Miscellanea Agnostica

I’ve blogged before on the “hauntings in the news” trope. I’m amazed that reporters these days can’t seem to find anything better to report on. It’s nothing more than “make-news,” or stuff they crank out in order to take up space in the paper. This morning’s example comes from the venerable Hartford Courant (WebCite cached article):

Odd things are happening at the Deep River Public Library.

Staff member Pam Ziobron was working by herself late one Saturday. She had shut off all the lights except for the one at the circulation desk, where she was standing, when she had a strong sense that she wasn’t alone.

“It was just a feeling. … It was just so light and airy, like a female coming down the stairs. It was very, very real,” Ziobron said.

Oh well. I guess there’s no question about it, then. Whenever you get those “feelings … like a female coming down the stairs,” then it can’t possibly be anything else, now, can it?

The article goes on to cite a couple of “haunting” stories in the Deep River library, none with any better evidence than Ziobron’s. It also goes on to cite a presumed expert on the subject:

Michael Dionne, founder of Full Spectrum Ghost Hunters, said that about 1 percent of the cases he investigates are paranormal.

And of course we know Dionne can’t possibly be wrong about that, because … well … he makes a name for himself going around talking about the paranormal and electromagnetic fields and all. Right?

Wrong. These ad hoc, self-appointed “experts” have no objective, verifiable basis for any claim they make. Yet the Courant — which has the distinction of being Connecticut’s newspaper of record — touts one such person as having indisputable veracity.

Sheesh. What bilge. Get with it, Courant, and report some news, not useless tripe like this.

Tags: deep river CT, deep river public library, full spectrum ghost hunters, ghost, ghost hunter, ghost hunters, ghosts, haunting, haunting as news, hauntings, hauntings as news, hauntings in the news, journalism, journalism fail, michael dionne, pam ziobron, paranormal

As if the presence on the so-called “History” channel of programs on UFO hunters and Nostradamus haven’t already clued you in on this, a special program they ran tonight proves this channel ought to be renamed “Pseudohistory.” Because that’s exactly what they peddle (locally cached version):

The Real Face of Jesus?

As the Shroud of Turin is put on public display for the first time in 10 years, new data reveals more than just a flat image embedded in the ancient cloth, but an astonishing, three-dimensional, sculpture-like figure. Using the principles of physics, cutting-edge digital technology, and the revolutionary CGI process pioneered in Stealing Lincoln’s Body, HISTORY brings that image to life, unveiling the most accurate representation ever seen of what many believe to be Jesus Christ.

There’s just one tiny little problem with using the Shroud of Turin as an indicator of what Jesus Christ must have looked like, and that is that it doesn’t contain a picture of him! The Shroud has been tested scientifically, multiple times, and each time has been shown to date only to the Middle Ages — the middle of the 14th century, to be exact. There is overwhelming and abundant evidence that the Shroud is not a 1st century BCE burial cloth with a magical photo of Jesus on it, but rather, of medieval manufacture, very likely a pious fraud. It’s time for Christians who worship the Shroud, to put away their beliefs in this phony artifact and stop using it to prop up their nonsensical metaphysical beliefs.

That lots of people believe the Shroud is a relic of Jesus’ burial, does not make it so. And that it’s Holy Week does not justify a mass media outlet foisting this medieval fraud on the public. If you really want to see what Jesus might have looked like, I suggest having a look at the somewhat more reasonable effort put forward a few years ago by Popular Mechanics (WebCite cached article). You won’t be sorry.

Tags: artifact, face, fraud, fraudulent, history, history channel, image, jesus, jesus christ, journalism, journalism fail, mass media, pious fraud, pseudo-history, pseudohistory, relic, shroud of turin, the real face of jesus

Lots of mass-media stories lately have brought up the possibility that the scandal-plagued and increasingly-discredited Pope Benedict XVI might resign. It is, after all, not unheard of for politicians or heads of corporations to resign when confronted by situations of this sort. However, most of these same stories — such as this one by ABC News — conclude that the Pope cannot resign:

Experts in canon law say only a heavenly bolt of lightning can take the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from power as the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

“The only person who can fire him is God,” said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, who worked at the Vatican embassy in Washington, D.C., and was one of the first whistle blowers when the sex scandals broke in 1984.

