I'm in PR and I'm here to help. (Image by Thomas Hawk.)

Allow me to indulge in a fanciful scenario. You are a maker of product X. Out of the blue, it comes to your attention that your product is being accused of causing the deaths of those using the product.

You look into it, but you can’t confirm that is actually the case. Reports of deaths begin to increase, and front page headlines have confirmed for you that your product is at fault.

You look and look but you still can’t make internal confirmation that your product is dangers. The media and consumers have their minds made up. Your attorneys caution silence. PR people around the globe, however, have a recipe for you: You must speak. Openly and candidly.

You must apologize, they say.

Befuddled, you don’t know what to do. One the one hand, denial makes you look bad. Silence, even worse. But apologize? Okay, but for what?

“Should I apologize for something even if I can’t confirm that we are at fault?” you ask.

You can say you are investigating the problem. But deaths are still climbing.

You recall the product. Evidence of some potential problems arise, but nothing that would lead to the drastic claims being made.

Your hesitation to speak leads to legal actions against you. Costs to deal with the situation climb, exceeding millions of dollars. You are vilified in the press. PR people cluck and shake their heads.

“You did not get ahead of the issue,” they say.

“You didn’t express empathy for the victims,” they clamor.

“You didn’t apologize.”

The chorus of criticism is unrelenting.

Six months later, evidence and investigation results begin to trickle in. Overwhelmingly, the story is finally more clear: Your product did not not cause deaths. User error did.

The media has since moved on to other stories, other crises around the globe. A few nibble on the investigation results and cover your story, but the once passionate coverage is largely met now with silence. Consumers don’t care as much, and the “victims” … they too retreat.

The PR critics have also stepped away from the story. Their expertise is needed elsewhere. Having once expressed concern about your bottom line, and their PR remedy to protect it, their valuable advice is now needed for the current news crisis. You are old news.

Your product safety and your vindication, however, are barely noticed. You financial losses are staggering, and your reputation is in tatters and may never fully recover.

***

It would be nice if the above were science fiction. I am of course referring to Toyota, which has all but been vindicated by internal and external investigations, processes that take longer than dramatic news coverage will tolerate.

Yet, predictably, many raked Toyota over coals.

Communications consultant and leader Shel Holtz wrote the following in response to one of my posts:

“So companies should all behave like Toyota, allowing facts to be dribbled out over time so it seems there’s no end to the crisis? So it leads to government hearings? So it appears that they don’t give a damn about the people who have been injured? Leading to a groundswell of consumer backlash that pretty much goes, ‘I’ll never buy another Toyota?’”

Another drafted a list of compensatory actions that seemed to  assume news reports were accurate, saying that Toyota should apologize.

The list of heavy-hitters weighing in here appear as if they too believed headlines – that Toyota was at fault and avoiding the possibility that consumers were, perhaps, delusional or engaging in fraud. This is despite Toyota’s situation being eerily like Audi’s in the 1980s, when the company was ultimately cleared of wrong doing after dramatic and widespread claims of “sudden acceleration” in its vehicles.

I wrote the first piece on brand crisis in February, in which I attempt to debunk the traditional assumptions about responding to crisis events, especially when the salient facts are not available. My lead stated the predictable: When a major crisis erupts, the PR experts will readily provide their perspective on what should be done.

I missed what also should have been expected: When the issue of right and wrong is further muddied down the road, these experts will be less forthcoming with advice. More to the point, advice on dealing with fraud and deceit by both consumers and the press won’t be as widely available as their original invective.

I noted previously that despite PR’s lexical roots in warfare, it is a profession of bridge builders. With that in mind, organizations should considering calling in the damage control experts when a crisis erupts.

They should also consider putting a muzzle on their PR people.

Like a well-orchestrated antiphony

There’s no doubt healthy reflection and even recommendations can be helpful. But the mere fact that the public — and thus, the pundits — are not privy to all the details, even despite frequently cited “investigative reporting,” means such pontification is ultimately speculative at best.

Two recent events are striking examples of that: Tiger Woods and Toyota. Despite early commentary that their brands may never fully recover, the latter’s crisis is still in its infancy with long-term impacts remaining to be seen. Woods, on the other hand, has successfully left the front page, which is a crisis management success: to reduce damage.

Nevertheless, there are many assumptions about how crises should be managed. I am currently completing my dissertation on how media cover higher education crises, and after spending years researching crisis management, one thing is certain: No two crises are alike. With that in mind, and along with my professional experience, here are some of the more noted myths that seem to often appear in crisis commentary.

Myth 1: It’s best to get ahead of the issue. Fact: Jumping the gun by releasing statements, speaking to the press or worse, holding a press conference, without adequate information can make the situation worse. The Sago coal mine disaster of 2006, in which it was reported that there were survivors that, in fact, did not exist, illustrates the danger of incorrect information being spread like wildfire.

Myth 2: Under fire, organizations should respond quickly. Fact: As above, there’s great risk in responding too quickly without adequate information. By all accounts, the top players at Enron were unaware of the depth and complexity of the shady financial arrangements by its CFO, Andrew Fastow. It took years of legal and journalistic investigations to unravel what exactly occurred that sent the company into dramatic insolvency. The reason the company denied wrongdoing is because it, officially, had little clue as to the potential illegalities of dealings it was involved in but knew little about.

Myth 3: Saying “no comment” is one of the worst things you can do. Fact: Saying no comment may be the most prudent course of action given a particular situation, such as not having enough information or being unclear about the situation. Here’s a recent personal example.

Myth 4: An organization with a poor reputation will suffer from poor crisis management. Fact: Research has shown no difference in audience perceptions pre- and post-crisis involving an organization that has a bad reputation and which also poorly manages a crisis.

Myth 5: Organizations must behave transparently to reduce perceptual damage. Fact: Duke University is still embroiled in litigation after it arguably acted rightly and openly after allegations that members of its lacrosse team raped and abused a prostitute. Transparency can be of marginal use when larger agendas are at play.

