Just the facts, lady, just the facts
(Cross-posting this entry in both NCPR blogs because of the importance of the issue to our audiences, friends, supporters and all who interact with NCPR. –ER)
Recently, the NCPR news team, joined by web manager Dale Hobson, program director Jackie Sauter, and I met to grapple with an issue we talk about informally all the time. We met to begin the process of formalizing our policies on these questions:
What distinguishes straight fact-based reporting from news analysis and opinion pieces? Further, what’s the difference between analysis and opinion? Does it matter? And, if we codify guidelines for our news team, do those guidelines apply to other station employees, including the station manager?
Okay, this may sound like incredibly insider-wonky stuff. It’s not. Not by a long shot. It’s at the heart of our trust relationship with all of you and it is integral to our capacity to do top-shelf journalism.
If you’re not following, or just don’t see why you should care, think NPR and Juan Williams. That episode became a debacle because NPR’s policies regarding news vs. analysis vs. opinion were either not clearly stated or inadequately communicated and/or enforced. And, clearly, NPR failed to impress upon Juan that those distinctions had to apply in all of Juan’s work–whether in his work for NPR or at any other media or public appearance.
The problem is further complicated in the world of access to information on digital platforms. For our NCPR team, in the early days of maintaining a robust web presence, we tended to be more casual when we wrote for the web, sometimes abandoning the rigorous neutrality we have applied for decades to our broadcast news and information. You know–new medium, everyone is jumping in, let’s experiment, etc.
The digital world may be changing on a daily basis, but it is firmly established as a part of most of our lives–including as a source used by many people to get the news.
Standards are standards. News is news. Period. Regardless of platform.
Our basic guidebook is the NPR Code of Ethics (which itself is currently being revisited and refined by NPR staff for final Board approval). Now, we are working on an NCPR code of ethics and practices to make sure our standards are clear in all of the real life situations faced by our staff.
Until we share the final document with you, here are the key points that came out of our conversation:
1. We must clearly define the differences between news, news analysis, and opinion/commentary–so all on staff and the general public understand those differences.
2. NCPR news team members and other staff (yes, including the station manager) may not do public opinion or commentary pieces–on NCPR platforms, in other media, or at public events. That’s a fact of life for journalists and those who work at serious news organizations.
3. NCPR reporters with expertise on a particular issue or news beat may be asked to provide analysis, both on the air and on digital platforms. It is understood that this analysis is designed to advance public understanding of the topic rather than to promote a personal opinion.
I’d love to end this entry right here, but it would be dishonest to do so without admitting to having personally crossed the line into opinion pieces on several occasions–on the air and online. Specifically: regarding the issue of gay marriage (most recently, here) and on the air I know I did a piece about the US invasion of Iraq at the onset of that war.
So this leads to the further philosophical question: if one believes something is inherently a black and white issue (no pun intended, but the example we used in our conversation today was the violent mistreatment of black Americans in the South during the civil rights movement of the ’50s and’60s) is there a place for putting the news organization on one side of the fence (in the example given, this would mean openly opposing the Jim Crow laws). Of course, the problem is: who gets to decide what those absolute good/bad issues are?
Well, I’m done with opinion pieces on anything controversial. I may tell you that I prefer yellow corn to butter and sugar corn, but you won’t hear my opinion on whether or not we should grow corn for fuel. But, I may ask you your opinion. That’s a good job for us–convening the community conversation about…anything.
Again, once we’ve completed our ethics code, we’ll share it with you. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your opinions on all of this.
Here are some links to other discussions of this issue which you may find interesting:
Slate, from about 5 years ago.
Baltimore Sun, from last fall after the Juan Williams firing.
Wikipedia, on objectivity in journalism.
Wikipedia, on ethics and standards in journalism.
Tags: media, news ethics, public radio
No. 2 is absolutely idiotic, and spells the end of the In Box as we know it. Bad, cowardly move.
And it’s squishily undercut by No. 3. Making it even worse, and more cowardly. As long as it’s properly labeled as opinion, let Brian & Co. say what they want.
Yeah no. 2 ends the In Box or at least ends any interesting part of the In Box.
Also what is “opinion”? For example lets say Brian breaks down an election and says in my opinion this district is going to end up voting for X, it is based on analysis but it is still his gut opinion. Or is opinion only when I say that I am against something personally? I think you just label something opinion only and be clear about it.
