Truth be Told

 

Is the truth important? 

As journalists, the facts we uncover leads to the truth. The telling of the facts does not begin and end with a statement like, "There was an apartment fire last night in Anywhere, USA. 14 people died." Uncovering the many facets of a story, the unpeeling of the layers of the onion that makes up the story, leads to insights. Public media listeners understand that these stories are multilayered. As citizens of the world, they want to know more. They want context.

Depth, depth, and more depth

What we cover and how we cover it matters. Disappoint our audience, and they will go elsewhere. Peeling away the layers to uncover the facts helps our listeners connect the dots and arrive at the truth.

The Importance of Truth 

Truth matters, both to us as individuals and to society as a whole. As individuals, being truthful means that we can grow and mature, learning from our mistakes. For society, truthfulness makes social bonds, and lying and hypocrisy break them.

https://www.skillsyouneed.com ›  

Truth matters as the foundation for interpersonal trust. It matters because we cannot talk to one another, much less conduct a serious debate, until we share some principles and facts about the world at large, not to mention a consensus on how to generate them. Nov 2, 2020

https://www.abc.net.au › religion › s... 

Truth-telling makes possible freedom and trust between people, and, in the life of faith, it makes possible closeness to God. People of good will must always be willing to demand truth-telling because no one should be treated as if they were not worthy of being told the truth.  Mar 11, 2017

https://www.mcall.com › opinion 

Why is it so difficult to be honest?

The reality is that honesty and transparency require very high levels of emotional intelligence. True intimacy requires comfort with emotional vulnerability and our culture is very far from comfortable with emotions. Further, dishonesty drives fear and fear drives sexual desire.  Nov 4, 2019 medium.com

And once the truth is revealed the story isn’t over. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Oscar Wilde.  

In an interview with our former president, Trump was questioned by Steve Inskeep about his lies about the 2020 election, and asked about his pronouncements about the insurrection. It was clear Inskeep was prepared for the responses he would get from Trump. When presented with the facts, he walked out. 

Here's a sampling from the interview:

NPR'S STEVE INSKEEP: Let me read you some short quotes. The first is by one of the judges, one of the 10 judges you appointed, who ruled on this. And there were many judges, but 10 who you appointed. Brett Ludwig, U.S. District Court in Wisconsin, who was nominated by you in 2020. He's on the bench and he says, quote, "This court allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case, and he has lost on the merits."

Another quote, Kory Langhofer, your own campaign attorney in Arizona, Nov. 12, 2020, quote, "We are not alleging fraud in this lawsuit. We are not alleging anyone stealing the election." And also Rudy Giuliani, your lawyer, Nov. 18, 2020, in Pennsylvania, quote, "This is not a fraud case." Your own lawyers had no evidence of fraud. They said in court they had no evidence of fraud. And the judges ruled against you every time on the merits.

TRUMP: It was too early to ask for fraud and to talk about fraud. Rudy said that, because of the fact it was very early with the — because that was obviously at a very, very — that was a long time ago. The things that have found out have more than bore out what people thought and what people felt and what people found.

When you look at Langhofer, I disagree with him as an attorney. I did not think he was a good attorney to hire. I don't know what his game is, but I will just say this: You look at the findings. You look at the number of votes. Go into Detroit and just ask yourself, is it true that there are more votes than there are voters? Look at Pennsylvania. Look at Philadelphia. Is it true that there were far more votes than there were voters?

INSKEEP: It is not true that there were far more votes than voters. There was an early count. I've noticed you've talked about this in rallies and you've said, reportedly, this is true. I think even you know that that was an early report that was corrected later.

TRUMP: Well, you take a look at it. You take a look at Detroit. In fact, they even had a hard time getting people to sign off on it because it was so out of balance. They called it out of balance. So you take a look at it. You know the real truth, Steve, and this election was a rigged election.

When pressed, it was excuse after excuse — it was "too early" to claim fraud, his attorney was no good, things just seem suspicious.

The truth can be hard. It is hardest on those who lie, or is it? Research shows that once people go down that path, the easier it is to continue lying. Don't expect to reform the liar. Instead, lay bare the lies. Reveal the lair for who he is. Repeat the facts, because the liars will continue to lie. 