Myth 6: The Tylenol crisis of 1982 is a model crisis response. Fact: Each crisis is different and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to crisis management.* Tylenol had many variables at play, such as the fact that it was the victim and not the perpetrator, in the crisis. Moreover, Tylenol, despite its open communications with its publics, was criticized by the news media.

Myth 7: Organizations should avoid denying responsibility. Fact: If an organization is being falsely accused of something, it makes little sense to admit to wrongdoing. Moreover, admissions of wrongdoing are certain ammunition in subsequent litigation.

Myth 8: Organizations should empathize with victims. Fact: See #7.

Myth 9: Poor crisis management will impact the bottom line. Fact: Fiscal realities can be impacted by any number of variables, including responding with the best of intentions. While helping to navigate what has been described as one of the worst crises in the history of the University of Nevada, the college where I worked — accused, mostly falsely, of all manner of misdeeds — had a banner fund-raising year in part because some people were likely sympathetic to negative and bloated media coverage.

Myth 10: Poorly managed crises negatively impact brand images. Fact: Most crises fade quickly. Even high-profile crises have a relatively short-term shelf life, and most brands successfully survive crises despite all levels of criticism. There’s a reason Tiger Woods is no longer dominating front pages: He’s old news.

*Eric Dezenhall discusses this point in length in his book Damage Control.

EDIT February 17, 2010, 1:54 p.m.: Tiger Woods just announced he will be holding a press conference in the near future. In my view, this is a mistake, as it is just after he has been successful in reducing his controversy. He now runs the risk of bringing it back to light.

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“Jimmy is 8 years old and a third-generation heroin addict, a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his
thin brown arms.”
– Janet Cooke, Washington Post, September 29, 1980

Teresa Carpenter: Simon and Schuster press photo by Marion Ettlinger

Promoted by her Washington Post Editor, Bob Woodward, reporter Janet Cooke was nominated for and received the Pulizter Prize – journalism’s highest honor – for her reporting on “Jimmy,” an eight-year-old heroin addict.

Fifteen years later, Cooke received $750,000 for a book and movie proposal to tell her story. The amount would climb to $850,000 if her story actually became a movie; after agent fees, Cooke would get 55 percent of this amount.

Cook’s piece on Jimmy was, of course, a hoax, one that the Washington Post initially defended, and her book/movie deal came after she eventually moved to Paris only to later become a Liz Claiborne clerk in Kalamazoo, Mich. making $6 an hour.

After the book and movie deal was announced, she was quoted as saying:

“Five years from now, I hope to be sitting at a keyboard, running off at the fingers, rushing to make a magazine deadline,” Ms. Cooke said. “If the keyboard was in Paris and the magazine was Vogue or Ms., I certainly wouldn’t be at all unhappy. I understand that there are people who will always think ill of me. But I needed to face up to what I did in order to put it to rest. I was looking for closure — and I think I’ve found that.”

The Pulitzer committee faced a conundrum upon quickly finding out Cooke’s story was fabricated, but the journalism scandal didn’t end just with the unveiling of Cooke’s hoax.

The committee then awarded the prize to Teresa Carpenter of the Village Voice, who was in second place under Cooke to receive it. One of her stories, about the slaying of U.S. Rep. Allard Lowenstein, was said by the National News Council to be “marred by the overuse of unattributed sources, by a writing style so colored and imaginative as to blur precise meanings and by such reckless and speculative construction as to result in profound unfairness to the victim of the demented killer.”

Carpenter was accused by the council, a group that examined complaints made against news outlets, of numerous errors, misleading readers to assume she had interviewed Lowenstein’s killer and for alluding to homosexual advances made by Lowenstein to friends.

The Village Voice, in response to the National News Council*, issued a statement:

“(The council report was) obviously partisan and irresponsible.”

Writer and researcher Loren Coleman, in his book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger Mayhem in Tomorrow’s Headlines,” sees it differently:

“The media loved the Sweeney-Lowenstein story. Teresa Carpenter even won a Pulizter prize for her Village Voice exclusive in which Sweeney was quoted as saying that the shooting was a gay lovers’ quarrel. The only trouble was that Carpenter never interviewed Sweeney: She had made the whole thing up.”

Today, Teresa Carpenter’s Web site describes her like this:

“Teresa Carpenter is the author of four books, including the bestselling Missing Beauty. She is a former senior editor of the Village Voice, where her articles on crime and the law won a Pulitzer Prize.”

Her motto:

“The truth can make people angrier than a lie. Tell it anyway.”

***

Given the litany of imperfections with the journalistic process outlined in this series, it would seem the news media has an opportunity to set new standards of accountability. Clearly, like the cotton gin, the day of old media is over. And despite some hints, nobody knows just yet where new media will take the news business.

In the meantime, if what’s left of journalism wants to be viewed as credible rather than laughable, things will have to change. Here are my suggestions to both ease the transition into whatever is next for news, as well as to present a more honest front for an industry with a noted credibility problem.

