About News

D.C. Dinner of Journos, Pols and Celebs Was Black Tie and a Black Eye

The news media that cover the White House have a really great plan for combating the common public perception that they are elitist and out of touch with the rest of the world. They hosted a black-tie dinner in Washington to schmooze and hobnob with government leaders and politicians. Really. The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner returned Saturday night after a two-year absence because of the pandemic. The gala event featuring Beltway journalists, leading political figures and celebrities presents such a terrible picture. The message to media consumers (and haters) says this: The D.C. press and politicians are quite cozy, actually, and what we see 364 days a year is just a game they play to fulfill prescribed roles and maintain access. It makes one wonder if the independent and sometimes adversarial relationship that’s needed to produce accountability journalism truly exists in untempered form. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Photos We Don’t Want to See, But Maybe Should

We spent part of Monday’s media ethics class talking about dead bodies. The topic was prompted by some gut-wrenching social media photos of fatalities from Russia’s special operation to liberate Ukraine. (That’s how I’m referring to Vladimir Putin’s immoral invasion of a sovereign nation just in case Putin reads the Arenblog and decides to poison my Diet Coke.) My very smart students nicely framed this longstanding dilemma of whether and when to publish such photos. Respect for the victims, compassion for victims’ families and the danger of exposing audience to upsetting images all dictate not to publish. But showing the truth of war – so that citizens of the world might insist their nations never engage in it – demands no withholding. The New York Times picked its side of one such debate on Monday. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Public Figures Race to Court With Bogus Grievances (And They Know It)

Sarah Palin: I think I’ll file a libel lawsuit against a news organization that’s so legally flimsy that both the judge and jury will decide against me. Kyle Rittenhouse: Hold my beer. It’s becoming fashionable for individuals on the far right of the political spectrum who believe they are the unfair targets of the news media to engage in defamation litigation that’s purely grandstanding and harassment. Palin, a former Republican vice presidential nominee, unsuccessfully sued The New York Times over an editorial that wrongly stated that a campaign advertisement by her political action committee had prompted a man to kill multiple people at a political rally in Arizona six years earlier. Then Rittenhouse, the acquitted killer of two people at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, announced this week on various media forums that he plans to sue selected celebrities and news organizations for their negative coverage of him, including labeling him as a “murderer.” He’s launching “The Media Accountability Project” to raise money for his efforts. This is so heroic that I have tears in my eyes. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Beijing Olympics: Media Can’t Ignore the Elephant in the Room

The pageantry and inspiring athletic accomplishments of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, will captivate many of us for the next two weeks. It will be easy to forget that outside the TV cameras’ frame, the host country is abusing and killing some of its people. Human rights groups around the world have called on countries, companies and media to boycott the Beijing Games in protest of an array of documented oppression by the Chinese government, primarily the forced detention and labor of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. These groups and the United States, which announced a boycott by diplomats, say China is committing genocide. But a little genocide isn’t enough to keep corporate sponsors and NBC away when China is such a huge potential economic market and the Olympics are a TV ratings magnet. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Not Falling for Phony News Takes a Lot of Darn Work

In light of the rampant spread of false information these days, the recent National News Literacy Week seems humorously futile. What’s next? Courteous Driving Week? Brussels Sprouts Appreciation Week? News literacy, sometimes called media literacy, means that audiences, not just news organizations and platforms, carry responsibility for stopping distribution of misinformation and disinformation that arise from social media and substandard professional news outlets. (Misinformation means unintentional wrong information; disinformation means wrong information created or shared intentionally to cause mischief, advance a political agenda or make money.) This audience obligation entails evaluating the credibility of statements before choosing to believe them and share them. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

The Famous Case of the Free Press and the Atomic Bomb

A New York state judge’s order last month prohibiting The New York Times from publishing memos written by a lawyer for the political spying organization Project Veritas blatantly violates the First Amendment. But not every court case seeking to dictate press publishing decisions is as laughably wrong as this one. Take, for instance, the case in which publication might have meant the end of mankind. True story. In 1979, The Progressive, a politically liberal magazine based in Wisconsin that still exists today, planned to publish an article detailing how a hydrogen bomb works. The U.S. government went to court to try to prevent publication. It’s a notable case in the legal history of prior restraint. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

One News Media Bias That Isn’t Debatable

The innocent, young, attractive, white woman was missing, and presumably dead, the victim of homicide. Local and national media pounded the story with daily coverage. This is, of course, the case of Gabby Petito. And Mollie Tibbetts. And Natalee Holloway. And Chandra Levy. And others. The equivalent case of a missing Black woman? Couldn’t find one. HBO is currently showing a documentary series called “Black and Missing.” It features the founders of the Black and Missing Foundation and makes the basic point that news media and law enforcement pay more attention to missing white people, especially females, than to missing Black people. Sociologists and media often call this Missing White Woman Syndrome. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

After Mass Shootings, Public Safety and Good Journalism Collide

In the aftermath of the fatal shootings at Oxford (Michigan) High School last week, CNN’s Anderson Cooper continued his practice of recent years of not reporting the name of the shooter. This is becoming an increasingly popular editorial decision among news media. The main reason for this is that, according to research and anecdotal evidence, most mass shooters commit their acts in large part to gain notoriety. Further, there’s evidence that fame for one mass shooter can motivate future ones. But naming the shooter can serve a public benefit, as well. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Sin and Confession: Newsrooms Revisit Some Major Failures

The Washington Post on Nov. 12 took the highly unusual step of overhauling two articles that had been posted on its website since 2017 and 2019, respectively. Recent events had suddenly called into question the accuracy of the articles, which reported on the identity of a confidential source who supposedly contributed salacious information about Donald Trump that was contained in the infamous and since discredited “Steele dossier.” The Post removed large portions of the articles, changed the headlines, removed a companion video, and appended editor’s notes. About a dozen other, related stories were corrected, as well. The Post’s editor offered public explanations on various platforms. This got me to thinking about previous famous situations in which a news organization belatedly found fault with its coverage of a high-profile subject and decided it needed to take corrective action. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Staring Death in the Face – Voluntarily

Reporters witness more death than they want to, be it war, disaster, disease, crime or accidents. It’s a whole different jolt to the conscience, though, when a death is scheduled and government sanctioned. Members of the media are standard witnesses whenever a state – at least in this country – carries out a death penalty. This was in the headlines in Alabama 10 days ago when state news organizations unsuccessfully protested a decision by the state Department of Corrections to allow only one media witness to the lethal injection of an inmate. The DOC cited pandemic safety measures. The media’s interest in attending such events in numbers isn’t because they want a sensationalistic headline. Rather, it’s a watchdog role. “We are there to observe and report on the most powerful thing the state can do to a person,” said Kent Faulk, the managing producer for state news for the Alabama Media Group and a former colleague of mine. “We need to make sure they are held accountable, doing things the way they are supposed to.” Read more.

by Tom Arenberg