“A pope is never forced to resign, not under the current canon law,” said Robert Mickens, the Vatican correspondent for the Tablet weekly. “A pope can voluntarily resign, but it’s interesting… Who would take his resignation?”

With all due respect to Fr Doyle and Mr Mickens, however, the idea that the Pope cannot resign, is bullshit. It is, in fact, possible. It’s explicitly stated in canon 332 §2 of the Code of Canon Law:

Should it happen that the Roman Pontiff resigns from his office, it is required for validity that the resignation be freely made and properly manifested, but it is not necessary that it be accepted by anyone.

Thus, the answer to the question Mickens asks, i.e. to whom would the Pope tender his resignation? is: No one! He doesn’t have to give it to anyone. He merely has to disclose that he’s resigning. That’s all that’s needed, nothing more.

It is also not true that no Pope has ever resigned. In fact, it’s happened multiple times. The last such occasion was when Pope Gregory XII resigned in 1415, an act which effectively ended the Great Western Schism — a particularly uplifting period in ecclesiastial history, a time when two, and later three, popes contended for control of the Church and of Europe.*

Granted it’s been a little over 6 centuries since this last papal resignation, but the canon law permitting it to happen is still there, and can still be used by Benedict XVI, if he chooses to do so.

None of this is impossible to research; the information I provide here is available to anyone on the Internet if they simply take a few minutes to find it. So I suggest the reporters at ABC News — and all other outlets — actually look into it before writing stupid news stories that report untruths as fact.

* The part about the Western Schism being “uplifting” is, of course, sarcasm. The truth is that there was very little good about it … except that it exposed the political, structural, bureaucratic, and moral bankruptcy of the Church at that time. The grotesque debacle known as the Cadaver Synod served much the same purpose as well, as did the period soon after it, known to the Church as the Saeculum obscurum.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: benedict xvi, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse scandal, catholic scandal, clerical abuse, clerical abuse scandal, fail, holy see, journalism, journalism fail, papacy, papal resignation, pope, pope benedict, pope benedict xvi, priestly pedophilia, resignation, roman catholic, roman catholic church, rome, scandal, vatican, vatican city, western schism

Here we have yet another journalism FAIL. WTVF-5 in Nashville teased a report that supposedly would link a local Muslim group with terrorism … then finally aired it, and the result was that there was no apparent connection (WebCite cached version). However, some viewers — apparently of the Christian persuasion — didn’t actually catch that last part, and they reacted as one would expect a bunch of outraged, sanctimonious, hyperreligious nutjobs to react, as the Nashville Scene blog reports (WebCite cached article):

After Sensationalized TV Report, Vandals Strike Nashville Mosque

Vandals spray-painted insults on a mosque overnight and left a hate-filled letter to Nashville’s Muslims. Islamic leaders blame Channel 5′s sensationalized two-night report about a crackpot organization’s unfounded accusations of terrorist ties against a Middle Tennessee Muslim community.

“Muslims Go Home” and a Crusade-style cross were scrawled across the front of Al-Farooq Islamic Center on Nolensville Road, says Salaad Nur, a spokesman. He says the mosque, which primarily serves members of the Somali community, has contacted the police and the FBI.

But that isn’t all the vandals did:

“They also left a letter at the youth center that says Muslims are friends of Satan and we are here to destroy the United States and to destroy Israel and things of that nature,” he says. “We’re a little bit shaken up. I hope this is just a scare and things don’t get any worse than this.”

According to successive updates of this blog entry, neither Channel 5 nor the other local TV stations have done much to acknowledge the possibility of a connection between this report and the vandalism. Hmm. I wonder why?

Note to Christians: The Crusades ended centuries ago. The successive campaigns against “the Saracen” are long over. Not all Muslims are terrorists trying to wipe out you, or Christianity, or Israel. Some of them — really! — just want to live their lives in peace. (Yeah, I know about Islam being “the Religion of Peace” and all that … but still, while some are terrorists, not all are.) Just stop it already. OK?

Hat tip: Romenesko blog at Poynter Online.