1. Remove filters. The practice of interpreting what others have to say should die with old media. Individuals and organizations are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, and if nothing else, social media has eliminated the need to selectively quote, inject opinion and otherwise skew of the source’s intention and therefore generate error. By accepting unedited submissions, news outlets not only get free news, media can more efficiently allocate scarce resources.
2. Divide news into two sections: 1. news and 2. opinion. News is what is sent in or covered, staying as true to the source of the message as possible. Opinion, which is what most journalism is anyway, would be where reporters can take people to task, pontificate and editorialize. Such a structure still transmits important news and would also more transparently reflect the true attitudes, values and beliefs of journalists. The spirit of the source and the spirit of watchdoggery are left intact.
3. Adopt public relations principles. In an era that increasingly demands accountability, the press should be the last to adhere to what appears to be an archaic stance of “never explain, never apologize.” Citizen journalism means news media outlets that enact inept public relations tactics in times of crisis grant carte blanche to others to tell the rest of the story.
4. Fire the worst offenders. Like with any business, reporters and editors who repeatedly fail to adhere to the principles of fairness, accuracy and context – especially those who invent news – should be considered underperformers and thus potential liabilities.
5. Seek credible sources. Journalism’s long-standing reliance on the he-said/she-said fallacy promotes a false mean, and thus an incorrect portrayal of reality. Journalists should eye activists, whistle-blowers and other naysayers with the same level of skepticism with which they aim at public officials, politicians and public relations spokespeople, or they should not source them at all and instead focus story material on those with greater levels of expertise.
6. Fix the broken system of accountability. The airline industry figured out (and continues to), after devastating tragedies, how to counteract human bias that killed people because of pilot and systemic errors. A system of checks and balances, which include stern questioning of pilots by copilots, helps to ensure such accidents are not repeated. Journalism, on the other hand, seems to be doing its level best to destroy what systems of accountability it once may have had. Imagine what it would look like, on the other hand, if reporters and editors broadcast and published as if people’s lives depended on journalistic fairness and accuracy.
7. Embrace the Fifth Estate. Many will gladly fall into place to fulfill the empty niche of what journalism fails to do. Rather than going away, the Fifth Estate of bloggers, independent and citizen journalists and self-anointed watchdogs continues to gain influence and presence, which is indubitably having some effect on news site pageview counts and online advertising revenue. Rather than adopt a sneering stance toward bloggers, as exemplified by refusing to create link-backs or crediting citizen sources of stories – something archaic news outlets are still doing – smart news outlets will partner with a community’s best bloggers, acknowledge their existence and perhaps even co-opt their talents.

While these are just suggestions, and I welcome yours in the comments below, it is doubtful any one of these will ‘save’ journalism. Like Smith Corona had difficulty predicting and adapting to the demise of the typewriter, the news business is on a perilous edge. What will likely never die, however, is news itself.

The question then remains: With the business of news in doubt, what will ensure people get timely, accurate and honest information? The answer is uncertain.

What is clear is that until journalism begins an honest reflection of its industry, what it produces should be consumed in best-case scenarios with a heavy dose of skepticism.

* * *

This series of posts, called “And they call US spin doctors?” examined how business-as-usual journalism is fraught with potentials for misinformation, leading to the conclusion that information shapers of all stripes — in particular, reporters and their editors — are unwittingly, or not, significant players in the process of misleading the public. The series was extensively researched and used real-life, current examples of news outlets deliberately misconstruing news to be more salacious. The series ran for six weeks. Read part 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

*Mike Wallace described the National News Council as being “set up not to send anybody to jail, not to fine anybody, not to collect dues or hand out certificates of qualification, not to do any of that but rather to act as a kind of jury of our peers — composed of broadcasters, print people, academics — to receive complaints, to look into them, and, if warranted, to publicize what amounts to journalistic malpractice.”

“Let’s give ‘em something to talk about.”
– Bonnie Raitt

In 2002 a relatively unknown study about consumer perceptions of food safety was published (1). In it, three researchers discovered a startling point: Given the choice between information delivered by experts and views offered by activists, consumers overwhelmingly sided with negative information, despite the credibility, or lack thereof, of the source.

The study went like this: A sampled audience was given descriptions about the process of food irradiation to examine the effects of how the information was presented. Participants were grouped into ten groups of six to twelve. Each participant received a neutral description of food irradiation based on current scientific literature. Some groups received additional positive information from a consumer education association, other groups received negative information from a consumer advocacy group and finally, the rest of the groups received both the positive and negative information about food irradiation.

The results showed that “even though the scientific evidence is favorable, claims by opponents, even if they are inaccurate and only suggest potential risks, will tend to reduce consumer demand” (p. 192). Negative information, in other words, dominated the test subjects’ perceptions leading to changed perceptions of food irradiation that disfavored the scientific information.

The researchers concluded:

“The surprising result is that when we presented both positive and negative information simultaneously, the negative information clearly dominated. This was true even though the source of the negative information was identified as being a consumer advocacy group and the information itself was written in a manner that was non-scientific.”

The public, therefore, is more easily swayed by emotional appeals and potentially misleading or incorrect information from non-scientific sources even when expressed simultaneously with scientific information.

* * *

Nearly four weeks ago an email was sent nationwide. In it, a New York Times reporter, Charles Duhigg, was asking representatives of state agencies to submit “any and all” data pertaining to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act for the years 1998 to the present. The data request would, at least for Nevada, amount to 1.5 to 2 million data points.

The asked-for deadline was November 30, eight days later.

What was not indicated in this email was that the reporter was already working with data from both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Environmental Working Group. EPA information is fairly extensive and available online. The Environmental Working Group and its data appear to be another matter entirely.

The same day the resulting drinking-water-quality story was released and published in the New York Times (yesterday), EWG sent a solicitation email requesting donations from its supporters. It was signed and promoted by Bonnie Raitt and Erin Brockovich, who both apparently had the time to read the lengthy New York Times story, examine its data and sidebars and also craft and deliver a colorfully designed message to supporters by 9:21 a.m. PST.

In the email, both say that the EWG’s release of information was with the New York Times.

“I’m blown away by everything EWG does. Just this past week, they released, with The New York Times, the latest update to their National Drinking Water Database. You can use the database to look up the chemical pollutants in your tap water and learn what you can do to protect your family against them. Who would do all this research if EWG wasn’t around?” [Emphasis in original text.]

Actual researchers, that’s who. It turns out what EWG does is not research, not subject to the benefits of peer-review and apparently has little basis in reality. But that doesn’t stop the group from being well-funded and well connected.

EWG has a history of inflammatory public relations tactics that, generally, appear to be well received. (It should be noted that the group’s executive editor, Nils Bruzelius, is a member of the National Association of Science Writers, which maintains as its constitution a principle to “foster the dissemination of accurate information regarding science and technology in keeping with the highest standards of journalism.”)

