For more infomation >> Your World 11/29/17 4PM | November 29, 2017 Fox News HD - Duration: 39:35. 
>> Speaker 1: From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Teresa Sierra: Good morning, everybody.
Hi. My name is Teresa Sierra.
I'm the chief of the [inaudible] government [inaudible] division
that's sponsoring this program.
And it is my great pleasure to introduce to you a real good friend
of our division and of the library.
Professor Joe Campbell.
He has been here before.
He's a regular coming to our reading room at least twice a year.
We see him sauntering in followed by a bunch of his students,
and he's introducing these students
to primary sources, namely newspapers.
He's become an expert, if you guys need help out there,
with the scan view microfilm readers.
That's your guy.
Anyway, seriously he has a PhD from North Carolina.
Right? Am I right?
He's a tenured professor at American University.
He has written numerous books, articles.
I've seen him on TV a number of times
where he makes appearances on a regular basis.
I was talking to somebody this afternoon --
this morning about one of the books he wrote
that I found very intriguing.
It's called "1995: The Watershed Year."
Did I say that right?
Okay. And why is 1995 all that important, you might wonder.
Well, Professor Campbell has an idea.
That was the year of the Oklahoma City bombing,
the trial of the century [inaudible] in Florida.
Monica Lewinsky.
Anybody remember that?
And the launching of the internet.
So he has something going on there.
But I won't bore you with all my great interest in what he writes
and how he approaches his teaching career.
He has received many awards and I think perhaps --
Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe he'll tell me someday.
His greatest award that he treasures the most is the year
that he was named faculty member of the year
by the student body of American University.
So it's a great honor.
So why don't you help me bring him
to the podium, give him a warm welcome?
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Joseph Campbell: Thank you.
Terri, thanks very much.
That was a great introduction.
In 1995 I -- The subtitle was "The Year the Future Began," but I kind
of like yours a little better.
It's -- The watershed year.
And what? What did we say?
The internet, Oklahoma City, the bombing there,
the O.J. Simpson Trial of the Century, Clinton meets Lewinsky
and begins the dalliance that led to his impeachment.
And also the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995
that ended the long war in Bosnia.
And it was really a moment in which the United States found itself
at the peak of its post war power as the unrivaled superpower.
It was able to bring an end to this long and bloody conflict in Bosnia.
So yes. Those are the respective chapters of "1995:
The Year the Future Began."
But that was a book that came out two years ago.
Today we're talking about -- Related to a book that came out,
a second edition that came out, just about a year ago titled
"Getting it Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths
in American Journalism."
And it takes a look at media driven myths which are prominent stories
about and/or by the news media that are widely believed
and often retold, but which under close inspection, under scrutiny,
dissolve as apocryphal or wildly exaggerated media driven myths.
And they so happen to be fairly close cousins to fake news.
You can think of media myth as prominent cases of fake news
that have masqueraded as factual for many, many years.
So that will be the essence of the talk today.
I look forward to engaging you all with some questions and answers
and comments during the Q and A section that will follow.
But first let me say it's a terrific pleasure to be back
at the Library of Congress.
I have, as Terri was suggesting, done a lot of my research
at the Library of Congress over the years.
And what better way to do it than reading microfilm,
squinting in to the microfilm reader?
And I can't say that I am up to speed on the view scans.
I do get training every once in a while on that,
and then I completely forget about it and I'm back
on the old crank machines, you know.
Which I love, and I've done a good deal of my research
over the past 20 years here at the Library of Congress.
So it's really a pleasure to be back,
to be invited back, to give a talk.
And to talk about some of my research.
And not only do I do a lot
of research here, but many of my students.
I bring students to the Library of Congress, and over the years --
I've been [inaudible] about 20 years.
And over those years hundreds of my students, undergrad
and grad students, have come to the Library of Congress
and have come mostly for the newspaper
and current periodical reading room to do research
on research related assignments in my classes.
And they have, without exception, enjoyed the experience.
For undergrads especially it is kind of cool for them to say
that they've been able to do research at the Library of Congress.
This fantastic only in Washington institution.
And for the students studying in D.C., this is a must do to come
to the Library of Congress.
