In 2013, Popular
Science gave the marketplace of ideas a whopping vote of “no confidence”
when the venerable 141-year-old journal of science and technology announced it
was shutting off reader comments for its online articles, with the blunt
assessment, “Comments can be bad for science.”[1]
It turns out that, just as unregulated financial markets
can encourage and reward unsound practices and dishonest behavior, one effect
of unregulated information markets can be to skew facts and cloud judgments.
Suzanne LaBarre, online content director of Popular Science, explained the decision
in an online post (with no comments) as one that was not taken lightly. The
editors believed the comments were undermining their core mission of “fostering
lively, intellectual debate” and “spreading the word of science.”
LaBarre cited
research she said shows, “even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew
a reader's perception of a story.” The study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication reported on an
experiment designed to measure what the researchers dubbed “the nasty effect.”[2] The researchers gave more than 1,000 people a
fictitious blog post to read about a technology product they were unfamiliar
with. They then exposed half the
participants to civil comments and the other half to rude ones. Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele
described the findings of their four-person team in a New York Times opinion piece, writing, “The results were both
surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but
they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.”[3] Interestingly, the online
opinion piece had 400 comments, but they were curated by the New York Times, so all the top comments
were thoughtful, civil, and on point.
Popular Science found itself becoming an unwitting tool for
propagating popular myths and junk science and so, as LaBarre explained, it
felt it had little choice but to – in the name of science – “hit the off
switch”:
A
politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular
consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything,
from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs
again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate"
on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection
of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock
scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website
devoted to championing science.[4]
For Popular Science,
enough was enough. The comments were pushing the publication uncomfortably
close to committing the journalist sin of false equivalency, the simplistic and
flawed notion that there are two sides to every story. Except, of course, when
there are not. Some stories have many more than two sides, say for example, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Others have only one side, as in whether or not
the Earth orbits the Sun.
The New York Times has been wrestling with the problem of too much balance or
false equivalency – which Times
Public Editor Margaret Sullivan has addressed in several columns, noting what
she called the “he said, she said” practice has come under increasing fire,
from readers and viewers who rely on accurate news reporting to make them
informed citizens.[5]
Sullivan rejects what she calls “false balance,” the
all-too-common journalistic practice of giving equal weight to both sides of a
story, regardless of an established truth on one side. “Many people are fed up
with it,” she writes. “They don’t want to hear lies or half-truths given
credence on one side, and shot down on the other. They want some real answers.”
The problem is demonstrated amply by the continuing debate
over the September 11 attacks; namely that deciding what is an established
truth is not always an undisputed call.
“Sometimes,” Sullivan says, “readers who demand ‘just the
facts’ are really demanding their version of the facts.” [6] She says the Times has been cautious but is now more
willing to assert what is the consensus of science and making a distinction
between religious doctrines and scientific theories:
The issue
has come up frequently with science-related stories, particularly those
involving climate change. The Times has moved toward regularly writing, in its
own voice, that mounting evidence indicates humans are indeed causing climate
change, but it does not dismiss the skeptics altogether.
The
associate managing editor for standards, Philip B. Corbett, puts it this way:
“I think editors and reporters are more willing now than in the past to drill
down into claims and assertions, in politics and other areas, and really try to
help readers sort out conflicting claims.”[7]
The BBC has also come under fire for giving too much
airtime to skeptics disputing non-contentious issues of science. A report by the BBC Trust found that there
was “over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality which
sought to give the ‘other side’ of the argument, even if that viewpoint was
widely dismissed.”[8] Among the report’s conclusions, “Science
coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views but depends on
the varying degree of prominence such views should be given.”
So we are seeing – at least among some legacy news organizations
– some small efforts, baby steps really, in a modest attempt to bend the
narrative arc more toward truth and facts.
But as the persistence of false beliefs surround September
11 clearly underscores, more needs to be done.
Better Journalism
To Harvard University professor Thomas Patterson, the
answer is better journalism – what he has labeled “knowledge-based journalism.”
He makes his case in his 2013 book Informing
the News, in which he argues that “the public’s information has been
corrupted by its providers” and that “knowledge-based journalism can act as a
corrective.”