Tags: Christianity, christians, crusader, crusades, Islam, islamville, journalism, journalism fail, mosque, muslim, muslims, nashville, nashville TN, newschannel 5, satan, vandal, vandalism, vandals, wtvf

As if in agreement with my recent criticism of the state of journalism and the mass media … particularly in its staggering lack of anything resembling critical thinking or skepticism … Dean Burnett of the “Science Digestive” blog wrote some letters from “Science” to various other fields … beginning with the mass media. Here’s but a sampling:

• From Dear Media, From Science (No. 1):
  

  Firstly, would it kill you to be a bit more specific when you tell people what I’m up to? The number of news stories I’ve read which end with “…say scientists” just drives me to distraction. And I can’t afford to be distracted, a lot of my work is quite delicate., some of it involves brains!

  Do you realise how vague a term ‘Scientists’ is? It’s like ‘cars’, there are hundreds of different types. It might be accurate, but it’s not specific. You’d never say “‘Kill all homosexuals’, say religious people”. And I don’t blame you, there’d be uproar, but it’s basically the same thing. You’re not helping by grouping my lot together like that, they’re a very diverse bunch. Einstein and Pasteur were both Scientists, but only one has anything useful to say on the laws of relativity. …

  This implication that ‘Scientists’ are all in agreement whenever a ‘breakthrough’ is made is gibberish. As a result, people think my lot are some shadowy cabal who meet once a month in order to decide what new rules we have to dictate to the general populace. I’ve tried telling them that they’re thinking of the Freemasons, not my lot, but to no avail. You’re the one who’s giving this impression, not me. Cut it out will you! …

  Oh, by the way, this whole ‘balanced argument’ thing you’ve got going on. I see your point, but make your mind up! Either you present 2 sides to every argument or none, why is it just when it’s a controversy involving me! Yes, some people think that MMR and Autism are linked, some people think that Me and my guys would knowingly build a device capable of swallowing the planet with a black hole and turn it on just to see what happens. These people are wrong, you know they are, but they get to air their views anyway. When a murder is reported, do you get statements from the people who thought that the victim had it coming? Why not? If balanced arguments are so vital, why are some stories exempt? Come on mate, a bit of fairness is all I’m asking for.

• From Dear Homeopathy, From Science (No. 2):
  

  Hello. Science here. Thought I’d better introduce myself, seeing as how we’ve never met. I know you like to give people the impression that you work closely with me, and that I’m somewhat envious of you so try to suppress you, but seeing as we both know the truth, I have to ask; Who are you and what do you want? …

  I’ve noticed you do tend to talk and act like on of my team. Interesting, especially when you consider that the actual things you say are utterly bonkers. You’ve done no actual science of your own, so where do you get all your big words from? …

  Just to point out, not everyone who disagrees with you is in league with ‘Big Pharma’. I’ll confess, the pharmaceutical companies aren’t exactly my finest hour. But in my defence, it was Business’ idea. I hung around with him for a while in the 80′s, and you know what he was like back then. I was lucky to get out with my fillings in place. I admit, I still work with him for Big Pharma. I could sever all ties with them, but then they’d have no actual medicine, and people would die. Imagine that, a multi-billion pound company, selling sick people medicine that doesn’t actually work! I could never live with myself. How much are your retailers worth, just out of interest?

• From Dear Astrology, From Science (No. 3):
  

  How are you anyway? Not been seeing you around much lately. It wasn’t too long ago that you and Media were best mates, you were always together. I guess you didn’t confuse him like I do, despite your insane claims. But now he’s ditched you in favour of psychics and health gurus. …

  Anyway, Astronomy asked me to write to you, largely because people keep getting him and you mixed up. I can see his problem, apart from the similar names and obsession with all things spatial; you guys have nothing in common. Oh, and stereotypically you are both advocated by socially awkward people with weird hair in long coats who speak in bizarre ways. …

  So, if you could somehow make it clear that you and astronomy aren’t working together, that would be cool. He wants to know how things in Space work; you want people to think that things in space effect how we work. Can’t say I agree with that, but then if there are people out there who feel they need the arrangement of celestial bodies to govern how they live their lives then I guess they need all the help they can get, so fair enough.

