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January 4, 2006Emotionalism: bad fuel for the pressI remember when I first learned to drive I, being a dutiful girl, wished to return my parents car to them with a full gas tank. Being on a tight budget I went to the “cheapcheapcheap” gas guy and filled ‘er up. And by the time I got home the car was hiccupping and behaving strangely. Seems I’d tried to run an 8 cylinder Rambler wagon on “bad gas.” The problem was not earth shattering; things were easily remedied, but I learned a lesson. You want your car to run smoothly, you don’t buy the “bad gas,” even if it means you drive farther or spend more to get the good stuff. For the last few days the families and friends of the tragic miners of West Virginia have had to endure an agony that no right-thinking person would ever wish on another - and last night’s “miscommunications” within the press, first announcing that 12 of the 13 miners were alive, only to correct themselves later and declare 12 of 13 dead - well, the face of the anguished young woman heading the Drudge Report, about says it all. One could almost excuse the press for making this awful mistake, for emotionally going on the air with a weepy Geraldo and an exalted Rita Crosby, to announce the miracle: 12 men alive under dubious circumstances! After all, we ALL wanted the men to be alive, we all WISHED it to be so. Journalists, we are often told, are as “human as anyone else,” and they want to report such an uplifting and even triumphant story. I linked to what we all wanted to believe was “good news” last night, and said prayers of thanksgiving as I went to bed. So, yes, one could could excuse the press their mistake, and forgive the torturous turnabout which came after, if only they had not - just a few months ago - done precisely the same thing while covering Hurricane Katrina. Recall that back in New Orleans - just as last night - unknown people ran about, shouting unverifiable “news” and the journalists, particularly the always-voracious cable news outlets, latched on to the “news” and emotionally redelivered it, without checking it out, without doing the basic job of journalism which is: if your parents say you’re not adopted, and you look just like your brother, confirm, confirm, confirm. Journalism used to run on facts. It wasn’t enough to have a rumor, you had to nail it down; it wasn’t enough to suspect something - if you suspected it, you expended the shoe leather to prove it. Now, unfortunately, beginning at least with Mary Mapes’ odd idea that the the standard of journalism precludes proving one’s charge (it is now enough that the charge is made, and the accused must prove a negative), but particularly since Hurricane Katrina, mainstream journalism has decided it doesn’t need to run on facts; emotionalism is the new fuel on which the press is running, and it is a bad, bad gas - it sputters and sprays and belches out errors all over the airways, all through the ink barrels, and once the errors are out there, they become either (in a best-case scenario) tough narratives to reclaim or (in the cruelest case) weapons of devastation and destruction. In the aftermath of the New Orleans levee breaks, we heard about horrific scenes of murder and rape - unspeakable brutality - and charges of racist disregard. This was a terrible and harmful narrative, the stuff that shakes a nation’s sense of its own strength and goodness, and we got that narrative not from bloggers or talk radio, but from the mainstream, “respectable” deliverers of news. We heard it from news anchors shrieking and bawling on the air. They had not actually checked their facts; but who has time to check facts when such charges are being made? When the water is rising? It was enough that “someone said” something, and the pictures were so dramatic - don’t you see how upset and unshaved I am? Isn’t our moral outrage compelling? “Dynamic journalism,” it was called. “News with heart. Responsive.” As the press patted themselves on the back for their “great work,” we read that Anderson Cooper’s undetached hyperventilation and advocacy journalism was to be the new model for television journalism. Except that with all the histrionics, the plain facts were, there were not “numerous rapes and murders”, no babies being subjected to sinful exploitation. When the body counts were done, there was no racist disregard for other-than-whites. In fact, in terms of sheer ratios, the largest percentage of dead were caucasian. More importantly, why should it ever have mattered how many of the dead were black, white, Asian, Hispanic, except to mindsets bent on delivering not “facts,” but explosive scud missiles of raw emotionalism, particularly if all that emotionalism is politically expedient? “Oops,” said the press, very, very softly. So very softly. Lately we have watched “the paper of record” and other large papers and talk show hosts do the scream-and-shout, trying to gin up public emotions over a non-scandal, and not caring that they are disrupting valuable national security programs while they do it. Not caring that when all the bloviating is done, there is no story, there. Not a wisp of one. Last night, while politics seemed far away from the awful scene in West Virginia - and we hope, for once, it remains so - too many members of the fourth estate fueled up, once again, on the bad gas of emotionalism. Last night, in the process of once again jumping the gun, of forfeiting substance for sensationalism, of demonstrating that they simply no longer believe that anything they say actually has to be true as long as it “feels” right, the press threw standards out the door. Last night, hope was shattered, hearts were broken. “Oops?” The press tries again, softly, grasping. “Wouldja believe miscommunications?” Trust has been betrayed. The public trust is upended. Whether the press means to destroy their credibility, as when they - incessantly - try to rig up a case for impeachment against a president who seems to be dotting all of his i’s and crossing his t’s, or they do it by accident, as they did last night, it is becoming increasingly difficult to want to go for a ride in the press’ big car. More and more frequently, they seem to be running on the cheapest, and most unstable, flammable sort of gasoline. More: UPDATE: Ed Morrissey asks a good question. Jay Rosen has a round-up of editors on the subject. CBS’ Public Eye has a nice round-up, too. And James Lileks reminds us of yet another “wrong” story. http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/01/04/emotionalism-bad-fuel-for-the-press/trackback/ 14 Responses to “Emotionalism: bad fuel for the press” |
January 4th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
It’s pure Mapes-ism. Fake but “accurate.” “Why do you believe it’s true.” Rather: “Because it’s right on the money.” It’s that, which the interpreter already wants to think. The easiest trap in NEWS, especially news in its purest form, BREAKING NEWS. Glamourous TV News! Appearances, appearances, appearances.
