Glenn Kessler is the keeper of the lie count over at WaPo. As if counting lies into the thousands serves some purpose. Oh what a tangled web we weave when at 20,000 lies we continue to deceive. Is that the point?
But imagine the royal keeper of the lie count deliberately shading the truth in order to maintain an antiquated inoperative journalistic standard from days of yore.
The headline, though likely written by a person not named Kessler, starts this off on the wrong foot:
"Fact Checker: Trump's bizarre effort to tag Obama's swine flu response as 'a disaster'".
Using the term "bizarre" in this headline is a lie. The writer presumably means - if we were to ignore Trump's longstanding pattern of behavior of false accusations against Obama and political opponents, repeated for effect, and consider Trump a normal person, not a pathological liar, then this behavior would be bizarre. But Trump is Trump, not a different person. And don't journalists have a responsibility to treat him according to objective standards that consider his pattern of behavior, rather than as if he just now spontaneously sprang to life from the head of Zeus? What sense does it make to call behavior that exactly meets expectations "bizarre"? It makes no sense at all.
Of course the smell test tells us that if the swine flu epidemic was a disaster, we would have strong recollection of many bad things happening, which would be preserved as a collective memory informing our cultural references. But we don't. So without going to the tape, we all know it was not a disaster.
The fact checker walks through the necessary steps of examining the data and debunking the Trump claim. He does a good job of it. But is that the best use of resources. Trump succeeds by distracting attention from his failures and, by making false and misleading accusations, drawing attention to others. The so-called fact-checker's painstaking analysis tells us that a certain amount of luck was involved in the swine flu epidemic. OK, but should our focus be on the Obama administration performance in 2010? And should journalists and fact checkers allow themselves over and over to be led by the nose in whatever direction Trump leads them? I would argue, yes - maybe once, or twice at the most. But thousands of times? No. After the first couple, as the tangled web is being weaved, they need to stop fact checking and report, as I have argued many times, not what Trump claims, but what he appears to be doing by making false and inflammatory claims and accusations. Distracting from his malfeasance and escaping scrutiny of his performance.
Kessler's bottom line:
"The Pinocchio Test
Reviewing this history, we can only assume that Trump has not studied the swine-flu pandemic very closely. He simply heard a death-toll figure — remembering it incorrectly — and presumably concluded that anything associated with Obama was a debacle. But in reality, the government under Obama worked relatively smoothly, even if it was not tested as in the current pandemic."
So "Trump has not studied the swine-flu epidemic". OK, not false, but not exactly true in a helpful sense. Can't we assume that Trump has not studied anything? He does not read any agency reports - remember? And why speculate that he "simply heard a death-toll figure" and " concluded" anything. Trump does not marshall the evidence and draw conclusions about anything whatsoever. He makes accusations and that's what he does. Why speculate about a train of events in a way that is tantamount to lying by ignoring the evidence of a pattern of irresponsible behavior. Just report that behavior factually, recognize the pattern as the most important element - not the detail surrounding the allegation. Because when you, the press, shine a spotlight on the person Trump wildly accuses, you are doing his work for him - and neglecting your own work. And don't even leave the frame there of "anything associated with Obama was a debacle."
So there is nothing unexpected about Trump's behavior. News organizations that aspire to some sort of standard that still can not bring themselves to recognize and directly report a specific pattern of bad behavior as just that need to stop "fact checking" and spend more time "pattern checking".
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
When a Journalist Is Like a Bad Scientist
In his blog post on 'The Generalizability Crisis in the Human Sciences' Andrew Gelman writes:
"The point is that there are costs, serious costs, to being overly polite to scientific claims. Every time you “bend over backward” to give the benefit of the doubt to scientific claim A, you’re rigging things against the claim not-A. And, in doing so, you could be doing your part to lead science astray (if the claims A and not-A are of scientific importance) or to hurt people (if the claims A and not-A have applied impact)."
