Idea Chemist

A journalist working to transform media content into something better

Once Again, the Sky is Falling . . . Except that It’s Not

Apr 7

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NBC: Passenger subdued aboard United jet

Maybe I took this wrong just because this has been a long day, or because I’m growing weary of people who are looking to better other people, or one-up them, or start a fight just for the sake of starting a fight, or just to take advantage when their guards are down.

More likely, it’s because MSNBC did something that is poor journalistic technique and today, I’m just not in the mood to be duped.

The problem? I just received a “Windows Live” breaking news e-mail alert from MSNBC (pictured here), which stated: “Passenger attempts to light explosive device aboard flight from Washington, D.C. to Denver, NBC N…”

At this point, of course, many of the thousands of us who received this clicked on the sentence, which is hyperlinked to the story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36243847/ns/us_news-airliner_security/

I did that, at 9:58 p.m. CST, to see what new problems had cropped up on a national flight and why someone would be dumb enough to attempt the explosives trick again. What I found in the story was this statement:

It was uncertain if anything actually was on fire or if this was a joke, NBC reported. Investigators were looking to see what might be in the man’s shoes, but sources told NBC that it appeared that there were no explosives.

Pardon me for being puzzled, but didn’t the breaking news alert just tell me in a clipped but nevertheless declarative sentence that someone had attempted to light an explosive on the plane?

I don’t know how directors and editors at news stations get away with such blatant and purposeful inaccuracies, other than that people like me continue to stay on their e-lists and continue to link to their Web pages, so their numbers of Web hits remain high.* It’s a technique to drive traffic, nothing more.

It is, however, poor technique, and it contributes to the inaccuracies and hysteria that undermine so much of politics today. Those who simply read the e-alerts and not the stories themselves then walk away with “facts” that are actually the opposite of the facts.

MSNBC’s alarmist techniques have grown old and stale, and it’s not just this source. We can blame many of the news sources for doing this. Unfortunately, such stunts contribute to the ever-increasing lack of faith that people have in media today.

Because really, if they can’t get the e-alerts right, how accurate can the rest of the story be?

* In my defense, I have tried repeatedly to remove myself from MSNBC’s e-mail list, only to end up apparently adding myself three more times; I now get all the alerts in quadruplicate. I have given up hope of ever being free of this service.

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There But for the Grace of God

Apr 6

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Mine Accident Devastates a West Virginia Town

This week we are witness to yet another mine disaster. However, unlike the rescue ongoing in the Wangjialing mine in northern China in which 115 miners were pulled out alive, this one in the U.S. has been a matter of recovering 25 bodies and trying to account for the rest.

I’ve looked over the coverage from several news sources, and I’ve been trying to put myself in the shoes of the people from this small town of Montcoal.

I have to wonder what it must be like to be them—their lives and the lives of their neighbors and extended families torn apart by the mines that both feed them and hang like a specter over them each day. They are devastated, and they are moving in slow motion, numbed by a reality that probably hasn’t even yet fully registered.

And among them roam the reporters and photographers from every major media outlet in the country, seeking out their stories, recording their private grief.

I believe the stories of miners need to be told. If in fact the mine company has been faulty in securing the sites, I believe that story also needs to be told. And to a large extent I believe that the rest of the country—those of us who heat our homes and businesses with the coal these men excavate—need to see the results of the mine disasters that happen because of our need for fossil fuel energy.

And yet, I also believe in the right to grieve privately, or among those who are also suffering the same fate.

This is the crossroads at which ethics come into play. How do ethical news organizations cover such disaster without interfering, without altering the natural process of coming to terms with death on a large scale?

I am moved by the photos I see from such sources as the Times or the Post or CNN. They tell a story that words alone might not capture—the tears, the worry lines, the sagging shoulders and the work-worn hands folded in prayer.

