Seeking truth in politics, where exaggeration is a norm

Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor who thinks and writes about journalism for the 21advisor for the SourceMedia Group board of directors [* See note below] that oversees how this company that owns The Gazette operates, opines in his latest blog that news outlets have gotten away from their prime mission over the last 40 years:

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Reporting the truth.

“Somewhere along the way, truthtelling was surpassed by other priorities the mainstream press felt a stronger duty to,” he wrote on his blog, PressThink, on Thursday, Jan. 12. The catalyst for his post was another blog post, from New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane, in which Brisbane asks for public input on whether and when Times reporters should challenge every “fact” that newsmakers assert. Brisbane means politicians and refers to yet another blog by Times opinion writer Paul Krugman.

Krugman focused on statements Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made to position himself in a potential 2012 presidential campaign against President Barack Obama. Obama has cut the defense budget, Romney says; Obama actually has increased defense spending, Krugman writes. Obama will put free enterprise on trial, Romney says; Obama goes out of his way to praise free enterprise and says it's OK to be rich, Krugman writes.

The objection these folks have about the state of journalism is that we simply report what is said instead of what actually exists; i.e. the truth.

Krugman picks Romney as his example but your choice of comments can cross political lines. Would Republicans would end Medicare, as Democrats assert? No. A budget plan in the Republican-controlled House last year would change it for workers under the age of 55 but not for people 65 and older, reports Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org. The center tackles myths perpetrated by both major political parties.

Old-timers will recall the famous – infamous, depending on your point of view – “Daisy” commercial from the 1964 presidential campaign. That's the Democratic Party ad in which a little girl is playing with daisies, and then a nuclear bomb is shown exploding on the screen, conveying that Republican candidate Barry Goldwater would oversee a nuclear war that destroys all the little children of the world.

So, what to make of the questions people like Rosen and Krugman are raising? First, that they are right about needing to go beyond what people say and drilling down to what is true. But we also need to recognize that the “truth” gets filtered through our beliefs, attitudes and values to the extent that disagreement about it exists. It happens with reporters and editors and it happens with readers.

Interestingly, the context for discerning the truth in political discourse includes the acceptable practice of exaggeration that exists in that discourse in a political campaign. As a free nation we actually value the ability to exaggerate to make political points, ranging from our use of humor to our use of hubris. It's just politics, right? Plus, we have this ability to criticize our government in ways that are unimaginable in other parts of the world where political oppression exists, and cherish it.

And, of course, there are those beliefs, attitudes and values that news consumers bring to the table when determining the “truth.”

I am reminded of when I covered City Council meetings as a reporter many years ago. During one particular  stretch in time a couple of members on one council I covered had a habit of making off-the-wall statements from the council table.

The statements often were not grounded in fact, nor where they pertinent to any business at hand so they didn't need to be reported, it seemed on the surface. But shouldn't voters know their elected representatives made these statements during public council meetings? A “yes” answer, of course, would mean exploring the false statements, which would take time that could be used to report on something else that actually was a relevant matter.

Which gets us to Rosen's assertion that “the drift of professional practice over time was to bracket or suspend sharp questions of truth and falsehood in order to avoid charges of bias, or excessive editorializing. Journalists felt better, safer, on firmer professional ground – more like pros – when they stopped short of reporting substantially untrue statements as false. One way to describe it (and I believe this is the correct way) is that truthtelling moved down the list of newsroom priorities. Other things now ranked ahead of it.”

One of those things, which is not stated in Rosen's piece, is that notion of how reporters spend their time. Industry cuts in resources – a seemingingly tireless excuse but a truth – has left us with fewer resources to fill newspaper pages, television reports and, now, news websites. If citizens expect exaggeration is part of the political process, won't they simply take that into account as they determine whether the speaker is being truthful? And couldn't that implied knowledge be an acceptable shortcut to getting everything reported that needs to be reported?

Not really. Even acknowledging the exaggeration leaves you wanting to know the rest of the story – that which really is true. No matter how much you debate it, that's the bottom line -- and the acceptable goal.

*NOTE:  An earlier version of this blog item referred to Rosen as a member of the SourceMedia Board of Directors. Although we've announced the appointment, I've been informed by our company honchos that Rosen is serving as an advisor until his board membership can be approved by the shareholders.