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.