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News Media Must Take A Moral Stand

News Media Must Take A Moral Stand

“Five minutes for Hitler, five minutes for the Jews.”

That, according to legend — and a Facebook page for alumni of The Miami Herald – was the routine response of an eighties-era editor whenever some hapless reporter was working overly hard to bring “balance” to a story where none should exist, where the moral high ground was clearly held by side or the other. I don’t know who the editor was, but that riposte brims with a wisdom sorely lacking in modern news media, obsessed as they are with the fallacy of journalism without judgment.

Take as Exhibit A Gerard Baker, editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal. In a Sunday interview with Chuck Todd of “Meet The Press,” he explained why his paper declines to label Donald Trump’s manifold falsehoods as lies.

“‘Lie,’” he said, “implies much more than just saying something that’s false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead.” It is better, he argued, to report a given Trump claim, juxtapose it with the facts and let the audience make up its own mind. Otherwise, he said, “you run the risk that you look like you are…not being objective.”

Besides, he added, Hillary Clinton also spoke some untruths, but media were not so quick to label her a liar.

Of course, the plain fact is that Trump is a liar – and a fantastically prodigious one at that. Baker’s preferred method of handling this would be like reporting on each individual drop of water that falls, but never mentioning the storm.

And likening Trump’s untruths to Clinton’s is like likening Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring to Zan Tabak’s. Abdul-Jabbar is the leading scorer in NBA history. You’ve probably never heard of Tabak, though he also played in the NBA and, once in awhile, scored a basket.

Baker’s is a mindset that has become all too common. With the obvious exception of certain partisan news outlets, some reporters, fearful of being tagged for “bias” on contentious issues, seek to safeguard themselves by ritually quoting a source from Side A and another from Side B while avoiding even painfully obvious conclusions. They call this “fair and balanced.” It’s actually gutless and dumb.

Five minutes for Hitler, five minutes for the Jews.

And then what? Five minutes for ISIS, five minutes for Charlie Hebdo?

Yes, these are outlandish examples. They are also logical extrapolations.

The plain fact is, journalism without judgment – moral judgment – cannot exist. If you doubt it, try a thought experiment. You’re a news manager on a day when the mayor is cutting the ribbon on a new hospital and there’s been a mass shooting at the mall. What’s your top story? Is it the shooting? Why? Won’t the hospital directly impact more people? If you go with the shooting, what angle will you take? What resources will you commit? What answers will you demand?

Congratulations, you just committed multiple acts of moral judgment.

Yes, news media must strive to be fair, to hold all sides to rigorous account, to offer a balanced view. But occasionally, there comes a point – subjective, but no less real for that – when pretending to moral equivalence between those sides is a lie, an act of journalistic malpractice.

In these perilous times, with authoritarianism coming to the White House and bizarre untruths infesting our national discourse, that is a sin we can ill afford. No one ever had to remind Cronkite or Murrow of the need to speak the truth when the truth was plain and the moral imperative clear. No one should have to remind this generation of journalists either.

There are two sides to every story, goes the axiom. But you know what?

Sometimes there’s only the one.

IMAGE: U.S. Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump is shown on video monitors as he speaks live to the crowd from New York at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 19, 2016.   REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Federal Judge Strikes Down Ohio’s Campaign Statements Law

Federal Judge Strikes Down Ohio’s Campaign Statements Law

By Kurtis Lee, Los Angeles Times

In a ruling that could have reverberations around the country, a federal judge on Thursday struck down an Ohio law that bars individuals from knowingly making false statements about political candidates.

The decision from District Court Judge Timothy Black follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in June that a political group could proceed with a First Amendment challenge against the Ohio law that criminalizes “false” political speech.

Calling the law unconstitutional, Black wrote in his 25-page ruling that “the answer to false statements in politics is not to force silence, but to encourage truthful speech in response, and to let the voters, not the government, decide what the political truth is.”

He also ordered the state’s Elections Commission to cease enforcing the law and noted that it’s up to lawmakers — and not a court — to rewrite the statute. “There is no reason,” Black said, to believe that the commission is positioned to determine what is true and what is false when it comes to literature and advertisements against candidates.

At its core, the case stems from a 2010 criminal complaint filed by former U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) against the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group. That year, as Driehaus faced a tight re-election race, the group planned to post billboard ads that said the Democrat’s support of President Barack Obama’s health care law was in essence support for abortion.

