Mainstream journalism has gotten weak in this country (USA). Maybe it always was, but I recall stories from way back about things like the Watergate scandal, the Pentagon Papers, the atrocities in Vietnam, the Muckrakers of the turn of the 20th century. Lately, it all seems like a game of Simon Says.
Simon Says we must give more control to government and especially the executive branch after 9.11 (sure, it’s fine to imprison people without charges or evidence). Simon Says Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (even though it was fairly obvious to a casual observer like me that there was no evidence) so we must invade. Simon Says product A has helpful properties X, Y, Z (a “news” story written by an advertising person at a for-profit company and used directly, uncritically by news organizations). Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of State in 2002) famously said, in relation to WMDs, “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” and the press just let that stand – as if that were sufficient justification for invading a sovereign nation and killing hundreds of thousands of people.
What gets to me is the lack of challenge or skepticism. Journalists should be well-informed on the subject of an interview and they should challenge the interviewee on any statements they make not backed up by logic or evidence (or, worse, seeming contrary to the evidence, like the WMDs myth). Yet they do not – they just seem to accept all that is said by the so-called expert and then regurgitate that to the public.
In America, we have “fair and balanced” news coverage which is really just selling the line the so-called experts are saying. This may involve politics in terms of picking right or left leaning experts (as on Fox), or it may be neutral and picking a variety of political-wing experts (as on NPR). In the rare cases where journalists (as opposed to pundits) actually challenge the interviewees, it is generally to one consistent bias and is not done equally to all interviewees (e.g., some Fox shows and also left-leaning shows like Rachel Maddow, although I happen to like the latter).
Last week, I heard a military representative being interviewed on NPR about the future of Afghanistan following the death of Osama bin Laden. When asked about withdrawing from Afghanistan, this so-called expert said (as best I recall), “That would cause civil war, leading to the death of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people.” The journalist replied, “Mmm.. It’s a tough situation.” Really? And not, “There’s already a civil war in Afghanistan which has killed thousands of people, how would the US/Coalition withdrawal “cause” a civil war? How would it be worse than what’s happening now?”
This lack of critical journalism is nowhere more apparent than when compared to the BBC News. The British journalists on that show pretty much challenge anyone they interview, from representatives of their own government to ambassadors from other governments to casual people or “experts” who make unfounded statements. It doesn’t matter if the interviewee is right or left leaning or is an “official” – they still get a healthy dose of skepticism.
Newspapers are dying, in part because of the growth (and relative cheapness) of online information, but also because there are so many more sources of information now and some of them actually do critical investigative journalism on a regular basis. Wikileaks is doing the job of numerous newspapers, which should be finding out and reporting on things like the number of civilian casualties (more than 200,000) due to the Iraq war. Hopefully the Simon Says of mainstream journalism will fade like a fad, or else the proliferation of “alternative” news sources will become the mainstream.