It’s difficult because as much as people claim to want unbiased news, they freak out if you give “the other side” 51% and “your side” only 49% of the reporting. And any news org is going to have certain biases and assumptions of the audience it serves. People wouldn’t expect NCPR to portray a convicted child molester in a sympathetic light nor to cover the death of a Fort Drum soldier in the same way as it would the death of an al-Qaeda operative. Most of your audience would be angered if you took “unbiased” to that level.
I also think the distinction between commentary and news analysis is too fine and as a result, far too easy for journalists to cross. Just make it news and non-news.
And I agree that the exchange of opinions is precisely what makes the In Box worth reading… far more than the press review.
I have to agree with the above comments. A Brian Mann without an opinion is – most of the time – a Brian Mann not worth reading (of course, Brian has done excellent reporting of simply fact-based stories, too). The same goes for Ellen Rocco reporting and for others.
Why not just label opinion as opinion (“The following commentary includes opinions of the author” or some such “warning”) and carry on as before?
“What that means is that the company — like so many American corporations these days — isn’t willing to make the investment needed to build a market, build profitability and grow prosperity.”
If you take this type of “opinion” statement out of that story it becomes a real snoozer?
That is Brian’s opinion. I am sure that Lowes thinks that they are doing just what Brian says they are not. Both could be right.
1. Absolutely, great idea.
2. Appears to take this way too far. Not only do you blow up most of what makes something like The In Box good and helpful and useful to the community, but this would seemingly prevent something like Brian’s recent piece in Adirondack Life (about the direction of the APA and the Park, and which was full of his personal opinions). As much as I disagreed with his specific opinions in that article, having your journalists (who have a unique perspective and understanding of our issues) contribute to the pool of ideas about our community is a good thing.
And of course you should take a stand on obvious questions of right and wrong. You should do this both as humans and as journalists in our community. Civil rights is the clear example. Do you really think the community is better served in these situations by an automaton only spitting out obvious facts and worried bout appeasing both sides of an issue? Of course not. Some issues transcend (or should transcend) politics, ratings, or your worries about losing someone’s “trust”.
The people who can’t distinguish between facts and opinion – and who feel it is impossible to not let one interfere with the other – probably don’t trust you anyway… so you aren’t losing anyone.
Keep to rule #1 – make the differences obvious, and make it clear when you dip into or out of opinion – and the rest will fall into place.
Paul at 11:42 am 8/22
Brian’s statement that you quote could legitimately be considered in the realm of news analysis rather than opinion. But his piece as a whole has sparked a lot of discussion in-house about where the line is between opinion and analysis. NCPR has reached out to the Poynter Institute, a well-recognized source of teaching and discussion for professional journalists, and to the NPR ombudsman, for a little help in clarifying the distinction. Clearly there is some dissonance between Brian’s Lowe’s post and Ellen’s news policy post.
I expect it will take us a while to get it all straight. The last thing we want is to make the In Box a snooze. But we also don’t want our news reporters to be shut out from important stories because they are no longer trusted to be fair arbiters of the facts. Writing opinion pieces inherently poses that risk.
Opinion journalism is valuable. I enjoy reading it myself. But in most places where opinion is done, they don’t use the same personnel to report the news, and to comment on the news. They use outside op-ed contributors, and they use editors rather than reporters to write editorial opinion. NCPR is a small enough shop that all the staff in the news department are working reporters, whatever other hats they may wear. So, as in many areas, NCPR may have to come up with a unique solution to this issue.
Dale Hobson, NCPR web manager
Juan Williams wasn’t fired because of his opinion. He was fired because of NPR’s political bias.
Unsurprisingly, Vivian Schiller is now with NBC.
Whether or not you are allowed to voice your opinion on the air, you admit that you have opinions on issues.
A few thoughts:
I don’t know how you are going to codify that you can’t be you on the air.
Will NCPR ever hire someone who has a conservative view on issues?
Will conservative / liberal distinctions ever be counted as discrimination in hiring practices? (I won’t hold my breath on this one)
I guess you, Brian, Ellen, etc., must do what you must do to satisfy the powers that be at NPR.
But Dave above makes a good point where he says, “You should do this both as humans and as journalists.”
If all you are are journalists and must put aside your humanity(I hate that term) you should be replaced with a soft ware program.
What, pray tell, is wrong with being human, with making mistakes, with having a gut feeling?
To quibble about some esoteric difference between analysis and opinion will solve nothing and prove nothing to the average person and probably not to yourself.
If everything has to be fair and balanced and every side of a topic must get equal treatment, where does it end? What is the point?
I guess this nonsense all began when we get reporting such as, “The idiot who blew himself up in a crowd of people is accused of blowing himself up and killing lots of people. We don’t know for sure yet if the idiot is guilty because forensics has yet to determine if he blew himself and others up by accident or on purpose.”
