Journalism and the Philosophy of Truth

Beyond Objectivity and Balance

Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317499992
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book bridges a gap between discussions about truth, human understanding, and epistemology in philosophical circles, and debates about objectivity, bias, and truth in journalism. It examines four major philosophical theories in easy to understand terms while maintaining a critical insight which is fundamental to the contemporary study of journalism. The book aims to move forward the discussion of truth in the news media by dissecting commonly used concepts such as bias, objectivity, balance, fairness, in a philosophically-grounded way, drawing on in depth interviews with journalists to explore how journalists talk about truth.

1 Introduction

Lies, Lies, Lies!

But we begin, as always, tonight, ‘Keepin’ ‘em Honest.’ And tonight we begin by focusing on the lies that the Egyptian government continues to tell. Now, I know ‘lies’ is a strong word, it’s one we rarely use, we talk about … d, ‘different facts,’ but we can’t think of another word right now to describe what the Egyptian government has been saying because what they have been saying is the direct opposite of what they have been doing.

(Cooper 2011)

The CNN star [Anderson Cooper] regularly devotes a segment on his show to ‘Keeping Them Honest.’ Some critics have noticed Cooper’s pronounced shift toward more opinion-making in recent months. One theory is that CNN – which has hewed to traditional he-said/she-said reporting in the past – may be trying to adopt the more commentary-heavy approach of its higher-rated competitors, Fox and MSNBC.

(Rainey 2011)

The above exchange is an interesting example of two news media professionals’ differing take on the job of news media in relation to exposing truth. Anderson Cooper’s segment quoted above, from his CNN show AC360°, concerns the ‘lies’ of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his government and was part of a recurring segment titled ‘Keeping Them Honest,’ in which Cooper tests statements made by government officials, usually American ones. He often interviews the person who made the statement, asking for proof and support for their claims and challenging them with information that CNN gathered. What is perhaps remarkable is that a special segment is needed to showcase such direct fact checking of politicians, for is that not the raison d’être of the news media? As Glenn Greenwald wrote in response to the above article by Los Angeles Times’ Rainey, which attacked Cooper’s segment in general and the report about Egypt in particular, “Identifying lies told by powerful political leaders – and describing them as such – is what good journalists do, by definition. It’s the crux of adversarial journalism, of a ‘watchdog’ press” (Greenwald 2011, bold in original).

A more interesting question is, why is Rainey so shaken by Cooper’s use of the word ‘lie’ and its derivatives? “He [Cooper] heaped the pejorative on Egypt’s leaders 14 times in a single ‘Anderson Cooper 360,’” Rainey (2011) points out, before conceding at the end of his article, “Indeed, it’s hard to find fault with what Cooper had to say, though it did begin to sound a little one-note after about the sixth or seventh ‘liar, liar.’” So, if Cooper’s fact checking itself checks out, then why is it simply the use of the word ‘liar’ that Rainey has problems with? Why is it “pejorative” (ibid.) to call someone who lies a ‘liar’? Why is exposing lies considered a “more commentary-heavy approach” (ibid.)? As Greenwald, again, responds to Rainey, “It’s when a journalist fails to identify a false statement as such that they are ‘taking sides’ – they’re siding with those in power by deceitfully depicting their demonstrably false statements as something other than lies” (Greenwald 2011).

The Traitor Snowden

A more recent example might not, on the surface, seem to apply to journalism and truth but instead, depending on your view of the topic, to revelations about a traitor or government efforts to attack a whistleblower. News Corp’s Sunday Times, on June 14, 2015 (Harper, Kerbaj, and Shipman 2015a), published an article concerning Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who leaked classified documents to journalists in 2013. The story created a storm and was widely reported in other media due to allegations that Snowden, either on purpose or by accident, caused his stolen classified documents to fall into the hands of the Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies. The article contained phrases such as “Western intelligence agencies say,” “Senior government sources confirmed,” and “One senior Home Office official accused Snowden” (Harper, Kerbaj, and Shipman 2015a) and did not qualify any of these statements as being unverifiable and did not include any counterpoints, such as a statement from Snowden himself or journalists who worked with him.

It was quickly rebuffed by one of the journalists that received the leaked files (Greenwald 2015), pointing out the sources for the Sunday Times article were all anonymous government officials whose statements were not verified: “The whole article does literally nothing other than quote anonymous British officials” (Greenwald 2015, bold in original). However, the original allegations set the agenda for how the story was covered in other media outlets around the world for the next several weeks.