Not to get the reader's card and take a tour,
but to actually do research, to crank the microfilm.
Here's a couple of students doing just that.
So my thanks again to Terri and Georgia [inaudible]
and their colleagues for the invitation today.
It is an opportunity to talk about some of my research,
and also to explore with you some of the recent developments
in what is known as fake news.
Fake news.
Now, believe it or not, there are people who think
that fake news is not really all that big of a problem.
And there was a fair amount of discussion earlier this year
in journalism reviews and journalism periodicals
about whether this is serious enough to really merit a lot of attention.
The thinking was, "Well, fake news is kind of ephemeral."
It appears on these way out there websites,
and it's really not getting all that many eyeballs compared
to mainstream media outlets.
Both traditional and online.
So there's this thinking that maybe we're overstating fake news,
especially the effects of fake news, that maybe it's not as important
or as decisive as some people have tried to make it out to be.
That it really may not be such a problem after all.
But then again you might want to tell
that to [inaudible] the pizzeria on Connecticut Avenue that had --
These episodes of fake news are so bizarre, but this one,
as you probably remember, was the site of an encounter back
in December in which a guy, a 28 year old from North Carolina,
drove up to the restaurant and to investigate, as he said.
To self investigate reports that the pizzeria was being used
by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager to run a child sex ring
in the back rooms and in the basement.
I mean it's just a bizarre store.
It's not even close to being plausible, but nonetheless it was
out there in these --
the Netherland, the netherworld of the internet.
And this was an example of fake news that really went viral.
And this episode in which a guy from North Carolina came
up to self investigate,
and he discharged a firearm inside the restaurant,
you know causing a complete shutdown of that restaurant as well
as restaurants and businesses nearby.
It was a serious, serious problem.
And the story continues to circulate even though it's been widely
debunked, routinely rejected as implausible.
But it exists, and it's out there, and it continues to circulate.
So it is an example of fake news being a serious problem
or turning into a serious problem.
And then just the other day, just the other day, we were reminded
of the reach of fake news as this
"New York Times" article reports Google and Facebook feeds,
newsfeeds from those two platforms, were --
Recipients were receiving word that the shooter
at the Las Vegas casino was a liberal, was a fan of Rachel Maddow,
not a fan of Donald Trump, supported by MoveOn.org,
and that he had been linked to the Islamic state.
All of which was untrue.
None of this stuff is accurate, but it was out there and had been passed
on through the algorithms of Facebook and Google to many,
many unsuspecting recipients of these platforms.
And Facebook has other problems, as you no doubt have been aware.
I mean it's not just a fake news problem,
but fake ads have circulated on Facebook, including those linked
to accounts linked to Russia
over the past several months during the presidential campaign last year
and in to this year as well.
So Facebook and Google in particular have problems in terms
of letting algorithms drive their content,
what appears on their platforms, on their newsfeeds.
And this is no minor issue.
This is no minor problem.
And it's hard to see how Facebook and Google can let this go
on without -- by just allowing algorithms to drive content.
And that's essentially where we are now.
So anything, almost anything, wild stuff, phony ads, can get up there
and reach incredible numbers of people.
Because these platforms, two-thirds of American adults every day log
in to social media of one kind or another for news.
So this is a serious issue in terms of undercutting popular discourse.
One thing I will say about fake news, though.
It's not new.
We have dealt with fake news for many years.
Perhaps not with the intensity that algorithms transmit news
to newsfeeds at Facebook and Google,
but nonetheless it has been out there.
It has circulated.
For example, the "New York Sun" in August
of 1835 published a six part series in which it reported,
this penny newspaper in New York City --
reported that there was life found on the moon.
And that the lunar landscape was populated by exotic animals as well
as bat wing humanoid characters.
The "New York Sun's" ostensible source
for this reporting was the work of an astronomer named John Herschel
who was reporting from the southern hemisphere that had been able
to see these objects on the lunar surface.
Even to the degree of being able to determine the gender
of these winged humanoid figures.
The "New York Sun," 1835.
Later in the 19th century in 1897 a
"New York Herald" reporter named George Bronson Rea published a book
called "Facts and Fakes About Cuba."