  Of course, this could be a simple oversight. Perhaps you know something I don’t, and your predictions are 100% accurate, but your proponents have not taken into account the light-speed factor. The stars we see in the night sky, their light is actually from anywhere between dozens to hundreds of thousands of years in the past. Maybe your predictions are completely true, but for people in the 3rd century? You might want to hook up with History and Archaeology, see if there’s something you can work out regarding this.

Burnett goes on, with letters “from Science” to “Dear Economics” and, perhaps most hilariously, to “dear Advertising.”

Burnett’s amusing delivery points out something which, really, is not all that funny: Not only has occidental culture — as a whole — forgotten what “science” really is, there are entire fields of study which have left it so far behind that they are basically antithetical to science. And these are fields which are becoming increasingly influential! We’re rapidly becoming dangerously anti-scientific (and anti-intellectual) at just the time when we should be embracing science and embracing humanity’s ability to learn and grow intellectually. Thanks to Dean Burnett for his brilliant send-ups.

Hat tip: Bad Astronomy‘s Phil Plait.

Tags: advertise, advertising, astrology, astronomy, critical thinking, dean burnett, dear science, dear science letters, economics, homeopath, homeopathy, journalism, journalism fail, mass media, media, science, sciences, scientific, skeptic, skeptical, skepticism

Never underestimate the power of a moral panic to turn a society upside down. One example of a kind of moral panic which often gets out of control and leads to violence and death, is the phenomenon of the witch hunt. Other kinds of moral panics are a little less disruptive, such as the craziness over Satanic ritual abuse (which never really happened anywhere on the scale that was claimed back in the 80s). Another moral panic in the 20th century a bit less disruptive and sillier than that, is the campaign against comic books.

We may think we’ve risen above irrational moral panics, but the fact is that human nature has not changed, and — even though we live in the Information Age, with the entire Internet available to us — we are still vulnerable to “the madness of crowds,” as much as we ever were.

The most recent example of this is the vilification of “sexting,” or the sending of erotic images via electronic means (usually by cell-phone picture message), usually by minors. For instance, the Hartford Courant filed this “scare-journalism” report on this insidious trend which threatens to destroy America’s moral fiber and subject teens to the whims of the criminal justice system (WebCite cached article):

Sexting’s Pervasiveness, Dangers Detailed As Police, Lawyers Offer Ways To Shield Students

As if booze, drugs and tell-all Facebook profiles weren’t sufficiently alarming, parents should now add “sexting” to their well of worries.

That was part of the message Wednesday night at a district-sponsored public forum on technology and teens that drew about 200 people to the Conard High School auditorium. They were mostly parents, some of whom brought their kids, but it was the police officers and attorneys in the crowd and onstage who underscored the topic’s gravity.

As if to hammer home the horrific nature of this unconscionable crime, the Courant goes on to report:

“Sexting” is sending or receiving text messages that include nude or sexual images, and as Lt. Donald Melanson, a West Hartford police spokesman, told the hushed crowd, such images can be criminal.

Sexually explicit images of a child under age 16 are considered child pornography, and law enforcement finds itself “in a very difficult place” when dealing with sexting cases, Melanson said.

This article dutifully adds polling data which — supposedly — demonstrates how pervasive and damaging “sexting” is:

A report on sexting last month from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, based on a survey of 800 minors, stated that 18 percent of youths aged 14-17 with cellphones reported receiving “sexually suggestive” nude or semi-nude images of someone they know. Moreover, 17 percent of teens who pay their own cellphone bills said they have sent provocative images via text messaging.

Unfortunately, polling data such as this … based as it is on self-reports … doesn’t actually prove anything. Teens have been known to make stuff up so they can brag about their behavior. (Really!)

To make this “scare” even worse, the Courant gratuitously adds that it’s not just a phenomenon of poverty … sexting is a plague that affects everyone:

State police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said Wednesday afternoon that complaints about sexting have popped up across Connecticut, “across socioeconomic borders,” because young people don’t seem to realize that “a message can last for an eternity on cyberspace.”

“Once an image is sent, it cannot be retrieved,” Vance said. “You lose control over it. … Parents just don’t believe this goes on. But it does. It does.”