What sets apart this situation was that the New York Times was using the Environmental Working Group’s data for its story, despite warnings from others, such as the American Council on Science and Health, about EWG’s repeated scare tactics and misleading claims.

Despite the tenor of the stories – EPA regulations are not enough to protect average consumers from what EWG calls a “cocktail of contamination” and what the Times calls “toxic waters” – both draw dubious conclusions.

The Times, using EWG’s data for only two years, claims that Truckee Meadows Water Authority has exceeded legal limits of both arsenic and tetrachloroethylene. Yet, records clearly show TMWA has never exceeded legal limits nor has it had health-based violations, “especially for arsenic,” according to TMWA’s Paul Miller(2).

That does not stop the Times from making the claim that “communities where the drinking water has contained chemicals that are associated with health risks include Scottsdale, Ariz.; El Paso, Tex., and Reno, Nev. Test results analyzed by the Times show their drinking water has contained arsenic at concentrations that have been associated with cancer.”

The New York Times’ use of data supplied by an activist group that has a well-documented history for misusing scientific information, and which has an obvious agenda, has contributed to a firestorm of media coverage not just here in the Truckee Meadows, but all around the country as water purveyors have scrambled to counter the misinformation supplied by EWG and lapped up by the news media.

And this is exactly what the Environmental Working Group wants.

Bonnie Raitt and Erin Brockovich spell it out:

“(EWG is) not afraid to shake things up if that’s what it takes to give people the information they need to make this world a better place.”

Even if it means using scare tactics and the peddling of misinformation. EWG likes to send out inflammatory news releases, but when countered on claims, or called onto the carpet for withholding information about its motives, suddenly the group gets more honest – or nasty – about its intentions.

An EWG representative summed it up:

“We’re trying to move Congress and the EPA to set tougher standards for drinking water across the country so we don’t end up with situations where people drink water with 10, 20 or 30 different contaminants in it, and have the authorities say that that’s safe.”

Meanwhile scientists and regulators are forced to counter a glut of irresponsible claims while consumers watch perplexed, wondering if in fact their water is safe to drink. If the food irradiation research study of 2002 is any indication, consumers are more likely to be swayed by EWG’s fear mongering.

It’s the consequence of misinformation.

* * *

This series of posts, called “And they call US spin doctors?” examines how business-as-usual journalism is fraught with potentials for misinformation, leading to the conclusion that information shapers of all stripes — in particular, reporters and their editors — are unwittingly, or not, significant players in the process of misleading the public. The series is extensively researched and uses real-life, current examples of news outlets deliberately misconstruing news to be more salacious. The series runs for six weeks. Read part 1, 2 and 3.

Sources

(1) Hayes, D. J., Fox, J. A. & Shogren, J. F. (2002). Experts and activists: How information affects the demand for food irradiation [Electronic version]. Food Policy, 27, 185-193.

(2) Information was taken from emails and a personal conversation with TMWA’s Paul Miller, who said that the New York Times data are definitely incorrect. Paul said he spoke with the Times reporter, Charles Duhigg, who was trying to verify a number about arsenic. Paul’s response: Prior to 2006, the TMWA system-wide average was just over 3 ppb (parts per billion) when the arsenic regulations were a limit of 50 ppb. The regulations were then changed to the current standard of 10 ppb. Paul said the system-wide average is now just under 3 ppb, but the New York Times chart shows TMWA’s “average result” to be 7.09 ppb (EWG claims it is 7.06 ppb). The Times also only shows data from 2004 and 2005, when the limit was 50 ppb, even though the legal limit listed by the Times is the current limit of 10 ppb.

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“In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.”

–Oscar Wilde

Social psychologists have confirmed that cognition is an important ingredient in how information is perceived. They have found that perceptions can be swayed relatively easily by racial stereotypes, body language, facial expressions, previous bias (1), and self deceptions (2).

While the peer-reviewed process of research – in which other researchers evaluate, critique and edit manuscripts before results are officially published – can guard against perceptual biases, perception by journalists and the public is not as easily safeguarded.

The tiers of accountability for what constitutes news are comparatively sloppy, inconsistently applied and may not even be reviewed by editors or producers prior to airing or publication.

What compounds the situation is the mindset of the journalist before he or she ever gets a story on record. The book Medical Journalism: Exposing Fact, Fiction, Fraud (3) identifies particular cognitive biases that affect a journalist’s perceptions and how he or she interprets news events. They are:

1. The eyewitness fallacy. (Eyewitnesses are notoriously inaccurate and unreliable and yet are a staple of news writing and reporting.)
2. Underutilization of statistics. (Reporters tend to rely on anecdotes, which can have a greater emotional impact than drier, less enticing statistical information.)
3. Confirmation bias. (This is the tendency to seek, select and recall data according to preexisting expectations or theories.)
4. Misperception of risk. (Dramatic events or risks are often overestimated or given more attention. Consider the example of coverage of airplane crashes, which are infrequent, versus car crashes, which are so common and statistically more deadly but are given far less prominence in the news.)
5. Misinterpretation of regression. (If one extreme has been observed in a population, people may falsely predict another, a trait that tends to guide news coverage.)
6. Illusory correlation. (The frequency with which two things are related is overestimated.)
7. Fundamental attribution error. (People are more prone to attribute a person’s behavior to his or her disposition rather than to situational factors.) (pp. 90-91)

If reporters can be easily swayed by perceptual biases, of which they might not be aware, how well equipped is the public to interpret media-filtered information?

Media effects researchers (4) have established that media do not necessarily cause changes in behavior or in setting public agendas, but instead, media can have significant influence on shaping the importance of topics and on public perception (5).

The aforementioned psychological biases explain how information can become skewed. In addition, a book by the Glasgow Media Group (6) describes three factors that determine how audiences perceive media messages:

1. Direct experience. Somebody who experiences an event firsthand will tend to discount media accounts of the event.
2. Use of logic. Independent of personal political beliefs, audience members detect differences in media accounts of the same story and may come to opposite conclusions from the media.
3. A sequence of processes that include cultural ties and values. Someone with a vested interest in a media portrayal may either be interested or reject that portrayal based on their personal beliefs (p. 285).