To find out more about The Fascinating Reason Why Liars Keep On Lying click on this link from Time.

Why People Lie

And Why We Believe Them

Everybody does it. When we were little we lied to our parents, hoping we wouldn't get into trouble. We exaggerated our accomplishments to our friends. We've omitted things to influence the outcome. We've fibbed to keep from hurting people. Most of this stuff is harmless, until it isn't. When is that? When it hurts people, betrays a trust, deliberately misleads, it's used to keep others in their place. You could probably come up with more reasons, but big lies today are clearly unethical and lead to violent behavior. And in some cases, that's the goal. Many times when we lie, we're simply in denial about our own behavior, and we might not care who we hurt.  

According to Psychology Today, there are six reasons why people lie.  

 -David J. Ley PhD

1. The lie matters to the liar.  The number one reason people lie when it just doesn’t matter is because they actually think it matters. 

2. Telling the truth feels like giving up control. Often, people tell lies because they are trying to control a situation and exert influence toward getting the decisions or reactions they want. The truth can be “inconvenient. ” 

3. They don’t want to disappoint you. People who tell lie after lie are often worried about losing the respect of those around them.

4. Lies snowball. They get out of control. Eventually,  we’re arguing about the color of the sky, because to admit anything creates the potential of the entire house of cards tumbling. 

5. It’s not a lie to them. Multiple studies demonstrate that our memories are influenced by many things, that they change over time, and that they are essentially reconstructed each time we think about them. 

6. They want it to be true. Sometimes, liars hope that they can make something come true by saying it over and over, and by believing it as hard as they can. In today’s environment of “alternative facts,” it’s hard not to see this as somewhat justified.

So many people deny the facts laid out before them. Why?

I went to Vital Briefings website to find out more.

a) We want to,

b) it fits our view,

c) we're accustomed to believing the source.

But facts matter

 David Schrieberg points out that facts matter. Anybody who is the business of reporting information needs to support a higher ethical standard than the run of mill meme on social media. But putting the facts out there may not be enough anymore.

“Think about what is now required for a Republican politician to be considered a party member in good standing. He or she must pledge allegiance to policy doctrines that are demonstrably false; he or she must, in effect, reject the very idea of paying attention to evidence.” PAUL KRUGMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

According to Schrieberg recent research on this subject focus on three explanations, which can be linked, as to why people are willing to ignore facts in their process of making judgements.

#1: Motivated Reasoning - Selectively choosing evidence.

#2: Confirmation Bias - It feels good to ‘stick’ to our guns’ even if we are wrong,” JACK AND SARA GORMAN

#3: Illusory Truth Effect - The more times you read, hear or watch a story, the more you believe it’s true. 

So, what can we do? 

Schrieberg suggests:

• Consume less.
• Be very selective in the news you consume.
• Check out the sources you choose. Do they adhere to genuine journalistic practices? If they have biases, are they clearly stated and presented? Do they present multiple sides to the story, but not necessarily giving them all equal weight? Are their conclusions based on responsible reporting?
• Be wary of sites that don’t clearly present the sources of their revenue.
• Avoid sources displayed in your social media feeds that you can’t verify and/or lack legitimate expertise in the subject matter.
• Don’t rely solely on breaking news. Seek out more in-depth stories and analyses to inform your opinions and decisions.

It Shouldn't Be This Bad

 

AP Photo Josh Reynolds

COVID's Decline

It's really good news. Better days are ahead. Though impossible to predict, the trends are, for the moment, downward.

We Trail The Rest

Refusal of the vaccine is holding us back. According to The Morning from the New York Times,

Despite all the encouraging news, one shadow still hangs over the U.S.: The pandemic does not need to be nearly as bad it is.

About 1,500 Americans have died of Covid every day over the past week. For older age groups, the virus remains a leading cause of death. And the main reason is that millions of Americans have chosen to remain unvaccinated. Many of them are older and have underlying medical conditions, leaving them vulnerable to severe versions of Covid.

