Can the News Media Lie and Get Away With It? - My Thoughts

So here’s what I’ve been thinking about over the past few days, “NEWS”. Here’s the situation that caused my wheels to turn:

The first report that came to my attention: A “news” service, Politico, reported that candidate for president, Ben Carson, lied about his past. An excerpt from his book was cited within the article. Just on a cursory reading, I realized that this “news” report was “twisting” the words to say something it didn’t actually say.

The second report that shortly followed: CNN reported that they interviewed people from Carson’s past who claim the angry man Carson claimed to have been, is not the same person they knew.

Here’s the problem, Carson fired back at Politico saying that in the cited passage, nowhere does he actually say what the reporter claims it to be saying. So Politico “changes” the headline to “soften” their accusation. CNN got called out by Carson, for interviewing people from his past who knew him AFTER he got his anger under control. His timeline is pretty well documented, so it should be apparent to anyone who actually read his book.

I have said many times that the “news” media no longer reports the news, but rather all “opinion” based on their political leaning. This is on both the “right” and the “left”. The Supreme Court has decreed that the “news media” has special privileges to protect sources, report things that may hurt someone’s career, etc., sort of giving the right to be the “whistle blower” without repercussions. So if they expose someone committing a crime, they cannot be sued for libel. This is an effort to allow fair reporting to prevent corrupt people from destroying the country, or taking advantage of people who cannot defend themselves, etc. I think it’s a very good thing.

But what happens when the reporters start expressing opinions, instead of the facts? As a child (this may be a naïve or even faulty viewpoint based on my age at the time, and the fact it is an old memory), I remember people like Walter Cronkite reporting facts, and NOT opinions. When the news got to the point of giving its opinion, the upper left corner said, “Commentary”. You knew it was an opinion and not a “news item”. They even had a special person appointed to do the commentary, so you always knew it was NOT facts being presented.

So here’s where my thoughts came in. If a media service is continually “reporting” news which is far more opinion than it is news, should they still be protected from libel lawsuits? I looked into the history of the reporter on Politico who claimed Carson lied, and his last 10 stories were on Republicans in the presidential race, and every article was negative opinions on their stances, or trying to say their facts are wrong, or they are lying, etc. Now I know that perhaps he is being assigned the articles he must write, so I looked at the website itself and their “news” items. There were many concerning Democrats as well. But the flavor was actually “high praise” for what Democrats are doing or saying. There was no slamming them for anything they may have done wrong. Now I will admit that I did not read every article, or scrutinize each one that I read to fact check what was there. I just read quickly to get a “feel” for the reporting. If this “news” outlet is leaning that hard to one side, and the news is very much “misreported” or “misrepresenting” the facts, as in the case of Ben Carson, does he have a right to sue them for libel? Would he have to prove that they do not, in fact, report news, but rather opinion? Or prove that they are trying to push an agenda, rather than report the facts?

When the “correction to the article was published, the article was not changed at all. An “editor’s note” was added to the end. So, unless you read the article AND the added note, it is still a smear of a man’s character.

How about the article you are reading right now? Do I have the right to claim myself as reporting the “news”, even though I do not work for an “official” news service? I am reporting things “as I see it”. I admit it is strictly “my opinion”, but many of the things I read on a lot of “news” websites, amount to nothing more than opinion also. So because they “sometimes” report the news, does that “protect” everything they print, even if it is a boldface lie? If the editor at Politico, read the article that was published and did not catch the “obvious” misinterpretation of the cited passage, can we say “it was nothing more than a mistake that fell through the cracks”? Why was the article itself not changed to properly state the facts, rather than an “editor’s note” being added to say “oops”? Perhaps the article should have been taken down completely since they admitted to the “mistake”, or as the Carson campaign called it, “the lie”.

CNN is considered a “legitimate” news source. But watching their handling of all things political, it sure comes across as “yeah Democrats, boo Republicans”. Many news sources slam Fox news for leaning to the right and telling lies, but how is what they are doing any different. I think ALL news outlets should strive for unbiased reporting. I don’t care if they lean left or right, they shouldn’t lean at all. In an interview with CNN, Ben Carson asked about their process to reporting. His main example (as I remember it) was, “you asked people who I went to high school with about my ‘anger issues’, but they didn’t know me WHEN I had those issues. They knew me after that.” So my question is, why did CNN report that he was lying when they did not have anything legitimate to report? AND they reported it in such a way that even though the people they talked to were not people who would have known about his anger issues, as if it somehow legitimized their claim because it was “close enough”.

One possible answer to this situation may be to require doing things how they were done in the past. When you are stating an opinion, mark it as such. State that “based on the facts (and list those facts), it is my/our opinion, that…”

Sometimes I fear it is too late for any type of correction. Many people who are listening to the “news” don’t know that news was at one time facts being reported and you were allowed to form your own opinion. Today, you have to pick a side and then listen to the media outlet that will tell you what you will agree with. I find myself reading the news about America on foreign news sources because they don’t have as much at stake to report the facts. They have nothing to gain or lose by being completely honest, instead of pushing an agenda for some sort of reward. Since our “news” reporters live here, they can push their ideas through the mass media which gives them a whole lot more power than the average citizen. So if they don’t like someone, or that person threatens their position or power or agenda, they have the means to destroy them and call it “news”, and then hide behind the “protection” the news media has from being held libel.

Don’t get me wrong, this happens on both left and right sides. It just happened that the Ben Carson/Politico issue brought it to my attention. I continuously see people putting down Fox News for their reporting from the left, and MSNBC being slammed from the right, but the Carson thing called out a real life example, instead of mere generalities.

As I research things for my blog posts, I often complain that I cannot find unbiased news sources to fact check the topics I am working on. I would like to just get the raw facts and draw my own conclusions. But today, finding “untainted” facts is a hard job. I spend a lot of time trying to find reliable information when I write.

Here’s my question to anyone reading this, what should/could be done to eliminate the constant media bias that seems to be running rampant in our society? Do you even think it’s a problem? How do you select a news source? Do you do it consciously, or do you turn on the TV and whatever is playing will be fine? Again, this is just me searching for answers.