"Facts and Fakes About Cuba."
And he was lamenting, this reporter, he was lamenting the circulation
of fakes, fake news, about the Cuban insurrection that led in 1898
to the Spanish American War.
And he was complaining and laid out his case in a book that came
out in early 1897 about the correspondence
for New York newspapers as well as others who were
out there peddling this garbage, this made up stuff,
these extreme stories about Spanish atrocities on Cuba.
Intended, he thought, to whip up public sentiment at home
in the United States to support U.S. intervention
in the war for Cuban independence.
That's what happened, but not because of news content necessarily.
It's because of other factors that diplomatic clash
between the United States, Cuba, and Spain, the colonial rulers,
and that's what led in 1898, April of 1898,
to the Spanish American War.
But the point here is that fakes and facts had been long disputed,
and had been long a subject in American journalism.
Now one problem with fake news
in the contemporary context is what do we mean by this.
What do we mean?
It's a term that's proven very flexible, very fluid.
In fact, so fluid that the
"Washington Post's" media writer Margaret Sullivan came
out earlier this year and said, "You know, this term ought to be banned
because we can't make any sense out of it."
It's been corrupted.
It's been appropriated.
Yeah. It's been appropriated by the president of the United States
who routinely invokes the term fake news to criticize and comment
on anything that he doesn't think is entirely accurate
or at least does not put his administration
and his policies in the best light.
Fake news, he calls them.
Now Trump, of course, as we know, has been one of the purveyors
of fake news for many months, if not years.
He was an advocate of the Birther interpretation
of Barack Obama's birthplace.
He was -- Oh yeah.
He was also one of the -- During the primary campaign last year
in 2016 he accused Ted Cruz's father of being complicit
in the JFK assassination.
Something he picked up presumably from the "National Enquirer"
or something akin to that.
But Trump has been out there even from his --
The day he took office he was saying, "You know,
that crowd out there was the biggest crowd ever for an inauguration.
More people saw my inauguration than anybody else's."
You know, demonstrable not true.
I mean a lot of photographs suggested that, you know,
there was a pretty thin turnout in the streets of Washington
for Trump's inauguration.
But nonetheless it just is emblematic of his use
of exaggeration, hyperbole, falsehoods,
to push an agenda, I suppose.
His own agenda.
He's very narcissistic.
Anyway, he has made great use of fake news,
and is one of the reasons why the
"Washington Post" suggested we bury this term.
But it's out there.
And again the definitions are very difficult to pin down.
The online site Vox says that false news -- Defines it this way.
False news claims are presented in an official looking way,
often online, and in a way to --
that's intended to deceive readers, intended to deceive.
The "Post" has said it defined fake news
as deliberately constructed lies in the form of news articles
that are meant to mislead the public.
So you see both of these definitions include a sense of intention.
Intentionality.
Now I would offer a definition that sort of takes us away
from intentionality and just embraces everything that is false,
erroneous, dubious, media driven tales that circulate widely
and serve to corrupt or warp popular discourse.
And, as we can see from the examples I mentioned earlier,
that's exactly what fake news does.
It corrupts and warps popular discourse.
Now my definition has these advantages.
It removes intent which can be very difficult to prove.
How do you know what's going on inside the mind
of somebody who's intentionally or not putting
out erroneous information?
So we just get rid of intent.
It also recognizes that there is this potential warping
or corrupting effect of fake news.
A serious problem, in my view.
And thirdly, this definition insists
that this is not just a social media problem.
This is not just a problem of the internet
and its far out there fringes.
This also includes mainstream media.
It is far more than just -- Fake news is far more than just postings
at obscure websites on the fringes of the online world.
In fact, the news media these days are widely distrusted for an ability
to present news in a fair minded and accurate fashion.
And you can see from this chart these are Gallup polls
that go back 40 plus years.
And what is shown here goes back
about 20 showing how popular recognition of the trust
in the media has subsided, has eased down,
has ebbed consistently since the late 1990s.
And has reached a low during the presidential campaign of 2016.
Less than one-third of American adults responding
to the survey found that the news media --
They could have a great deal or a fair amount of trust
in what the news media were reporting.
