Primary Coverage Without the Facts

One thing that does really tire me concerning the coverage of the primaries is that, being so intent to provide color in the manner of a sportscast, to the point sometimes of shouting (but at least not shouting "Booyah" so far), the standards of the factual content have declined.

I've noted before that explaining how the voters feel is akin to reporting on the voters to an audience of candidates rather than vice versa. It is also an ill because it aggravates "third-party effect", plants the notion of voters' election role as passive and predetermined, and promotes preoccupation with the least important concerns. It is human nature to absorb the silliness of the pundits, just as it is human nature to laugh more readily at unfunny farce when a laugh track is provided. I of course am wrapped up in the race myself, being not immune. I fancy myself a lay pundit, with something unique and important to say to anyone who will listen, which puts me in the same cart with two thirds of the voters, who when scratched will do their best imitations of insiders, spouting back the virdicts of the punditocracy. The election coverage we get, which does not tell us how candidates would govern, but communicates the feelings and concerns of pundits and asks us to internalize them, is a continuous track not of chuckles and guffaws, but acquiescence and indigation according to the values of the pundit class.

But as I began, the issue today is on declining factual standards. Before I make my point about them, let me just set one thing up: A lot of things in this world are complicated. One must take care to speak with a certain precision about them, otherwise, one veers easily into untruth. Some things are not just complicated but sensitive. A small misstep might inadvertently send a message that insults or denigrates. And some things are policed so that it is not unheard of that people might speak in code, relating a message below the surface of their literal meaning. There are also those in the audience who find a convoluted or complex position irksome because it seems "overlawyered" and weasely. Something so carefully parsed suggests less than full commitment.

In this kind of public discourse environment, it would be back-asswards public policy to put the entire onus on the speaker to construct every statement perfectly, or to obligate them to elaborate each remark to idiot-proof it against imagined meanings, unlikely but conceivable misinterpretations, or misuse by clever editing. This especially goes for the campaign trail, where candidates are prone to rattling 20-hour days where every word is recorded and the record culled for the most outstandimg highlights.

What can the media do? It can provide context and background, so that voters will not be taken advantage of for their ignorance. I've often thought that John Kerry, although a bad pick, would have done much better if anyone in this country understood how the Senate worked, and that voting no on one version of a bill, then voting yes on a better version was not a flip flop. (Plus that some votes are strategic or symbolic, all are compromises, and voting twenty times on one bill that contains thirty inconsequential and uncontroversial small tax increases is not voting for six hundred tax increases.) Back to what the media can do: it can resist the urge to run soundbites, whose time I have not checked recently, but the last time I saw the research, their average length had gotten down to about eight seconds. It's not easy to get much context or nuance into eight seconds. The media can resist relaying any campaign message that seeks to punish core discourse values like nuance, caution, precision, reliance on evidence, transparency and tact. It can refuse to convey messages that are fact checked and determined to be simply and uncontriversially untrue. It can generally include context. And there's one final thing they can do, which they are not doing, and it's a pretty basic Journalism 101 skill. Can you guess it?
Consider the following examples, not all, from the Clinton-Obama dustup manufactured by the media. :

(1) Bill Clinton calling Obama's candidacy a fairy-tale.
(2) Obama changing positions on the war.
(3) Obama saying conservatives had all the good ideas.
(4) Hillary lying about Obama by saying he praised Reagan.
(5) Hillary suggesting Martin Luther King was not an effective civil rights leader.
(6) Hillary fanning the flames by making snipes at Obama on Meet the Press.
(7) Bill distorting the the facts by saying no one thought Hillary could win New Hampshire.

All of these have been reported in a manner completely at odds with basic journalistic standards, and most if not all of these has been reported in a manner exemplifying the basic staple of journalistic integrity I referred to above, which is: quote accurately. I mean, jeesh! In (1), Bill Clinton was not ambiguous at all. The context was completely clear that he called Obama's account of his consistent opposition to the war a fairy tale. Paraphrasing him partially quoting him as indicated above has not been limited to Obama surrogates outside of the media. In (2), I don't know of Obama being misquoted, but I wouldn't bet against it. Obama was consistent in saying that he was opposed to the war, but could not say how he would have voted on the war were he in the Senate in 2003. That's fair, because in the Senate, no one introduces a bill that says simply, "War?" and asks for your vote. The particular legislation was for authorization of force, and it deserved to be voted down, but lots of Senators stood up and said their vote for the bill was not intended as a vote for war. This goes back to the idea that the media doesn't explain much of the civic basics regarding the responsibilities and processes in government. In (3) we have a Bill Clinton misquote of Obama, which many in the media echoed either in or out of quotes. Obama actually said the Republican Party was for a time the "party of ideas," which was true, in fact. The Republicans had a bold agenda to push America backwards, while the Democrats were mostly about stopping this, which is not in itself much of an idea. In (4) we have Maureen Dowd from today's Times, misreflecting what Hillary said and implicitly misreflecting Obama too by somehow viewing the substance of what she put into Hillary's mpouth as wrong when it was right. Obama did praise Reagan. If Hillary had said simply this, it would not be inaccurate. It is possible to praise someone you disagree with. In (5) we have what is now a famously ridiculous misreading, which was originally attributed to James Clyburn but disavowed by him. I don't remember actually ever seeing Clyburn quoted as saying anything really substantive. I do recall the Times attributing a vague statement to him, which in the context they provided seemed ridiculous, and made me instantly think, "I wonder what the actual context was for this remark." Since then, I've seen the Clyburn elliptical comment referred to repeatedly without ever being quoted for I think the obvious reason that there wasn't ever much there to quote. In (6) we have a reference from someone in the media talking about how Hillary just wouldn't let the issue go. In fact, she was asked directly about the matter, and answered in a way that was fairly deflective, but I guess the fact that he answer was somewhat responsive and not completely evasive meant that she was trying to keep the story alive. Finally, (7) is Dowd again, accusing Bill of misreflecting what the pundits had said. Of course, Bill was accurate. The polls showed Obama way ahead on the eve of the vote, so "everyone" (among the class Bill was referring to) had already pronounced Hillary the loser. Dowd said this was "rewriting history," which in this case was a job Bill was happy to leave to Dowd.

So, in a nutshell: the media get off on handicapping the horserace, and it's infectious and it's bad not only for its own sake, but because the commentators are so preoccupied with how things seem or are read that they don't even do the reality-check of just reporting accurately what someone said, meaning they have effectively regressed to a prejournalistic state, and have lost the one thing that ever made them useful to begin with. They've stopped reporting and stopped anchoring their commenting to the actual news, and are commenting on their own feelings, which is far worse than nothing at all.