Perhaps more cynically, researchers Vestal and Briars summarize the situation like this:

If a person has limited knowledge and experience about a topic, then he or see cannot accurately perceive it (p. 141).

In other words, media events can be misinterpreted by audiences because of self-deception, which is a concern because an individual’s perceptual biases can hold more weight in one’s mind than otherwise verifiable information, such as scientific evidence.

Indeed, people will tend to skew new information toward their own frames of reference and will gravitate toward believing negative or familiar information over new and potentially challenging information if the new information goes against ingrained beliefs.

This is important to understand in the news reporting process because if reporters are frequently guided by cognitive and reporting practices that can enhance misinformation, it follows that there is a dubious level of understanding by audiences who consume the news.

Still, reporters are quick to assert and defend their role in society despite so much evidence that the news reporting process is inherently flawed.

* * *

This series of posts, called “And they call US spin doctors?” examines how business-as-usual journalism is fraught with potentials for misinformation, leading to the conclusion that information shapers of all stripes — in particular, reporters and their editors — are unwittingly, or not, significant players in the process of misleading the public. The series is extensively researched and uses real-life, current examples of news outlets deliberately misconstruing news to be more salacious. The series runs for six weeks.

Part 4 will outline the consequences of reporter bias. Read part 1 and part 2.

Sources

1. Vallone, R. P. Ross, L. & Lepper, M. R. (1985). Believing is seeing: Partisan perceptions of media bias. In Abelson, R. P., Frey, K. P., & Gregg, A. P. (Eds.) (2004). Experiments with people: Revelations from social psychology (pp. 41-51).
2. See Pinker, S. (2002). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. New York: Penguin Group.
3. The information from Medical Journalism is taken directly from the book as well as my interpretation of the author’s list of psychological biases. See the original source for the exact information: Levi, R. (2001). Medical journalism: Exposing fact, fiction, fraud. Ames, IA: Iowa University Press.
4. Bryant, J. & Zillman, D. (Eds.) (1994). Media effects: Advances in theory and research. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
5. Vestal, T. A. & Briers, G. A. (2000). Exploring knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of newspaper journalists in metropolitan markets in the United States regarding food biotechnology [Electronic version]. Journal of Agricultural Education 41(4), 134-144.
6. Philo, G. (1999). Conclusions on media audiences and message reception. In Philo G. (Ed.), Message received: Glasgow Media Group research. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
7. Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. (2003, May 22). When media, science and public policy collide: The case of food and biotechnology, November 21, 2002. Retrieved November 24, 2003, from http://pewagbiotech.org/events/1121/
8. Federoff, N.V. & Brown, N.M. (2004) Mendel in the Kitchen: A scientist’s view of genetically modified foods. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press.
9. Vestal, T. A. & Briers, G. A. (2000). Exploring knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of newspaper journalists in metropolitan markets in the United States regarding food biotechnology [Electronic version]. Journal of Agricultural Education 41(4), 134-144.

See also:

Cialdini, R. B. (2001) Influence: Science and practice (4^th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

First Amendment Center (1997). Worlds apart: How the distance between science and journalism threatens America’s future. Retrieved November 24, 2003, from http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/about.aspx?id=6270

Hayes, D. J., Fox, J. A. & Shogren, J. F. (2002). Experts and activists: How information affects the demand for food irradiation [Electronic version]. Food Policy, 27, 185-193.

Miller, J.D., Annous, M. & Wailes, E. J. (2003). Communicating Biotechnology: Relationships between tone, issues, and terminology in U.S. print media coverage. Journal of Applied Communications, 87(3), 29-40.

Voss, M. (2003). Why reporters and editors get health coverage wrong: Health journalists need and want special training [Electronic version]. Nieman Reports: The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, 57(1), 46-48.

Whaley, S. R. & Tucker, M. (2004). The Influence of Perceived Food Risk and Source Trust on Media System Dependency. Journal of Applied Communications, 88(1), 9-27.

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read:  ’President Can’t Swim.’”
–Lyndon B. Johnson

Part of the problem with the press is the constructed dichotomy wherein the self-appointed “watchdogs” believe themselves to be the most capable to fulfill the role of protecting us from ourselves.

It’s an embedded perspective, one that has history and evidence to back it up. As societies become more democratized, the press-as-watchdogs function helps ensure government transparency. There exists a symbiotic relationship: Freer societies have freer presses that in turn keep government in check.

But technological advances have begun to throw a new ingredient into this dynamic.

The watchdog role is now potentially bestowed upon whoever has the means to transmit information about, say, corporate malfeasance. Media members fall into a historically protected structure in which a large audience was typically guaranteed. Now, the role of individuals has increased to become vital for breaking news.

While citizens now have more power to shape and influence news, the role of protected media has diminished.  Influence by citizens in the past, as in the vibrant independent press, could be more easily ignored. Not so anymore. It’s possible, then, that news media watchdoggery at this stage in the game is becoming more an inflated sense of self-importance than a true reflection of the press’ current role.

Some evidence supports this perspective. Despite the increasing influence of citizen journalists, mistrust of news continues to rapidly grow. The reason for this is, in part, because reporters do not have adequate systems in place to ensure adequate accuracy or fairness. While news outlets sometimes report on themselves, or use their own reporters as sources, it is up to bloggers, researchers and, sometimes, other media, to analyze reporting and contextual errors, a dynamic which substantiates the role of those outside newsrooms.

