Media — Bad Apples
Here is an excerpt of NBC News official statement on Brian Williams:
While on Nightly News on Friday, January 30, 2015, Brian misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003. It then became clear that on other occasions Brian had done the same while telling that story in other venues. This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian’s position.
Note the charge against Williams — “misrepresented events” — and note the consequence —We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months. The suspension will be without pay and is effective immediately. .
While it’s evident that Williams erred and subject to censure, it’s not at all evident why Williams should be the only media figure subject to this ostensible standard on ‘misrepresented events’.
What immediately comes to mind is this comment from David Gregory, also of NBC News and formerly of Meet the Press, when asked the role of journalists and media in checking facts:
Now, NBC’s Meet the Press moderator David Gregory tells The Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz that fact-checking is an “interesting idea” but that his program will not follow ABC’s lead. “People can fact-check Meet the Press every week on their own terms.”
Where I struggle to make sense of the media standards on truth, facts and proper representation on events centers on accountability and responsibility as a member of the media– whether you are a news caster, a journalist, an anchor, broadcaster, and editor, or really anyone in the media business who must present information to the public.
If Brian Williams faces consequence and censure of his actions by promulgating a false personal story, what about the many others who do nothing to fact check easily proven events (or easily refuted ‘facts’)? Are they not also guilty and complicit in the media of pushing false information like Brian Williams? Why does Brian Williams get held to a standard of facts and representative reporting when other media people and channels (print,radio,TV,digital) seemingly can continuously peddle in misrepresentation and misinformation on a consistent basis?
For this to work, either ignorance of truth, facts and the process to establish such must be so widespread as to render the media landscape laughably inept, or, I’ll daresay, that the media tolerates and accepts misrepresentation in so far as it does not impact their brand and their revenues.
What Brian Williams did was embellish a personal story — with recent suggestions of more than one– to burnish his brand and differentiate himself amongst his peers and competitors. This strikes me as a profoundly selfish act, meant to advocate for no one and nothing beyond Mr. Williams himself. While Williams gained personally, I don’t believe that his embellishments substantively changed or altered public policy in a meaningful way. If we now turn to David Gregory and the long running Meet the Press or any similar program, we should note that the misrepresentation and misinformation spewed forth typically not only benefits the person but more often than not, serves to achieve some policy or political objective held by the person misrepresenting. In other words, the misrepresentation,misinformation and and, yes, lies promulgated entail much bigger risks and costs to the public than Mr Williams selfish actions. If I play a role in media and freely allow misrepresentation, misinformation and fabrication of events under my watch to go unchecked and unquestioned when clearly this occurs with unrelenting frequency, how am I any less culpable than Mr. Williams? Why should I not face censure and forced exit from the media stage and platform like Mr. Williams?
Yet, the self-realization on the gaming of media discourse never falls upon the media itself and certainly not on consumers of media. As consumers, we largely accept the misrepresentation and misinformation regularly doled out by the media under the auspices of ‘getting both sides’ or the laughable ‘fair and balanced’ as what is rightfully the role of media. In other words, we really can’t expect media to help us figure out events and issues as properly presented versus misrepresented; as fact versus conjecture; as truth versus lies. No, their only and oft stated role is to present both sides of events and issues with a shrug of their shoulders when it comes to facts and truth. After all, the public largely accepts the false premise that media and journalists must present both sides in any debate as the truth must necessarily lie somewhere in between, never strictly on one side or the other. Why should we expect anything more if we accept the default posture of media as something that takes no responsibility for sorting out fact from fiction?
I’m a bit surprised that the acceptance of ‘the both sides’ kind of media never falls upon weather reporters. As a resident of the Northeast, I might actually embrace a forecast of sunshine and sweltering heat as a counter to the consistent, and irrefutable correctness of a forecast with snow and cold. Under the media’s argument that the truth of the event really lies ‘somewhere between’, I can simply average the temperatures of 5 degrees on the low side with the 85 degrees on the other, and thereby ‘rightfully’ conclude that the ‘true’ temperature must be 45 degrees. Such a ridiculous conclusion naturally arises from such logic but is seemingly embraced as acceptable and righteous in almost everything except for weather reporting.
While I hope this saga with Brian Williams might get to a long overdue reflection on the proper role of media in reporting events and facts, I am skeptical as it appears that Brian Williams will likely be cast the role of the institutional ‘bad apple’ in the media story subject to censure so the quite rotted bushels of other media actors can retain their ostensibly unblemished hides, or to keep the apple metaphor, unblemished skins and rotten cores.
After all, if the public continues to accept the media’s role as nothing more than presenters of ‘both sides’ without ever calling out a side when they misinform and misrepresent, why should we act surprised and outraged at Brian Williams actions? I see no difference in one who misrepresents and fabricates a story of their own versus one who merely promulgates stories with no investment or interest in its truth or accuracy. They are not equivalent; they are precisely equal in their damage to the public debate and discourse.
We get the apples we deserve.
Image courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Green_and_red_apples.jpg
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