Posts Tagged ‘credibility’
Colombo
As Jon Stewart prepares to leave The Daily Show, actor Mark Ruffalo tonight performed a three minute roast of Stewart’s notoriously poor attention to the movies and books of his guests. From Patrick Stewart to Maggie Gyllenhaal, the segment showed how Stewart not only showed he rarely if ever read the books or watched the movies of his guests, but how he often didn’t even know the roles they played or the major characters they created. I blogged about this in what I thought was a excellent flaying of him by for this kind of neglect by Jennifer Lawrence.
Interviewers should spend a lot of time preparing to talk to the people who agree to talk to them because they don’t want to look or sound like idiots. But only one thing seems to be more important in the eyes of the audience than preparation, and that is personality.
A lot of interviewers think and have been trained to believe that seriousness equals credibility. We think any emotions we show makes people not take us seriously. We think, like in the fields of politics, science and the law, a dispassionate demeanor is much more believable than a passionate one.
But Jon Stewart found the balls to the wall balance between New Jersey punk and New York attorney. Since 1999, he’s gotten away with saying shit that is literally peppered with the word “shit” and the audience loves him for it. So if he doesn’t know all of the scenes in a movie or all of the plotlines in a book, so the hell what? He has charmed his way through so many blank spots with so many “A listers” that they’ve probably come to not expect anything different. It’s who he is.
But he also made up for those flubs when Donald Rumsfeld, Bill O’Reilly, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair among other sacrifices came onto his show. Stewart showed he understood the complex policy issues well enough to eviserate many of them for their unpopular or untenable positions.
It was fun to watch clip after clip of him mush mouthing his way through his artistic cluelessness. At the end, in a turnabout, Ruffalo pretended to not know anything about Stewart’s 2014 cinematic effort, “Rosewater” and spoke about it in platitudes. It was cutting, fitting and funny.
But Jon Stewart can be like the old Peter Falk character, “Columbo”; you think he’s bumbling until he suddenly rips your throat out. All of us behind the mic should be so bumbling.
Boy, am I going to miss him.
Something’s Burning
Andrew Jennings is a Scottish investigative reporter who has been following the mismanagement and corruption at the European soccer agency, FIFA, for nearly 15 years. In a recent interview with NPR’s Melissa Block, he said he provided the FBI with internal financial documents in 2009 in an effort to help the Americans prosecute FIFA’s wrongdoing. The FBI, along with Interpol and a number of other law enforcement agencies around the world began arresting FIFA executives on Monday, June 1st, 2014.
Ms. Block asked Mr. Jennings if he felt he had violated his journalist integrity by providing those documents. Mr. Jennings adamantly said no, saying FIFA is a corrupt organization, everyone knew it was corrupt and little was being accomplished in the way of internal reform, which he believed it needed desperately. This again brings up the question of how much should a journalist insert themselves into the story and it reminds me of a story from J-school which is built on much historical precedence.
A photographer is photographing a protestor who is preparing to self-immolate himself. What should the photographer do? Should he keep taking pictures as the person sets themselves on fire in the most desperate act of political protest, or should he drop the camera and save the person from what would certainly be a graphic, horrible and painful death? According to Wikipedia, journalist and photographer Malcolm Brown won the World Press Photo of the Year in 1963 for choosing to take just such a photo. In it, a Vietnamese monk named Thich Quang Duc set himself ablaze in protest against the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government of President Ngo Dinh Diem.
There have been 133 self-immolations for political reasons and 10 for economic reasons since Brown’s photo. Journalism has since weighed in on the journalist’s responsibility to intervene. The Society of Professional Journalists cautions journalists in a release from January 2010: “Report the story; don’t become a part of it,” Even in a crisis, the SPJ says journalists must be objective. Actions the SPJ defines as not objective include advocacy, self-promotion, offering favors for news and interviews, injecting oneself into the story, or creating news events.
But Roy Peter Clark, a Pulitzer Prize winning author who recently wrote for the journalism ethics organization, the Poynter Institute, said “That standard – to observe, cover, but not intervene – is surely not absolute.” He continues, “There are those rare moments when a reporter (or other professional, such as a psychiatrist) realizes that life or public safety is on the line. That professional may choose to assume a different role, to put on a citizen’s hat rather than a journalist’s”. Journalists have a responsibility to tell the story in a way that insures their credibility by not showing bias. But they also have a responsibility to be human beings. That can be a tricky wire to walk.
What is the life or public safety issue regarding FIFA? Some have argued that the thousands of immigrant workers that have died in Qatar’s hellish heat as they prepare the country for a possibly ill-gotten 2022 World Cup tournament might be cause for intervention. Others like Mr. Jennings, simply see organizations like FIFA stealing what is precious to the people, and believe the people don’t deserve to be lied to or stolen from.
“What would you do”, asks Mr. Clark, “if you saw someone trying to set himself on fire? I would probably run for my own safety, yell like crazy, and point out the danger to others. I know Good Samaritans, braver than I, who would try to stop the action. I doubt I would take out my cell phone and make a video of the self-immolation”.
Mr. Jennings made a similar choice. Under extraordinary circumstances, he heeded the call of the FBI to help them put out a different kind of fire.
Host Flip Flops
Sometimes, an interviewer has a bias and they conduct their interview that way. They have a slant, a tilt, an opinion that they think the guest they are interviewing shares. But then, in the course of the conversation, the guest says something that disputes that bias and the direction the interviewer is going. It shouldn’t happen since interviewers usually research their guests, know their views in advance and build the conversation around legitimate pro and con aspects.
