I wish it happened more, but much of the mainstream media deserves some credit for taking on tepid fact-checking responsibilities this election season. There are still far too many stories resembling glorified transcripts — one side said this, the other said that — but I think it’s fair to note that fact-checking seems to be making a comeback. Not a moment too soon.
But Edward Wasserman, a journalism and ethics professor at Washington and Lee University, wrote an interesting column this week for the Miami Herald describing what he calls a “diabolical paradox” — reporting a candidate’s lies lends the falsehood weight. In other words, more people are going to hear (and, unfortunately, believe) a lie when it’s reported widely in the news, even if it’s in a debunking context.
[W]e’re left concluding that the zeal of the media in trying to referee fact-based debate has been turned into a practice that is more likely to reward deceit than to deter it.
Wasserman included several examples — and skewers both sides of the aisle equally — but one stands out.
[“Fahrenheit 9/11”] was answered by the Swift Boat contingent’s anti-Kerry calumnies, again amplified and injected into mainstream discourse by the media — in the very course of debunking their truthfulness.
It isn’t just that a lie refuted is a lie repeated. Apparently we’ve now entered an era where the liar expects to be called on the lie — and wants to be.
It’s a good point. I think Wasserman is on to something.
A candidate lies and the media picks it up. Some outlets will gently point out that the claim is dubious, others will include the rival campaign’s statement that the claim is false, while still others will just broadcast the lie as-is. Given this, where’s the disincentive? Aside from morality, conscience, ethics, and a sense of civic responsibility, Wasserman’s point suggests the candidates have an actual motivation to lie.
A “fact-check” story will simply rebroadcast the deception. Voters lose track of which claims are true and which have been debunked. They simply remember hearing about the lie. (It doesn’t help when candidates like Bush keep repeating the lie, even after it’s been debunked, because he just doesn’t care.)
And in some cases, the fact-checking simply comes too late. Some weeks back, I saw Ted Koppel interviewing Jon Stewart and the Swiftboat Hacks’ lies came up. Stewart said the group was lying and Koppel reluctantly said, “It appears to be [that they’re lying].”
But, in explaining the media’s approach to the group’s smear, Koppel said there’s a difference between fact and truth. If someone levies a charge, the media will report it as fact — the charge was levied. That doesn’t make the charge true, of course, only that the attack was made.
But consider how Koppel explained what happens next:
“It’s a fact that these — that these veterans were in Vietnam. They themselves were on swift boats. They are saying these things. The truth may not catch up for another week or two or six. But in the meantime …”
Six? Think about that for a minute. Ted Koppel, a veteran journalist whose career has spanned decades, explained his belief that the truth will eventually “catch up” with a lie after as much as six weeks. So, the public will hear the same lie, over and over, in paid and unpaid media, without hearing the truth for a month-and-a-half?
The liar (or, with the Swiftboat example, liars) is effectively encouraged to deceive people. It’s quite a system of discourse we have here, isn’t it?