From Spin! How the News Media Misinform and Why Consumers Misunderstand, by Bob Conrad, Ph.D.

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Oversight, or not

Given the significant potential for misinformation by unknowledgeable gatekeepers, and the increasing inability to check facts, it would seem that, as with most other types of organizations, an external level of accountability over newsrooms would be beneficial.

Those of us who work in government are used to high levels of oversight to ensure accountability. It’s an imperfect system, one that can increase bureaucracy and inefficiencies. Yet imagine the outcry if government entities were to run themselves the same way newsrooms self-correct errors, if they do.

Granted, these two types of systems are radically different, and a comparison between government entities and newsrooms is unfair. At the same time, there’s something to be said for systems of accountability in which others exercise control over operations in order to ensure we are not, at the end of the day, kidding ourselves.

The absence of formal oversight over news media is both essential and problematic. The media need the right to be wrong in order to ultimately ensure a free press. The long-standing American history of the relatively free, uncensored press is practically set in stone and for good reason. The news must be free if in fact the public is to be informed. This freedom, though, also guarantees the right to be wrong.

This means that First Amendment freedoms come with a price. For the news media, freedom of the press means different things to different people. Many reporters assume such freedom automatically removes them from any role other than that of information disseminator – unless, of course, that role has managed to influence a policy change of some sort. Then the news role becomes something to be championed. (News outlets frequently boast of their own press awards, which almost always receive mention on their editorial pages and beyond, especially, for example, when a major policy change occurred or somebody ended up in jail, as a result of their reporting.)

Why reporters purposefully adopt such an unassuming stance is puzzling to those of us outside newsrooms, particularly if we are also on the receiving end of negative stories. An examination is therefore needed into what actually goes on in the journalist’s mind when he or she is reporting – and how audiences interpret news reports.

Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6