He advances a sort of “If you build it, they will come,”
argument. If journalists become more deeply informed about the subjects they
cover, he contends, they will produce better journalism, and once again become
our “chief sense-makers” “the public’s indispensable source of information.”[9]
He proposes that the place to start is at America’s
journalism schools, which he says should focus less on courses that teach how
to “shape and present” materials and more on what he calls the “knowledge of
how to use knowledge.” This, he argues, would also make journalism graduates –
who compete for reporting jobs not only against one another, but also against
graduates with economics, political science and other degrees more
marketable. It would give them skills he
says “other graduates do not have and could not easily acquire.”[10]
Patterson is enough of a realist to concede that his notion
of knowledge-based journalism would not be a cure-all. “Nevertheless,” he reasons, “knowledge-based
journalism would provide the steady supply of trustworthy and relevant news
that Americans now lack, but sorely need.”[11]
It is hard to argue against journalism education that
focuses more on critical thinking skills, especially when we see how we
consistently fool ourselves with common cognitive errors. But I would argue the
reality is that newsrooms and news organizations set standards, not journalism
schools. Standards and practices are wildly different at the New York Times and the New York Post, at CNN and PBS Newshour,
at the Rush Limbaugh show and NPR. And journalists, for better or worse, are
going to adopt the standards of the news organizations they work for if they
want to remain working for them. If you’re employed at the celebrity gossip
site TMZ, you cannot come to work every day and complain that you are not
fulfilling your journalism professor’s dream of being “the public’s
indispensable source of information.”
Raising journalism standards in the age of the Internet –
with blogs, constant deadlines, and pressure for clicks – can at times seem
like a losing game of “whack-a-mole.” You may stamp out junk journalism one
place, but it can easily pop up in another.
Tougher Laws
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, in his book On Rumors, tackles what he calls
“pervasive false rumors” from a completely different tack, looking to the law
to help correct the public record.
Specifically, Sunstein insists that while he is not
advocating any form of censorship, he nevertheless believes that in the
Internet age, the threat of legal recourse could result in a positive “chilling
effect” which could be “an excellent safeguard” to compensate for the
shortcomings of the “marketplace of ideas.” He maintains that under libel law,
as it now stands, most false rumors simply cannot be deterred or corrected. “A
society without any chilling effect, imposed by social norms, and by law, would
be a singularly ugly place. He argues, “What societies need now is not the
absence of ‘chill,’ but an optimal level.”
Sunstein draws on the principles of the landmark libel case
New York Times Company v. Sullivan,
which established the standard of “actual malice” and “reckless disregard for
the truth.” [12] He says that because actual malice is so hard
to establish, good people are subject to real damage, not to mention government
itself, which he reasons also suffers if its citizens cannot make fair
evaluations.
His three “modest ideas” for correcting the record – which
he concedes should not be embraced without undertaking “sustained analysis” –
would be aimed at protecting people and institutions against falsehoods without
producing the “excessive deterrence” of costly lawsuits.
1.
A Right To Demand Retraction – If you could show a statement is false and damaging, you
would have the right to a prominent retraction. Modest damages would be awarded
if the retraction was not forthcoming.
2.
A Right to Notice and Take Down – This proposal is modeled on copyright law. A website
would be obligated to take down falsehoods upon notice.
3.
Damage Caps – Sunstein
suggests A $15,000 cap could have a chilling effect, without stifling freedom
of expression, especially if awards could not be imposed on defendants who lack
resources.
While Sunstein, by his own admission, spends considerable
time on legal rules, he also argues that culture and social norms probably
matter more. He imagines a future in which propagators of falsehoods are
discounted and marginalized, and their influence is neutralized by people who
are willing to think independently.
But aside from the First Amendment constitutional issues
posed by these ideas, the practical and political hurdles would appear to me to
be insurmountable. The cumbersome and burdensome processes that would have to
be employed to enforce such laws are hard to imagine working fairly. For one
thing I have already established in this thesis that many people sincerely
believe things are demonstrably false, so who is to say what honest, but
possibly misguided, beliefs an individual is not entitled to hold?
As laudable as his goals, I find Sunstein’s ideas wholly
impractical and unworkable. My personal
experience would seem to provide a useful example. For instance, I believe the unauthorized
posting of the video clip of my report on September 11 is being misused to
advance a false agenda. But the clip is
what it is. It is a real clip, from my
real report, just missing crucial context.
Should I have the right to make every website take it down? The fact is that CNN owns that clip and it
does have the right to take legal action against its unauthorized use but
chooses not to. The reality would seem
to be that it is just not practical or cost-efficient.
Fact-Checking
If better journalism training and tougher libel laws are
not the answer, what about more facts – and in particular – more solid facts?