For older people, the effects of vaccination are profound. In late August, near the height of the Delta wave, 24 out of every 10,000 unvaccinated Americans 65 and above were hospitalized with Covid symptoms, according to the C.D.C. Among fully vaccinated Americans 65 and above, the number was 1.5 per 10,000.

Even so, many Americans are saying no to a shot. Among affluent countries, the U.S. is one of the least vaccinated, trailing Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and others. Less vaccination means more death.

Vaccine Opposition

Why some people don't want a Covid-19 vaccine

To find out more about vaccine hesitancy, I went to a trusted news source, The BBC, instead of Social Media sources. They came up with the 5 C's. Their report cautions against lumping the majority of those with reservations with the extreme views of the fringe elements within the anti-vaxxers. 

"They're very vocal, and they have a strong presence offline and online," says Mohammad Razai at the Population Health Research Institute, St George's, University of London, who has written about the various psychological and social factors that can influence people's decision-making around vaccines. "But they’re a very small minority."

According to the article, scientists began studying vaccine hesitancy long before COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan in December 2019. They have explored various models which attempt to capture the differences in people's health behavior. One of the most promising is known as the 5Cs model, which considers the following psychological factors:

Confidence: the person's trust in the vaccines efficacy and safety, the health services offering them, and the policy makers deciding on their rollout

Complacency: whether or not the person considers the disease itself to be a serious risk to their health

Calculation: the individual's engagement in extensive information searching to weigh up the costs and benefits

Constraints (or convenience): how easy it is for the person in question to access the vaccine

Collective responsibility: the willingness to protect others from infection, through one's own vaccination

Dialog

There are some who will never be convinced. There are others who can be through dialog. A mass message, a once size fits all marketing approach will not change the minds of those who are hesitant.

I saw a picture of a worker at the Bath Iron Works in Maine. He is among a small minority there refusing the mandate. His opposition is fueled by his politics. The sign reads, "Freedom of choice or civil war. You choose." I'm guessing this worker will never be convinced. The mantra of imminent civil war is being perpetrated by right wing extremists. His views are fueled by his extremism.

Vaccine mandate creates conflict with defiant workers

Facts matter. That's where journalism come in. The dialog needs to be informed by factual information. I've engaged in conversation with people who insist on swaying the conversation with falsehoods and misinterpretations. While I listened, I made clear my stance, and that the stance was based on evidence. I wasn't nasty, just insistent.

 

Local Journalism Is Essential

 

Local News Coverage Builds Community

Today there are 50% fewer newspaper journalists than in 2008.  The result is a decrease in quality and quantity of public service journalism. Often, no reporter shows up at town council meetings, nor do the journalists at many newspapers receive the time or encouragement to produce in-depth analytical pieces that illuminate and inform. Strong community newspapers encouraged social cohesion and political activism. Just as all politics is local, all news that matters is ultimately local. Readers of local newspapers are residents not only of a county, but also of a region, a state and a nation. Strong news organizations put into local context issues that may seem to be national or regional ones, such as health care, education, jobs, community safety or the opioid crisis.[1]

Reviving Trust

The idea is to train young journalists in coverage of community issues and investigative reporting. This type of reporting revives trust with the community and offers the community the chance to become involved in the issues that shape their lives. Local news makes a huge difference. A PEN America study concluded with the loss of local news, citizens are less likely to vote, less politically informed, and less likely to run for office, according to the study. Democracy loses its foundation.[2]  With each story, a bond of sorts is built between community groups and institutions as trust in the fairness of the reporting increases.

