{"id":40,"date":"2010-01-04T23:53:24","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T23:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uncharted-worlds.org\/blog\/?p=40"},"modified":"2016-06-20T19:12:53","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T18:12:53","slug":"dysfunctional-news-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncharted-worlds.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/dysfunctional-news-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Dysfunctional news media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\t\tFlat Earth News<\/a> is a book by Nick Davies, about the state of the media in the years leading up to 2008 when he wrote it. Highly recommended for all activists!\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Big thanks to Ciaran for telling me about it, and making it sound so intriguing that I went straight online to see if the library had it :-)\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFirst of all I must say: if any of this interests you, and certainly if you’re in the habit of following news via any mainstream media, then time spent reading this book will not be wasted<\/strong>. It’s readily available; I got a copy from the library. It’s pretty gripping in places, with lots of real life stories. \t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tNick Davies is a journalist himself: “a Guardian man”, he says. The book focuses primarily on print media in the UK, but includes enough on TV, radio and other countries to show that similar patterns repeat there.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI’m going to start by quoting some largish chunks from the book, to lay out some relevant territory. (Bold bits added by me.) And then after that, I’ll say a few things I’ve been thinking about after reading it.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/a>Then and now<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\tHistorically, the clearest threats<\/strong> to press freedom (i.e. the freedom to tell the truth) have come from outside of newsrooms<\/strong>; and they have tended to bring pressure to bear at the point of publication. The state did this through formal censorship<\/strong>, reinforced by secrecy, legal restraint and physical intimidation. Media owners, as we have seen, did this through direct and sustained interference<\/strong>. Both threats remain, albeit in more subtle form than in the past.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tBut now we are deep into a third age of falsehood and distortion, in which the primary obstacles to truth-telling lie inside the newsrooms<\/strong>, with the internal mechanics of an industry which has been deeply damaged. The problem now is not merely at the point of publication but also at the earlier and even more important stage of gathering and testing raw information<\/strong>. (p22-23.)<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tTo put things in perspective, the author estimates a percentage of problems which nowadays come from owners’<\/strong> and advertisers’<\/strong> interference:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tJournalists with whom I have discussed this agree that if you could quantify it, you could attribute only 5% or 10% of the problem<\/strong> to the total impact of these two forms of interference. (p22.)<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tSo what’s the big problem nowadays, if not deliberate interference? \t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt’s time<\/strong>, and behind that, money<\/strong>.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/a>More stories, less time<\/h2>\n

\n\t\t\tIn preparing the book, the author commissioned some research from a team at Cardiff University. They estimate that since 1985, staffing<\/strong> levels on the national papers have slightly fallen<\/strong>, whereas the amount of editorial space<\/strong> they’re filling has trebled<\/strong>. (p63.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt the same time, local papers and local news agencies were going out of business, depriving the national papers of the network of local journalists who in past times would have been feeding stories in.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t… the Cardiff researchers surveyed national news reporters. Two-thirds of them said they were now producing more stories<\/strong>; and two-thirds of them said they were now doing less checking<\/strong>. … One told them: ‘Newspapers have turned into copy factories. This leaves less time for real investigations<\/strong>, or meeting and developing contacts. The arrival of online editions has also increased demand for quick copy, reducing the time available for checking facts<\/strong>.’ <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tAnother, from a different paper, said: ‘I think the time available to be thorough has decreased … The main consequence of that is that if things require lots of work, they are less likely to be embarked on<\/strong>.’ … And another: ‘I insist on making at least two check calls on every story, but this is becoming increasingly difficult to do, because of time constraints.’ (p64.)<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe health editor of the Times, Nigel Hawkes, captured the view of many: ‘We are churning stories today, not writing them. Almost everything is recycled from another source<\/strong> … Actually knowing enough to identify the stories is no longer important. The work has been deskilled. (p59.)<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tThe author asked a young graduate to write a diary of “one week in his working life on a regional daily tabloid”. At the end of the week, the young reporter counts up:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Number of stories: 48 (9.6 per day)
\n\t\t\t\t\tPeople spoken to: 26
\nPeople seen face to face: 4 out of 26
\nTotal hours out of office: 3 out of 45.5 (p59.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tThe author comments:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThis is life in a news factory. No reporter who is turning out nearly ten stories every shift can possibly do his or her job properly. No reporter who spends only three hours out of the office in an entire working week can possibily develop enough good leads or build enough good contacts. No reporter who speaks to only twenty-six people in researching forty-eight stories can possibly be checking their truth. (p59.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>Recycled stories<\/h2>\n

\n\t\t\tThe researchers also chose two random weeks and analysed all the stories in the Times, Independent, Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, to find out how many were original<\/strong>.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t\tAt the end of this unique investigation, they came up with a striking finding – that the most respected media outlets in the country are routinely recycling unchecked second-hand material<\/strong>. … this tends to come from two primary sources; wire agencies like the Press Association, and public-relations activity which is promoting some commercial or political interest.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t…\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t… only 1% of wire stories which were carried by Fleet Street papers admitted the source. Most carried misleading bylines, ‘by a staff reporter’ or even by a named reporter who had rewritten the agency copy. The denial of PR input is at least as thorough… ‘We found many stories apparently written by one of the newspaper’s own reporters that seem to have been cut and pasted<\/strong> from elsewhere.’ (p52-53.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tMany weren’t properly checked before being recycled:\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\tThe researchers went on to look at those stories which relied on a specific statement of fact and found that with a staggering 70%<\/strong> of them, the claimed fact passed into print without any corroboration at all<\/strong>. Only 12% of these stories showed evidence that the central statement had been thoroughly checked. (p53.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd these percentages left out the tabloids and various other sources of even lower quality:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThese were simply the stories that were being presented by the best daily newspapers in the UK<\/strong> as an account of the most important or interesting events in the country over the preceding twenty-four hours. (p53.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>Relying on agencies<\/h2>\n