Fact-checking is seen by many as the best corrective out
there. It is a process in which an
independent authority, with the time and resources, runs down outrageous
claims, questionable assertions, and counterclaims, and renders an unambiguous
judgment. Facts are then rated true,
partially true, or outright falsehoods. Tampa Bay Times’ PolitiFact has rated
inaccurate statements by everyone from President Barack Obama to House Speaker
John Boehner as “pants on fire,” their least truthful category. [13]
One of the oldest fact-checking sites, FactCheck.org, was
started in 2003 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of
Pennsylvania. The Washington Post’s
Fact Checker and PolitiFact were both launched in 2007. And perhaps the
granddaddy of all fact-checking websites is Snopes.com, which is operated by
two people, Barbara and David Mikkelson, and is famous for debunking urban
legends.
Fact-checking is becoming a worldwide journalism
phenomenon. Glenn Kessler is a veteran
diplomatic correspondent who writes the "Fact-Checker" feature for The Washington Post. After attending the first Global
Fact-Checking Summit in London, Kessler reported that “scores of fact-checking
Web sites have sprung up across the world, since 2010.”[14] The conference, held
under the auspices of the Poynter Institute, featured fact-checkers from six
continents and more than 20 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Chile,
Egypt, India, Italy, Serbia, South Africa and Ukraine. Kessler cited a University of Wisconsin
scholar who is writing a book on the rise of journalistic fact-checking as
saying only four of the fact-checking sites represented at the conference existed
before 2010.
There can be little doubt that the rise of fact-checkers
and fact-checking sites has contributed to the overall availability of credible
sources of information. But it is equally true that fact-checkers are not
universally accepted as unbiased or even capable of arbitrating contentious
debates over what constitutes “ground truth.” When the Washington Post’s Kessler fact-checked a political ad for Mitt
Romney during the 2012 campaign, he awarded it “four Pinocchios” for what he
judged to be the misleading assertion that President Obama wanted to eliminate
work requirements for welfare.[15] But Neil Newhouse, a
Romney campaign pollster, famously dismissed the verdict with the assertion,
“Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and
we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” [16]
The Associated Press
has increasingly added fact-check pieces to its standard repertoire of
political coverage, and since 2008 an “accountability initiative” instituted in
AP’s Washington bureau has made fact-check pieces more of a priority.[17] But Craig Silverman, writing about AP’s
stepped up fact-checking effort, documented their limited effect on correcting
the record, noting “AP often finds its own fact-checks getting fact-checked by
others.” At the same time the purveyors
of misinformation pay little attention to the debate over their veracity –
simply reveling in the attention, while drawing uncritical applause from their
supporters.
When the AP fact-checked a prepublication copy of Sarah
Palin’s 2009 book, Going Rogue, an
unapologetic Palin fired back on her Facebook page: “We've heard 11 writers are
engaged in this opposition research, er, ‘fact-checking’ research! Imagine that
– 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead
of using the time and resources to ‘fact-check’ what's going on with Sheik
Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hasan's associations,
etc. Amazing.”[18]
A typical response from one of the more than 3,000
comments: “They are too lazy to fact check and too dumb to do their own
analysis and report the truth.”
But it wasn’t just Palin partisans who called foul on the
AP fact check. The Columbia Journalism Review noted that many ‘fact-checking’ pieces
actually contain counterarguments … but few of which really fit in a
‘fact-check’ frame.”[19] Greg Marx criticized the
AP for fact-checking Palin’s claim in her memoir that she was beckoned by
purpose, rather than driven by ambition.
Someone’s inner motivation would not seem to be a fact that can be
checked but rather an opinion subject to endless debate.
Clearly there are limits to the corrective properties of
independent fact-check reports even when they are produced by as authoritative
and non-partisan journalism entities as the Associated Press.
So can fact win out over fiction in the digital age in
which debate can be continuously stoked by a seemingly infinite supply of myth,
misinformation, and malicious mischief?
As flawed as the Internet may be as an arbiter of fact and
truth, it does have a powerful aspect that has proven on some occasions to be a
quick and effective antidote to myth propagation: crowdsourcing.
There are a lot of smart people who stand ready to call out
patently wrong-headed or factually inaccurate assertions.
Take the case of famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
While his credentials to discuss the current scientific consensus about the
cosmos may be impeccable, he has come under increasing attack, in some cases
from his fellow scientists, for relying on false and apocryphal anecdotes to
make his points in public speaking appearances.