But when it does happen, the interviewer has three choices; to drop down into neutral (which is probably where they should’ve been all along), or switch up, drop references to their bias and agree with the guest’s view or confront the guest, either by directly disagreeing or continuing to hold the view by periodically questioning the guest’s views.
This is never a good situation. There is no point in an interviewer asking a guest onto a program to then discount the expert opinion the were invited to provide … except when the point of the interview is to generate contention and entertainment, not necessarily an informative discussion. I’ve talked before about how an interviewer might not personally like an interviewee or even morally agree with some position they hold. But I think neutrality of the interviewer is necessary to let the audience decide how they feel about the issue, not for the interviewer to inject themselves into the balance. That is not the interviewer’s job.
If an interviewer does this, switching up, too many times, they can start to look and sound wishy washy, i.e., lose credibility. That’s certain death for someone who wants what they do taken seriously.
Bread versus Wheat
Sometimes, reporters want wheat. For example, they might want to see where something comes from; the raw version – the data – before other people have had the chance to put their interpretation on it. Other times, reporters want bread, meaning they want to hear the interpretation and compare it against the raw information. When a reporter asks for bread and gets wheat, it’s useless. And when a reporter asks for wheat and gets bread, again, it’s useless.
Another bread versus wheat example is when a radio reporter in particular asks a source for information via the medium of audio and they get text. If they specifically ask for an audio interview and get text, it’s not really helping. Why? Because one of the things that makes reporting credible is being able to attribute comments to a source. Yes, text can be quoted, but it’s a layer removed from the source. Sources know this, which is why sometimes, some of them refuse to respond with their voice to a question for comment. Or, during an interview, they will ask a reporter to turn off their recorder but allow written notes.
As a reporter, this has always struck me as a little cheesy, like the source is saying, “OK, you can have proof, but not very good proof”. If a source promises something and they don’t deliver, and then rationalizes it later, it can be frustrating. But it certainly tells you something about that source.
I Agree
This is a quickie.
I’ve been doing a lot of interviews with politicians as part of a project to invite as many Oregon 2014 candidates as possible to the microphone and let the public hear their views. In many cases, these candidates have been ignored by their party in favor of candidates that have already been approved by the larger political machine. In others, the candidates don’t affiliate themselves with that machine, opting instead to run a “grass roots” campaign.
The point of this post, though, is messaging and how some candidates, even if unknown, are much better at it than others. An interviewee with experience turning the agenda during an interview can use many tricks to do that. A really cool one is trying to subtlety make the interviewer complicit to their point of view. For example, consider this exchange;
Q: What do you think about the opinion of some that taxes are too high?
A: I agree with you that taxes are too high, and this is how I would fix that …
I agree with you? The interviewer was asking a question about a question, not making a statement or giving a personal opinion. But to bring credibility to their own views about taxes, a clever interviewee might turn the question into an opportunity to trick the listener into thinking the interviewer has the same opinion about taxes as the interviewee. This technique can be used for any subject, and the interviewer must immediately challenge the reply by making clear that they have no position on the subject. But if the interviewee manages to slip it in, the egregious “I agree with you that taxes are too high, and …” can simply be edited out.
I’ve talked about credibility dangers the interviewer can face. The interviewee is not talking with you to enhance your credibility. They are there to enhance their own and sometimes, they will try to do that by any means necessary. An interviewer’s job is to make clear everything the interviewee reveals without allowing their own credibility to suffer in the process. As I’ve said, the point of these interviews is to let people hear the candidates and their views. Hopefully, they also hear how and what the candidate doesn’t say.
Journalistic Defaults
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In the course of reading, watching or listening to stories, you will come across these phrases. Although they may sometimes sound similar and other times, sound like gibberish, they have specific legal meanings that journalists must be careful to follow.
Regarding Requesting Comment:
Did not respond to a request for comment
Did not make anyone available for comment
Did not get back to us
Declined to respond to requests for comment.
Did not immediately respond to a request for comment*
Did not respond by airtime/deadline*
*They possibly did respond later
Regarding Official Statements from Entities or Officials:
In a prepared statement (Source decided to prepare statement for mass dissemination, or respond specifically to one point/reporter. Either way, they chose to not provide the voice of a spokesperson)
Could not comment because has not received official notice/paperwork/indictment, etc.*
Could not comment because of the ongoing investigation/lawsuit, etc.*
Could not comment because of no comment policy regarding specific individuals, records or situations*
Could not comment because the terms of the settlement are confidential*
Did not comment because they have taken steps to correct the problem and choose to move forward
Did not discuss details.
*An organization may use all of these to shield itself from the need to say anything at every point in the story.
Regarding the Credibility of Source’s Statements:
Ms. X said – directly attributable (highest credibility)
A spokesperson said – reportable but no direct attribution (somewhat credible)
An unnamed source said – reportable but no attribution (lowest credibility)
Regarding What Is and Isn’t Reportable:
On the Record – attributable and reportable
On Background – main aspects can be reported but no direct quotes
On Deep Background – information that is not reported but confirmed by other sources to enhance reporter’s understanding of story
Off the Record – not reportable or attributable*
*A reporter may request that, rather than being off the record, a source allows information to be on background or on deep background
Regarding the Assignment of Culpability (see Credibility)
X Source (court papers, etc) accuse Mr. Y of doing or saying Z
Mr. Y allegedly (he is accused by experts, bystanders, arresting officers, etc) did or said Z
We observed Mr. Y (first person observation) doing or saying Z
Written by Interviewer
March 19, 2015 at 02:38
Posted in Scratchpad
Tagged with Airtime, Available, Comment, credibility, deadline, Immediately, Off The Record, On Background, Reportable, Respond, statement, Unnamed