And yet for each of these snapshots, there is that smooth, cold, curved lens of glass that creates the dividing line between living and observing. The prayer between widow and God is captured by the reporter behind the camera, who will feel for that woman, but who will soon board the flight out of West Virginia and head back to New York, or to L.A., or to Miami, to resume his or her normal life and look for the paycheck at the end of the week.

It is news, and the country has the right—the need—to know these things. But we must hope that those recording these events have been sufficiently trained in ethics that their coverage is compassionate but honest, frank but unobtrusive.

It’s a hard, straight line to maneuver. I hope they love their profession enough to want to do it right.

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Arms and the Woman

Mar 27

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Tea Party Targets Sen. Reid At Home

That FOX News is not a fair and balanced station is certainly not news; we’ve all known this for a long time. And yet this “news” station continues to employ “journalists” whose actions fly in the face of any reasonable viewer’s version of ethics. This morning’s NPR (Associated Press) story confirms this. I refer to two aspects of the following quote from this article:

Now a Fox News analyst and potential 2012 presidential candidate, Palin faced criticism after posting a map on her Facebook page that had circles and cross hairs over 20 Democratic districts. She also sent a tweet saying, “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”

First, I am horrified that anyone who hopes to be a presidential contender would consider a firearms metaphor to be an ethically appropriate reference in any social media message responding to an opposing viewpoint: One of the main points of any ethical philosophical method for resolving a dilemma is that the viewpoints of all the  ”stakeholders” in that dilemma be considered, even if only in the sense that the humanity of each stakeholder be considered. Ethics tells us that people with opposing views can in fact be “right” within their own belief systems, and we must acknowledge that fact.

For Palin to be part of a group that spits at, offensively name-calls, sends death threats to and employs violent images in responses to members of the opposing group not only calls into question her maturity (in my mind, at least), but also tells the rest of the world that she is not willing to employ ethical means in resolving dilemmas that arise. Someone who is truly fit to govern our country should show the ability to respectfully consider all viewpoints and then work toward the best possible resolution. Suggesting that any opposing views must be in her crosshairs tells me that Palin is incredibly ethically unfit to lead a country of decent citizens with many different viewpoints.

But second, Palin’s actions in encouraging and attending a rally against someone who holds an opposing viewpoint is as far from being those of an objective news person as they can possibly be and should automatically disqualify her from any position in a newsroom that hopes to be viewed as “objective,” or in this case, “fair and balanced.” A political rally rebel is, in fact, the polar opposite of what a news person is supposed to embody.

It is the job of an ethical “analyst” to analyze the position taken by a side, not to create and take part in the news that makes it so.

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Suicide: When Ethics Count the Most

Mar 23

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Tonganoxie mayor in critical condition following possible suicide attempt

My own morals and ethics have had me in Florida for the past week caring for elderly parents who are failing. Maybe that’s why I’m particularly sensitive to this story that started up yesterday afternoon on the local newspaper’s Web site. It’s also a topic I’ve discussed with students in my ethics class.

Although it’s not visible now, the headline for the first run at this article was “Tonganoxie Mayor Attempts Suicide,” and commentary was enabled. After an hour or two, it was changed to what it now reads, and open commentary was continued. At 9:27 this morning, Mr. Kealing, the Web editor, finally discontinued commentary (as noted in the last entry on that Web page).

How should media handle suicides and suicide attempts?

In our current culture in which segments of our society laud media celebrities and elected politicians who disdainfully make fun of people with Parkinson’s disease, use the “N” word and spit on politicians, and yell slanderous commentary from the floor of Congress, it doesn’t surprise me much that a local newspaper’s editor wouldn’t show any sensitivity toward a local politician who may be suffering from a serious depressive episode.

I see this as several ethical problems:

1) Until the gentleman in question chooses to publicly address his personal mental health issue, this Web editor has no right to state as he did in the original headline that the problem was a definite suicide attempt.

