For the younger folks: Kerry got some seriously badass medals for his military service in Vietnam. People who had been on the same boat as he did, but at a different time, worked with the Republican party to claim that he hadn’t really done what he did. The press ate this up, and distributed it widely, costing him public support and likely the election.
Let’s expand that quote:
So in what way does that argue for reporters to make their own independent assertions, and in what way did the NYT article fail to capture the meaning of the story?
In the case of the election denials, the media has numerous independent authorities to cite to bluntly state the fact. They have court cases, independent panels, etc, all as independent authorities with no contrary position by any real authority.
Additionally, in the case of the NYT article you link, that is exactly the retrospective editorial I said is done, but not for breaking or developing stories.
But back to the NYT article about Vance’s claim. They report that the claim was made, the investigated and found primary sources, they fleshed out the context, and appear to have fairly reported the facts which indicate Walz’s prior intent to run for office. I don’t see how that is stenography. In fact, stenography would have been simply reporting that Vance made the claim, without the associated leg work.
This is just as objective as election denial. It’s pure factual records. And the problem is that the title doesn’t indicate the claim is false. You need to read the article to know that, which many people don’t do.
It’s a really weird claim to say they shouldn’t say that’s something’s untrue in the title, but it’s not stenography because they say it’s untrue in the body. Either you want stenography, where even statements of which thing came first can only come from outside experts, or you don’t and the title should convey the result of the journalistic effort to verify claims so as to not mislead the public.
The person I replied to led their comment with this:
Which is just not true. The NYT headline is that the claim was made by Vance. I do think reasonable people can disagree over the quality of the headline, but barring an authoritative source and factual record, inserting the word “untrue” would be editorialized. There isn’t some validated record of Watz’s intent; rather, there is first hand accounts from seemingly trustworthy individuals saying he verbalized his intent months in advance of deployment orders, and his motivating story regarding the Bush campaign. I believe that version of events. But that is very different than having a court ruling from a fact finding trial court, or an independent house panels findings to justify something being objectively untrue. We can quibble over this, but that’s just what journalism standards are for news reporting agencies.
Regardless of the title, the NYT article is pretty clearly not a simple parroting of Vance’s claim, or even that the claim occurred. They found past sources, they ran details to ground, and they reported the facts to their audience. Additionally, the NYT is a pay walled news source, which I subscribe to, and I suspect the majority of their subscribers do actually read the article. And obviously, they are writing articles with their subscribers on mind, who, like me, want objective reporting with primary sources.
A false claim. You don’t wash your hands of responsibility by just noting who said it. And few subscribers actually read every article the NYT puts out. I’m sure you don’t. What goes in the title matters.
And holy crap you’re still acting like whether it was false is an opinion. Courts didn’t rule for any of those things you claim justify journalistic description of falsehood! There are cases for some, but no rulings. And those court cases are based on “first hand accounts from seemingly trustworthy individuals”, the same evidence you claim cannot be used to come to a conclusion in a news story. Nevermind that in this instance there’s also actual documentation that shows the claim is bullshit. This idea that because Vance is speculating on his mental state that it’s just impossible to call it false is just an insane way to approach the world.
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And the NYT didn’t just stop by saying who said it; they did into the background and reported on the details and the context.
What records? Maybe I missed it, but the TPM, NYT and other sources have only reported statements made by people from his unit saying he shared with them his intent prior to receiving deployment orders. That is not an objective, factual, contemporaneous record to unequivocally establish the truth of the claim around intent. It’s credible, and compelling. But not the same as having releases a date stamped form to start out processing, etc, that would be unequivocal.
I have no objection to calling it a false claim. I think it is a false claim. I don’t need my news source to make that decision for me, unless they have unequivocal records or proof.
And no, I don’t read every article, but I also don’t parrot the headlines without reading the content and I don’t miscomprehend the titles. I don’t read the NYT headline as giving any credence to the claim from Vance. I read it as a factual statement, and being interested in the topic, I read the article. That might not be the norm on social media, but I suspect people who pay for objective news sources are similar in that regard.
And I already said that the title could be debated. Here’s an alternative that I don’t think is editorializing inappropriately:
But critically, it avoids making a direct determination by the reporter on the absence of objective records.