A few days ago, I commented on reverse-engineered journalism, where journalists have a story they want to tell and manufacture sources to fit that story. I watched the practice when I worked as a reporter, and saw it from the other side when I worked as a defense attorney. President Obama talked about it yesterday at the end of his OFA online town hall. And last night, both Keith Olbermann and Newsweek's Howard Fineman did it on Countdown.
Oh, and the stars look promising for everyone but you.
More below the fold....
Reverse-Engineered Journalism
My news career began as a part-time sports correspondent, a "stringer," at a city newspaper. High school sports are a major draw for newspapers, as parents love to read about their kids' exploits and most high school games aren't covered by television or radio news. The city paper covered every high school sporting event in the area, and with dozens of high schools and several sports, that was more than the full-time staff could handle. Most of us stringers were college journalism students, so it was also good real-world experience in what we were studying in class.
My first assignment was to observe a veteran stringer as he covered a football game with a local powerhouse playing at a much weaker school. Once he'd showed me the basics, he began typing on his laptop:
The rumbling clouds overhead echoed the storm that burst on [home team].
"What are you doing now?" I asked.
"Writing my story," he replied.
"But they haven't started the game yet."
"Yes, but it's obvious who's going to win," he said.
It was my first experience of reverse-engineered journalism, where a reporter decides on a story he/she wants to tell and may even write the story - independent of and sometimes even before the event - then selects or manufactures incidents and sources to fit that story.
Reporting is more creative than objective.
News reporting is an inherently creative process. We're a storytelling species, and we want news in story format. But few news stories "tell themselves," with events that spill out along a clear, narrative line. Events happen in the form of incomplete, often contradictory details, and it's the reporter's job to sift through that goo and distill it into a coherent story. Because reporters are human beings and filter events through their own experience of how and why things happen, every news story is biased. The choices happen throughout the process, from the publishers' and editors' decisions on which stories to cover and how prominently to reporters' decisions on which sources and details to highlight.
As I wrote in the linked comment, reporters do sometimes make up 'quotes' for their sources. Often that's not really bias; it's simply that the source is rambling and/or using jargon, and the reporter needs a clear, declarative sentence that readers will understand. So a reporter sifts through what the source has said, and asks a question like "Okay, can I quote you as saying...?" That's good reporting, and many stories would be incomprehensible without it.
But sometimes the story a reporter wants to write simply isn't 'there.' The reporter may be convinced the story is true but can't get at facts to support it, or may be emotionally, professionally, and/or ideologically invested in a narrative. So the reporter gets creative: selecting and piecing together isolated, against-the-grain details to buttress the story, even writing 'quotes' and looking for a 'source' who is willing to at least say, "Yes, there are people who think that." Or the reporter highlights some specific words that were not said, attributing significance to "the dog that didn't bark."
Like last night on Countdown.
I watched President Obama's OFA town hall yesterday afternoon. Both in his introductory remarks and in response to several questions, President Obama made it clear that he believes a public option is an important part of health care reform. He used the "belt and suspenders" metaphor, that regulatory reform offered some protection for consumers, but the option of a non-profit, government plan offered additional protection.
President Obama explained that he hasn't framed the dialogue solely in terms of the public option, because there is a lot more in the proposed reform package. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 10 million Americans would choose the public option. While its existence would indirectly benefit everyone - by "keeping the insurance companies honest" - people also want to know how other parts of the proposal, like regulatory reforms, would affect them. Those reforms will directly affect more people, improving the quality of the insurance they already have and that many want to keep. But he never said or implied that a public option was trivial, or that he was willing to trade it away in negotiations with Republicans.
He also didn't say "I will veto any bill without a public option."
And Keith Olbermann seized on that "dog that didn't bark" in his segment with Howard Fineman, to introduce the narrative that President Obama had not "fully committed" to the public option. Fineman then cherry-picked President Obama's words, seizing on the word maybe in this part of the president's belt-and-suspenders metaphor: "Those regulations are the belt, and the public option, maybe that's the suspenders."
From that and past administration comments, some perhaps manufactured, all at least selected and presented in isolation from the many times and ways President Obama has advocated for the public option, Olbermann and Fineman continued the ongoing media narrative of "confusion" and implied the president may be willing to trade away the public option.
The story some want to tell:
As President Obama said in his concluding remarks, he's faced reverse-engineered journalism from the start of his campaign. Many in the media have been looking for opportunities to prove that his message of citizen involvement leading to positive change is naïve. The story they're used to telling, perhaps the story they genuinely believe, is of a government inevitably run by and for Beltway insiders, lobbyists, and big business. The events of the past administration, and indeed the past 40 years, seem to support that narrative. "Look who's been winning lately," that story says. "Do you really think this time will be any different?"
But the veteran stringer I was observing that night couldn't stick with his pre-written story. The weaker home team staged a dramatic, fourth-quarter comeback and gave that local powerhouse their first loss of the season. That's the problem with writing a story before the events have played out.
President Obama asked us not to give up, and he's right. Because "We got ourselves a game."
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We couldn't see the stars directly due to clouds, but sources close to them said....
Leo - Make the best of this weekend, because Virgo starts on Monday.
Virgo - And no cutting ahead in line either.
Libra - The left of the left of your Kossascope says "Libra."
Scorpio - The far right of your Kossascope says "scroll bar."
Sagittarius - Some say others disagree with you.
Capricorn - You haven't yet refused to reject something, somehow.
Aquarius - We're not sure where you stand, because you're sitting right now.
Pisces - Your planet is Jupiter, and insiders are said to be hot gases.
Aries - You haven't said you wouldn't, so we're assuming you might.
Taurus - Sources close to your planet, Venus, choked on its toxic atmosphere.
Gemini - If last weekend was any clue, this weekend will be one too.
Cancer - This weekend and next week are negotiating over Sunday night.
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Happy Friday!