Reply #9: Most MSM Don't Bother to Check Facts

[tmorelli415]

The press have become so lazy and beholden to right wing corporate interests that they don't even bother to check facts like this for the most part. They just go ahead and publish it without question, especially when such figures are given the instant credibility of a direct quote. Quotes usually contain opinion - this administration knows that and so they use sound bites to circulate erroneous information. A simple 'oops, he mis-spoke' is all that is necessary to neatly sidestep questions, whereas if such figures were released in a press release or written statement they are more prone to be checked.

I'm a PR consultant and one of the most basic rules of quotability is that we use direct quotes (almost always drafted and prepared ahead of time and simply repeated by the spokesperson) as a means to insert opinion stated as fact into a discussion. These guys are masters at this media game: they have deliberately cultivated the image of Bush as someone who is prone to word gaffes so that the public and media doesn't question it when they have to issue a 'clarification'. Any other politician or corporate spokesperson who were to do such a thing would be vilified if his/her facts were objectively wrong because the media would expect an immediate proactive clarification on the spot. Bush has half a dozen communications/PR gurus with him at all times - we (us PR hacks) are supposed to be there to make sure the information is correct and that the spokesperson delivers the message accurately and as planned. If we don't say something to set things straight immediately it is not a mistake - in this case, they just wait to see if anyone catches on and then capitalize on the word-beffuddled character that they have cast Bush as to make him 'sympathetic' rather than 'deceitful'.

The media is complicit. They know better: reporting is not merely a recitiation of the chronology of events as they took place - it also includes a responsibility to determine the facts and present them unbiased. Otherwise, we just get propaganda. In this case, at least one reporter seemed to do that job which rarely happens anymore.

Interestingly, I've noticed some stirrings in the right direction with the press lately. An article here and there that actually seems to be looking into a story rather than giving a playback of the action as it took place. Albeit only a tiny stiring, but perhaps they are beginning to catch on? One can only hope, but in the meantime I don't believe anything I read or see in the MSM - that's a pretty frightening thing to admit when you're in the PR business yourself.

We desperately need sweeping media reform in this country. This is a crisis for democracy and is the one thing that absolutely frightens me the most right now.