Author Archive

Absence of malice?

Posted: September 8, 2020 by chrisharper in media

By Christopher Harper

After repeated examples of lousy journalism under cover of anonymous sources, it’s time to remove them from the reporter’s toolbox.

Here are some examples of false stories that came to you, the reader or viewer, as a result of anonymous sources:

—The New York Times and Judith Miller’s allegations that Saddam Hussein had vast caches of weapons of mass destruction

–The Rolling Stone “investigation” of rape on college campuses

–A New York Times story claiming that federal prosecutors were seeking a criminal investigation against Hillary Clinton for her private email accounts

–A CNN story that Congress was investigating a Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials

–A Washington Post story that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electrical grid

–An MSNBC report that Russian billionaires with ties to Vladimir Putin had co-signed a bank loan for President Trump

In these and many other cases, the prime motivation to use anonymous sources is because the reporter wanted the allegations to be true.

I worked in Washington, where I found the default is usually to promise anonymity because it usually serves the reporter and the source. At the end of the daily news cycle, it doesn’t matter whether the story was true. What counted was the number of eyeballs attracted to the story!

In a discussion on the recent Atlantic claims about Trump and the military, some of my former colleagues in journalism offered Watergate as the underlying justification for anonymous sources.

That was almost 50 years ago! For every good example of what has happened because of anonymous sources, how many bad examples have happened? It took me only a few minutes to recall the fake stories I listed at the top. Give me a few hours, and I’d come up with a basketful.

Oh, how about Dan Rather and Memogate? Maybe Little Jimmy and Janet Cook?

Moreover, news organizations rarely follow their guidelines on the use of anonymous sources. In most ethical codes, a reporter should ONLY use an unnamed source as a last resort. A senior editor usually has to approve the use, and a second source must corroborate the information.

I’ve served as an expert witness in half a dozen lawsuits where reporters and editors didn’t come close to following these guidelines and libeled innocent people.

I recommend that journalists watch Absence of Malice, the 1981 film that analyzes how the use of anonymous sources results in the death of one woman, the disgrace of local and federal prosecutors, and the end of a journalist’s career.

And I didn’t even have to mention the growing disbelief of the public toward journalists as a result of anonymous sources and other miscues.

The presidents and the press

Posted: September 1, 2020 by chrisharper in media
Tags: ,

By Christopher Harper

President Trump probably wouldn’t rank in the top five opponents of the media among U.S. presidents.

That’s the verdict of The New York Times in a review of a recent book, “The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media — From the Founding Fathers to Fake News” by Harold Holzer. 

Yes, that assessment appeared in DaTimes, albeit from Jack Shafer, the media analyst of Politico.

The book’s author is no fan of President Trump. Holzer worked for U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. 

John Adams signed sedition acts into law and used them against his critics in the media. George Washington even supported Adams’ anti-media tendencies. In his post-presidential years, Adams lamented that people read only Federalist or Republican newspapers—not both—leaving them with a one-sided view of the government in power. Sounds like a prelude to Fox and MSNBC.

Abraham Lincoln, arguably the best president in the nation’s history, imprisoned editors during the Civil War, banned newspapers from using the mail, and even confiscated printing presses. “Altogether, nearly 200 papers would face federally initiated subjugation during the Civil War,” Holzer writes. 

The Roosevelts enjoyed some of the best press among the presidents. But even they took aim at recalcitrant reporters. Theodore Roosevelt rebuked investigative journalists as “muckrakers,” or those who could only look down into the muck. He also filed a libel suit against Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, which finally was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt ordered massive censorship of news organizations, including a government Office of the Censor. His administration also penalized any news organization that reported about his paralysis or his ill health in his final years.

President Woodrow Wilson imposed censorship during World War I in a heavy-handed manner, and his Espionage Act still stands as a repressive law against whistleblowers. 

The battle between President Richard Nixon and his press critics is well documented here—as it has been elsewhere. 

Although Holzer batters Trump for his attacks on the press, the author doesn’t hold back on Barack Obama. Holzer recalls the analysis of former Washington Post managing editor Leonard Downie Jr. that Obama’s “war on leaks and other efforts to control information” were the worst Washington had seen since Nixon.

All told, the book analyzes the 18 of the 45 presidents, with many nuggets about the various administrations.

For example, one journalist confides that the press was as much responsible for the New Deal as was FDR because of the glowing media coverage. That sounds about right!

Moreover, the press ignored JFK’s extra-marital affairs because journalists didn’t think the private doings affected public business. That, of course, ignored at least one affair that straddled a mistress and the Mob. One reporter referred to the president as the “swashbuckler in chief.”

Despite JFK’s tryst with the media, he targeted some enemies, including Henry Luce of Time and David Halberstam of DaTimes.