Catalyst for Change

Today, less local journalism—and less meaningful journalism—moves through a diminished network. Perhaps under the old scenario, the growing disaffection of rural, inner-city, and small-city residents would have been widely recognized much earlier than the post 2016 election analysis. So might another under-reported story: the apparent willingness of many people, across the country, to tolerate bigotry and misogyny. This, too, is a story for local, as well as national, journalists. An informed community helps build better schools, addresses health care needs, and creates safer communities. In other words, it starts the discussion for a hopeful future.[3]

Journalism’s Decline

Revenue has fallen dramatically. Layoffs mean fewer reporters covering critical issues. The lack of transparency resulting from the lack of coverage leads to distrust and a feeling of powerlessness. The public has not made the connection between revenue and reporting. In fact, 71% of the people we surveyed by Pew Research believe local media are doing well financially. The journalism industry has been struggling for over a decade now to find a revenue structure for the digital era, so it is a huge challenge for the industry to see such a large share of the public believe that local news media are doing well financially and not participate in the revenue model themselves.[4]

Benefits to Target Population

A robust local news presence will better serve the community. Pew Research found, Local news consumers prize community connection. Older Americans, black adults and those with a high school education or less show considerably more interest in local news than their counterparts. In-depth local news coverage increases community involvement in local issues and politics. Overall, about two-in-ten Americans say they have ever spoken with or been interviewed by a local journalist. That changes when reporters actively cover their community. Recently some 61% of U.S. adults say they follow COVID-19 news at both the national and local level equally, and 23% say they pay more attention to local news. Americans who mainly get their news on social media are less engaged and less knowledgeable. At the same time,  U.S. adults in this group are less likely to get the facts right about COVID-19 and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.

 

Benefits of Systemic Change

If reporting on politics is focused issues and not personalities…	Then the community becomes informed and increases participation in the process.
If reporting on educational issues includes voices from the community…	Then the community has a voice in how the schools are run.
If reporting on health care issues includes voices from the community…	Then the community has a stake in the health of its people.
If reporting on community safety includes voices from the community…	Then the community and the justice system start working on solutions together.
If reporting on issues is fair and factual and includes a variety of views…	Then constituencies within the community will start to work together to seek answers.

 

Return-on-Investment

The Website, Saving Community Newspapers. put it this way, “In order to survive and thrive, community news organizations must employ three strategies simultaneously. As a publisher, you need to reduce costs associated with producing and distributing the physical paper so you can invest the savings in building loyal readership across multiple platforms (print, web, mobile, in-person events).  This, then, allows your newspaper to aggressively pursue new sources of advertising revenue across the various platforms.” 

The return on investment will be measured by increased readership. Since this is primarily an on-line newspaper analytics will be used to measure the number of hits to the site and specific stories. Metrics like users, new users, duration, bounce rate and pages per session will be used. These metrics can be applied to individual pages and stories on the website. Increased use of push notification through email and Social Media will be used to drive readers to stories based on their interest. Increased utilization of podcasts will be used. The success of podcasting is measured by downloads. The primary income driver for Connecticut News is reader donations. These changes should result in increased donations from individuals, foundations, and corporate support.

 

---

[1] Why Local News Matter, NYSBA, Penny Muse Abernathy

[2] The Atlantic, The Constitution Doesn’t Work Without Local News

[3] Nieman Reports, Election 16: Lessons for Journalism

[4] Pew Research, Local News in the US, March 2019

Finding News You Can Trust

What to look for

UCMerced put together some really clear guidelines on what news consumers should be looking for.

Characteristics of Reputable Newspapers

• publishes accurate content; checks facts, and if errors are made, corrects them
• uses reputable sources (people, documentation) and verifies those sources
• presents headlines which accurately represent the article content; headlines don't play on readers' emotions
• clearly identifies authors of articles with bylines
• produces its own content; doesn't merely aggregate content from other sources
• clearly identifies content types (e.g. report vs. editorial)
• conducts reporting not just editorializing
• employs journalists who follow the profession's code of ethics
• Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics, four main sections: Seek Truth and Report It, Minimize Harm, Act Independently, Be Accountable and Transparent
• 10 Elements to Good Journalism (American Institute Press), selected from Kovach and Rosenstiel's book The Elements of Journalism.

As long as public a radio and television can continue to meet these standards, it will continue to meet the expectations of its audience. These standards need to adhered to no matter the platform.

Pew Research points out who you trust depends on your politics, but do politics make for reliable news? 

According to Melissa Zimdars, assistant professor of communication & media, Merrimack College, this is what you should watch out for. 

