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Smarts Project #1—Truthiness

Truth vs. “Truthiness”

Are the news media telling us what/how/when/why? we think?

“Truthiness is what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are, what feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support.”

—Stephen Colbert
pundit/philosopher

The Project: This project asks you to pick a current news topic, and compare the facts of the issue (as confirmed by a variety of nonpartisan news fact-checking services, listed below), and how the issue is reported/framed by 1) Fox News and 2) Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report.”

Rationale: Fox News is the most-watched cable news network, attracting twice as many viewers as the other two cable news networks, CNN and MSNBC. Research shows that only 29% of Americans “say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate.” At the same time, “faux journalist” Jon Stewart is cited as the “most trusted” newscaster in America, and many self-described conservatives believe that Stephen Colbert shares their values and beliefs. Further, despite its “fair & balanced” claims, Fox seems more overtly partisan than other news networks (which all have their own biases, too), and so Fox misstatements are easier to identify.

Project Goal: Research, analyze and compare the true facts of a newsworthy issue, and then compare the facts to the ways the issue is framed by Fox News and by “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” Fox is “real” news” and Stewart/Colbert are “faux” news. Whose “truth” is truer to the facts, as you can find and present them?

Directions:
1. Select a topic (see some on the list below or propose your own current issue to research).
• “Birthers” Movement
• Gulf oil drilling
• Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Gays in the military
• Global warming/climate change
• Health care reform
• Immigration
• Racism & President Obama
• Same-sex marriage
• Other: describe and make a case

2. Research the topic for its “truth” from the non-partisan online fact-check sources below. Document the facts of your issue. How confident are you about what you think is true about the facts?
• News media or scholarly research (fully documented—How true/truthy are these?)
• Annenberg Political Fact Check
• Fact Checker
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
• Media Matters for America
• PolitiFact

3. Framing:
A. How have the topics been framed by Fox News channel?
• Are audiences presented with more “truth” or “truthiness” by Fox journalists and pundits?
• How well are Fox’s fact-claims supported by evidence? Are any fact-claims erroneous? Is important information omitted, distorted, or taken out of context?
• Do the sources cited reveal favoritism, partisan bias, or omission of relevant viewpoints?
• Be specific, using several examples to support your arguments.

B. ... And by Stewart/Colbert?
Compare the facts from your research to the “coverage” of the topic on “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.”
• How does Fox coverage of your topic compare to the “fake” news reporting by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert?
• Which represents more “truth”?

5. Relate your findings to code of ethics for journalists, media effects theories/concepts. Be specific. (See mass comm theories and list of ethics codes.) Here’s the point: Journalistic ethics codes all espouse “truth” and “do no harm” and other central principles of social responsibility of the mass media. How do your news reports perform? Be specific.

6. Include URLs for clips of specific episodes and news segments to support your conclusions. (Video clips of most news segments are available online.)

Reporting Options
You must report on your project to the class. Send essay/blog URL to Dr. Ted, who will post your report to the class blog.
1. Essay: You may write a 1,200- to 1,500-word essay (plus bibliography and endnotes). Click here for essay guidelines.
or
2. Blog (or other multimedia blockbuster): Create a multimedia project (blog, power point presentation, or “documentary”). Click here for a past Smarts student YouTube example. Part1. Part2.

Deadlines:
• Proposal: Propose a fully developed topic and rationale to Dr. Ted (by email) by Monday, Oct. 4
• Project Due: Monday, Oct. 18

Content: Your project simply identifies and reports the facts (according to reliable sources) on an important social/cultural/political issue, examines how it is framed by Fox and Stewart/Colbert, and evaluates how well We the People are being informed. Consider the mass comm. theories and media literacy concepts we’ve examined: How is the issue framed? How is it skewed? What is the agenda being set by the way the issue is presented? What larger perceptions are cultivated by the mass media? Are we (in the immortal words of the syllabus) being lied to, boys and girls? In what specific ways?

NOTE: Although media pundits and commentators do not have the same ethical responsibilities as news journalists, pundits do share many of their ethical responsibilities. For example even opinion writers and pundits must:
1. Tell the truth.
2. Never report anything known to be false.
3. Never manipulate images or sounds in ways that may be misleading.
4. Resist distortions that obscure the importance of events. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
5. Clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders.