Although I’ve never been a fan of Lyndon Johnson, the saddest tales come from his administration. LBJ had a massive mandate from the voters in 1964–more than 61 percent–and an excellent rapport with the press. He managed to lose both public and the media’s support by misleading them about the war in Vietnam in what became known as the government’s credibility gap.

DaTruth and DaTimes

Posted: August 25, 2020 by chrisharper in media, Uncomfortable Truths

By Christopher Harper

Against the backdrop of the investigations into Russia and Ukraine, the New York Times failed to mention one of the most egregious failures about the region propagated by the news organization itself.

Fortunately, a recently released motion picture, Mr. Jones, provides the details of how DaTimes manipulated the American public about the Soviet Union and the Ukraine famine, which resulted in the deaths of millions of people.

The film, directed by Agnieszka Holland, recounts the story of Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty, a chief propagandist for Josef Stalin, and how Welsh journalist Gareth Jones tried to unmask the gross falsehoods created by the then-venerated Times scribe.

Duranty, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Soviet Union in 1931, dismissed Jones’ first-hand accounts of the famine, known as the Holomodor.

Here are some excerpts from Duranty’s reports:

–New York Times, November 15, 1931: “There is no famine or actual starvation, nor is there likely to be.”

–New York Times, August 23, 1933: “Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda.”

–New York Times, December 9, 1932: “Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin’s program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding.”

–New York Times, May 14, 1933: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

At the time, Duranty was so influential that his reporting is credited for convincing FDR to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

Although Jones and others provided extensive evidence to refute Duranty’s reporting, it wasn’t until 2003 that the Pulitzer Board and DaTimes itself finally sought outside analysis of the work.

The Pulitzer “Board determined that Mr. Duranty’s 1931 work, measured by today’s standards for foreign reporting, falls seriously short…. However, the Board concluded that there was not clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception, the relevant standard in this case….The famine of 1932-1933 was horrific and has not received the international attention it deserves. By its decision, the Board in no way wishes to diminish the gravity of that loss. The Board extends its sympathy to Ukrainians and others in the United States and throughout the world who still mourn the suffering and deaths brought on by Josef Stalin.”

Ironically, DaTimes’ review of Mr. Jones only references Duranty in passing. At least that’s more than what DaTimes said during the recent debate over Russia and Ukraine. 

H/T to my wife Elizabeth for suggesting we watch the film! See the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=wtWSyFNT9qY&feature=emb_logo

Woke, Woker, and Wokest

Posted: August 18, 2020 by chrisharper in culture
Tags:

By Christopher Harper

Philadelphia has managed this past week to create a “woke trifecta” at a country club, a university, and a park.

Just up the street from where I live, two city institutions are battling over the use of a Native American emblem.

For more than 150 years, the Philadelphia Cricket Club and St. Martin’s in the Fields Episcopal Church have been neighbors. Only recently, the church’s rector, the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel, asked the club to retire a logo it uses that is similar to the one used by the Chicago Black Hawks hockey team. 

The use of the figure on the club sign that borders church property “represents the white supremacist legacy of our neighborhood.

“For a club founded for white Protestant elites during the height of the genocide against Native peoples to continue with this logo is to deny our horrific past,” Kerbel wrote Cricket Club president F. John White. “We ask you to retire the offensive logo and replace it with something more benign.”

So far, the club has not responded to the condemnation. 

It’s unclear to me if the church wants the neighborhood to change the names of many of the streets I can’t leave my house without driving or walking upon, including Huron, Pocono, Seminole, and others. I guess that’s a battle for another day!

As I prepare for this semester’s classes, I received an email from my employer, Temple University, where it announced a plan to make us “anti-racist.” Since Temple is known as Diversity U in many circles because of its diversity in students and faculty, I was a bit nonplussed when I received the email from the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership, or IDEAL.

I was informed that the university is creating a required assessment to “actively evaluate” my role in creating a more diverse and inclusive Temple as well as look for opportunities to develop my skills and literacy related to diversity.

Moreover, it was strongly suggested that I read Ibram Kendi’s “How to be An Anti-Racist” with IDEAL-trained facilitators.

The author, a graduate of Temple’s doctoral program in African-American studies, said: “Racist ideas have defined our society since its beginning and can feel so natural and obvious as to be banal… To be an antiracist is a radical choice in the face of this history, requiring radical reorientation of our consciousness.”

I have no idea what that means and no desire or the time to unpack it.

Meanwhile, the City of Philadelphia wants to remove a 150-year-old marble statue of Christopher Columbus, a gift from Italy.

Fortunately, a sane judge has stopped the city’s actions until a court hearing on the matter.

The critics failed to realize that the statue sits in a park named for Guglielmo Marconi, a pioneer of radio. That would be the same Marconi who was a good friend of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy during World War II.

I guess fascism against Jews, Poles, and other “inferior” white races doesn’t get much traction in the woke culture.

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