• Avoid websites that end in “lo” ex: Newslo. These sites take pieces of accurate information and then packaging that information with other false or misleading “facts” (sometimes for the purposes of satire or comedy). Example: Newslo also using URL politicot.com (similar to a legitimate news site)

• Watch out for websites that end in “.com.co” as they are often fake versions of real news sources. Example: abcnews.com.co (This domain is now available.)

• Watch out if known/reputable news sites are not also reporting on the story. Sometimes lack of coverage is the result of corporate media bias and other factors, but there should typically be more than one source reporting on a topic or event.

• Odd domain names generally equal odd and rarely truthful news.

• Lack of author attribution may, but not always, signify that the news story is suspect and requires verification.

• Some news organizations are also letting bloggers post under the banner of particular news brands; however, many of these posts do not go through the same editing process (ex: BuzzFeed Community Posts, Kinja blogs, Forbes blogs).

• Check the “About Us” tab on websites or look up the website on Snopes or Wikipedia for more information about the source.

• Bad web design and use of ALL CAPS can also be a sign that the source you’re looking at should be verified and/or read in conjunction with other sources. Example: Drudge Report

• If the story makes you REALLY ANGRY it’s probably a good idea to keep reading about the topic via other sources to make sure the story you read wasn’t purposefully trying to make you angry (with potentially misleading or false information) in order to generate shares and ad revenue.

• If the website you’re reading encourages you to DOX individuals, it’s unlikely to be a legitimate source of news.  DOX refers to publishing an individual's personal information with the intent of causing harm.

Naming Names

• It’s always best to read multiple sources of information to get a variety of viewpoints and media frames. Some sources not yet included in this list (although their practices at times may qualify them for addition), such as The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, and Fox News, vacillate between providing important, legitimate, problematic, and/or hyperbolic news coverage, requiring readers and viewers to verify and contextualize information with other sources.

In The Middle

If you're looking for something centrist as your news source, the University of Michigan came up with these names.

Common Ground: Centrist News Sources

Wall Street Journal
Daily business-focused newspaper based out of New York City.

The Wall Street Journal has a bias rating of "Center" according to AllSides. The Pew Research Center found that the Wall Street Journal is read by people of all political leanings and is the only news source that is more trusted than distrusted by people all across the political spectrum. There is, however, some debate but it has been accused of being biased to both the left and the right.

BBC News
The British Broadcasting Corporation News division produces television, radio, and internet news. The BBC is a public service broadcaster established by a Royal Charter of the United Kingdom.

The BBC News has a bias rating of "Center" from AllSides. According to Pew, BBC is more trusted than distrusted among the different ideological groups except for consistently conservative individuals who view BBC as about equally trusted as distrusted.

USA Today
American daily newspaper that provides both news and entertainment coverage.

USA Today has a bias rating of "Center" from AllSides. According to the Pew survey, USA Today is more trusted than distrusted among the different ideological groups except for consistently conservatives who view USA Today as more distrusted than trusted.

Almost Center News Sources

The following news sources are rated as "Center" by AllSides and are noted for stating an independent and unbiased agenda, as well as consistently providing balanced coverage (giving time to both sides of an issue). However, they are listed here as almost center because of audience distrust from conservatives.

Respondents to the Pew survey who are consistently liberal, mostly liberal, and mixed views, rated these sources as more trusted than distrusted. Mostly conservatives rated them as about equally trusted as distrusted; Consistently conservatives rated them as more distrusted than trusted.

NPR
National Public Radio is a U.S. private and publicly funded non-profit organization that syndicates to a network of local stations.

PBS NewsHour
The Public Broadcasting Service is a non-commercial U.S. television broadcaster and distributor.

Looking Further

Look to Reuters, The Associated Press, The Times, The Post, The Hill, Politico, and The Week for more coverage. Other perspectives can be found by reading Op-ed pieces from a broad range of columnists, conservative, moderate and liberal. Search for writers with legitimate journalism credibility. Rumor mongers and punditry are less reliable. (Public media users tend to be turned off by these two groups.)

Finding reliable news sources can be problematic. Algorithms tend to classify you by your clicks. If you happen to click on a particular kind of sight (Conservative or Progressive), the algorithms will send you more of the same. The system will reinforce that particular viewpoint. It makes looking for diverse viewpoints and opinions more difficult. Aiming your search to centrist sources help mitigate that problem.

