helping to feed the kids, and who's just trying to get inside her cloaca? One solution is known as costly signaling. "Signaling" refers to the "I've got great genes" message, above. The "costly" part means that the signal should be sent in a way that's difficult or expensive (in time, effort, ability, etc.) to fake. The usual example is that of the peacock, who demonstrates his worth by the fact that he's managed to survive despite having a huge, flashy tail that prevents him from flying, and hinders escape from predators. If he's managed to overcome such a handicap, he must have superior genes indeed.

The idea of costly signaling is more general than that: it basically means that the signaler has to invest enough effort or resources into the communication to be taken seriously, that cheating isn't worth it.

(As an aside, I can think of a few possible instances in human society: an engagement ring sends the message that "I'm willing to spend a pile of money on a small rock; so I'm in this for the long haul, not just for a quick fling". Taking a prospective client to dinner or to a ball game says "We don't do this for just anyone; but we're willing to do what it takes to get your business." And an Italian sports car and designer clothes say "I have so much money that I can afford to waste it on an expensive logo. Of course I'll be able to feed our family and send our kids to college.")

So getting back to my original point, it might be possible to identify costly signals to distinguish trustworth news sources from untrustworthy ones.

For instance, was the article published by a major news outlet, or by some local paper you've never heard of? In principle, the greater the reputation of the publication, the more editors and fact-checkers it has had to pass through to get published. Unfortunately, given the state of American journalism, this may not be as safe an assumption as one might hope.

A related criterion might be: do they have a fancy web site, or does it look like it was slapped together by someone's kid in the 1990s? Unfortunately, this doesn't work at all, since organizations like Americans for Prosperity, BP, and Answers in Genesis can easily afford good web designers.

Do the authors have letters after their name? An article on medicine written by an MD, or an article on science written by a Ph.D. is probably more trustworthy than one written by a beat reporter. The time and effort required to go through grad school or med school to obtain those letters should weed out the fakers.

Of course, the competence has to be in a relevant field: I tend to trust what Paul Krugman writes about the economy, because he has a degree and a Nobel prize in economics, but not if he writes about, say, medicine or geology.

And, of course, it's very easy to just say that one has a Ph.D., or to buy a degree from a diploma mill, without putting in the effort to learn a subject well enough to speak authoritatively about it. To combat this, there accreditation institutes that investigate schools and give their stamp of approval to the ones that require students to learn something before graduating. Of course, now that a lot of people have learned to ask "is your degree from an accredited school?", there are accreditation mills, which will accredit any diploma mill for a fee.

Has the author published any peer-reviewed research? Peer review is intended as a filter to make sure that research journals don't publish any old garbage. This criterion is probably pretty good, though not flawless. For one thing, it usually requires effort on the reader's part to seek out the author's publication record. For another, various creationist organizations publish cargo-cult "peer-reviewed" journals where articles are reviewed by a panel of fellow creationist before publication.

Trusted endorsements: this might be called the poor man's peer review. When Phil Plait, an astromer, writes a blog post that links to a post on astronomy, that's a good sign. It means that the article on the other end of the link hasn't raised Phil's baloney-meter. That tends to make me trust the article more, because Phil would notice errors that I wouldn't.

Does the site link to contrary views? In its heyday in the 1990s, one notable difference between the pro-evolution site talkorigins.org and anti-evolution sites was that talkorigins.org usually linked to the creationist sources they were discussing, and to creationist rebuttals of their articles. To me, this said "we're going to make it easy for you to read the other side's rebuttal, because we're confident that the facts are on our side, and even if you read both sides, you'll agree with us."

Any others? Ideally, the sort of costly signal should be something hard for the writer to produce, and easy for the reader to verify, without requiring too much effort (because we want to dismiss bogus claims quickly) and without requiring special knowledge. And if the criterion fits on a bumper sticker, so much the better.