Nothing better illustrates this better than how the press reports on complex information such as scientific issues, and what others have discovered about such reporting. Here are some examples, most of which are prior to the social media explosion and the downsizing of newsrooms, an indicator that the problem today could be worse:

1. Researchers Vestal and Briers, in 2000, found that journalists’ knowledge of biotechnology was lower than their perceived knowledge of the field. (1)
2. Researchers Cartmell, Dyer and Birkenholz, in 2002, and Cartmell, et. al., in 2003, surveyed Arkansas newspaper editors finding they had no formal training or background in agriculture, but were charged with determining if agricultural news was newsworthy. (2)
3. Newspaper coverage of swine production in Oklahoma was considered negative and covered by reporters who did not have an agricultural background, as found by Sitton, et. al., in 2004. (3)
4. Researchers Haygood, Hagins, Akers and Kieth in 2002 found that from 1997-2000 less than one half of the statements made in articles about agriculture from the Associated Press wire service contained sentences with facts considered verifiable. (4)
5. A CNN report last year glowingly covered a supposed clean-energy technology that had elsewhere been debunked, without any pretense of fact checking.

Given the high potential for misinformation because of lack of knowledge by gatekeepers, and the increasing inability (unwillingness?) to check facts, it would seem that, like with most other types of organizations, an external level of accountability could benefit news accuracy.

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, but imagine the outcry were government to be allowed to run itself the same way newsrooms self-correct errors, if at all.

Granted, these two types of systems are radically different, and a comparison between governments and newsrooms is perhaps 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 aren’t, at the end of the day, kidding ourselves.

The absence of formal external controls over news media is both essential and problematic. The news requires the right to be wrong in order to ultimately ensure a free press. The longstanding history in America 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 truly informed.

Such freedoms both come with a price and can conflict with one another. For the news media, freedom of the press has come to mean different things to different people. Reporters seem to think such freedoms automatically remove them from any other role than that of one who merely disseminates information, unless, of course, that role has managed to influence a policy change of some sort; then it becomes something to be championed.

Why reporters 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 mind of a journalist when he or she is reporting — and how audiences interpret the subsequent news stories.

* * *

This series of posts, called “And they call US spin doctors?” examines how business-as-usual journalism is fraught with potentials for misinformation, leading to the conclusion that information shapers of all stripes — in particular, reporters and their editors — are unwittingly, or not, significant players in the process of misleading the public. The series is extensively researched and uses real-life, current examples of news outlets deliberately misconstruing news to be more salacious. The series runs for six weeks.

Part 3 will cover specific human traits that bias the news reporting process. Read Part 1 here.

SOURCES

(1) Vestal, T. A. & Briers, G. A. (2000). Exploring knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of newspaper journalists in metropolitan markets in the United States regarding food biotechnology [Electronic version]. Journal of Agricultural Education 41(4), 134-144.

(2) Cartmell, D.D., Dyer, J.E., Birkenholz, R.J. & Sitton, S.P. (2003). Publishing Agricultural News: A study of Arkansas newspaper editors. Journal of Applied Communications, 87(4), 7-22 and Cartmell, D. D., Dyer, J. E., & Birkenholz, R. J. (2002). Gatekeeping decisions of Arkansas daily newspaper editors in publishing agricultural news. Paper presented at the 2002 National Agricultural Education Research Conference. Retrieved November 24, 2003, fromhttp://aaaeonline.ifas.ufl.edu/NAERC/2002/naercfiles/NAERC/Gatekeeping%20Cartmell-Dyer-Birkenholz.pdf (see also this source).

(3) Sitton, S., Terry, R., Cartmell, D. D., & Keys, J.P. (2004). Newspaper Coverage of Swine Production Issues: A closer look at reporters and their objectivity. Journal of Applied Communications, 88(2), 21-35.

(4) Haygood, J., Hagins, S., Akers, C., & Kieth, L. (2002, December 11). Associated Press wire service coverage of agricultural issues. Paper presented at the 2002 National Agricultural Education Research Conference. Retrieved November 24, 2003, from http://www.depts.ttu.edu/aged/research/haygoodAgLit.pdf (see also this source and this source).

“It’s a bizarre world where flacks are more vigilant than reporters
when it comes to trying not to mislead readers.”
– JOHN COOK, Gawker
“The Spitzer Files: How the New York Times and the Press Serviced Client No. 9”

The American Left’s favorite punching bag – Sarah Palin – should, at the least, be thanked for one thing: her ability to draw out the nastiness of her media critics. Palin’s shortcomings, which are many, help elicit inherent problems with news media reporting that might otherwise go unnoticed. There’s something about Palin that emboldens news media to go out of their way to misconstrue news or to simply create a kind of context that might not otherwise exist. Palin makes a good target, one that media will quickly and somewhat cavalierly defend their actions against after going on the attack.

We’re not talking, necessarily, left- or right-wing bias. Nor is this “news” of the demagogic type exemplified by the increasingly omnipresent partisan news media outlets. The bias exhibited against Palin and many other public figures is inherent in the news journalism business.

It is, in fact, the business-as-usual modus operandi of news reporting that is flawed and is too often seemingly incapable of maintaining accurate context for what happens in real life. It’s not just partisan “news” that is problematic; it is the news business in general that is fraught with potentials to drive innuendo and encourage misinterpretation and misinformation.

Palin and many public officials unfortunately know this too well. What is most striking about her recent appearance on the cover of Newsweek magazine is the defense by Newsweek to justify context creation, despite the potential illegalities of reproducing that particular photo in the first place. Newsweek insisted that its choice of cover photos was appropriate. Editor Jon Meacham said,

“We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do.”

Which is why what constitutes news is deceptive. It routinely (re)defines context and frames agendas FOR us rather than taking a stricter stance of merely reporting information. It is an attitude in which reporters deem — influenced no doubt by their training in journalism schools — they are qualified to shape context. Meacham, like many journalists, is cavalier in assuming the journalist’s role, irrespective of ingrained assumptions that insert reporters into a process of decision making for the presumed benefit of countless others.

David Barker, staff writer for the State News and a reporter presumably fresh out of journalism school — which perhaps gives him the benefit of clearer reflection on the journalistic process — puts it this way:

“As reporters, we aren’t simply people who regurgitate facts. We gather information and test its veracity. Our job requires that we interpret and shape information — contextually and factually — for the reader.

