Does prudence ever trump truth in journalism?
By now, Newsweek’s retracted assertion about an upcoming report and a defiled Koran has mostly played out. The single source Newsweek cited has backed away from the information. A military inquiry has determined at least five instances of Koran mishandling at Guantanamo Bay. Three apparently were deliberate. But still there is no verification of a Koran flushed down a toilet, which is what Newsweek wrote that a federal report would assert.
But there are larger issues here for journalists than just whether Newsweek erred in publishing the report based on a single source. (It did.) The question, ultimately, is whether it can be irresponsible to publish the truth.
We don’t know if the Newsweek report is true. But I’m giving the magazine the benefit of the doubt. They thought it was. They knew (or should have known) that much of the Muslim world is an anti-American tinderbox and that the Koran in the Muslim world means much more than the bible does in the Christian world. Should this have compelled the magazine to sit on what editors considered the truth?
Though most of our reports don’t result in deaths -– and there’s cause to doubt that Newsweek’s did, actually –- it’s always the backdrop for whatever hard-hitting piece we do. Moreover, it’s a backdrop for many of the routine stories we do.
The consequences of publishing them may not involve life and death. But to a public that already views us as arrogant, I suspect there is a deep suspicion that no consideration of where the chips fall ever crosses our minds.
This is a thornier question than whether any newspaper, magazine or television news broadcast should run a story before it has been thoroughly and adequately researched, sourced and attributed. Again, can it be irresponsible to publish the truth?
The simple answer is yes.
For instance: The longest prison hostage standoff in modern U.S. history began Jan. 18, 2004 in an Arizona state prison. Two inmates overpowered a guard in the kitchen. They took his uniform. Another guard buzzed them into the guard tower without confirming their identity. A male guard in the tower was released on the seventh day but the two inmates held a female guard until the end of the standoff on Feb. 1. That’s roughly two weeks.
And what happened vis a vis media coverage during this period?
The state would not release the names of the convicts or the hostages. They asked the media covering the story not to report the names if they came upon them independently.
The state said, essentially, that this would anger the hostage takers and that they might vent this anger on the single hostage remaining who, it turns out, was raped during the crisis. The state also withheld other key facts, claiming again that bad news coverage might enrage the inmates.
I was a columnist at the Arizona Republic at the time. After the crisis ended, that newspaper and the media generally were slammed for playing too much ball with the state. Releasing the names of the inmates would have allayed the fears of family members who might not have known whether a loved one in that prison was involved.
The Society of Professional Journalists held a panel discussion on the topic afterward. I wrote about it in this space at the time. And I opined that I couldn’t fault the editors for withholding some information after authorities told them it could cause a hostage death.
I haven’t changed my mind. Yes, after the fact, it appeared that the state’s arguments about enraging the inmates –- who had access to a radio, as I recall –- didn’t hold much water.
But, if you’re the editor, do you take the chance that the state might be right? Or do you report as much as you can and after the danger has passed, fill in all the blanks? That’s precisely what the Arizona Republic did, pursuing the story aggressively even after the hostage crisis ended.
So, yes, prudence can trump truth. Would it have been irresponsible to publish the names, violating the blackout? If someone died, certainly. But, still yes, absent certainty that no deaths would occur.
So, why would prudence trump truth in the Arizona case but not in dampening further reporting on detainee abuse, up to and including Koran desecration?
Well, one involves a specific and isolated probability bordering on likelihood of harm and the other a more generalized and ephemeral probability.
It’s credible that enraged inmates would harm hostages. It’s credible also that some Muslims will react — and their governments counter-react — to news out of U.S.-run prisons in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Or any related news.
But that genie has long been out of the bottle, starting with that first bombing of Iraq, including the Abu Ghraib photos, on up to present-day reporting on the hyperbolic “gulag” of our times analogy from Amnesty International.
The press should not buy the argument that its reporting on war is aiding and abetting the enemy. If it did, there would simply be no reporting on such momentous events in our history. There would, in fact, be precious little truth telling, given this government’s track record, intentional or not, in that regard on Iraq.
Despite how seriously we take our public watchdog role when it comes to reporting on government, we routinely shy from seeking truth when we believe it will rile various segments of our community.
I’m thinking here, for instance, of Mexican President Fox’s assertion that U.S. African Americans won’t do the jobs illegal immigrants do.
The statement implies that he believes African-Americans are lazy, and pundits were correct to have called him on this. But there was precious little serious reporting on just what precisely is entailed in our economic caste system of haves and have-nots.
Harvard President Lawrence Summers made some remarks about women, science and natural aptitudes. Again, we covered the controversy quite well. But we have not reported on the research, pro and con. Was this because we were fearful of backlash?
The truth about publishing the truth, I think, is that every story involves a weighing and a balancing. We weigh public interest against perceived harm. On the whole, truth should win. But sometimes, we should admit, it really can wait.
