Why errors in Boston Bombing reportage is our fault

[David Guyatt]

A new slant on inaccurate media reporting. Don't blame the media, blame yourselves. We're all "too credulous".

From the Slate:

Why We Should Judge Breaking News Like Baseball

If you always want your news fast, you should expect some misses.
By John Dickerson|Posted Monday, April 22, 2013, at 3:08 PM


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CNN's John King was widely criticized for reporting that a Boston Marathon bombing suspect was in custody on Wednesday, two days before one suspect was arrested and another was killed.
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images


In the fast news moments after the Boston bombing, there was a lot of stupidity on Twitter. People were sending obviously Photoshopped pictures, linking to fake Twitter accounts, and otherwise passing on bad dopeincluding provisional reports from media sources. But when people got out of hand, the collective started to sanction those people. When photos started being posted of young anonymous men in the crowd, people sent around Richard Jewell's obituary to warn against early condemnation of suspects. Don't repeat what you hear on a scanner, many warned; it's almost certain to be wrong. I knew this had reached a wide audience when I saw my fifth-grader's text messages with his friends debating what you could and couldn't believe on a police scanner or whether you should be listening to one at all.


There's been a lot of discussion about where traditional media and new media failed in their coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. Good. We should call out the bad ones so that standards will be higher and celebrate the good so we'll all know where to tune in next time. But as we figure out who to listen to in the future, we should also think about a way to process these breaking news developments.


As a consumer in a breaking news environment when there are fewer filters and you're switching from Reddit to CNN to Twitter to the New York Times, you're becoming an editor and not a simple passive recipient. You're watching, listening, and sharing news and stories because you want the latest as fast as possible. That's fine, but like an editor, you've got to know that if you're consistently asking for lightening fast news, you are going to get some bum information some of the time. You could disqualify the reporters who bring it to you or you could adopt a standard that fits the moment.


The standard that fits the breaking news moment is to treat everything as provisional and accept the error inherent in the speed that you're demanding. So when CNN, Fox, the Associated Press, and the Boston Globe report that a suspect is in custody, that's interesting, but it's not news until they have a name and a picture. Better yet, let's see an official source at a microphone. And even then, remember Richard Jewell.
If those news organizations get it wrongas they all did in Bostonthen the model for appraisal should be closer to the one we use for batters in baseball. The standards are pretty clearwe know what a ball and a strike isbut we also know how to view a strikeout in context. Those news organizations struck out on naming a suspect. Some news organizations, including ABC, NBC, and CBS, laid off the wild pitch. You could condemn those who got it wrong forever or recognize, as an editor does, that when the audience is demanding up-to-the-minute news, you're going to strike out sometimes. There are consequences: As a viewer or reader, you might rearrange your lineup and put the better hitters up top. If you're like me, you're in awe of those who can get it right so often under such fast pitching.


There are limits to context. Someone who gets up to the plate and consistently throws the bat down the third base line is an obvious mess. I'm speaking, of course, about the New York Post.


If you are constantly looking for news updates, whether on Twitter, CNN, or on the Web, that probably means that you want news organizations taking risks, being on a twitchy trigger. If that's true, then you should evaluate their mistakes in this context. Also, if you are thinking about this breaking news balancing act, you'll be less likely to go down blind allies, firing up emotions that aren't really justified. You will have the fastest understanding of the momentwhich is distinct from the fastest information. (That will help with public officials, too. The same people being cheered Friday night were wrong about the connection to the JFK Presidential Library on Monday.)


When we condemn too fast, it is the flip side of another phenomenon: We are too credulous. Slowing down the condemnation recognizes the provisional nature of the news. That might make us less likely to pass along news that, after a moment of consideration, we'll recognize is soft and might turn out to be wrong. That might begin to walk us all back from the overemphasis on breaking news. Everyone is going to embrace your breathless report with skepticism, so don't rush it out there so fast in the first place. (An actual sin that CNN committed before this past week was treating the smallest thing as "breaking news"even when it's not.)


It's too easy to say, "Oh, they got it wrong" and condemn a reporter or a news organization forever. That's not only unfair to the news organization that might otherwise have a pretty good batting average in the end (like the Globe), but more important, it lets you off the hook from your ongoing responsibility as skeptic and editor. There are different degrees of inaccuracy that matter in different ways at different times. Testing each new piece of information on that standard is the lesson that should come out of the Boston bombing reporting. Fortunately, it seems like some are already learning this lesson. We're getting better as news consumers. We flock to quality, and we remind one another quickly not to go overboard. Maybe next time someone "breaks" something, we'll wait a minute or two longer before we believe it or retweet it. It will mean we will be as sophisticated as the journalism we are demanding.

The writer of this article, John Dickerson, has a Wiki page and there you can read about his involvement in, amongst other things, the Valerie Plame CIA leak case, if you can be bothered...

[Peter Lemkin]

NH State Rep. Suggests Boston Bombing Was False Flag' Conspiracy
Benjy Sarlin - 4:49 PM EDT, Tuesday April 23, 2013

A Republican state representative in New Hampshire posted a video by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Facebook last week suggesting the Boston marathon bombing was a "false flag" operation carried out by the US government.