2) The Web editor seems to have applied no ethical concepts before making the decision to print this story under either headline that used the word “suicide.” One of the five basic philosophical methods taught in any college ethics textbook, and the one that seems most applicable to this situation, is “theological,” which concerns itself with the humanity of those involved in any ethical dilemma. In this instance, the humanity of the man involved was never considered. His medical condition, a personal matter and, possibly, one that even in our supposedly enlightened era continues to carry a stigma, was assumed in a headline, not verified. This is evident in the corrected headline that appeared after the story was posted. Nor was Aristotle’s viewpoint considered: a “Golden Mean” between “excess and deficiency” in this story would have indicated an action between telling what the editor presumed to be all of the story and telling none of the story at all. This might have resulted in a story about the town’s mayor being in the hospital, but the reason might have remained unstated. The editor did not consult John Rawls; had he done so, he would have put himself in the position of the mayor and clearly seen that this story would cause immense humiliation to a stakeholder in the dilemma: the main character himself. John Stuart Mill tells us to look for the greatest good for the greatest number of people, but that wasn’t followed here. The greatest good, which is what Mill is hoping for, would at this time and at this stage of the problem go to the man and his family; we don’t yet know whether the mayor will resign or stay on in his position, therefore the people he serves are not yet affected. Had Vestal gone into the hospital for an illness such as ulcers or cancer, his ability to make decisions would not be questioned, and until his reason for being there is verified, no one is qualified to comment on his abilities. If and only if the man decides to stay in the position of mayor will the problem shift to his efficacy as a leader of the city and how or whether any physical or mental problems might affect his ability to govern. And finally, Immanuel Kant’s universal law was not served here, inasmuch as this newspaper has held a position of not discussing suicides in deaths of citizens, and so by extension would not discuss attempted suicides, if this indeed is the problem.

3) Given the touchy nature of what may have happened to the man, is this a subject open to public “debate” in the commentary section? If the man is having a personal problem, is this a subject that requires the commentary of the community? If it is in fact not a suicide attempt, what could the public possibly have to discuss about his medical condition?

I would hope that most people in my community would question the decision of this Web editor and the newspaper as a whole to publish an unsubstantiated story in this manner. The Web editor did finally shut down the commentary section, although his statement “there seems to be little else that should be said” also concerns me; I’m not convinced that anything “should” have been said by the public in the first place, and his statement in general strikes me as a case of shutting the barn door after the horse escapes. Either he is arguing for “free speech” by the public, in which case the commentary section should remain open indefinitely in accordance with Mill, or it should never have been allowed in the first place, which is what I believe an ethical newsperson would have chosen to do.

Perhaps  after such constant immersion in the words and actions of our country’s Tea Partiers and crass entertainment clowns, some of our media professionals could use a refresher course in ethics.

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Let the User Beware

Mar 12

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I had the opportunity this morning, as I do about four times a year, to wake up to a Gulf Coast newspaper instead of my usual Midwestern town fare. I know the St. Petersburg Times leans to the conservative side, but considering the awards it has won and its proximity to the Poynter Institute (and despite my own personal opinion of the publication), I have always wanted to hope that it tried to uphold a sense of fairness and ethical standards.

I was disappointed.

At the bottom of the front page of the hard copy, my eyes drifted to a full-color inset with the PolitiFact.com logo at the head. I perked up, because I’ve used the site’s “truth-o-meter” in my ethics class lectures, although I’d admittedly never taken the time to really check out the types of statements presented on the pages, nor had I checked it out over the long-term.

But today, that front page infographic caught my attention, because this conservative newspaper pointed out within it that two Democrats had been caught in lies about the health care debate, whereas the conservative George Will had told the truth.

So I finished my breakfast and headed to the computer to check this out further. Much to my amusement, I found a rather select listing of quotations as I glanced down the page. The St. Pete Times had, for example, neglected to put on its front page the lie that  Republican U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota had told in that same time period.

And check out the quote the site pulled for Glenn Beck:

“When Social Security started, age expectancy for the average man was 58. It was 62—62 for women.”