There exists a parallel to the treatment by journalists of their subjects. As president, Trump has openly subjected journalists to extremes of special treatment - berating them, revoking credentials, etc, especially journalists who most conform to long accepted standards of objectivity. Those journalists who have been subjected to this treatment - or the implied threat of similar treatment for non-obeisance - have sometimes come to heel in subtle, but damaging ways. And if we treat the journalistic product in these instances similar to the way we determine conclusions based on scientific study, we join them in doing damage to the truth. The most important damage may well be in ignoring the possible truth of "not-A".
For example, in ‘What do you have to lose?’: Inside Trump’s embrace of a risky drug against coronavirus', reporters Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Laurie McGinley and Josh Dawsey begin with:
"As he stares down a pandemic, economic collapse and a political crisis of his own, President Trump thinks he may have found a silver bullet: hydroxychloroquine."
We can see the A vs. not-A problem coming in this article in the very first line that contains an important working assumption posing as a statement of observable fact. Any statement by a reporter of the form "Person X thinks R" can not be a simple statement of observable fact. We never know for sure what someone thinks or believes. In Trump's case, we often find reporters telling us "what Trump believes" - sometimes attributed (lamely) to "three people close to the president", sometimes without attribution. Strikingly, I can not recall reporters making such statements on a regular basis about any other president - all of whom, unlike Trump, felt some affinity, some obligation, to stick to the facts as much as possible. In Trump's case, in the absence of a reliable source in the president, reporters choose to short circuit their customary process of developing facts by appealing to the magical assumption that they can discern Trump's beliefs from the combination of his statements, his behaviors and sometimes, anonymous sources - and this reporting is permissible because they only employ this approach in conjunction with the assumption that the president is innocent of deliberate wrongdoing,
So, in this example, A = president touting hydroxychloroquine is based on a belief he sincerely holds that this drug is effective against the COVID-19 virus. They also ignore for this purpose the unusual negative qualities of this president who has materially lied thousands of times and committed many other acts destructive of a functioning democratic republic.
But in this example, not A, which the reporters ignore, can be many things.
Not-A could be that DJT has stalled having the federal government provide personal protection equipment, ventilators, virus testing kits, and other supplies to NY and other parts of the US in order for family and friends to benefit financially acting as a middleman for desperately needed supplies. In this scenario hydroxychloroquine might be touted as a wonder drug in order for these cronies to corner the market selling this unproven treatment. Giuliani is one of those promoting hydroxychloroquine. Suppose every time Trump puts Jared Kushner in charge of an important government initiative, the primary purpose is to advance personal financial gain for the family with corrupt intent. Suppose Kushner was originally put in charge of Middle East peace as a cover for a trade of foreign policy favors for Bin Salman and Netanyahu for personal financial payoffs or political favors. And now Kushner's assignment to the fight against the virus would be to rake in profits as a coordinator of distribution of medical equipment through private middlemen. And suppose Trump is perfectly fine with Americans dying if they are disproportionately not members of his "base"?
Reporters interested in important factual reporting should not be relying on the illogical standard - "if it means the president is doing something incredibly horrible and we can not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, it can not be true."
Context matters. See:
Trump Removes Watchdog Overseeing Pandemic Fund
Behind the Scenes Kushner Takes Charge of Coronavirus Response
Republican Fundraiser Looks to Cash In on Coronavirus
Again, remember, the point here is not that not A is necessarily factually correct and complete in all respects. The point is that the working assumption underlying the WaPo standard reporting is that not-A is assumed to be false, at least for the sake of discussion. And by assuming that not-A is false in story after story, the reporting substantiates a narrative that Trump is innocent of many, many things of which he is accused and others of which he is only suspected based on his history. The truth is that we do not know exactly why Trump is stuck on hydroxychloroquine. The reporters on this story track down numerous alleged influences on Trump, which may or may not be material to the story, but if they ignore all of the evidence of corruption in this particular case, then they are failing by treating not-A as not important.
"The point is that there are costs, serious costs, to being overly polite to scientific claims. Every time you “bend over backward” to give the benefit of the doubt to scientific claim A, you’re rigging things against the claim not-A. And, in doing so, you could be doing your part to lead science astray (if the claims A and not-A are of scientific importance) or to hurt people (if the claims A and not-A have applied impact)."