“Our job is to tell stories, to make facts relevant, but never to skew them.”

But the process of interpreting and shaping information is precisely what begins the progression of skewing information, deliberately or otherwise. Barker basically admits to this but quickly attempts to soften the reporting reality by denying that interpretation has the potential to skew. He continues:

“We have a code of ethics because our jobs require us to decide not only what is essential, but pertinent.

“After that, it’s up to the reader to decide.”

Inserting yourself into the position of deciding what’s relevant is the first place where bias initially occurs. Researchers know this, which is why double-blind studies are so critical. By taking themselves out of the equation, scientists reduce the potential for bias. Reporters on the other hand are ingrained in the filtering process. Barker, at least, is refreshingly honest about his role. His colleagues, however, seem too often to lack this characteristic.

Such is the case with the process of attempting to correct news, let alone context. Media personnel enact an essentially black-and-white moral obligation of speaking for the masses with a frequent disregard for their own accountability in fulfilling the “watchdog” role. It may be possible to get factual mistakes corrected in the news, usually a day or two later and with far less prominence than the original errors were committed, but adequate corrections are questionable, as the site Regret the Error frequently points out.

So what happens when context is incorrect or distorted? Not much. Reporters and editors are typically quick to respond defensively when called onto the carpet for miscontextualizations, as the Newsweek/Palin example shows.

The reason for this is because it is the business of journalism to reshape reality according to preconceived notions by and for journalists and their editors.

* * *

This series of posts, called “And they call US spin doctors?” examines just how business-as-usual journalism is fraught with potentials for misinformation, leading to the conclusion that information shapers of all stripes — in particular, reporters and their editors — are unwittingly, or not, significant players in the process of misleading the public. The series is extensively researched and uses real-life, current examples of news outlets deliberately misconstruing news to be more salacious. The series runs for six weeks.

Part 2 will cover how news organizations are structured and how this influences practices that lead to misinformation.

Like this post? Buy the book!

Available in paperback ($18.98) or as an eBook ($7.49).

I vividly remember

What reminded me of this was reading the local weekly (online) yesterday. The editor wrote a stunning piece. It’s a first-hand account of his drunk-driving arrest. The paper placed it on its front cover, and the article is a stunning admission of what happened. As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but wonder how such an open acknowledgement of wrongdoing could feasibly raise the bar for those caught in the act of screwing up.

Too often journalists prey on public figures and their misdoings, real or imagined. Yet when their own hands are caught in the cookie jar, reporter transparency becomes askew. Not in this situation.

I have maintained that trying to prevent wrongdoing can be a futile effort; rather, the act of owning up to misdeeds is more telling of character.

There’s much to be learned from this article. While the moralists will, predictably, pick it apart as if they have never done anything wrong in their own lives, and most surely judgments will be passed, I consider this one of the finer pieces of journalism I’ve read locally in a long, long time.

Along with this, partisan news outlets have gained in popularity in the past 15 years, which has only increased misinformation and ire among an otherwise civil populace. This video, albeit selectively edited and slanted in its own right, is a painful consequence of such domineering partisanship. Make no mistake: A left-oriented rally could easily yield a similar production.

One solution some of us in Reno have offered up is to create a news portal that is uninhibited in what it allows to be posted in terms of newsworthiness. As communications professionals and bloggers with political, and other, slants of our own, we saw a need for quality information regardless of where it originates and that is unfiltered by gatekeepers.

Simply, we maintain the odd notion that organizations do a fine job of telling their own stories. Where we falter is that we store this information on our sites and send it to the news media as a means to communicate to a broader audience. What happens is that this information gets distilled, transformed and even completely misrepresented by news gatekeepers.

If incorrect or distorted by the news media, the best we can do is put our version of the news on our own Web sites and hope that another media outlet covers the information more fairly and accurately. In other words, we consent, oddly, to the unstated decree that we are somehow lesser qualified to tell our stories simply because we don’t have the same reach the more mainstream traditional news does.

This is changing. Social media has upturned the dynamic of how news is broken and given to us more of an ability to communicate directly with those we want to reach.

Locally, one way we have done this is to develop an online ‘news’ outlet called This Is Reno, which centralizes the news from other organizations that we can also contribute to free of the often uninformed or agenda-setting gatekeeper filtration.

A headline that misconstrues what the article actually says. Posted on the Reno Gazette-Journal Web site on September 16, 2009.

Here is why this is important. If you visit this news release posted two days ago, which is only slightly edited (the extensive list of names wasn’t included), and then the one that made the news, you’ll note the gatekeeper version has a title that is incorrect, and could have even been rewritten to make the effort sound slightly dumber and inconsequential. This is the nature of journalism and what we as PR pros have come to expect, and, sadly, live with.

The reality is that organizations have always been able to adequately speak for themselves. With a collectively run news site, we can let readers be the ones to determine whether or not our news is important. By allowing readers to comment – we don’t allow anonymous attacks on the site – and by posting the most popular posts in order, audiences determine newsworthiness. And they have the opportunity to tell us if they think we’re full of shit. (We also don’t accept advertising of any sort. The banner ads to date have been voluntary and they link back to community events put on by non-profit organizations.)

While creating your own community news site is a noted departure from what has traditionally been considered news, it is really not too much different from what PR pros do in their day jobs. The only difference is that we are collectively posting news from our colleagues rather than just on our own Web sites.

The results have been surprising. In just over a month of launching, the site’s stats remain consistently growing, we have nearly 300 fans on Facebook and more and more news is being fed to us each day. This is all by word of mouth. Anecdotal comments have been mostly positive, and the public relations folks who send us their news basically think it’s a great idea.

I encourage public relations professionals to do something similar within their own communities. With a site such as This Is Reno, you and your colleagues can envision the news and opinion in a new way, one that can be sustained and archived according to your liking.