That is an extreme, off the wall example but I hope you get what I mean.
And let us not forget the following.
The very nature of reporting is opinionated because you, I repeat you, decide what to report and what not to report.
No matter how hard you try to be fair and balanced, there are always those who will prejudge your efforts.
First we have a million laws in the land of the free and the home of the brave and now we have 100 million policies to cover what isn’t covered by the million laws.
God is said to have given us 10 Commandments but us geniuses, beginning with Moses weren’t satisfied. No. We need billions of laws but the billions of laws haven’t fixed a darn thing.
Good luck.
It all sounds too politically correct to me and I think that NPR went way overboard in the Juan Williams case. When I’m about to board a plane and I see some people dressed or acting like others who’ve created mayhem recently, it makes me nervous. Rational? Not necessarily but it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that that it didn’t and I don’t care what group, religious, ethnic, class, you name it is involved. It’s the self-preservation instinct.
There’s no way NCPR staff can stop being who they are and thinking what they think without becoming robots. Watch any news program you want and you will see personalities, people who are real and reporting from their perspective. The choice of what to cover is an opinion.
I did some formal investigation in my early career with the state and one thing I learned was that “the facts”, bare truth, is different to different and the real story lays somewhere between black and white. Joe Friday was a boring stiff BTW. I’d hate to see NCPR get that dull.
Oh, I forgot to mention, at the end of getting the facts Joe Friday did analysis and had an opinion.
Is this policy statement all about Brian Mann’s recent blog(s)?
Dale,
Thanks for the comments. I agree with most of that. As far as the quote I chose.
I picked that because Brian is saying point blank that:
“[Lowes] isn’t willing to make the investment needed to build a market, build profitability and grow prosperity”
That could be absolutely false, it is his opinion. The company could have closed that store specifically because they wanted to make other investments that were needed and build markets in other areas that would allow the company to profit and grow. Simple as that.
Companies usually don’t make decisions in order to decrease their market share and shrink their profitability? It is possible that this was the decision here, but very unlikely.
It hurt that community but it may help the company do exactly what Brian suggests that they are not doing.
Hi folks.
I thought I’d chime in here quickly to give my take (opinion?) on all this.
The simple fact is that I have been doing something with the In Box that takes my reporting and writing into a professional and ethical gray zone.
This isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good thing. This is, after all, a “new” media environment, where we’re trying to serve our audiences in new and different and (hopefully) interesting ways.
It’s also a fact that NCPR lacks the staff and the money to pigeon hole people in the traditional way.
We don’t have enough money to pay one person to be an analyst or an op-ed writer, while another person is paid to be a straight reporter.
So we’ve experimented with using the In Box as a slightly different tool, a way of talking about issues in informative ways that hopefully provoke discussion.
In that effort, we’ve had good days and bad days.
But the bottom line is that we do have to keep thinking (out loud) about the ethical rules that should frame our news department’s role in all this.
Are there things that I could write that would disqualify me from being seen as a fair and impartial journalist on certain issues? Yes, sure.
Have I crossed that line? Hopefully not, but it’s important that we figure out where those lines lie.
So — Ellen’s post is part of an effort to start defining better what is (and is not) acceptable on the In Box.
My sense is that this is an on-going, organic effort (though people here at NCPR do, thank goodness, have strong views and values).
My sense also is that Ellen Rocco, Martha Foley and others are listening closely to your feedback and views. So keep in touch and keep chiming in.
–Brian, NCPR
Brian, I have no problem with what you are doing. I (and I believe we) are smart enough to separate your opinions on the In Box from your reporting and don’t believe you should have to hide your passion in a closet. OTOH, as you are surely aware by now, I don’t agree with all your positions and when I don’t… I’ll tell you. If all that was here was a bunch of facts I probably would get them elsewhere.
Juan Williams was fired because he was a bit of a dope. You can’t get rid of a guy for being dull, so you wait until they screw up. Our political and corporate worlds are full of people who are not very good at their jobs, and some sort of political over-politeness keeps us from getting better folks.
Organizations, and companies should set standards of course, but they should just let it fly, and fire those who screw up without so much hand-wringing. Good people sometimes have the wrong job and a little re-shuffling can be good for everyone.
We all know the saying about opinions and a particullar body part—everybody has one.
Differences in opinion are the basis of a discussion. If we all agree, what’s to discuss? It would be “read, nod, and move on.”
Without these differences, the resulting posts here, never mind the topics, will become diatribe, vanilla, milk-toast, diatribes.