Rep. Stella Temblay ®, a member of the state's 400-person House of Representatives, posted the video on Glenn Beck's Facebook page on April 19 with an accompanying message:

Just as you said would happen. Top Down, Bottom UP. The Boston Marathon was a Black Ops "terrorist" attack. One suspect killed, the other one will be too before they even have a chance to speak. Drones and now "terrorist" attacks by our own Government. Sad day, but a "wake up" to all of us. First there was a "suspect" then there wasnt. Infowars broke the story and they knew they had been "found out"

Reached by phone, Temblay told the local Foster's Daily Democrat that she had suspicions of some kind of plot involving Secretary of State John Kerry, Saudi nationals, and "black ops" soldiers at the scene of the marathon. Several of these elements have popped up both in Jones' work and various Internet fever swamps since the bombing.

Officials told the Washington Post on Tuesday that Djokhar Tsarnaev confessed to carrying out the attacks in tandem with his brother, telling authorities they were upset with American foreign policy towards the Middle East.

Temblay has a history of spreading conspiracy theories. Last year she e-mailed out a video claiming President Obama was not a citizen, according to the Huffington Post, promptiong a Democratic colleague to label her "an embarassment to us as a chamber."

The state's Democratic Party condemned her latest episode on Tuesday.

"[E]ven for the New Hampshire Republican Party, which has become synonymous with the Tea Party and radical extremism, Representative Tremblay's claims are a new low," New Hampshire Democratic Party Communication Director Harrell Kirstein said in a statement. "She is an embarrassment to the New Hampshire House of Representatives, to her constituents, and to the entire State of New Hampshire."

[Peter Lemkin]

According to a pair of recent polls, for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist hijackings, Americans are more fearful their government will abuse constitutional liberties than fail to keep its citizens safe.

Even in the wake of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing in which a pair of Islamic radicals are accused of planting explosives that took the lives of 3 and wounded over 280 the polls suggest Americans are hesitant to give up any further freedoms in exchange for increased "security."

A Fox News survey polling a random national sample of 619 registered voters the day after the bombing found despite the tragic event, those interviewed responded very differently than following 9/11.

For the first time since a similar question was asked in May 2001, more Americans answered "no" to the question, "Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?"

Of those surveyed on April 16, 2013, 45 percent answered no to the question, compared to 43 percent answering yes.

In May 2001, before 9/11, the balance was similar, with 40 percent answering no to 33 percent answering yes.

But following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the numbers flipped dramatically, to 71 percent agreeing to sacrifice personal freedom to reduce the threat of terrorism.

Subsequent polls asking the same question in 2002, 2005 and 2006 found Americans consistently willing to give up freedom in exchange for security. Yet the numbers were declining from 71 percent following 9/11 to only 54 percent by May 2006.

Now, it would seem, the famous quote widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" is holding more sway with Americans than it has in over a dozen years.

A similar poll sampling 588 adults, conducted on April 17 and 18 for the Washington Post, also discovered the change in attitude.

"Which worries you more," the Post asked, "that the government will not go far enough to investigate terrorism because of concerns about constitutional rights, or that it will go too far in compromising constitutional rights in order to investigate terrorism?"

The poll found 48 percent of respondents worry the government will go too far, compared to 41 percent who worry it won't go far enough.

And similar to the Fox News poll, the Post found the worry to be a fresh development, as only 44 percent worried the government would go too far in January 2006 and only 27 percent worried the government would go too far in January 2010.



The Fox News poll found that a bare majority of Democrats (51%) would give up more personal freedom to reduce the threat of terror, while only 47% of Republicans and a mere 29% of independents would do so.



This is not entirely surprising.



As we noted in February:



For years, "conservative" pollsters have said that Americans are furious at the government:
Rasmussen noted in 2010 that only a small minority of the American people think that the government has the consent of the governed, and that the sentiment was "pre-revolutionary"
Gallup noted in 2011 that a higher percentage of American liked King George during the colonial days than currently like Congress
And last year, Gallup noted that trust was plummeting in virtually all institutions

Liberals may be tempted to think that this is a slanted perspective. But non-partisan and liberal pollsters are saying the same thing:
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from 2011 found that 76% of Americans believe that the country's current financial and political structures favor the rich over the rest of the country
The Washington Post reported in 2011 that Congress was less popular than communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill or Nixon during Watergate
Public Policy Polling added last month that Congress is also less popular than cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesman and Genghis Khan
And the liberal Pew Charitable Trusts noted last week that for the first time a majority of the public says that the federal government threatens their personal rights and freedoms:

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 9-13 among 1,502 adults, finds that 53% think that the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms while 43% disagree.

In March 2010, opinions were divided over whether the government represented a threat to personal freedom; 47% said it did while 50% disagreed. In surveys between 1995 and 2003, majorities rejected the idea that the government threatened people's rights and freedoms.

***

The survey finds continued widespread distrust in government. About a quarter of Americans (26%) trust the government in Washington to do the right thing just about always or most of the time; 73% say they can trust the government only some of the time or volunteer that they can never trust the government.

***

Majorities across all partisan and demographic groups express little or no trust in government.

Obviously, Democrats are currently more trusting in government than Republicans. For example:

The Pew Research Center's 2010 study of attitudes toward government found that, since the 1950s, the party in control of the White House has expressed more trust in government than the so-called "out party."

But given that even a growing percentage of Dems believe that government is a threat to their freedom, things are indeed getting interesting …