We tell our interns at Talk Radio News that it is not what they put in a story but what they leave out that defines a “slanted, biased or incomplete story.”
Just this week, I have encountered three examples of slanted stories from our history as a country. The press did a lousy job during some moments in our past and sometimes continues to do a lousy job now. Here are just three stories that needed to stand corrected from way back when.
We all know the famous poem that begins with “Listen my children, and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” The poem, titled “Paul Revere” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was wrong in places, and Longfellow took artistic license. In fact, there were three riders and the lights on Old North Church were put there on the order of Paul Revere, not as a signal to him. How many of us have grown up believing that historical inaccuracy?
Two books that point to the press not doing its job were reviewed this week in The New York Times Book Review. “The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Greeks Created the Digital Revolution” is Walter Issacson’s book about computers and the Internet. He describes who really was behind the first computer. This is the one that had many of the same computations of the computers we use today. Its name was Eniac. The famous discoverer was John Mauchly, but he “borrowed” his ideas from John Atanasoff, then a professor in Ames, Iowa. Much press went to the Eniac, but almost none to Atanasoff. When a lawsuit between the two was found in Atanasoff’s favor, the press was more consumed with height of the Nixon scandal and, therefore, ignored the outcome of the patent lawsuit.
Another book puts what many of us have been taught about slavery before the Civil War in a totally different light. Some of us were given the idea that slavery might have ended on its own because it was not cost effective. Edward E. Baptist’s book, “The Half Has Never Been Told, Slavery and The Making of American Capitalism,” was reviewed by Eric Foner. In his review, Foner says “the sellers of slaves were generally not paternalistic owners who fell on hard times and parted reluctantly with members of the metaphorical plantation ‘families’ but entrepreneurs who knew an opportunity for gain when they saw one.”
This is certainly not the story we grew up with, and it was not just the myth created by historians. The press at the time and after that did not do full research work.
Fast-forward to this week, and a few stories should have had more “ink” and “tape.” Like the outcome of the Atanasoff/Mauchly patent suit, some stories that should have received attention were ignored by the press. The most glaring is a story originally researched by The Government Accountability Institute. The research showed that in his first term (and indeed into his second), President Obama only attended 42.4 percent of his daily intelligence briefings. Breitbart, HotAir and Fox News Channel went with the story. “Fox and Friends” interviewed State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who said the president has many ways to get his information. The Government Accountability Institute claims might be accurate, or it might have spun the story. If the mainstream press does not ask what might be true because they are consumed with the man who managed to jump the fence and got into the White House, then we’ll never know what our chief executive does and how he consumes reports and information.
This week, the media also missed the bigger story on the armed guard at the Centers For Disease Control, or CDC, in Atlanta and a big concern that should have been raised. The press correctly reported on the fact that an armed contract security agent with three prior felony convictions was in the elevator with the president. The press overlooked the vetting of this person as it pertains to working at the CDC, where there are many viruses and other potentially bad and lethal biologics that can possibly be weaponized.
What the press should have asked is: How are you vetting the people working security there? How are potentially terrifying lethal agents being protected (certainly not by people with a violent criminal history)?
One more story the press has missed is the detailed analysis that needs to be done on our “interventions” with ISIS/ISIL. There has been discussion and debate about “boots on the ground,” but the press has been all but silent on how this might help Syrian President Assad and other actors, including Russia, in the area. Sure, the “boots on the ground” question should concern every American, but the larger strategy/analysis should not be ignored, and there is precious little reporting.
Like the silence on slavery more than 150 years ago and the leaving out of details of Paul Revere, we are doomed to repeat the past without a probing and competent press. We need to make sure that details are not left out, absent details that result in a biased story.
Bias can halt our progress as a country and doom us to repeat our mistakes. A free and vibrant press is necessary. Let’s hope my colleagues do their jobs more diligently.
Media wishing to interview Ellen Ratner, please contact [email protected].
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