I could go on and relate the many scare tactics in this article. The facts of the matter, however, are two:

1. Teens will be teens. They do occasionally trade erotic pictures. They once did this with snapshots. They now do it with camera phones. There’s nothing new here except the method they use. Figure it out, people.

2. “Sexting” between minors is against the law in Connecticut (and I assume other states) solely because the laws against child pornography are absolute; there’s no reason an exception can’t be added for willing minors sending pictures of themselves to other people they know. Laws forbidding the sending of other children’s erotic pictures, even by other children, can be allowed to remain as is.

Really, there’s nothing to this except to encourage parents to be aware of what their kids are up to. Then again, it’s always been the case that parents should do this; nothing has changed in this regard!

Move along, folks. There’s nothing to see here.

P.S. Note that I am not in favor of kids sending erotic pictures to each other. It is a very stupid thing to do and they’re likely to regret having done it almost as soon as they hit “Send.” Nevertheless, there is no way I know of, to utterly prevent teens — or anyone of any age for that matter — from engaging in stupid behavior. The fact is that we need not frighten people or turn society upside down over it. It’s a problem that can easily be solved by proper parenting, but there is no reason why proper parenting should not be the norm, rather than the exception.

P.P.S. Memo to the Courant: I know circulation is off, but “scare journalism” is beneath Connecticut’s newspaper of record and the oldest paper in the country. Just stop already.

Tags: bad journalism, camera, camera phone, camera phones, cell, cell phone, cell phones, journalism, journalism fail, moral panic, moral panics, panic, scare, scare journalism, scare tactics, sexting, west hartford CT

As if to provide yet another shining example of what’s wrong with journalism in the U.S., the venerable Hartford Courant … which to its credit, even now is in the midst of running a series of stories exposing the complicity of the Roman Catholic diocese of Bridgeport in the priestly-pedophilia scandal … is running a follow-up non-news story about something which was non-news back when they first ran it. Here’s the Courant‘s non-story of the day on a putative “haunting”:

The “Ghost Hunters” who invaded Hartford’s historic Mark Twain House earlier this fall didn’t go away empty-handed.

When the famous duo of plumbers-by-day from Warwick, R.I., were dispatched to Hartford in September with their crew, they encountered all manner of noises and shadows and electromagnetic fields.

In the Twain episode of “Ghost Hunters,” which premieres tonight at 9 on the Syfy network, members of the Atlantic Paranormal Society set up their equipment and spend a dark night at the home in September, just before the Twain House, built in 1874, opened itself up for a series of sold-out “Ghost Tours” in October.

And although it is not good form to spill the results of the investigation before an episode airs, let’s just say that the Twain House may have to double the number of haunted tours next year.

I’m so glad these two cranks “didn’t go away empty-handed.” Somehow I doubt they ever “go away empty-handed” from any reported “haunting” … because ultimately it’s it’s all contrived, anyway.

To be clear: There is no such thing as the “paranormal.” This in turns means there is no such thing as a “haunted house.” Period. Anyone who has any evidence of the paranormal, should go and collect a million dollars from James “the Amazing” Randi. (While many have claimed to be able to “prove” the paranormal, and even participated in testing by the Randi Foundation, curiously, none have been able to get the money. Hmm.)

Memo to Courant editors: Give us more of your exposé of the Catholic Church — and of other kinds of corruption and misdeeds in Connecticut — and less of this insipid non-news. OK? Thanks.

Tags: ghost hunters, ghost tours, haunting, haunting as news, hauntings, hauntings as news, hauntings in the news, journalism, journalism fail, lazy journalism, mark twain house, non-news, paranormal, parapsychology, syfy network

The (hoaxed) story of poor Rom Houben is one I’ve blogged about twice already. I’ve also blogged on various other journalistic failures in the past. While I’m not a journalist myself, and am no “media critic,” as a skeptic, I find the conduct of the mass media over the last few years rather galling. The trend is not a new one, it began as long ago as a couple of decades, and may even date all the way back to the aftermath of the Watergate scandal (for reasons I’ll try to address later). Essentially several things have happened to journalism and the mass media. The following are now very common … but also very bad … tropes of journalism:

1. Press-release journalism: This is seen most often in reports on medical “discoveries,” but it happens in most sciences, technologies, and even sometimes in political reporting. In this trope, some person or group issues a press release; the contents of the release are then propagated verbatim, or close to it, by various outlets. In some cases, an expert is found to comment on the story, but overall it’s just the press release itself and it’s reported unskeptically. There is little or no “news” in stories like this. Mostly they’re just efforts to sell a book, get some attention, or angle for more research funding.

