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A thread about a metaphor that increasingly misleads. I refer to the image of "exposure" as a description of what the press does, should do, or isn't doing well enough. To expose wrongdoing, incompetence, or hypocrisy is to do good in journalism, right? Well, yes, but... 1/
Here's a passage from a famous book in media studies: Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion (1922.) "The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision." 2/
There's the image I mean. The press brings one episode, then another "out of darkness into vision." That is exposure. Another way we employ the same metaphor is to speak not of darkness but of light. We may say the facts were "brought to light," or the press shines a light. 3/
To see how deeply his image is embedded in journalism, we can consult the names of local newspapers. The Baltimore Sun. The Akron Beacon. In 1979 the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service, the highest award in journalism, was given to the Point Reyes Light, a weekly in California. 4/
These names try to associate the work of journalism with the spreading or casting of light. There are no names for newspapers like "the Daily Tunnel," or the Baltimore Shroud. Press imagery doesn't flow that way: into darkness. As we all know, that is where democracy dies. 5/
Now for the rest of Lippmann's quote: "[People] cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision." 6/
Lippmann is saying two things: you can't govern by press release and media event, AND the public won't be able to grasp what is at stake if you try. Thus no matter how well executed, "controversy of the day" coverage — a series of episodes — won't lead to public understanding. 7/
But now we have a conceptual difficulty Lippmann did not foresee 100 years ago. Many of the biggest and hardest problems before the American press involve matters that have already been "brought to light," meaning they cannot be resolved by further exposure. 8/
A simple example is this headline from the Washington Post fact checker: President Trump made 18,000 false or misleading claims in 1,170 days. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/14/president-trump-made-18000-false-or-misleading-claims-1170-days/ Obviously he has already been "exposed" as a chronic liar. Further fact checks cannot function as an alert. 9/
For the press, then, the problem is not how to bring to light the truth that the President is a wholly unreliable source of information, but how to operate around him in light of the fact that we know he is likely to pollute the stream further when asked legitimate questions. 10/
The media scholar @wphillips49 has made a similar point in her work on how to cover online extremists. She takes note of the common phrase "sunlight disinfects." (Louis Brandeis, 1914, writing about the power of publicity: "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.") 11/
Sometimes it disinfects, says Whitney Phillips, but sunlight also makes things grow. https://www.cjr.org/the_new_gatekeepers/disinformation-whitney-phillips.php Her point: you can't necessarily "expose" an online extremist or troll campaign without completing their work for them, since media attention is how they thrive. 12/
This is why Phillips and other scholars have tried to introduce a term to newsroom decision-making: amplification. The facts are out there, but be careful about which ones you amplify because you may be assisting bad actors or spreading disinformation. https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplification/ 13/
Same problem arises in the testy debate over how to cover Trump's (very trollish) virus briefings. When he says passengers on trains and flights in the US are being tested when they depart and when they arrive, BUT ITS A LIE, should that be amplified? https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/politics/fact-check-trump-plane-and-train-passengers-tested-for-the-coronavirus/index.html 14/
This happened, but should it be amplified? is one of the doubts that floats to the surface when we realize that "bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision" isn't helping with our biggest problems, even though we need journalists to keep digging. 15/
In Susan Glasser's April 9 report in the New Yorker there is a moment I have been unable to forget. She spoke to executives in Silicon Valley who tried to help with parts of the Trump government's response to the pandemic, until they came to realize there is no plan. — 16/ @sbg1
One of her sources, Eric Ries, had initially believed that it was only a matter of time until the federal government got its act together and came to the rescue of struggling firms and communities. "They did not realize this was a government failure by design," Glasser says. 17/
"...Not a problem to be fixed but a policy choice by President Trump that either would not or could not be undone. 'No one can believe it. That’s the No. 1 problem with the whole situation: the facts are known, but they are inconceivable,' Ries told me." 18/
The facts are known, but they are inconceivable. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/the-coronavirus-and-how-the-united-states-ended-up-with-nurses-wearing-garbage-bags
Here's some white space so you can think on that... 19/
Here's some white space so you can think on that... 19/
Democracy can die in broad daylight too. I doubt that Donald Trump can be further exposed, even though we need journalists to keep digging. A pandemic compounded by deliberate misrule doesn't need to come to light. It has been revealed. Now we have to work on believing it. 20/END