Thinking about this thread I remembered something that Arlo Guthrie said once. Paraphrased “As I get older I find that I have a lot of friends that I wouldn’t have expected, people I disagree with. I’ve decided that I like people who give-a-damn more than people who don’t care.”
I could not stand being owned 24/7. Therefore # 2 should be limited to in-house stuff, but it’s your playground….. Juan Williams wasn’t wearing an NPR logo when he made his comment. To say he was nervous at the sight of someone dressed in a certain way was not expressing an opinion but a feeling. If that is all it takes to make him nervous how could he survive in Washington? Well of course his context was what he might see when in an airplane which could fall from the sky. My context was Juan Williams who I knew from his commentary on PBS was now speaking on a different network. I didn’t know what credentials he had that made him useful as a commentator. To me, he got a side job.
Blogs are not news. The proliferation of blogs is like 911 calls. Not every call to 911 is relevant, actionable information. To me Brian initiating a page like this is like taking the hat off albeit in the premises of his employer. Like the reporter when not standing in front of the camera. He brings up an item and those interested offer comments often taking it on some tangent. The image comes to my mind of the checkers table in an old country store where two play and a bunch of folks hang out watching and speak up once in awhile. It doesn’t move the world. because it is a blog, I understood these blogs to be un-edited and not “necessarily the opinions of the station or its management.”
Juan Williams’ firing has already been discussed ad nauseum at a million other places (as well as on OTHER In Box entries). Williams never worked at NCPR. I hope people here will stop arguing about him because this particular blog entry is about NCPR employees.
Peter Hahn on 2011/08/22 at 5:32 pm asked:
“Is this policy statement all about Brian Mann’s recent blog(s)?”
The short answer is no. It is about finding new ways to do the job of journalism in a time when the whole landscape of the media is in flux. There has been a big conflation of reporting and opinion with the rise of 24-hour cable news, and the revolution in new forms of online media. Does that serve the public better than the traditional division between reporting and commentary? At NCPR we are asking ourselves some big questions. Are the goals of objectivity, or fairness, or neutrailty, or even-handedness–however you understand the principle–outdated conceits in journalism? Which is more important, more valuable to the people we serve–information, informed opinion, some mix of both? Are there different standards for broadcasting on the public airwaves and publishing on new media platforms? What is the difference between news analysis and commentary? Are the standards that apply to the news page different from the standards that apply to a blog? What about Facebook and Twitter? How we answer these questions will shape the future of our public service mission. We want to get it right, and this process is part of that effort.
Dale Hobson
NCPR web manager
Firstly, didn’t NCPR just receive a crapload of money through ACT? Secondly as someone pointed out the reporting will always be biased or slanted because the reporter will choose what and what not to report. For example: A man a couple weeks back was brutally murdered in Plattsburgh. NCPR reported little on this in comparison to a stupid bird. Although the bird incident was ugly and horrific it hardly warrants more attention than the taking of an innocent HUMAN life. NCPR’s reporting is catered to its listeners, which is good, but more so to its big donors.
Pete Klein on 2011/08/22 at 4:37 pm says:
“I guess you, Brian, Ellen, etc., must do what you must do to satisfy the powers that be at NPR.”
This process has nothing to do with NPR, except as their handling of the Juan Williams affair provided a case study in self-inflicted wounds. NPR and its internal ethics policies apply to NPR employees, which NCPR employees are not. There is no top-down oversight or control or mandates laid upon member station news operations by the network. We are on our own to determine how best to serve our audience.
That being said, NPR has made a big effort to rethink its news ethics policies in the wake of the year’s incidents, and it is natural for NCPR to try and gain some benefit from their experience and from the resources that they can put toward such a study that would be beyond our means. While we are not subject to NPR policy, NPR’s problems highlighted the fact that NCPR was in fact without a well-defined written ethics policy of its own. We think we need one. The end result, however, will be our own policy, designed to meet the needs of our audience and our news operation.
Dale Hobson
NCPR web manager
Bullard hits the nail on the head where he says, “(we) are smart enough to separate your opinions.”
Herein lies the problem when it comes to the “powers that be” and why they are so often distrusted and called ellitests.
They constantly presume everyone is stupid, can’t figure anything out, and they have to explain everything to their lessers. No one can ever take a joke. I am so shocked!
Facts, opinions and beliefs tend to blend into each other. There are gray areas and part of growing up is accepting the gray as part of the white and black.
If one is to constantly be drawing lines in the sand, one is going to find themselves constantly pussy-footing around until they fall on their face.