I don’t know Sarah Soczka, but if I ever meet her, I’m going to buy her a beer. Sarah is the unwitting victim of the “watch what you say online” crowd, specifically one Jeff Bentoff, APR, of Bentoff, LLC from Wisconsin. Bentoff writes in the June issue of the Public Relations Society of America’s TACTICS newsletter about “A cautionary Twitter tale: Young professional learns a tweet lesson.”

Bentoff details the story of how Soczka wrote a brief and, in my opinion, relatively milquetoast blog post on her own blog, and presumably on her own time, about why Newshub (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) is better than BizJournalMke (Milwaukee Business Journal). She was clear to say the post and her blog and Twitter account represent her own views.

Nevertheless, Bentoff writes:

“Her blog posting might have gone unnoticed, but bringing attention to it via Twitter was like throwing birdseed into a bird’s nest.

“Only 10 minutes after Soczka posted to her Twitter account, the Journal Sentinel’s main Twitter writer retweeted the item and headline to its many followers.”

Bentoff admits that Soczka was correct in her post, and he makes efforts to praise her as “a social media natural” … “who is fluent and comfortable with the tools.” His tone ends up as chastising, however, and what he does to Soczka next is a classic case of shooting the messenger.

He recounts:

“The twittering crescendo quickly reached the ears of Mark Kass, the Milwaukee Business Journal’s editor. Kass said that his first reaction was, ‘Who is she, and why did she do this?’ He added that he agreed with the points that she made on her blog, but was disappointed that she hadn’t contacted him before posting. Kass said that had she done so, he would have explained that his paper had started tweeting two weeks before and had already made plans for reporter tweets in the style Soczka advocated for.”

Kass’ initial, ad hominem reaction of “Who is she?” is alarming coming from someone in the news business. The news media regularly defends itself as reporters of information against those who blame journalists for the impact of putting out the news and commentary. That’s what basically what Soczka was doing: commenting on the use of social media by newbs, ineffective use of social media being so omnipresent that it’s a wonder Soczka wasn’t harsher. For Kass’ first response to be of the shoot-the-messenger variety puts his own credibility in question.

Next, there is no reason whatsoever that Soczka should have contacted the Milwaukee Business Journal prior to posting. Commentary legitimately does not require letting parties have a “fair” say prior to publication. The news media certainly wouldn’t do this; why should a blogger? Kass’ response is more about his own ego than about anything Soczka wrote.

What happens next is even more telling. Back to Bentoff:

“Kass said that he didn’t think Soczka was fair with her comments in comparing a new Twitter feed with a mature one. After hearing about the tweets, Kass also contacted Soczka’s supervisor and the three of them met so that he could explain the Business Journal’s plans to her.”

Let’s get this straight. Kass expects to be notified before anyone writes something potentially negative about his use of Twitter but then goes to the messenger’s supervisor, who has nothing to do with this issue, so he can “explain” his social media plan?

There is only one reason that Kass approached Soczka’s supervisor and that was to put her on notice. It was a veiled threat and a way for him to put the practitioner in her proper place with a subtext that says, “How dare you criticize me.”

Put another way: Reporters frequently don’t extend polite courtesies to PR people (I have vivid memories of being verbally bullied by a belligerent, screaming reporter leveling all sorts of his personal allegations at me on one occasion, along with a number of other examples), and its erroneous to assume that kissing reporters’ asses will get you very far. Prompt, polite responses, useful information, access to the right sources, yes. Gratuitous niceties, no.

Lest we forget: Journalists in general consider PR people a necessary evil. Anyone who has been in the business awhile, especially in public sector communications, knows it’s not uncommon for an “official” perspective to be looked upon with far more scrutiny than, say, that of an accuser, protester or any other kind of agitator. This all in fairness, of course.

This situation raises another critical point that gets little attention; the change in culture as a consequence of social media. Social media reduces the need for a middleman and conversations are open to the world. While this means caution should be exercised, it also means there is an emerging acceptance and acknowledgement of online behavior previously viewed as taboo, behaviors that arise because of the nature of who we are as humans and because this is how we now communicate.

In addition, the public relations profession mandates the free flow of information. Nowhere to date but in social media can this happen so effectively. The free flow of information also means not all information is first created equal and, second, will be interpreted the same way among publics. Because of this, along with the reality that PR people are blogging all over the place, we finally get to voice our concerns, perspectives and opinions. This is something to be celebrated, especially in an industry that prior to new media had far less of a voice. Bloggers are supposed to be provocative; PR people should weigh in on the effective use of media, even if they are critical. We’ve tolerated enough of the cheeky, third-grade level pedantic commentary from our local media sources. It’s time we had our say.

On the flipside, there’s plenty of room for outlining consequences and, most importantly, developing skills for handling inevitable crises and controversies. The problem isn’t that controversies arise; the problem is how they are frequently mishandled. Sure, PR people should be vigilant about what they say online and elsewhere, but it’s a basic error to attempt to enforce a bogus professional morality in professions – news reporting, PR – that inherently don’t play by the same rules and do not extend mutually equitable courtesies.

Sarah Soczka: You deserve a raise. The main thing you need to be vigilant about is which of the anachronistic views that come your way are actually worth a listen. Keep blazing trails, my friend.

POSTSCRIPT

Just before hitting publish, I went to the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Twitter account. True to Soczka’s original criticism posted in February, the Business Journal’s Twitter follows nobody and merely posts news back to its own site. It has 671 followers. If Kass agreed with Soczka’s point, as he claimed, it might behoove him to do something about it, like he said he was going to. I’m now even more baffled as to why Bentoff wrote this “cautionary tale” in the first place when Kass and the Business Journal, especially in contrast with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Twitter, are enacting what we involved with social media refer to as an “epic fail.”

[EDIT 1:41 p.m.: I was just informed that the Business Journal has a number of reporters who Twitter, including the editor, Mark Kass. Please consider this in the context of the above statement. I apologize for jumping the gun about the Journal's social media use without checking it out first. -Bob.]