Spencer Critchley

Communication and Change

Journalism

On the podcast: The synthetic opioids crisis, why democracies fail, rewriting Russian reality & more

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Sam Quinones

Some powerful conversations on the Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good podcast lately, including my interview with writer Sam Quinones about the heart-breaking destruction caused by synthetic drugs like fentanyl—and the hope offered by some unknown heroes. Also: Barnard College political scientist Sheri Berman on why democracies fail more often than they succeed, veteran journalist Walter Shapiro on the Democrats’ search for a message, Russia expert Jade McGlynn on Putin’s re-invention of history and reality, and more.

Available on Apple Podcasts and all other podcast apps.

Scam + Scandal = Scamdal

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Outraged man gaping at his smart phone
iStock

A few weeks ago the right wing media’s latest scam scandal — hereinafter known as a scamdal — was about the mainstream media supposedly hyping the story of Ted Cruz in Cancun, while burying allegations against Andrew Cuomo.

Surprise, it wasn’t true. The Cruz story is long gone from the MSM, while Cuomo is still leading, because there have been no new developments on Cruz and lots on Cuomo. But RW outlets issued no corrections to their scamdal; they just moved on to the next one.

Hence Dr. Seuss and the Potatoheads.

People who ignore RW media probably don’t appreciate that this happens every day, year round. The infinite cycle goes like this:

  1. “Expose” a scamdal.
  2. Demand to know why the mainstream media isn’t covering it. (If the story has actual news value, the MSM is covering it, but devoted RW media consumers won’t know that. If as is so often the case the story is just bull, that’s kind of a deal-breaker for legitimate journalists.)
  3. Go “in depth” behind the “crisis,” filling the schedule.
  4. As the story starts to feel a little old — scamdals must always be new and urgent — milk it once more in the weekly roundup of “stories the mainstream media didn’t want you to hear.”
  5. Add it to the “evergreen” stock, along with Birtherism, Benghazi, Hillary’s emails, Fast and Furious, transgender bathroom marauders, and all the other never-corrected, ever-remembered scamdals — all of which add up to just one message, repeated over and over and over, because it’s so lucrative:

“Trust no one but us, so you’ll buy whatever we sell.”

How Do We Stop Big Lies but Keep Free Speech?

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Vintage microphone
Photo: Holger.Ellgaard, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Our free speech rights are very broad, which is one of the greatest things about America. Part of what that means, though, is that it’s legal for dishonest profiteers like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh to lie every day and, thanks to our free market, get rich doing it.

But those same rights mean each of us is free to object. We can call on radio and TV stations not to carry these liars’ shows, we can tell advertisers we won’t buy their products if they advertise on these shows, and those advertisers can choose to stop.

Free speech and free market.

Would this be appropriate if the issue were simply that the shows are biased? No. I believe democracy works better if we hear opinions of all kinds — especially ones we disagree with.

But I’m not talking about bias, I’m talking about lying.

And not just lying. Flagrant, deeply irresponsible lying that stokes the fear and hatred that have now led to violent attacks on our democracy.

[Read more…] about How Do We Stop Big Lies but Keep Free Speech?

How Do You Tell If News Is Reliable? Here’s One Simple Tip

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Even well-educated people often have trouble judging the quality of news outlets. Here’s a simple but very effective tip: look for paragraphs like this one, from an recent article in the Washington Post:

This account of how McConnell and enough Senate Republicans blocked witnesses from entering Trump’s trial — the issue that was most in question during the contentious proceedings — is based on interviews with 13 senators and other officials familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly.


You just won’t see careful, accountable sourcing like this in unreliable or outright fake news sources. Instead, you’ll find heavily biased sources mixed with unsourced assertions.

But what if the Post just made up those sources it claims it has? No mainstream news source does that, and the claim that they do is simply a lie, told by people who benefit from undermining trust in the facts.

To be a mainstream news outlet is to follow the rules of news reporting. Those rules are well understood, carefully guarded, and strictly enforced when they’re broken. On the rare occasions when a mainstream reporter actually has invented sources, that reporter has been fired and the outlet has published prominent corrections. For example, see the case of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair from 2003.

Mainstream news outlets follow the rules of reporting partly because their staff actually believe in those rules and that’s why they became journalists, more pragmatically because those staff members are in the profession of uncovering and publicizing wrongdoing and so are the worst kind of people to try to enlist in a coverup, and even more pragmatically because the mainstream outlets’ business model depends on it: their advertisers want to reach a large audience of the kind of people who want reliable news, and corporations, investors, and others who are making critical decisions need reliable news on which to base those decisions. Unreliable news would cost them a lot, and so they would get their news from some other outlet they could trust.

Unreliable news outlets make their money by selling sensation; reliable ones make their money by selling accurate information. Apart from the real ethical considerations involved for mainstream outlets in following the rules, it would just be stupid for them to do anything else.

Mueller Report: The “Fake News” Was Right

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller
Special Counsel Robert Mueller (public domain)

A few inescapable facts staring out of the Mueller report at anyone who still wants to believe in Trump:

(1) The “fake news” was right. Again and again, reporting by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, and the rest is corroborated by contemporaneous records and the testimony of sworn eye-witnesses facing jail time if they lied — the same people who were the supposedly made-up anonymous sources for reporters. The “fake news” about Trump turned out to be as real as it gets.

(2) “Spying” (aka legal, court-ordered surveillance) doesn’t play a role in the report. As Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman has pointed out, the federal indictments of Russians were full of evidence obtained by (legal) surveillance, but the Mueller report is based on testimony and documents.

(3) The same report that the president claims is a “complete and total” exoneration (BTW can someone explain the difference between “complete” and “total?”) can’t be phony, as the president also claims. Mueller can’t be both “honorable” and a “dirty cop.”

(4) The President of the United States is a fraud: both dishonest and incompetent. The report shows him repeatedly lying, instructing others to lie for him, attempting to commit crimes, and often being saved by how bad he is at it. President Trump is the demagogue the founders warned us about: corrupt and unqualified, possessed only of what Hamilton described as “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” (Federalist 68). None of this is surprising to anyone who saw the reality of Trump’s business career as opposed to the reality TV show version — basically, the entire City of New York. But it should be shocking, and disqualifying, when seen in a president.