7:46 p.m. | Updated Who would have thought that “false equivalency†could turn out to be fighting words?
Hardly anything sends Times readers for their boxing gloves as quickly as does the practice of “he said/she said†reporting. (Here's an extreme and made-up example just for the sake of illustration: “Some sources believe that the earth is flat; others insist that it is round.â€)
When I wrote about this last fall, I got a lot of agreement from readers; they made it clear that news organizations ought to go out of their way to state established truths when they can and not give equal weight to both sides, if one side clearly represents what is true. (Not everyone, of course, can agree on what the facts are.)
Since then, the resistance to this longtime news-media practice - often done in the name of fairness - has only grown stronger, as it's become part of a broader discussion about journalistic principles and practices.
In general, The Times tries to avoid letting two sides of a debate get equal time when one of them represents an established truth, or equating two things that aren't equal. (This comes up, particularly, in Science section articles and even more particularly, in discussions about climate change.)
But those efforts aren't universally successful. In the service of keeping the pressure on, here are three examples to ponder. (And, please bear in mind, there's no equivalency here, either; they are all quite different from one another.)
On Jenny McCarthy. As Brendan Nyhan wrote in Columbia Journalism Review on Tuesday, the naming of the actress Jenny McCarthy as co-host of “The View†has reignited the protests over her debunked insistence that some vaccines contribute to autism. Mr. Nyhan's piece took to task the false balance among media organizations in reporting this aspect of her ascension. He wrote that “the early coverage has generally failed to follow best practices for covering false or unsupported claims, giving greater reach to discredited claims that have potentially dangerous consequences for public health.â€
He writes that one of the few organizations which got it right was The Times. Mr. Nyhan wrote that two writers “stood out for providing fact-based coverageâ€:
The New York Times television writer Bill Carter stated directly that McCarthy's claims are based on a “widely disproved theory [that] has led to unnecessary illnesses in children, according to child health experts,†while the Los Angeles Times entertainment reporter Meredith Blake immediately described McCarthy's views as “discredited†in an initial blog post yesterday.
It can be important to state both sides of an argument - but only when both sides are legitimate.
On Congressional Gridlock. James Fallows, a writer at The Atlantic, criticized for false equivalency a “Congressional Memo,†from The Times. In its initial online version, the piece contained this passage: “In both the Senate, controlled by Democrats, and the House, under the rule of Republicans, the minority is largely powerless to do anything but protest.â€
By the time the article made it into print, it had been changed, but the earlier version set off some reader protests, including one from Jason T. Wright, a professor at Penn State University.
“In addition to being both a false equivalence and just false, this sentence contradicts the thesis of the article, which is that Congress cannot function because of partisanship.†He noted that “the minority in the Senate is very powerful indeed.â€
I asked the reporter Jennifer Steinhauer to respond.
“When I wrote the piece, I was thinking specifically of the proposed Senate rules change, which in this case was something Republicans were unable to impact, as was on display on the Senate floor,†she said.
An editor pointed out around the time that it was published online that the sentence could be interpreted more broadly, and Ms. Steinhauer agreed to the change. But a series of miscommunications and process-related problems resulted in its not being changed until the print edition, she said. As the piece appeared in print (and as it would have appeared almost immediately if not for the mix-up), it read:
“In the House, under the rule of Republicans, the minority is largely powerless to do anything but protest. Senate Republicans at least have the power to filibuster, which helps explain why they are so adamantly opposed to the Democrats' gambit.†It now reads that way in the online version, as well.
Ms. Steinhauer added that she would have appreciated the opportunity to explain what happened to Mr. Fallows. “Unlike Mr. Fallows, I have to actually call the people I am reporting on,†she said.
On Michele Bachmann and the Vaccine for Cervical Cancer. A less clear case arises from a reader, Ira Glasser, who writes about what he sees as false equivalency in a recent Health section piece about the HPV vaccine. He writes:
The article quotes Michele Bachmann as saying that the vaccine “could have ‘dangerous side effects,'†followed immediately by “a concern that health officials say is unfounded.†If there is a legitimate dispute about side effects, this is hardly an informative way of dealing with it. If there isn't, why is this sentence there? My concern is the tendency of modern journalism to reflect “balance†by counterposing wholly noncredible claims from wholly noncredible sources with counterclaims by credible sources.
I agree with his overall concerns but not entirely with this specific example. Given the Minnesota congresswoman's prominence â€" and the widespread coverage given to her statements during the presidential primary campaign last year - including a brief mention of her in this piece seems reasonable to me. And the debunking by health officials does the job of stating an established truth.
At any rate, it's good that Mr. Glasser was watching closely. I'm glad to be hearing more from readers about avoiding false balance. Nothing is more important in journalism, after all, than getting to the truth.
