Muddling facts, opinions, and emotions in today’s media reporting is unhelpful

5 November 2024 – Mukesh Kapila

First released 5 November at NewsCentral and Daily Maverick

The position of the Washington Post not to endorse any US Presidential candidate outraged many Americans. Is that august newspaper demonstrating principled neutrality, as claimed by its owner?  Or is it cowardly because it dares not risk presidential-sized revenge from Donald Trump  if he won?

Whatever the Post’s motivation, its decision is correct.

Fundamental to free and democratic societies, is an independent press that holds authority to account. How can it be trusted  if it has already decided who to favour?  Especially if it seen as self-serving by appearing to back the winner to gain privileged access to future corridors of power.

It is the job of newspapers to objectively convey the world’s happenings, distinguished from their editorials and opinion columns. Readers can then make their own informed judgements.

But the troubling trend is towards muddling reportage with opinion. This  happens when journalists slant their articles to suit the political stance of their outlet’s owner, or worse still, when they pander to popular reader prejudices to sell more newspapers or garner more clicks on their websites.

Group-think culture

To avoid accusations of censorship,  such shading of news is done indirectly either through selective reporting or via subtle pressure to conform to a group-think culture to align to the preferences of rich investors or powerful governments.

That also happens in broadcast media. An obvious example is the Gaza TV coverage from the Qatari government – funded Al Jazeera, a channel of which I am a great admirer and not infrequent contributor. Its on-the-ground reporting is outstanding, considering the harassment it gets from Israel who have banned all foreign correspondents from Gaza. The courage of local Al Jazeera journalists deserves our utmost respect, knowing that several have been killed shining their torch into corners that Israel would rather keep dark.

But when Al Jazeera proclaims ‘Gaza genocide’ as signature banner on its news shows, we know the orientation of the story that will follow. That is further emphasised by the  carefully-screened ‘talking heads’  invited to validate  its reporting.  Because of the populist dimensions of the Middle East crisis, there is little space for dissenting voices or more nuanced analyses on its opinion pages either.

It is unfortunate when media  channels jumble their news reporting with one-sided editorialising in the same space.  Not at dispute are the undoubtedly awful happenings in Gaza – so comprehensively communicated by Al Jazeera as a public service for the world.  But for it to proclaim that as ‘genocide’ is not within the media’s qualification or competence. An otherwise excellent news channel risks discredit if it sets itself up as witness, prosecutor, jury, and judge – all in one – by jumping to conclusions that have not yet been reached by competent authorities, such as the International Court of Justice.

Of course, anger and frustration over Gaza’s massacres and atrocities – and also in Lebanon – are fully understandable.  Journalists are human and they too have suffered the loss of friends and families.

But, as with doctors attending to horrendous injuries from bombs and bullets with compassion and concern,  professional journalists may empathise with but maintain a degree of distance from the horrors they witness. So that we can trust them to provide  measured reporting that is not carried away by personal feelings. Let the viewers and listeners formulate their own emotions.

Tricky positioning choices

There is another factor at play nowadays. With so much global competition for eyeballs and broadcasters playing a dual role as tools of public diplomacy for their sponsors,  media brands face tricky positioning choices.

The venerable BBC World aspires not just to report but to “live the story”. Not to be outdone, CNN bears witness so as to  “empower the world”.  China’s CGTN invites us to “see the difference”, while Russia’s RT  “creates news with an edge for viewers who want to Question More”. Turkey’s TRT World is “where news inspires change”, and Indian WION’s “daring young journalists” try to stimulate “conversation about our world”.

South Africa’s SABC  seeks to be “everywhere for everyone, always” while the Nigerian Television Authority claims that “you can’t beat the(ir) reach”. Japan’s NHK World promotes “mutual understanding among people”,  Germany’s Deutsche Welle is “made for minds”, and France 24 plays on its national motto to promise “Liberté Égalité Actualité”.

It appears that imparting unvarnished facts without adding colour and flavour is insufficient for today’s broadcasters as they battle to shape our minds and hearts.  Sensing the manipulation games underway, it is no wonder that trust in media has eroded.

A recent report from Reuters Institute University of Oxford shows that  60 per cent of us are concerned about fake news. That is four points higher than during the Covid-19 pandemic where the perils of misinformation really came to the fore.

Contemporary round-the-clock news coverage also means rehashing the same drama of wars, disasters, and politics, often with little new to say hour-after-hour. The relentlessness wears out viewers, makes them mistrustful and may drive a record 40 per cent of people – especially in the Global South – becoming active news-avoiders.

Delving further into the data provides a hint that juxta-positioning news and partisan editorialising drives public polarisation. That is expected to be exacerbated by the advent of laxly-controlled generative Artificial Intelligence.

Muddling of facts, opinions and emotions

Such muddling of facts, opinions, and emotions, makes the work of news junkies like me much harder. We must flick from TV channel to channel and scan dozens of newspapers via Google Translate, to mine small nuggets of information from the acres of confounding spin.

That endeavour also requires countless hours on X, Facebook,  and TikTok to identify genuine breaking news and original voices of those who won’t become talking heads or eminent columnists in traditional outlets like the revered Washington Post.

Yes, sifting through fact and fiction is intensely time-consuming. But it helps to build mental immunity through developing our discernment skills while swimming in a sea of toxic misinformation. That is comparable to the physical immunity children build by playing in the mud (against the pleas of fastidious parents), or certain vaccinations that require injecting small doses of toxins to generate antibodies.

Dependence on a self-selected diet of news

Meanwhile, the problem of overly-fastidious readers is their dependence on a self-selected diet of news and views to gratify their own tastes. Consequently, they become easy prey to ignorance, incomprehension, and intolerance of those on a different diet. And so Americans get further polarised, and the wider world yet more divided.

That is why I supplement my intellectual diet by ingesting  state-controlled media from assorted Sahelian military dictatorships, and authoritarian states of the Global East.  Apart from discovering useful kernels of knowledge amidst their highly-censored offerings, I find entertainment and even hilarity in their more outrageous assertions.

Back to my friends who used to read the Washington Post. Posting  screen-grabs on social media of their me-too acts of unsubscribing must be cathartic.  But they will be back when they get over the pique.

Meanwhile, and bereft of their favourite read, they could keep their brains exercised by subscribing to Burkina Faso’s  Aujourd’hui, North Korea’s  Pyongyang Times  and the Iran Daily, for example.   Is this not a mind-broadening opportunity for the inhabitants of the Washington DC bubble?  And who knows, it may even affect global prospects for war and peace, as some of them will, undoubtedly, be advising the next incumbent of the White House.