Should news organizations label Trumps falsehoods as lies?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The approaching presidency of Donald Trump poses daunting challenges for the journalists covering him, not merely because he has described them as dishonest, low-life scum or because of anxiety over whether the new administration will adhere to basic norms of access, such as daily briefings and regular news conferences.

The president-elect’s behavior presents fundamental questions, recurring daily if not hourly, about the best way to serve our audience. These are technical issues of craft, ordinarily of interest only to journalists themselves. In the Age of Trump, they are imbued with real-world consequences.

Should news organizations depart from customary restraint and label Trump’s falsehoods as outright lies? Should the media treat Trump tweetstorms with the rapt attention devoted to more traditional presidential statements, or refrain from such reflexive coverage in order to avoid being distracted, perhaps intentionally, from more important matters?

And given the physical constraints of headlines, how should news organizations handle a presidential claim — say, to have saved thousands of jobs — when the underlying details — the jobs may not be as numerous as advertised; the positions might have remained in the United States anyway — may be far more nuanced, if not disputed outright?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-huge-challenge-of-covering-trump-fairly/2017/01/06/0472ad76-d458-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html?utm_term=.3b320b9e2dcd&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1#comments

[Squinch]

1. Of course. Why are we even having a conversation that asks, "Can we call a lie a lie?"

These guys are ridiculous.

[SharonAnn]

9. Try a headline "Which is a lie? Statement #1 or Statement #2?

The show statement #1 and contradicting statement #2.

In other words, don't call it a lie. let the reader do it.

[elleng]

2. Call them 'lies' or not,

I've noticed recently/this past week, more 'challenges' to the premises of questions, as well as supposedly factual responses, on the media I listen to, limited tho it is: PBS including NPR. Glad to hear it.

[radical noodle]

3. Yes x 1000

[shadowmayor]

4. So telling the truth is now a daunting challenge?

The fawning corporate media is deplorable. The Post presents this issue as if it's a dilemma when it is truly nothing more than an excuse for past behaviors and a complete abrogation of their responsibilities. Message to the media - How about you quit your whining and just do your damned job? What a bunch of cowards.

[Igel]

8. It's always a challenge.

It's just that we're concerned when it suits us.

The Vermont electricity-grid hack was false news. It wasn't fake news, because it appeared real and was reliably sourced. It wasn't a lie, although it was false, because it was believed to be true and presented in good faith. It was false news. There was a race to be hysterical in the face of paranoia, because it fed our and the media's narrative.

This isn't new. Go back to 2009 and the number of jobs that the stimulus was going to create. The economists projected a range of values. The two points here are (a) "projected", because they just gave probabilities based on their assumptions and their ideas and (b) range. But the media said that the stimulus bill "will create _____________ jobs." I forget the number. Often they used the phrase "up to", but in the take-away number was the top of the range. It would have been just as accurate to say, "the stimulus may create as few as __________" and give the bottom of the range. It suited them they only gave the top of the range. That made their coverage biased to the point of falsity. Furthermore, it presented as a fact something that wasn't. Few reporters gave the range, or said that really, "we're not sure how many jobs it'll create."

There was no demand for them to do their job. We liked the news. It was good. Rah-rah, go team.

Now they're trying to be cautious.

It's the same with Russia. Four years ago the media were bent out of shape trying to be very careful in how they framed the reporting of all things Russian. MH370 downing? We can't be absolutely sure it was even shot down by a Russian-produced missile, unless it was manned by Ukrainians. Russia a foe? Hey, that's hyperbole, can't have that, we're partners. Reset! Now they rush to declare Russia behind everything they don't like, including when a Vermont utility company flags an employee's checking his email using an IP address that can be dynamically assigned to any user but which, once, was used for hacking.

[shadowmayor]

10. WMD's

Weapons of Media Distortion? Fake news? I remember the hash coming out of Viet Nam. The Iran Contra crap being buried. The voter counts and suppression in Florida. All my life, the mainstream media has been a shill for the powers that be. Now they're having some difficulty presenting STFU Donny's lies as lies? I understand that some issues are not clear and require actual reporting and even speculation. But bald-faced lies aren't even in the same category.

Possibly the worst to me personally was the BS Surge in Iraq. This led directly to the rise of ISIS or al qaeda 3.0. An obvious exit strategy for Cheney patterned after Nixon's peace with honor crap. When I returned from OIF3, the civil war in Iraq was in full swing, yet the media was reporting the exact opposite.

I do find the emphasis on "fake news" at this time to be quite strange, when so much has been so obviously fake since Moses was a baby. I think it's a meme used by the media to cover their own asses for what has been a glaring failure on their part.

Thanks for the reply, and it is all a part of what suits us at the time.

[shraby]

5. That's exactly what Rachel did the night the intelligence report came out. Called trump

a liar in that many words then showed why and how he was lying.

[chowder66]

6. They should say he is either lying or is incapable of comprehension.

Just pick something that shows the man has no business being anywhere near that office.

[Doreen]

7. YES, call them out for what they are.

[gulliver]

11. Maybe not "lie," but maybe something like "sic" or MPAA ratings?

It could be something like the MPAA rating system. A Trump statement might be rated.

SDD: Suspected Deliberate Deception
CDD: Confirmed Deliberate Deception

For shorthand, the journalist could just use this in-line. For example,

"Mr. Trump claims to have no previous connections to Russian businesses--CDD."

The CDD abbreviation could operate similarly to the word "sic." Readers know that "sic" means that what is quoted appears wrong but is being quoted verbatim. They could learn that CDD means that the information was deliberately deceptive and has been confirmed as such by fact checking and/or investigative journalism.

That avoids the troublesome concept and baggage of "lie." CDD is an expression of fact, not judgment.