For example, according to the Canadian Globe and Mail (Séguin 2015), the Sunday Times article “stat[ed]” and “claim[ed]” and “speculated” its allegations against Snowden, the anonymous UK government sources “revealed” it, while Snowden’s lawyer simply “claims” the story is wrong, and “claimed” Snowden destroyed the files, and “explained” his points. In the Irish Independent, the British government twice “confirmed” the movement of the spies out of harm’s way, while the Sunday Times article “revealed” the actions of Russia and China in decoding the files (Milmo 2015). Sky News calls it a “revelation that Russia and China have managed to decipher many of the documents” despite earlier hedging it, saying that the public is “now being told that human intelligence […] has been compromised” (White 2015), although being unclear who is doing the telling. In these ‘straight’ news stories, statements from government officials ‘reveal’ and ‘confirm’ the state of affairs, only sometimes being cast as ‘claims’ by the officials. This gives the government’s view the benefit of the doubt as being the truth, what later I will term Realism. Calling their statements ‘claims,’ on the other hand, is more Pragmatic in nature, being open to change at some future time and being the truth only contingently.

Editorials were even harsher, especially in papers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, who published the original article. One in the Wall Street Journal (2015) asserts that Snowden’s “stolen files have been cracked by Russian and Chinese intelligence services,” while the article’s subtitle only says that “a newspaper report says” this. In an editorial in News Corp’s The Australian, the author states that we should no longer think of Snowden as a hero “in light of The Sunday Times exposing the extent to which Russian and Chinese intelligence is now feasting on the contents of the almost 1.7 million top secret, encrypted files stolen by Snowden from the US National Security Agency” (The Australian 2015). The files have ‘been cracked’ Snowden is exposed, and the other spy agencies are ‘feasting’ on Snowden’s data, all given complete factuality. As these are editorials and not bound to the same epistemological standards as the ‘straight’ news stories, Pragmatism falls away.

The original Sunday Times authors doubled down the next week, stating that “it emerged that the government believes secret material he stole from British and US intelligence agencies has fallen into the hands of Russia and China” (Harper, Kerbaj, and Shipman 2015b). The fact that they refer to their own previous story as a common-sense fact, ‘emerging’ from the ether, shows how their own Reality now rests on a story they themselves wrote. In the final chapter these types of journalistic conventions will be related to another theory, that of Hyperrealism in which news articles are viewed as being more real than real. The Sunday Times authors were able to construct their own self-referential reality, or Hyperreality, from using the rituals of the media, bolstered by the support of the other News Corp media outlets.

Some would claim his is a conspiracy on the part of Rupert Murdoch in some anti-Snowden quest; however, I believe this represents a more fundamental example of the proper normative operations of the media. The journalists at the Sunday Times and other outlets broke no rules in their coverage, using Realism to represent the government agent’s statements and to elevate their allegations to Reality. The diversity of news outlets and the presence of articles directly contradicting the Sunday Times’ story, such as Greenwald’s (2015) rebuttal.

The Truth About Lies

These two examples point to a fundamental conflict within the news media, that of the role of journalists in relation to the truth. As we will see below, truth is a powerful motivating factor in the production and reception of news media. The legitimacy of the majority of news media organisations lies in their ability to produce ‘factual’ content for audiences, and it is this which often attracts audiences that the news media outlet can then sell to advertisers. This, of course, exists in noncommercial public service news media as well as their standards of practice directly address the importance of producing factual content.

If a journalist calls out a leader, be it domestic or foreign, for lying, their discourse is epistemological in nature, Realist,¹ resting on the journalist’s ability to reveal the truth. If a producer books two opposing sides to discuss a topic on their show, this practice is also epistemological, Pragmatic, based on the need to provide a range of opinion to attract a wider audience and let them decide what is the truth.

Yet, news media professionals, such as the Cooper example above, can easily be charged with bias when they claim they are exposing lies. What special skills and qualifications does a journalist have or need to have to be able to truly expose the truth? It is certainly not the same as hard scientists doing experiments in the lab. If it is closer to social science, then journalism is in trouble because social scientists rarely, if ever, claim the results of their research are the final word in how the world works.

On the other side, how balanced does a balanced news report or debate have to be? Only Republican vs Democrat? Two competing candidates for the same position, or perhaps three, four, or even more? Do you balance scientists who claim global warming is caused by human activity with ones who deny that? As Nick Davies put it in Flat Earth News (Davies 2007), do you balance someone saying the earth is round with someone saying the earth is flat? You have to draw the line somewhere.

This book is an effort to introduce new life into these old debates by revisiting the fundamental philosophy that underpins journalistic epistemology. First, I will explain why looking at Epistemology as a philosophical concept is needed and then why it is highly suitable to discuss journalism. Reasons why this study will not focus simply on concepts such as objectivity and media bias will then be discussed, arguing that there is plenty of research in this area and the need for new theories is necessary, elaborating on the four epistemological concepts outlined in this book: Realism, Pragmatism, Antirealism, and Hyperrealism.

