AUTHOR: Sarah Cove TITLE: Trust & Distrust in Journalism DATE: 2/12/2007 11:52:00 PM ----- BODY:
I read a piece last week in the New York Times that carried a tone of certainty in certain government officials claims that the deadliest bomb in Iraq is being made in Iran. But tonight, I listened to a Democracy Now! podcast which mentioned two things: that the article relied almost entirely on unnamed government sources, and that the journalist who wrote this post, Michael Gordon, was the same journalist who in 2002 wrote articles alleging Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Now, how are we, as citizens, suppose to listen to this? It's not to say that I am going to stake my life on the government and Michael Gordon being wrong or lying to the public, but I am highly suspicious - so much so that if the government took any actions against Iran because of those claims, I would contact both my representatives and the White House letting them know my disapproval with it. And this state - a lack of trust in the government and media - is a very unhealthy state to be in. I'm inclined to say that this country had a high-level of trust in the 20th century, and that level of trust allowed us to prosper (both in terms of rise of GDP) and in terms of freedom (the ability - and increase in ability- for any religion, ethnicity, or viewpoint to express itself, along with the legal protection of that expression). In high trust areas of this country, you will find cars and houses unlocked at all times, people giving money to a stranger on eBay trusting that they will get the promised product, and people of two different political beliefs debating with each other in a public space without fear. I think there are tangible reasons for why trust, in the domain of politics and media, is decaying. I am open to adding more reasons and editing them, but I'd like to get them out there in this moment to open up this conversation with myself anf you.
  1. Donald Rumsfeld, as the Secretary of the DoD, claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Upon that assertion, the Congress allowed for Bush to go to war with Iraq. A couple of years later, Rumsfeld said that there were no WMD in Iraq. Now, I can think of two possibilities right now:
  2. The media, whose job it is to produce assertions (witnessable events) and frame those events with a story, did not ask questions about either the assertions the government gave them, or about the framing the government was feeding them about those assertions. This is a problem, because we have a problem right now of either trusting the government's know-how on intelligence or its sincerity and motives. But it seems that Michael Gordon is (obliviously?) doing the same thing now that he did 5 years ago. And the editorial staff of NYT put it on the front page.
One problem with Michael Gordon doing what he did is that (in my assessment), when trust is broken, you cannot continue to go about things as normal. You must very carefully address the issue of trust and show the people who distrust you what you are doing to rebuild this trust. And that should be your first priority. Otherwise, anything that comes out of your mouth will not be listened to, respected, or believed. Now, I think it is the media's responsibility to help rebuild the trust we have in our government by being "tough" on them: asking for the assertions, showing the government sources to the public so they can be held accountable, etc. I'm sure one reaction to this could be "national security would be put at stake". But I'm not too cynical yet to think that there isn't a way that journalism could become much more transparent in its dealings with government officials. Note: If you want to learn more about the specifics of the distinctions, assessment and assertion, I am using in this post, my colleague, Guillermo Wechsler, has a paper on his website, called "Assessments, Values, and Possibilities" which goes into more detail.
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