2. Conclusion-based reporting: This is the trope in which the event or thing being reported is not actually the story … the story, instead, is some conclusion that the reporter has reached, about it. An example of this trope in the last few months has been stories along the lines of, “Is Obama’s presidency finished?” This is a conclusion that was drawn from things like having to retool his war effort and his failure, to date, to get healthcare reform passed. Well, I’ve got news for people … Obama’s term is not over. It won’t be for over 3 more years. Reporting on him as though he’s “finished” is not only factually incorrect, it’s absolutely unhelpful. I don’t need to know that some reporter or pundit thinks Obama is “finished.” I do, however, need to know — as an American — the status of his policy initiatives, whatever those may be. Those important facts are clouded by the conclusions being made about them. It doesn’t help and only obfuscates the truth.

3. Emotion-centered reporting: These are reports in which a token person affected by it is selected as an exemplar, and made to seem typical of it; and this, in turn, is used to make the basic story seem more or less important than it truly is. A recent example are reports about the protocol for mammograms being altered. Many stories interviewed women who had breast cancer, or their survivors, to see how they “feel” about the proposed changes. Unfortunately, while people’s feelings are real, they are not facts, and have nothing to do with this as a medical story. Sure, it sounds compelling to hear someone say she’s upset because her breast cancer might not have been detected under the new protocol, but that person’s feelings have nothing to do with the proposed change. As with #2, all this does is obfuscate the facts.

4. The token skeptic: This is a common trope found in “documentaries” about strange phenomena (e.g. UFOs), but is increasingly found in relation to some of the above (especially #1). In this trope, there’s a story about something novel or controversial or both. It includes remarks by some skeptic. Those remarks are invariably closer to the end of the story than its beginning, and the skeptic’s view is presented as a “minority” view, so that the original intended conclusion of the story, as the reporter wrote it, is actually reinforced rather than refuted by the skeptic’s presence. In political reporting, this trope appears in “talking head” shows, where “alternating views” are offered … but are presented in such a way that the “skeptical” or contradictory view is actually undermined.

5. “Trend” reporting: This is one of those wherein the error of the trope almost speaks for itself. It shows up a lot in technology reporting, but can be anywhere. A good example of this are all the stories that have run in the last year or so which — basically — say nothing more than “People are using Twitter!” Sorry, but this kind of thing is just not news. Twitter going down for a day is news, to those who use it, and only for that day … but the trend of using Twitter itself, is not. The same goes for all the political-world reporting, over the past few weeks, which basically say, “Sarah Palin has a book coming out!” Again, this is not really useful news. Sure, report on it once the book is released … but continuing, over a period of a few weeks, to interview people over what they think of Palin and/or her book, is not news. It just isn’t.

6. Rumor reporting: Gossip journalism has been around for a long time, and in some cases it can generate genuine news. But these days it’s reached pandemic proportions and has become a world unto itself, to the point where reporting on the rumors themselves is considered news. “Who leaked X?” with attendant speculation as to why X was leaked, get propagated endlessly … without anyone even bothering to find out how true X is and without admitting that not all the facts are in.

7. Celebrity news: Need I really point out that the doings of celebrities really is not news at all? That celebrities have their own PR apparati that continually manipulate the media into reporting what they want reported, meaning the “celebrity press” is really just a collection of mindless robots spewing celebrity-generated pablum that isn’t really news and that no one needs to know about?

8. Economic reporting: The plain truth about any kind of reporting on the economy, is that no one — not even the best economist in the world — truly understands the economy. So what reporters do is come up with “angles” to report on, about the economy; little snippets and glimpses of pieces of it, which are digestible and understandable to the reporters and readers. The problem is that these little bits do not necessarily represent the economy as a whole. This leads to the stories we’ve been treated to for most of this year, which alternate between, “The recession is over!” and “The recession continues!” None of this helps anyone. No useful information is conveyed. We all remain just as stymied as we were before, by the seesawing stories that tell us wildly-different things. It really needs to stop … now.