There exists a parallel to the treatment by journalists of their subjects. As president, Trump has openly subjected journalists to extremes of special treatment - berating them, revoking credentials, etc, especially journalists who most conform to long accepted standards of objectivity. Those journalists who have been subjected to this treatment - or the implied threat of similar treatment for non-obeisance - have sometimes come to heel in subtle, but damaging ways. And if we treat the journalistic product in these instances similar to the way we determine conclusions based on scientific study, we join them in doing damage to the truth. The most important damage may well be in ignoring the possible truth of "not-A".
For example, in ‘What do you have to lose?’: Inside Trump’s embrace of a risky drug against coronavirus', reporters Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Laurie McGinley and Josh Dawsey begin with:
"As he stares down a pandemic, economic collapse and a political crisis of his own, President Trump thinks he may have found a silver bullet: hydroxychloroquine."
We can see the A vs. not-A problem coming in this article in the very first line that contains an important working assumption posing as a statement of observable fact. Any statement by a reporter of the form "Person X thinks R" can not be a simple statement of observable fact. We never know for sure what someone thinks or believes. In Trump's case, we often find reporters telling us "what Trump believes" - sometimes attributed (lamely) to "three people close to the president", sometimes without attribution. Strikingly, I can not recall reporters making such statements on a regular basis about any other president - all of whom, unlike Trump, felt some affinity, some obligation, to stick to the facts as much as possible. In Trump's case, in the absence of a reliable source in the president, reporters choose to short circuit their customary process of developing facts by appealing to the magical assumption that they can discern Trump's beliefs from the combination of his statements, his behaviors and sometimes, anonymous sources - and this reporting is permissible because they only employ this approach in conjunction with the assumption that the president is innocent of deliberate wrongdoing,
So, in this example, A = president touting hydroxychloroquine is based on a belief he sincerely holds that this drug is effective against the COVID-19 virus. They also ignore for this purpose the unusual negative qualities of this president who has materially lied thousands of times and committed many other acts destructive of a functioning democratic republic.
But in this example, not A, which the reporters ignore, can be many things.
Not-A could be that DJT has stalled having the federal government provide personal protection equipment, ventilators, virus testing kits, and other supplies to NY and other parts of the US in order for family and friends to benefit financially acting as a middleman for desperately needed supplies. In this scenario hydroxychloroquine might be touted as a wonder drug in order for these cronies to corner the market selling this unproven treatment. Giuliani is one of those promoting hydroxychloroquine. Suppose every time Trump puts Jared Kushner in charge of an important government initiative, the primary purpose is to advance personal financial gain for the family with corrupt intent. Suppose Kushner was originally put in charge of Middle East peace as a cover for a trade of foreign policy favors for Bin Salman and Netanyahu for personal financial payoffs or political favors. And now Kushner's assignment to the fight against the virus would be to rake in profits as a coordinator of distribution of medical equipment through private middlemen. And suppose Trump is perfectly fine with Americans dying if they are disproportionately not members of his "base"?
Reporters interested in important factual reporting should not be relying on the illogical standard - "if it means the president is doing something incredibly horrible and we can not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, it can not be true."
Context matters. See:
Trump Removes Watchdog Overseeing Pandemic Fund
Behind the Scenes Kushner Takes Charge of Coronavirus Response
Republican Fundraiser Looks to Cash In on Coronavirus
Again, remember, the point here is not that not A is necessarily factually correct and complete in all respects. The point is that the working assumption underlying the WaPo standard reporting is that not-A is assumed to be false, at least for the sake of discussion. And by assuming that not-A is false in story after story, the reporting substantiates a narrative that Trump is innocent of many, many things of which he is accused and others of which he is only suspected based on his history. The truth is that we do not know exactly why Trump is stuck on hydroxychloroquine. The reporters on this story track down numerous alleged influences on Trump, which may or may not be material to the story, but if they ignore all of the evidence of corruption in this particular case, then they are failing by treating not-A as not important.
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