One unattributed quote often used by Tyson comes in the
form of a slide he shows with the purported newspaper headline, “Half the
schools in the district are below average.”[20] The source of the
headline is never given, but it’s the logic that immediately comes under fire
from mathematicians.
The point Tyson was trying to make in his Las Vegas talk in
2011, and has made repeatedly in other venues since then, is that “the world is
getting stupider.”[21] The line always gets a big laugh. How could people be so dumb that they don’t
understand that half the schools can’t be below average? Except that this is an example of the
intuitive logic error, identified by Rolf Dobelli earlier in this thesis. It sounds
wrong. Tyson thinks it’s so obviously
wrong that it’s the punch line to his joke.
Except he’s wrong, as many citizen fact-checkers, such as Sean Davis,
were quick to explain in various blog posts, “… no Neil, that’s not what an
average is. At all. That’s what a median is. Yes, averages and medians and
modes are all measures of central tendency, but they most certainly are not the
same thing.”[22]
To understand the logic trap that ensnared the esteemed
astrophysicist, just think back to basic high school math where we learned
about the three most common types of averages: the mean, median, and mode. When we think of average we think of the
first one, the mean.
Can half of a group fall below the mean average? Think of a group of ten people. One makes $1,000 a week in salary. The other nine make $100. What’s the average
weekly salary? $1,000 plus $900 ($100
times 9) equals $1,900. Divide the sum
by ten and you get the average salary: $190 of the group. And you can see nine of the ten people are
below average, that is, below the mean.
It
seemed Tyson was making a joke along the lines of Garrison Keillor’s famous
observation about all the children of Lake Woebegon being above average. Except
Keillor had it right. While it is
possible for more than half to be above or below average, it is not possible
for all of them to be. Even really
smart people make dumb thinking errors.
[1] Suzanne LaBarre, “Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments,” PopularScience.com, September 24, 2013,
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments.
[2]
Ashley A. Anderson, et al., “The ‘Nasty Effect:’ Online Incivility and Risk
Perceptions of Emerging Technologies,” Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication Volume 19, Issue 3, 373–387, April 2014.
[3] Brossard, Dominique and
Dietram A. Scheufele, “This Story Stinks,” New
York Times, March 2, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/this-story-stinks.html
[4] LaBarre, “Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments,” 2013.
[5] Margaret Sullivan, “He Said, She Said, and the Truth,” The New York Times, September 15, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/public-editor/16pubed.html
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid.
[8] Sarah Knapton, “BBC staff told to stop inviting cranks on to
science programmes,” The Telegraph,
July 4, 2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10944629/BBC-staff-told-to-stop-inviting-cranks-on-to-science-programmes.html.
[9] Thomas Patterson, Informing
the News, The Need For Knowledge-Based Journalism (Vintage, 2013) 5-6.
[10] Ibid, 104-105.
[11] Ibid, 8.
[12] New York Times v. Sullivan,
376 US 254 (1964).
[13] PolitiFact.org, “Statements we say are Pants on Fire!”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/pants-fire/
[14] Glenn Kessler, “The Global Boom In Political Fact Checking,” Washington Post, June 13, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/06/13/the-global-boom-in-fact-checking/
[15] Glenn Kessler, “Spin And Counterspin In The Welfare Debate,”
August, 8, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/spin-and-counterspin-in-the-welfare-debate/2012/08/07/61bf03b6-e0e3-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html
[16] Ben Smith, “Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack,” BuzzFeed, August 28, 2012. http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/romney-camp-bets-welfare-attack#1g8q6ol
[17] Craig Silverman, “AP grows fact checking beyond politics to
breaking news, beat reporting,” Poynter.org,
January 10, 2012. http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/158337/ap-grows-fact-checking-beyond-politics-to-breaking-news-beat-reporting/
[18] Sarah Palin, “Really? Still Making Things Up?” Facebook, November 15, 2009. https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=174541533434
[19] Greg Marx, “What the Fact-Checkers Get Wrong,” Columbia Journalism Review, January 5,
2012. http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/what_the_fact-checkers_get_wro.php?page=all
[20] Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Fear of Numbers,” Las Vegas, YouTube, 2011.
[21] Tyson, Mount Holyoke College, YouTube,
2012.
[22] Sean Davis, “Did Neil deGrasse Tyson Just Try To Justify Blatant
Quote Fabrication?” The Federalist,
September 15, 2014. http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/15/did-neil-degrasse-tyson-just-try-to-justify-blatant-quote-fabrication/