The template, the bubble, the surface, the coming to light, the unconfirmed screaming headline, the interpretation don’t prove themselves by sheer appealingness! The interpretation is not the confirmation! People who habitually behave otherwise are hardly better than VEGETABLES, automatically decoding info into responses according to inborn rules, unable to check, confirm, verify, disconfirm, learn, retain, etc. Vegetable disconfirmation -> removal from the gene pool. Emotion is more lightning-swift calculation than it is REASON and recognitive confirmation. The news reporters have no legitimate excuses for this. None.
January 4th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Your remarks on New Orleans are particularly important- if for no other reason than the MSM has allowed the truth to go unreported for no other reason than to push an agenda.
Can someone explain to me why we give the MSM constitutuional rights the rest of us don’t have?
The events and tragedy in WV go to prove one thing- people make mistakes.
As one who has very little regard from for the MSM, well, they were guilty of wanting a positive outcome- and for a change, they wanted something the rest of us did.
Sadly, this kind of shoddy reporting goes on all the time- except this time, the victims were the little guys, not some politicians they go after.
January 4th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Update: They Made Us Think That There Were 12 Alive…
CNN has put Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty out front this afternoon to defend the abysmal performance of the cable news network last night regarding the untimely and unfortunate deaths of the 12 miners. In their blatant hypocrisy, CNN continues to crit…
January 4th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
I know this has next to nothing to do with your post, but my first car was a powder blue ‘67 Rambler wagon. Thanks for stirring up some good memories.
January 4th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
The Blame Game
This evening I saw a reporter talking to a girl who looked about 8 years old. Her mother had gone home and gotten her up out of bed to welcome their relative home after it was announced they were found alive. The reporter was merciless in her questioni…
January 4th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Misreporting at its finest…
The sad scenario in West Virginia seems damn near like a replay of New Orleans, and Rather’s ‘Fake but Accurate’ ANG memo. I understand their urge to get the scoop - but the folks doing the reporting aren’t exactly falling…
January 4th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
THE MINER TRAGEDY: A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT
Chuck Holton was there and blogged his thoughts. Read it. Hat tip: Kathy Shaidle and Blogs4God Update: Instapundit has more. And the always astute The Anchoress concludes: Last night, while politics seemed far away from the awful scene in West…
January 5th, 2006 at 12:54 am
The press has treated everyone involved in a story like this as felons with blood on their hands for years–especially corporations and employers. They can not wait for official announcements, they have to “steal” the ‘facts” on their own timetable by sculking around, eavesdropping on conversations, reporting unsubstantiated rumors. What are they doing today? Blaming the coal company exclusively. I watched at least a dozen newscasts and never once heard a reporter reference the media’s shortcomings. A couple of weeks ago, Ted Koppel, et al, were sitting around patting themselves on the back for their Katrina coverage–again ignoring the obvious. Just think how it would have been during the Kennedy assassination if the reporters put the thousands of rumors on the air at the time. And I’ve heard from a couple at the scene that there were thousands floating around—Russian hit squads, a military coup, and many even more farfetched. Perhaps a good lawsuit or two is what they need to bring them back to the level they achieved forty-plus years ago.
January 5th, 2006 at 12:59 am
While the situation in WV was tragic, the Katrina coverage was criminal. Why? Because as a result of the rumor mongering on the part of the MSM, rescue efforts appeared to require another layer of logistics - that of security for the rescuers. It takes a bit more time to prepare to enter a war zone, and that time may have cost additional lives.
The MSM contributed to delays by their irresponsible agenda ridden reporting, making a terrible situation worse - real time.
January 5th, 2006 at 6:39 am
The media was ever thus, folks. This generation did not invent the term “yellow journalism”. Media coverage today doesn’t look much different than the articles I used to read on microfiche of papers in the late 19th/early 20th century. Perceptions and expectations changed in the mid 20th century, I’m aware- but the media did not change. It’s just perhaps more obvious, when you disagree with their emotional state.
January 6th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
[...] DROPPED THE BALL: One terrible lesson of the West Virginia mine tragedy is that you can’t trust the news. Emotionalism: bad fuel for the press …. (buzzmachine, theanchoressonline) [...]
August 8th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
[...] News delivery is now being fueled by emotionalism, which has gummed up a powerful engine. Things have gotten so far out of hand that broadcast media are now occasionally admitting that they are not even in control of some of what we’re seeing. [...]
August 30th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
[...] 24-hour news programming has created an insatiable beast, always looking for “more story” and all-too-quick to relay unvetted, unconfirmed information - which has led to some horrific and emotionally draining mistakes on their part. [...]
January 10th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
[...] the media for much of this. As we have seen vividly in the past few days, the press has invested too much emotionalism into the political process - they either LOOOOOOOOVE someone or they HAAAATE someone, and they do [...]