\n\t\tOne common practice is to use something “off the wire”, i.e. from an agency such as Reuters or the Press Association (PA).\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tAs one national newspaper correspondent told the Cardiff researchers: ‘Checking information has decreased, and what is worse, it is not expected by the news desk. I cannot tell you the number of times I am told to “take it off the wires and knock it into shape<\/strong>“, which is just terrible.’ … A section editor on a national daily told them: ‘We’ve always been reliant on wire copy, but we use it a hell of a lot more these days. It’s quite common for us to cut and paste<\/strong> a story off PA, renose it a bit to mask where it’s come from and then put it out there as our own.’ (p75.)<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the agency<\/em> may not have checked it, either:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPA reporters told me they routinely start the day by writing stories from press releases and other newspapers<\/strong> and, since they may do this at six or seven in the morning, they cannot possibly find anybody to check them with<\/strong>. One of their senior editors agreed that this happens. He had previously worked for a regional newspaper and told me ‘We used to take what we were given from PA and accept it as fact but once I went to work there, I realised that we couldn’t.’\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tAnother agency man told [the Cardiff researchers]: ‘My father was a journalist for Reuters for twenty-five years, and the working conditions were completely different. Stories would take much longer to put together, but when they were, they were more likely to be accurate and close to the truth.’ (p82.)<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\t\t\tThe author sums up in a line:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tJournalism without checking is like a human body without an immune system. (p51.)<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>Truth and truth<\/h2>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd when you’re using agency sources, there’s another vital missing link: Reporting accurately what someone says<\/em> is not the same as reporting the truth<\/em><\/strong>.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPA is a news agency, not a newspaper. It is not attempting, nor does it claim to be attempting, to tell people the truth about the world. As its editor, Jonathan Grun, put it to us: ‘What we do is report what people say and accurately.’ The PA reporter goes to the press conference with the intention of captruring an accurate record of what is said. Whether what is said is itself a truthful account of the world is simply not their business<\/strong>. … Sleuthing, Grun told us, is not PA’s role. ‘Our role is attributable journalism – what someone has got to say. What is important is in quote marks.’ If the Prime Minister says there are chemical weapons in Iraq, that is what the good news agency will report<\/strong>. (p83.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>No-one was watching<\/h2>\n

\n\t\t\tMoreover, the agencies don’t have enough journalists any more to properly cover the whole country, so important stories get missed entirely – e.g. from local governments, courts and even Parliament. No-one’s watching!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tWhen I looked into this in the late 1990s, I found a criminal trial which had been running for three months at Leicester Crown Court, without a word of national coverage, even though it had unearthed Scotland Yard’s involvement in unlawfully importing Yardie gangsters from Jamaica who were used as informants and effectively given a licence to commint crime in London. (p78.)<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\t\tAs to Government:\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n

Chris Moncrieff, who has covered Parliament for PA since 1962, told us … that PA now covers far fewer political meetings and speeches than it used to and relies far more on government press releases<\/strong>. ‘They’ve won’, he said. ‘If they put out in advance a copy of the speech, then we will not go. We now print what they want us to print. We go to far fewer meetings or not at all.’ (p80.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>And more…<\/h2>\n

\n\t\t\tI must say I finished the book thinking “What’s the point of reading a newspaper ever again? Most of what’s in it can’t be trusted anyway”.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere’s a lot more to it, which I haven’t cited here: the dynamics of which stories are likely to be chosen for print and which ignored; the money poured into public relations companies nowadays, and what they do; the success of organisations like Greenpeace in shaping stories; and a series of fascinating “case study”-type chapters, looking at different newspapers, different stories etc.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t(Some of the stories are covered in even more depth at the web site connected with the book, www.flatearthnews.net<\/a>.)\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut what I found particularly illuminating was that whole scenario I’ve been describing via the quotes above: less and less time to research, understand or check the facts.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/a>My own little case study<\/h2>\n

\t\t\tAs I was reading, I kept thinking of that story in the Guardian back in October, reproducing some of the dodgy stats from Graham Badman’s work<\/a>.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow doesn’t that look like a perfect case study of the kind of thing Nick Davies talks about in the book?\n\t\t<\/p>\n

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    \n
  1. \n

    Practically the whole story is “Some people said some stuff”.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n

    select committee told
    \n\t\t\t\t\tMPs have been told.
    \n\t\t\t\t\the said.
    \n\t\t\t\t\tBadman … called for
    \n\t\t\t\t\tBadman told the MPs
    \n\t\t\t\t\the said.
    \n\t\t\t\t\tHe said
    \n\t\t\t\t\the said.
    \n\t\t\t\t\tBarry Sheerman … said
    \n\t\t\t\t\tHe asked
    \n\t\t\t\t\tJohnson said
    \n\t\t\t\t\tBadman said 
    \n\t\t\t\t\tFiona Nicholson … has said
    \n\t\t\t\t\tshe said.
    \n\t\t\t\t\tEd Balls … has said <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \t\t\t\t\tAnd no sign of any attempt to determine whether any of their statements might be true.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    \n\t\t\t\t\tA wrong fact:\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

    \n

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe review was commissioned to investigate whether the number of children known to social care in some local authorities was disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \n\t\t\t\t\tNope. Mr Badman did<\/em> end up producing some (questionable) figures about that, but the actual terms of reference of his Review were considerably wider:\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

    \n

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTerms of reference<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe review of home education will investigate:\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

    \n