Brian, i only wish the editor/owner of the Tupper Lake Free Press would read this piece and learn from it.
The conversation here is naturally revolving around The In Box, but proposed rule #2 explicitly states that opinion or commentary shall not be done “in other media, or at public events” either.
I have to assume this means that articles like the recent one in Adirondack Life will no longer be allowed, that commentary like Brian gave in the Adirondacks documentary will have to be scrutinized, and that his public talks where he gives his opinion about the future direction of the park (like his Adirondacks 3.0 talk at the Museum earlier this year) would be a thing of the past?
After giving it more thought, I understanding your need to think about and clarify all of this internally… and that it is a tough line to toe… but I still think that deleting all of your opinions and ideas from the collective Adirondack discussion would be a disservice to the community you cover.
I don’t see it as all that bad. The In Box can continue with the original author giving the facts and then asking for reader’s opinions. Maybe Im a voice in the wilderness, but I think that if reporters express their opinions too much, they lose their objectively.
“…but I think that if reporters express their opinions too much, they lose their objectively.”
I think what you mean is that they lose their credibility or that they lose the perception of objectivity. As citizens and members of the community they live in, as well as people who follow issues of importance very closely, it’s unreasonable to expect journalists to not have opinions on those issues (though it is reasonable to expect them to minimize the influence of those opinions on their reporting). They are human and will have opinions. The question is whether they should express them and if so, how.
My problem with the modern media is the sheer amount of opinion and analysis being expressed on outlets that are supposed to be about journalism. Opinion and analysis are ok in and of themselves (depending on how it’s done) but the sheer amount seems to increasingly REPLACING actual journalism. Watch CNN and see what percentage of what they do is actual reporting and what percentage is a bunch of suits sitting in a studio babbling opinion and analysis. NCPR probably the best broadcast news outlet I listen to aside from the BBC but even they have almost daily “stories” from Karen DeWitt on whether the governor’s poll ratings have moved 0.013% in the last 22 minutes. For me, ‘stories’ fabricated from polls are the worst plague in modern journalism; they’re literally inventing something out of nothing so they don’t have to do the legwork of real journalism. Opinion/analysis is like the dessert of journalism: ok in small does but extremely unhealthy if it replaces the main course rather than just complimenting it. NCPR gets it mostly right. Most of the rest get it badly wrong.
Tough to completely wrap your head around this – many good points by all, I’m glad NCPR staff is discussing this, as always you’re concerned, professional and passionate – all of which lead up to why this conversation even is happening. If you weren’t, we A) wouldn’t be listening and B) certainly wouldn’t be part of the conversation.
A big part of this discussion is the definition of these new media outlets and streams of conscious – Blog is short for web log, but by popular definition a blog is strictly op-ed. Tweeting is…what, journalism? Gorilla marketing? Opinion? Is it a form of news? I guess the consumer is the final judge on that, but in the end anything outside of your “News” segments/website hierarchy should be taken as opinion.
So that leads me to questioning whether you will continue these alternative CONVERSATIONS or resort strictly to reporting fact based news.
NCPR may not succeed in devising a definitive statement of journalistic ethics. The distinctions between straight news, analysis, and commentary can’t be articulated with a precision that provides clear guidance in all situations.
It might be better to set forth general principles and rely upon collegial discussion among staff to address gray areas. Michael Kinsley’s piece in Slate regarding the pursuit of objectivity strikes me as sound, and I hope it does NCPR as well.
The Inbox offers an opportunity to reply to NCPR posts in a way that on air reporting does not. Staff should have the freedom to analyze and to opine in the knowledge that those disagreeing will quickly have their say. The Inbox is a valuable forum for North Country and national issues. It should not be neutered for the sake of some imagined journalistic purity.
Nor do I feel that NCPR staff should be prohibited from expressing opinions elsewhere. Brian Mann’s piece in Adirondack Life was a well argued, forceful statement that contributes to our civic conversation even though I believe it to be wrong headed.
Brian has a thing about what he calls Adirondacks 3.0. Were he to use NCPR as a platform for his 3.0 advocacy that would be an improper use of a privileged position. He doesn’t. Other platforms are appropriate. My wife says, “Brian sprouts opinions.” We are the better for it.
Dale’s identification of an opinion in Brian’s Lowe’s post may be technically accurate, but it illustrated a point that Lowe’s wasn’t committed to working over the long haul to succeed in Ticonderoga, a point that is incontrovertible.
Many of us have come to respect the integrity and quality journalism of NCPR staff. Staff expressing opinions in no way diminishes that respect. That goes for the station manager who I hope will now and then speak out.