 

 

COVID's Spread. Why?

 

Ask the question!

According to reports in the NY Times:

Michigan’s coronavirus outbreak is the worst in America, with more than 7,000 new cases daily.

But with residents weary of restrictions, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, above this month, has avoided calling for another lockdown and is instead appealing to personal responsibility. Her position reflects the shifting politics of the pandemic, which is increasingly being shaped by growing public impatience and the hope offered by vaccines. As Governor Whitmer struggles with pandemic politics, the rest of us can learn from her dilemma. Perhaps, she just needs to do the right thing, and follow the advice of those who know what they are doing when it comes to the pandemic.

 

What can journalists do? 

The most important question is Why? Follow that up with, what's next.?

We should be asking why? Why is the spread so bad in Michigan? 

Then we should be asking what should we do to mitigate the spread?

Look for benchmarks. Look for places where infection rates remain low and ask why.

The answers are needed to help deflect the next surge, because surely, it is coming.

Why

• New COVID-19 cases have risen to about 65,000 per day over the past week.
• Experts are concerned this new rise in cases could signal the beginning of a new COVID-19 spike due to relaxed restrictions, more infectious variants of the virus, and large social gatherings.
• Vaccinations are beginning to help ease the pandemic, but experts say the public still needs to adhere to safety protocols to avoid an even bigger surge in cases over the coming weeks.  Healthline.com

According to the CDC, A review of the week's key data from CDC's COVID Data Tracker, cases were reported as of April 7, 2021, including 74,860 new cases. Daily Trends in Number of New COVID-19 Hospital Admissions in the United States.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, told Healthline that new cases are still too high and he’s concerned about what may lie ahead.

“We have not yet achieved control of the spread of this virus,” he said. “The even more contagious variant strains are accelerating the spread of the infection along with the increasingly carefree behavior of many — not using their masks, going to bars, gathering in groups.”

“Younger adults now are becoming the ‘dreaded spreaders’ in our communities,” he explained. “They go to gatherings, such as in bars, share the virus in those venues, and then spread the virus further at home and in their neighborhoods.”

“We all need to maintain social distancing and wearing masks for a bit longer,” he added.

Schaffner said there are concerns about new “double variants” that are appearing, especially among children.

However, he added that there’s a way to defeat these latest variants.

“The more we look, the more variants we will find,” he said. “Fortunately, most of them, including the new ‘double variant,’ can be prevented by vaccination and social distancing. As we vaccinate more and more people, the virus will have fewer opportunities to mutate and create variants.”

Three Reasons?

According to Dr. Calvin Sun, an NYC-based emergency medicine physician, there are three main factors driving this recent uptick: the virus mutating, the rolling back of safety measures, and the recent increase in travel.  yahoo financial

Pandemic Politics

 

Photo credit The Climate Reality Project

Tell Them Anything

Just make sure it's what they want to hear.

The pandemic doesn't care about our politics, but our political leanings are leading to misconceptions about how we perceive the deadly virus. David Leonhardt of the New York times reports that people on the right and the left are misrepresenting the facts.

The mistakes people make

More than one-third of Republican voters, for example, said that people without Covid symptoms could not spread the virus. Similar shares said that Covid was killing fewer people than either the seasonal flu or vehicle crashes. All of those beliefs are wrong, and badly so. Asymptomatic spread is a major source of transmission, and Covid has killed about 15 times more Americans than either the flu or vehicle crashes do in a typical year.

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to exaggerate the severity of Covid. When asked how often Covid patients had to be hospitalized, a very large share of Democratic voters said that at least 20 percent did. The actual hospitalization rate is about 1 percent.

By The New York Times | Source: Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study

Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.

What's The Point? 

Having the information in this article is helpful, but to make a real impact, to start changing minds, people have to receive the message. Think about the rule of seven which suggests consumers need to hear a message seven times before they will consider taking action. Then it might be another three repetitions before someone will actually act on that message.