9. Press-conference journalism: This is related to #1, press-release journalism, but can be many times worse. In this, someone holds a press conference, says something, and the claims are reported as such. Very little else is looked into, and no other information is offered. This shows up often in reporting on criminal justice. For example, a police department briefs reporters on some crime. The (often minuscule) amount of information provided, is what gets reported. No questions are asked of anyone, except the police spokesman. Very few facts about the crime/event are looked into. Time was, when a crime happened, reporters would be all over it, interviewing witnesses, friends, relatives of the accused and/or victim(s), and so on. This no longer happens. Whatever the police release publicly is what we learn. There is no additional investigation by reporters. (On the flip side, defense attorneys sometimes have press conferences, and likewise their claims get reported, but the nature of those claims is also never investigated by journalists.)

These and other tropes are as uninformative as you can get. Facts get buried among all the obfuscation and failures to question or investigate. As media outlets pare down, this will only get worse, not better, so it doesn’t look as though this will improve any time soon.

As for the impetus for all of these changes … the Watergate scandal showed journalists that the “meta-news” — i.e the “backstory” and presumption about news events — could in many ways carry more weight than the news itself. In the case of Watergate specifically, the facts of the case were rather dry and sometimes a bit subtle. The story itself came in a slow dribble, with some pieces of the puzzle appearing as disconnected enigmas that only later, and in not-very-obvious ways, connected to the rest of it. In terms of the facts of the scandal as they were strictly reported, Watergate did not seem all that remarkable … not back in the middle of 1972 when those facts had started to be collected.

The real impact of Watergate only came in the question of, “What would make the President and his White House staff do all of these things?” This is not a question that was directly answered by the players involved … either they were dishonest about it or chose not to explain since they were told not to or were under investigation/indictment themselves. Moreover, a lot of drama played out as the Watergate scandal was revealed. What were the players going to say in the Congressional hearings? Would they keep obfuscating or would they spill the beans? What would the next major revelation be? Who might actually finger the President? There were some dramatic developments, e.g. the revelation by Alexander Butterfield of a recording system in the Oval Office, and that was followed by the drama of the White House reaction to demands for the tapes.

In these and other ways, the “meta-story” of Watergate, became the story of Watergate. And that “meta-story” was so powerful that it toppled a sitting U.S. president.

Also perhaps coincidentally, 1972 happened to be the year the Summer Olympics were held in Munich. These Olympic games were remembered for two features: First and most obviously, the Munich Massacre (in which Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists); and second, Russian gymnast Olga Korbut became an international media sensation, remembered for a dramatic failure (and later crying jag) during an overall competition, but for making a comeback later and winning other medals. The drama about the Olympics, and about its athletes, eclipsed the sporting events themselves.

Ever since then, journalists have tried to exploit the “dramatic” meta-news in everything else they write. Reporters routinely play up the drama, the emotion, the “backstory,” of pretty much everything. Facts? Hmmph. Too dry to bother with.

While Watergate taught us many things, including that powerful people could be powerfully corrupt, and that our leaders cannot and should not be trusted, this lesson — that the drama that buzzed around the events being reported (what I call “meta-news”) was more important than the “real” news — is not one that journalists ought to have taken away from it. But they did. And we’re all the more ignorant of our own world, because of it.

The other aspects of journalism’s failures … mainly in “press-conference journalism” … comes from the fact that there are just not enough reporters on staff at most outlets to do all the investigative work they used to. With the economy as it is and corporate media ownership being what is, we can expect “lazy journalism” to continue for the forseeable future.

Tags: backstory, celebrity journalism, economy, hoax, journalism, journalism fail, lazy journalism, mass media, media, media outlet, media outlets, meta-news, meta-story, metanews, metastory, reporters, reporting, rom houben, rumor, science journalism, skeptic, skeptical, skepticism, technology press, watergate, watergate scandal, yellow journalism