Media Matters for America: Fri, Sep 12, 2008
Jamison Foser
Privileging the lie
....A dominant theme of campaign coverage in 2000 -- perhaps the dominant theme -- was that Al Gore was a liar, a serial exaggerator, and a vicious, power-hungry candidate willing to say and do anything to get elected. (The evidence to support this theme was largely fabricated -- and not merely by the Republicans, but by the news media, particularly The New York Times and The Washington Post.)...
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The frame of most news reports about false claims made by McCain (and Palin and their staff) is very different. The frame isn't John McCain is lying again; it is John McCain said something; how will Barack Obama respond? Some of those news reports get around to mentioning that McCain's claim isn't true -- but those passing mentions hardly matter. They aren't the dominant theme of the report, so they don't stick in the minds of readers and viewers.
Here's an example: Yesterday, The Washington Post ran an article about McCain's attacks on Obama, including his false charge that Obama's use of the phrase "lipstick on a pig" was a sexist reference to Sarah Palin. Paragraphs 1, 5, 6, and 7 contained the allegation in various forms. Paragraphs 9 and 10 were about McCain allies saying the attacks were working. Paragraph 11 finally brought the first indication that the attack wasn't true. Constructing the article that way privileges the false claim. Readers have it drummed into their heads, over and over again, before they finally see a fleeting suggestion that it isn't true.
So how else could the Post have constructed that article? Well, the article could have begun not with an unchallenged recitation of McCain's false claim, but with a very different frame: "John McCain launched another dishonest attack on Barack Obama, the latest in a long line of claims that have been debunked and denounced by neutral observers as false, misleading, and in some cases, lies." It could have gone on to detail the growing body of evidence that McCain is running a dishonest campaign and to note that McCain risks being seen as a serial liar who will say anything to get elected.
Sound judgmental? Maybe. But it's quite consistent with coverage of Al Gore in 2000 -- coverage about things he said that were not actually false....
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When a candidate makes a false claim, reporters can respond one of three ways:
They can ignore it, on the basis that a false claim is unworthy of attention.
They can adopt the false claim as the basis of their report, as they did with this week's stories about whether or not Barack Obama had made a sexist comment about Sarah Palin.
They can produce a report centered on the fact that the candidate is saying something that is untrue. If it is the latest of many falsehoods, they can indicate that....
The first option privileges the lie by allowing a candidate to run around saying things that are not true -- but at least it does not help spread the lie further.
The second option -- even if it includes mention of the fact that the claim is false -- privileges the lie a great deal by helping the candidate spread the false claims....
The third option punishes the falsehood. If you think the media's job is to bring their readers and viewers the truth, this is obviously the best of the three options. This is where some will say "but then reporters will be taking sides." And there is some truth to that: They'll be taking the truth's side.
Reporters "take sides" with everything they do. Everything they do involves a choice, involves a decision that X is more important than Y. When they report a lie five times before reporting the fact that it is false, they are taking the lie's side....
http://mediamatters.org/items/200809120021?f=h_latest
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