ALSO . . . The object is NOT for you to take a position on your topic. This is not about your opinion, but about your analysis of how the issues are reported in these news media, and how well the reporting you find conforms to ethical goals of responsible journalists.

Colbert on Migrant Workers

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Alert Media Smartie Eric Budd offers the following

Eric writes: “I thought you would appreciate this if you hadn’t seen it already.” Colbert Testifies on Capitol Hill: Migrant Workers.

I urge all Smarties to check out Eric’s post. Things to think about as you do:
1) If you don’t know the background of this testimony and why Stephen Colbert is testifying before Congress, find out.
2) What is Colbert’s expertise in migrant labor?
3) For the media-literate among us, why is Colbert’s engagement with this issue more than a comic riff?
4) What is your reaction to the process of Congressional process, as reflected by this item (and whatever else you can find related to this hearing)? (and how come so few of the people behind Colbert have smile muscles?)
5) Congressman Conyers (from what state? What political party?) makes these statements: a) he asks Colbert to leave the room, and b) he commends Colbert on his planned event on Oct. 30 in DC. What is that?

From a Smartie perspective: What strikes you about this as a part of the role of the mass media in the political process and public engagement with an issue?

Seriously. What is “truth” and what is “truthiness,” and how does this example of the political process move either forward?

Media Myths Answered

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Get Smart(er)!
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Dear Smarties: Professor Brenda Cooper and I started compiling items for the “media myths” quiz many years ago when we noticed how many weird stories (and I’m not talking about “News of the Weird”) routinely circulate in the popular media. At first, these things were just funny: How could people be so gullible? But more recently we can see that certain big players in public discourse have moved from the whacko fringes into the mainstream, resulting in misinformation that is not funny, but actually misleads sizable portions of the population.

One recent example is the Pew Center poll that showed major percentages of “normal” Americans believing that Barack Obama is a) a radical practicing Muslim who was raised in a Muslim madrasah; and b) Obama was not born in America. A decade ago this stuff would be banner headlines on Weekly World News (I have one from the 1980s: DONOR WANTS KIDNEY BACK! but today they're usually about sexy aliens), and would be worth little more than a chuckle at the supermarket checkout. But now, “fair and balanced” has been coopted by “loud and ridiculous” in the “responsible” press—a Spring issue of American Journalism Review documents how the mainstream news media out-whackoed the whacko press with increasingly lurid stories about golfer Tiger Woods that were completely unsubstantiated. Sure, Woods is a dawg and a philanderer, but serious news outlets from the “Today Show” to major newspapers simply repeated claims by a string of women who said they’d had affairs with him, without ever getting confirmation beyond their own stories.

In other areas, it also should be clear from the “myths” quiz that demographic and economic factors play important roles in the content of news, entertainment and advertising content. For example, what is the impact of so many white, middle-class men being in charge of so much of media content? As we discuss in the theories section this week, individual selective perception inevitably (but not necessarily intentionally) plays a role in how individual reporters or directors frame their stories.

Of course they do! A white, middle-class man sees and understands the world and what’s “real” and “true” differently than a, say, white, middle-class woman or—certainly—a 20-something Palestinian or a 75-year-old black woman from Birmingham, Alabama. I see the world differently than you do, and my mother sees the world differently than I do. Are we ideologically driven? Probably not. (Some are, but I read in the Weekly World News that Glenn Beck is an alien, which explains a lot...) It’s just that different people see and understand events from different perspectives. That’s a good thing in a free society. It also means that we all need to consider the source of our information (from Glenn Beck to Rachel Maddow to Ted Pease) and the source’s perspectives and possible goals.

Anyway, I meant to send you the “answers” to the Media Myths Quiz over the weekend. You can find them here. Check them against your answers, and think about some of the implications of these items and what they mean to you, personally, in your media use and information consumption, and what they might mean to the larger society. Media Myths Answered.

Smarten Up!
Dr. Ted Professor of Interesting Stuff