Journalism

[Commentary] At the close of June 15’s broadcast of CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley took aim at both sides of the political spectrum — and the leaders and talking heads who inhabit them — regarding overheated rhetoric that is now in the spotlight in the wake of the Congressional baseball shooting. “Too many leaders and political commentators who set an example for us to follow have led us into an abyss of violent rhetoric that has, it should be no surprise, has led us to violence,” Pelley noted. “As children, we’re taught words will never hurt me,” the anchor stated. “But when you think about it, violence almost always begins with words. In Twitter world, we’ve come to believe that our first thought, is our best thought. It’s past time for all of us — presidents, politicians, reporters, citizens, all of us — to pause, to think again.”

The New York Times issued a correction to an editorial after it was widely criticized for incorrectly linking the 2011 shooting of Rep Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) to a map circulated by Sarah Palin's political action committee which showed certain electoral districts under crosshairs. "An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that a link existed between political incitement and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords," the Times' correction said. "In fact, no such link was established." In a tweet, the Times further added, "We're sorry about this and we appreciate that our readers called us on the mistake."

The editorial, titled "America's Lethal Politics," implied that the man who shot Giffords, Jared Lee Loughner, was inspired by Palin's map. It further claimed that in the shooting of Rep Steve Scalise (R-LA) and several others at a practice for a Congressional baseball game there was "no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack."

President Donald Trump boasted about his "very powerful" use of Twitter, saying that it allowed him to sidestep the news media and deliver his message directly to supporters. "The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media — over 100 million people! I can go around them," he tweeted. President Trump has long used Twitter to comment on the news and announce policy decisions. He has argued that the social media site allows him to skirt traditional news sources that he claims treat him unfairly.

In a speech on the House floor, House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) argued that the mainstream media’s critical coverage of President Donald Trump has fed what he described as “an environment of hatred and violence.” “We must speak truth to the powerful liberal media,” Rep Smith said. “The media’s constant barrage of personal attacks can incite someone to take irrational actions.” He pointed to a Facebook post from the shooter that said, “It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co." “That’s not much different from the tone of many media articles,” Smith said. “The American people deserve better than a biased media. For the sake of our country, let’s hope they will drop their abusive language.”

Rep Smith is also the chairman of the Media Fairness Caucus, an effort to “examine the causes of one-sided reporting, develop strategies to combat media bias, promote an open dialogue between members of the media and elected officials, and remind the media of their profound obligation to provide the American people with the facts.” Rep Smith delivers House floor speeches on a near-weekly basis to criticize the mainstream media.

Political campaigns can manipulate elections by spending as little as $400,000 on fake news and propaganda, according to a new report that analyzes the costs of swaying public opinion through the spread of misinformation online. The report from Trend Micro, a cybersecurity firm, said it also costs just $55,000 to discredit a journalist and $200,000 to instigate a street protest based on false news, shining a light on how easy it has become for cyber propaganda to produce real-world outcomes.

The Fake News Machine research paper comes at a time of increasing concern across the globe about the hacking of elections and the ways that fake news on social media has manipulated voters. The report delves into the underground marketplaces that can allow campaigns, political parties, private companies and other entities to strategically create and distribute fake content to shift public perceptions.

In this endless cycle of breaking political headlines, television news is facing its biggest moment of opportunity since Fox News Channel and MSNBC came on the scene 21 years ago. The competitive fervor among the Big Three to turn these added eyeballs into regular viewers is further stoked by the fact that the longtime market leader — Fox News — is vulnerable after a year of turmoil on both sides of the camera. The pervasiveness of headlines and commentary online and on social media platforms has unquestionably stepped up the tempo for cable news.

“We are just working at a different pace now,” says Bret Baier, Fox News' chielf political anchor. “It’s not just this administration but our society. People are now used to absorbing things in a nanosecond, and they expect their 24-hour cable news to be as fast as they are.”

Where’s the line between covering a scoundrel as a news figure and giving him a promotional platform? The question has consumed Megyn Kelly the week of June 12, after she showed a trailer of her coming feature on NBC about Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who has questioned whether the Sandy Hook school massacre truly happened and asserted that Sept 11 was an inside job.

“#ShameOnNBC” and “#ShameOnMegynKelly” campaigns broke out across Twitter, including from some Sandy Hook parents; JPMorgan Chase pulled its advertising, and Sandy Hook Promise, a group founded by Sandy Hook parents to prevent gun-related deaths, canceled Kelly’s planned appearance at its annual gala this week. Coming on only the third episode of her new NBC newsmagazine, “Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly,” the segment has become, as the technical television term goes, a hot mess.

[Commentary] On June 12 I was speaking to a veteran Senate reporter about the increasing number of journalists flooding the halls of the Capitol. This reporter felt that the crowd size would “inevitably” lead to the end of the open press access the media has long enjoyed. This reporter was not the first that I’d heard that from. It was not the first time that I’d thought about it, either.

There’s a vague sense among many members of the Capitol Hill press corps that some sort of crackdown is coming and that the incredible access to national lawmakers that reporters enjoy could be curtailed. If senators truly are concerned about the size of reporter mobs and their safety, they could be more forthcoming with information about, say, their health care bill, perhaps with regular press conferences. Reporters wouldn’t have to be quite so creative in their methods, then.

Winners in the 11th annual Mirror Awards competition honoring excellence in media industry reporting were announced June 13 at a ceremony in New York City, hosted by Syracuse University’s SI Newhouse School of Public Communications. “Today” show contributing correspondent Jenna Bush Hager emceed the luncheon event, which was held at Cipriani 42nd Street. The winners, chosen by a group of journalists and journalism educators, are:

Best Profile: Sarah Esther Maslin, “A light in the underworld” for Columbia Journalism Review
Best Single Story: Soraya Chemaly and Catherine Buni, “The secret rules of the internet” for The Verge
Best Commentary: Eric Alterman, “How False Equivalence Is Distorting the 2016 Election Coverage” for The Nation
John M. Higgins Award for Best In-Depth/Enterprise Reporting: Gabriel Sherman for New York magazine

Senate Republicans shocked the Capitol with an apparent crackdown on media access that immediately drew criticism from reporters and lawmakers.

Reporters were told they would no longer be allowed to film or record audio of interviews in the Senate side hallways of the Capitol without special permission. And would need permission from senators, the Senate Rules Committee, the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms or the Senate Radio and TV Gallery, depending on location, before conducting an on-camera interview with a senator anywhere in the Capitol or in the Senate office buildings, according to a Senate official familiar with the matter. The new restrictions would break years of precedent, which previously set that “videotaping and audio recording are permitted in the public areas of the House and Senate office buildings,” according to the Radio and TV Gallery website.

A Senate Democratic aide said the decision to substantially curtail the access of television reporters was made unilaterally by Senate Rules Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Chairman Shelby said "no additional restrictions have been put in place by the Rules Committee," adding that the committee "has been working with the various galleries to ensure compliance with existing rules."