I will then go over the methods used to gather the primary data used for the analysis. Unlike many philosophical discussions around truth and journalism, I will also use the discourse of journalists interviewed by myself to inform the discussion. This is not to take their statements at face value nor to associate their talk with their ‘beliefs.’ It is simply talk, talk that, however, illustrates how they are situated in the field of journalism and the extent of their socialisation into journalism’s epistemology.

Why Journalism and Epistemology?

The first question to ask is, why Epistemology? Journalism has been studied in a variety of ways; what fresh insights can using Philosophical theories relating to Epistemology bring?

First, as Hetherington argues, “epistemology’s practices or methods are discursive – discussing, proposing, reflecting” (Hetherington 2012: 4). This is highly compatible with journalism, as journalists and their critics are always discussing and reflecting on journalism and then proposing ways to deal with the problems.

Second, a “distinction many philosophers have been concerned with” is the “distinction between what is really true and what is merely believed, even with good reason, to be true” (Longino 2002: 83). For journalism ‘what is true’ is of the utmost importance. If the content of news media was indeed ‘merely belief’ then it would cease to exist as an institution. Hookway argues that modern epistemologists operate by “asking what is required for being justified in believing a proposition or by explaining when we possess knowledge” (2012: 159). How journalists ‘posses’ their ‘knowledge’ is a central theme in media studies, ranging from their sourcing patterns to the influence of personal or intuitional bias.

There do remain several challenges, however. Longino differentiates between Philosophy’s “disembodied, detached character of the ideal corpus [i.e. of knowledge]” and sociology’s “own practices,” which “persists into the characterizations of knowing and of content” (Longino 2002: 85). This book is, in part, an attempt to reconcile these two, bringing the insights of sociology of journalism to philosophy in an attempt to become less ‘detached.’ Vice versa, the sociological focus on ‘knowing’ and ‘content’ can be deepened by a stronger connection to the major Epistemological theories. When there is such connection it is generally fleeting, and thus bringing the two together in a consistent matter can better elucidate their intimate connection.

The scope of the epistemological philosophy included has to be limited, however, in order to remain relevant and as concise as possible. Thus, while “some of Plato’s questions about knowledge are still among philosophy’s central epistemological challenges” including the notion of “there possibly being different kinds of knowledge, such as would arrive through perception, or by way of reason” and themes such as “the nature of knowledge, its availability, and methods for obtaining it (if it is available)” (Hetherington 2012: 9), there will be no in-depth discussion of such Ancient Greek philosophers.

Renaissance and Enlightenment-era Epistemologists will get a more in-depth treatment, however, as their work is what actually formed the basis of the philosophy of journalism that developed in the eighteenth century and beyond. This will have to be tempered due to the fast-moving world of philosophy and how earlier ideas are easily transplanted by newer ones. For example, while Kant’s project was to “guide metaphysics onto the ‘secure path’ of a science” (Merritt and Valaris 2012: 132), as opposed to the British empiricists who were less concerned with purely metaphysical problems, many modern philosophers do not follow Kant’s epistemology because “the world as revealed by physical science need not bear any resemblance to our experience of it” (ibid. 146). For example, many scientific instruments convert things that we cannot experience, such as light or sound outside of our limited visual and audio spectrums, into something that we can; the observations of the converted data are scientifically valid even though we never experience it directly in that way. Thus, we will have to be careful when relating ‘antiquated’ theories to modern journalism and instead view them as a part of a progression towards modern concepts.

Finally, as Maras argues, “philosophy is not the sole ‘source’ of objectivity,” noting other fields, such as law, politics, and journalistic practice also have a large influence (Maras 2013: 83–84). This is true, and studies that focus on legal and political influences do a very good job of that. At the same time, the philosophy of truth is of a more fundamental importance to journalism than legal and political theories, as I will now illustrate.

Why Journalism?

First is the need for new theories in journalism. Entman (2007: 163) argues that bias is “curiously undertheorized.” He provides definitions of three types of bias: (1) ‘distortion’ in which reality is falsified, (2) ‘content’ in which equal treatment to different sides is not given, and (3) ‘decision-making,’ which focuses on the journalists’ own decisions (ibid. 163), the latter which is also called ‘gatekeeping’ bias by D’Alessio and Allen (2000). Entman argues that scholars can only really evaluate the latter two due to epistemological issues with the concept of truth. This shows the Antirealist slant of such perspectives, in which discussions about Reality in the ‘distortion bias’ are put aside for more easily quantifiable critiques. The first two of these relate directly to two epistemological theories discussed in this book, Realism and Pragmatism.

Muñoz-Torres argues that one problem discussing ‘objectivity’ in the journalism literature is that it “has a philosophical origin” and is thus “connected to other deep and difficult philosophical concepts, like that of truth, without which it cannot be ultimately grasped at all” (Muñoz-Torres 2012: 56...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Realism
• 3 Pragmatism
• 4 Dialectic of Realism and Pragmatism
• 5 Antirealism
• 6 Hyperrealism
• 7 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index