We're going up against echo chambers and algorithms. People have become insulated from outside opinions. Algorithms reinforce the bubble by only feeding information that supports predispositions. Republicans and the Russians used this system well. They targeted information to groups based on algorithms to reinforce beliefs already in place. The divide, the partisanship, becomes deeper as politicians repeat the same lies over and over.

Repetition

Countering false information with fact based journalism, is it possible? According to the Gallup Poll, there is hope.

Perhaps the best news from the Gallup survey was that some people were willing to revisit their beliefs when given new information. Republicans took the pandemic more seriously after being told that the number of new cases was rising, and Democrats were more favorable to in-person schooling after hearing that the American Academy of Pediatrics supports it.

“That’s very encouraging,” Jonathan Rothwell told me. “It’s discouraging that people didn’t already know it.” Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup’s principal economist. Leonhardt/NY Times

Covering something once is not a guarantee that the issue is going to be heard. Since repetition is used so often and so well, covering the issue again from a fresh perspective should not be a problem for any news organization. Don't fall into the deep well of self congratulation, "We've already covered that." Your news consumers may not have heard you the first time.

Ask - Then Listen Some More

 Ask - Listen - Find Credibility - Report

Somebody shared  a speech from Marjorie Taylor Greene with me this morning.  

All of these ideas below in just one day, in just one speech, can make for a pretty rough day. There was a lot to unpack. A lot of the following was in that speech. The primary motivator seems to be discrimination, the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

prejudice - bias - bigotry - intolerance - narrow-mindedness - unfairness - inequity - favoritism - one-sidedness - partisanship - sexism - chauvinism - racism - racialism - anti-Semitism - heterosexism - ageism - classism - ableism

As journalist, what can be done? Stop giving credence to those who continue to speak falsely. The last five years we saw the culmination of extremist views supported by hatred and falsehoods and lies.

No Basis in Fact

Journalist and Columnist James Rosen put it this way:

Here’s the truth: Trump merely stated more loudly and more boldly what Republicans have believed for years. He pushed more brazenly policies they’d pursued for years. He unleashed ugly currents of hatred and racism that Republicans had, if not condoned, failed to condemn.

What’s left is a Republican Party that has finally arrived at the destination to which it’s long been headed: a party with no substantive policy agenda and no real positive beliefs.

Hatred of government is not a policy. Hostility to taxes is not a belief. A mélange of grievances real and imagined is not a political platform.

If the current Republican Party has anything else to offer, anything other than its years-long slide into a full embrace of nihilism, now is the time to show it.

If you're wondering who James Rosen is, he left Fox News after allegations of sexual harassment, although Fox News did not offer those allegations as a reason for his departure. He now works for Sinclair Media Group. Yes, a flawed individual, but that doesn't lessen his credentials as a journalist.

James Rosen isn't the only journalist speaking out about lessons from the past five years. Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote in FiveThirtyeEight:

What I learned and will carry forward is that journalism can’t really come from “the view from nowhere,” a term New York University professor Jay Rosen uses for the posture of neutrality that had become a norm in political journalism. As Rosen has said, that view, among other things, “places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position ‘impartial.’”

But journalism is a reality-based, evidence-based profession — it comes from somewhere! — so of course a person like Trump, who lies constantly, will be covered more negatively than Obama or Biden, who don’t lie as often. Journalism would be severely constrained without the First Amendment being protected by the government, so American journalists inevitably will be pro-democracy and wary of people who exhibit antidemocratic tendencies like Trump. What I am suggesting for myself and other journalists is not to be left wing (or right wing) but to prioritize accuracy, evidence and truth over appearing neutral and centrist.

“Strategy coverage, both sides do it, who’s up and who’s down, winners and losers, controversy of the day, access journalism …. all these forms were spectacularly ill-matched to Donald Trump when he emerged as a threat to American democracy,” Rosen wrote on his personal blog in mid-November.

As a journalist, we're the ones who should be asking the questions, but are the answers worth passing along? Perhaps we should take some advice from Fred Rogers.

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for our children (and for each other) is to listen with our ears and hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.
- Fred Rogers, You Are Special (1995)