Well, yes: It may be true that with this statement the extremely conservative Beck registered an absolute truth on the meter, but this is a pretty innocuous fact to be “checking” amid all the many statements the fear-mongering show host usually offers up. The difference is stark in comparison with the segments of the health debate speeches being used for the liberals. Will the average person who uses this fact-check site to “prove” the veracity of liberals versus conservatives notice the actual quotes used, or will he/she just look at that truth-o-meter and see  the speaker’s political leanings and whether he/she lied or told the truth?

This test provided me a good little lesson: I need to remind my students to examine sources seriously, over the long-term, and dig a lot deeper into the sponsors of such political fact-check sites. I, too, could develop a site in which I pulled liberal sources making such statements as “Most candy bars have sugar in them” or “Soda pop is carbonated,” and yes, that would earn those liberal politicians a “True” rating on the meter. In turn, I could go after the conservative lawmakers and hold their feet to the fire on more serious statements related to legislation and find them often seriously lacking.

But really, would that make my Web site a good and ethical one to consult to determine the veracity of the issues the legislators are debating?

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A Story that Deserves No Coverage

Mar 8

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Justices to hear case over protests at military funerals

To be honest, I’m sorry to be writing about this.

My personal feeling is that people who are as mentally ill as Fred Phelps should be provided psychological help by their families rather than encouraged by them to continue their abnormal behaviors.

Nevertheless, all of us in this country are protected by the same First Amendment, or at least everyone should be, and I have little doubt that the Supreme Court will find in favor of the pathetic Phelps and his disgraceful rantings. It is his right as an American to make a distasteful ass of himself in public, day after day.

I personally don’t approve of news coverage of the Westboro clan. The stunts that Phelps and his ilk perform with neon-colored signs and foul language are not “news” as much as they are a form crass, crude entertainment (although in our present age of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, Phelps appears less and less massively deranged and increasingly more like a run-of-the-mill conservative).

Local media tired of Phelps long ago and stopped giving him the air time he so desperately craves, and I think this is a good thing. Idiocy deserves no quarter in the print or broadcast industry. His message adds nothing to the daily account of what is happening in the world.

Unfortunately (as I see it), withholding mediated attention to his antics may have helped ramp up his perseverance and determination to be seen and heard. I have to wonder whether that is in part what caused him to change to larger, more visible venues, thereby exposing his “cause” to whole new media arenas.

And as he has grown more bold and offensive, Phelps’s “protests” have become news to the extent that they have affected larger groups of people and sparked legal battles that do in fact fall within the bounds of legitimate news beats.

As the Supreme Court hears arguments about this unbalanced individual, his shrewish, foul-mouthed daughter and their badly mentally and emotionally abused family members, the rest of us must keep in mind that regardless of how offensive this group may be, it is their right to spew their poisons, and we must accept it. That is the nature of free speech. We don’t have to like all we hear.

I do wish, however, that media sources would limit their visual coverage of these people. Pictures of Phelps’s offensive placards fall outside the limits of what I consider ethical journalistic coverage. Readers and viewers don’t need to face images of Phelps’s misguided anger in their morning newspapers or in full color on the Web sites they visit.

Editors are as well within their ethical rights to refuse Phelps coverage as he is to proclaim his ignorance as far and wide as his single voice reaches.

I simply prefer to see such trash left in the landfills.

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But the Movies Said So . . .

Mar 7

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Veterans Say Exaggerations Abound In ‘Hurt Locker’

This story, which played on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Friday, didn’t come as much of a surprise to me.

Many movies in history have presented fantasy as “fact,” including Amistad and JFK. These inaccuracies may make for interesting watching and better storylines, but unfortunately, many Americans derive their “historical facts” from Hollywood.

And as with so many other media forms, that makes us responsible for getting it right—not only because accuracy is part of our ethical codes, but also because morally, we should understand that we are partly responsible for how the nation’s population understands the world, and it is in everyone’s best interest to get it right.

Many times, though, it’s tough to do.

