For a long time, those closely watching the climate debate unfold have denounced โhe said, she said, weโre cluelessโ journalism, in which reporters present a โdebateโ between those who accept the science and those who do not, and leave it at that. Let the reader figure out whoโs right, the philosophy seems to be. Itโs journalistic โobjectivityโ not to โtakeย sidesโโright?
Those criticizing this approachโmyself emphatically includedโare working under a key assumption: If journalists would take a stand on matters of fact (such as whether global warming is caused by humans), rather than treating them as un-resolvable, the broader political discourse would also shift onto a firmer footing. Thatโs because we would move towards having a shared factual basis for making policy decisions, rather than fighting over the very reality upon which policy ought to beย based.
Itโs in this context that a new studyย (PDF)ย published in the Journal of Communication, would appear to break new groundโby actually examining the psychological effect that โhe said, she saidโ or โpassiveโ journalism has on readers, and in particular, on their views of whether itโs possible to discern the truth.
The study, conducted by The Ohio State University communications professor Raymond Pingree, did not focus on climate change but rather the U.S. healthcare debateโbut the same lesson would seem to apply. Study subjects were asked to read fake news stories in which two disputes about the contents of a healthcare bill were either left unresolved, or factually adjudicated. In other words, sometimes the subjects were exposed to โhe said, she saidโ coverage, and sometimes they were exposed to a breed of journalism that unflinchingly examines where the truthย lies.
Then the study subjects answered survey questions about their confidence in whether it was possible to discern the truth in politics. For instance, they were asked how much they agreed that โIf I wanted to, I could figure out the facts behind most political disputes.โ What kind of article theyโd read had a significant effect: Those whoโd read the โpassiveโ story were more, er, postmodern in outlook. They were less sure they could discern the truth (if itย existed).
Pingree, the study author, does not seem shy in discussing the implications of these results. โChoosing among government policies is simply not like choosing among flavors of ice cream,โ he has stated. โPolicy questions quite frequently center on facts, and political disputes can and often do hinge on these facts, not only on subjectiveย matters.โ
The context for discussing Pingreeโs study is critical: The news business has changed vastly, and Pingree asserts that journalists are far less likely to plainly state where the facts lie than they were in daysย past.
This may be partly an economic issue: Journalists are stretched thinner and thinner and may not have time to adequately research their stories. Thereโs no doubt that โhe said, she saidโ is the easier approach to take in a time of declining newsroom staff and increasing journalist multitaskingโnot just reporting, but also constantly blogging, making online videos about their reports, and muchย more.
If you combine together Pingreeโs analysis of mainstream journalism with an analysis of the rest of the political opinion environmentโwhere everyone is shouting their own facts all the time, and diametrically opposed blogs service irreconcilably different worldviewsโthen no wonder some citizens are pretty down onย โtruth.โ
Pingree thinks our politics suffer as a result. โThat may make it easier for people to just quit following politics at all, or to accept dishonesty in politicians,โ he states. I would tend to agree.
Hereโs the study reference and PDFย link:ย
Pingree, R. J. 2011. Effects of Unresolved Factual Disputes in the News on Epistemic Political Efficacy.ย ย Journal of Communication.
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