Driehaus, who opposes abortion, cited the Ohio law in his complaint against the Susan B. Anthony List, prompting the owner of the billboards where the ads were set to go on display to not put them up.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, applauded Black’s decision.

“After four years and a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court, today we finally have a victory for free speech,” Dannenfelser said in a statement.

She also said that over the summer more than 20 groups from “across the political spectrum” submitted amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the Susan B. Anthony List prior to its ruling that allowed the federal court to hear the case.

The statute in Ohio has been in effect since 1995. Other states, including Minnesota, have similar laws.

AFP Photo/Mark Wilson

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Supreme Court To Consider Challenge To Law Barring Campaign Falsehoods

Supreme Court To Consider Challenge To Law Barring Campaign Falsehoods

By David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court next week will consider for the first time whether states may enforce laws that make it a crime to knowingly publish false statements about political candidates.

The justices will hear an anti-abortion group’s free-speech challenge to an Ohio law that was invoked in 2010 by then-Rep. Steve Driehaus, a Democrat. He had voted for President Barack Obama’s health care law and was facing a tough race for re-election.

The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List launched a campaign to unseat Driehaus, preparing to run billboard ads saying, “Shame on Steve Driehaus! Driehaus voted for taxpayer-funded abortion.”

The statement was false, Driehaus said, since under the law no federal funds can be spent to pay for abortions. He threatened to sue the billboard company, which decided against running the ad. Then he complained to the Ohio Elections Commission, which found “probable cause” that the statement was false.

Before a hearing could be convened before the full commission, Driehaus lost his re-election bid and withdrew his complaint.

But the anti-abortion group pressed ahead and is urging the Supreme Court to clear the way for a constitutional attack on the Ohio law as well as similar measures in 15 other states.

The justices are not expected to rule on the First Amendment issue at this time. Instead, justices are being asked to decide whether these laws can be challenged as unconstitutional even if no one is successfully prosecuted.

The case has prompted a lively debate over whether the law can separate truth from lies in election campaigns.

Washington attorney Michael Carvin, representing the anti-abortion group, said the First Amendment protects broad free speech during political campaigns and frowns on interference from the government. He calls the Ohio measure a “speech suppressive” law that “inserts state bureaucrats and judges into political debates and charges them with separating truth from oft-alleged ‘lies.’ ”

He said the state commission receives several dozen complaints each year and warned that the law gives government bureaucrats the power to sway a close race simply by saying a complaint has merit.

The Ohio law says violators can be prosecuted and punished by up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine. But Carvin and other election-law experts say they are not aware of any successful prosecutions.

He told the court that 15 other states have similar laws. They are Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

He said these laws were “almost certainly unconstitutional.” Two years ago, the high court threw out the conviction of a Southern California man, Xavier Alvarez, who falsely claimed to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In a 6-3 ruling, the court said the prosecution violated the First Amendment, a decision that was largely overlooked because it was handed down on the same day Obama’s health care law was upheld.

Health care law experts say the debate over the Affordable Care Act has been hampered by many false and misleading claims, including the contention that it will fund abortions.

“That is not a true statement,” said Timothy Jost, a law professor at the Washington and Lee University in Virginia. “I hope the Supreme Court will not say that free speech protects your right to lie. At some point, you should not able to consciously lie about your opponent.”

Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has prohibited using federal funds to pay for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.

Last week, the Susan B. Anthony List said it was launching a new billboard campaign to attack three Democratic senators “who voted for abortion-funding Obamacare.” The billboards will target Sens. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, each of whom faces a tough re-election this year.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, said its members “have fought to tell the truth about the abortion-funding problems in Obamacare.” She said “millions of women will gain elective abortion coverage under Obamacare through the Medicaid expansion and new federal premium subsidies.”

In states such as California, women who are added to the Medicaid rolls may receive coverage for abortion that is paid for with state funds. Women who purchase subsidized private health insurance may receive coverage for abortion, but they must pay for it separately.

Alina Salganicoff, director of women’s health policy for the Kaiser Foundation, said although more women may have access to abortion coverage, it is not paid for with federal money. “It may be a complicated accounting system, but there is no federal subsidy for abortion services,” she said. “The law is very clear on this.”

The high court will hear arguments Tuesday in Susan B. Anthony List vs. Driehaus and will decide by late June whether the free-speech claim can proceed.

OZinOH via Flickr