I once knew a woman who served as a historical consultant for Ang Lee’s Ride With the Devil. She took her job seriously, and she advanced genuine concerns about the type of clothing in which the women were dressed (they were, of course, buxom ladies who showed off their assets to their best advantage). The response from the director, she had said, was something on the order of “thank you,” and filming proceeded as before.

Perhaps not an earth-shattering problem in that case, but troublesome nonetheless.

Those of us in the media may not be able to control the content of movies that purport to be accurate, but we do have the right—and, I argue, the ethical responsibility—to report, as NPR did in this instance, about the inaccuracies, and to keep them in the public’s view.

Perhaps by teaching the public about these lies and fallacies in this way, we can make a positive move toward media literacy.

Because personally, I think that it is only when the general public finally starts to demand better that we, the media, will start to deliver.

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Attention, Thieves: We’re Here to Help You

Mar 3

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Why Pay For Health Insurance When You Can Steal It?

Maybe it’s because the topic was fresh on my mind from teaching just yesterday afternoon, but I was quick to notice this story on NPR this morning that related to media and antisocial behavior.

In brief, the piece delves into the increasing number of incidents of identity theft in the health insurance industry.

And while I believe it is critically important for the public—particularly older citizens and those with chronic health problems—to know this story, I also heard, loud and clear, some information that will give thieves an edge. This story quoted Betty Breshears, vice president of corporate integrity at CoxHealth Hospital in Springfield, Mo., who “is teaching the hospital’s emergency room staff about ‘red flags’ that signal when a patient is using someone else’s name, Social Security number or insurance card.”

“We try to get our patients to speak their information to us, so that we can confirm it,” she says. “Because we’ll find that a lot of times if they’re presenting with a false ID, they’ll stumble on those words.”

This quote, quite simply, alerts thieves to one more way to avoid being caught: Just practice and rehearse your stolen information before you give it, and no one will be suspicious of you.

This piece of this one story just adds to the mounds of information the media innocently provide to thieves each day. It’s just like the TV stories that show the grainy security videos from specific stores, which tells thieves that they can likely rob those stores without fear of being identified. It’s like the stories that point out telephone scams, which give crooks better ideas of how to avoid being caught when they’re conducting their own scams.

It’s a small thing, maybe. To be honest, I don’t myself have the creativity or patience to work out scams or thefts of these magnitudes, and I know my own ethics and morals would not allow me to sleep at night if I tried any of these things.

But a lot of people are this creative, and they use that creativity in antisocial ways, and they do sleep well at night.

Media need to remember that words matter. The things we say, the ideas we broadcast and print do make a difference. People are listening.

Unfortunately, often the wrong people are the ones paying attention.

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Falling For the Cry of “Wolf”

Mar 1

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Doctors hastened dying kids’ death, say parents
Small study suggests some may be giving fatal morphine doses

Headlines that alarm and scream foul play: I’m not a fool. I know they sell news and attract hits on Web sites.

But my patience is wearing thin with the tactic, and I’m growing weary of the erosion of ethics that leaves Web editors feeling justified in twisting the news 180 degrees in the headlines, just to garner more readers who then learn that the headlines in no way represent the contents of the article.

This MSNBC article’s head grabbed my attention, maybe because I haven’t read anything about euthanasia in quite some time, and I wondered what new lawsuits might be brewing or how many “angels of mercy” were now lurking in hospitals to prey on already grieving parents. You have to admit, that headline sounds ominous.

Yet I should have been smarter. No story about evil doctors appeared in today’s NPR lead stories, or showed up on the front page of the New York Times. And in fact, I didn’t have to read very far into this piece to realize that my interpretation was not anything like the reality of the study results. I only had to get to the second and third paragraphs to realize that the study concluded exactly the opposite:

A handful of parents told researchers that they had asked doctors to hasten their children’s deaths — and that doctors complied, using high doses of the powerful painkiller. The lead author of the study and several other physicians said they doubt doctors are engaged in active mercy killing.

Instead, they speculate the parents interviewed for the study mistakenly believed that doctors had followed their wishes.

In fact, further into the article, we learn that the study was “based on interviews with parents of 141 children who had died of cancer and were treated at three hospitals, in Boston and Minnesota,” and of all these study participants, the parents of only three “said it (euthanasia) had been carried out, with morphine.”

This statistic from one small study warrants such a powerful headline?

When, I wonder, will people stop responding to the cry of “wolf” from these news media? When will they become more media literate and demand better? They won’t—and neither will I, I suppose—as long as the story seems to hold promise of something dark and sinister that we can observe from a safe distance.

There is, after all, nothing like a good villain to grab our attention.

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Riding the Fault Line

Feb 28

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Reason for public’s lack of faith? Just turn on the TV

I want to start by saying I think Liz Sidoti wrote a fine article here. For the most part, I agree with what she and her sources said. One quote in this article particularly rings out:

“Hand in hand, the rise of television also accompanied the rise in mistrust of institutions. That isn’t to say one caused the other, but they’re very much in a symbiotic relationship,” said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television.

To be honest, I’m not certain that anymore, anyone can really tease apart the pieces of this symbiotic relationship. Viewers have traditionally blamed the messenger and accused media practitioners of doing our jobs badly because we offer such unhappy and unsettling fare in the news each day.

Sometimes we do deserve this blame. This was the conclusion that Joseph N. Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson reached in 1997, when they wrote The Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good. In brief, these two researchers discovered that the “strategic news frame,” which shows political and public figures to be consumed by power and self-interest and swayed by monied interests, determines how people view the news. The frame is a way of seeing the world that viewers pick up on, repeat and come to believe.

And “we the media” are also very much to blame for the total absence of ethics that allow the Bill O’Reillys and Rush Limbaughs, Ann Coulters and Keith Olbermans to even exist as “legitimate” newspeople. These characters are but crude entertainers who prey on public naivete and are no more honest reporters than WWF characters are really honest wrestlers.

But: I also believe that today, not all of this blame should fall on the shoulders of media. In 1997, when Cappella and Jamieson wrote, the Internet had not yet fully come into its own. In 1997, we as a nation had yet to face a modern presidential election whose veracity would be in question. In 1997, our presidents and their administrations had not yet so blatantly and unashamedly limited or shut down questions from the press corps, or arranged “open town-hall meetings” with pre-selected questions planted on pre-selected audience members. Yes, dishonesty in government existed, but never to the extent that we saw and learned about after the turn of the century.

After 2000 and with the rise of the Internet, we began to see a rise in the number of  Haliburtons and Enrons, the Rod Blagojeviches and Elliot Spitzers and Bernie Madoffs, who have flaunted their own misdeeds with unprecedented shamelessness. Rather than retiring in embarrassment, the dynasties and characters of the past 10 years have made themselves available for us to see in their full glory without the framing help of the media, but instead very much with the assistance of a public that now seems never to tire of bad behavior. Blagojevich kept himself in public view by throwing himself at the late-night talk show circuit and, this season, laughing at himself on reality TV. Spitzer moved on to an apparently lucrative public writing career, while Madoff, it seems, didn’t suffer enough humiliation after he was caught; while incarcerated, he was discovered telling others how to follow his disgraceful example.

And as far as today’s debacles on Capital Hill? Media really don’t need to struggle with the “strategic news frame” issue anymore as they report on bad behavior. Just turn on C-SPAN, or listen to your own representatives proudly shutting down any and all communication with members of the opposite party and awaiting the cheers of their own for doing so.

As easy as it is to blame the media for the mess we see on each TV channel, on each newspaper or magazine page, on each Web posting, it is as much the fault of a lazy and uneducated populace that has split cleanly into two almost unreconcilable halves, right along that dotted line splitting Republicans from Democrats. The distinction between politics and dirty, rigged team sports has virtually disappeared.

Media may often be lacking in ethics, but it’s apparent: so is the general public.

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