So I submit that fake news includes, and should include --
A discussion of fake news should include mainstream news media
as well.
And the media do have a trust problem, as we can see.
And there are a number of examples of mainstream media putting
out stories that had to be retracted or walked back or modified.
These are dubious tales that corrupt the popular discourse.
And would meet my definition of fake news.
The first one there is from the "Washington Post" in which the
"Post" reported that a Russia linked operation had hacked
in to the U.S. electrical grid through a utility in Vermont.
Serious stuff.
Serious stuff.
The Russians are tapping in to the electrical grid.
You know, there's potential problems ahead.
The story turned out to be considerably less than that.
There was one laptop at a Vermont utility that had some malware
that was like that used by some Russian hackers that may
or may not have been connected to the grid.
In fact, the Vermont utility said it hadn't been.
So there's -- From this one case of malware on a laptop the "Post" blew
up the story to Russian intervention, Russian hacking
in to the U.S. electrical grid.
That's kind of fake news.
Another one that got wide attention right
after Trump's inauguration was the "Time Magazine" report that Trump
or his aides had removed the bust
of the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior from the Oval Office.
"Time" put this out there.
It was a pool report, and the
"Time" reporter was the pool reporter of that time.
Reported it apparently without checking or asking or looking
around and had to retract it.
But this story is often invoked by conservative critics
of the news media as an example of the media getting it wrong.
Putting out fake news.
And then, of course, there was the case this summer
in which three top level CNN staffers,
including a Pulitzer Prize winner for the "New York Times" had
to resign because of a story linking Scaramucci, a Trump associate later,
for what, 10 days, a Trump White House staffer,
to a Russian investment house.
A story that CNN put out there, posted online,
on the basis of a single anonymous source.
One anonymous source.
And retracted the story.
And forced the three staffers to resign.
The exact details of what went on in that case,
and why the story was totally erroneous
or poorly reported has never really been disclosed.
There's still questions about why they took the steps that they did.
But nonetheless this is an example of a story that was
out there supported by an investigative team at CNN
that later blew up in its face.
And, you know, I'm thinking that maybe these examples are not all
that surprising because some of the best known stories
that journalists tell about themselves
and about their profession are themselves exaggerated.
Mythical. They're media myths.
And among them is the tale of Watergate.
Watergate.
That the dogged reporters of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for the
"Washington Post" uncovered the evidence that forced Richard Nixon
to resign the presidency.
This is the dominant narrative of Watergate.
You find this everywhere.
It's in journalism textbooks.
It's in the popular media.
It's a shorthand version of what this scandal was all about.
And it is derived from in part Woodward
and Bernstein's very successful book that came
out just months before Richard Nixon resigned in August of '74.
Based also on the very successful film
that they -- based on their book.
Same title.
"All the President's Men" that came out in 1976.
And also based on the 20 or so year long guessing game,
more like 30 year guessing game, about the identity
of the super secret source
that Woodward had whom was identified only in the book
and movie as Deep Throat.
Turned out to be Mark Felt, number two at the FBI, who was the subject
of a movie now that's just out these days called "Mark Felt:
The Man Who Took Down the White House."
The reviews have been pretty terrible,
but I still plan to see it.
In any event, it's not as good, I guess, as "All the President's Men,"
the movie version or the cinematic version
of "All the President's Men."
It's interesting that even at the "Post" the principles
on the news side of the "Post"
over the years have rejected this interpretation,
this heroic journalist narrative of Watergate.
They've scoffed at it.
Katharine Graham who was the publisher before, during,
and after the Watergate period said at the 25th anniversary
of the break in, the seminal crime of the Watergate scandal,
a break in at Democratic National Headquarters, in June of 1972.
She said at the 25th anniversary of this, "Sometimes people accuse us
of bringing down a president, which of course we did not do."
The processes that caused Richard Nixon's resignation
were constitutional.
And she's not alone.
Ben Bradley, the executive editor of the "Post" at the time,
shown here on your right, said about the same time
that it must be remembered that Nixon got Nixon.
It wasn't the "Post" that got Nixon.
And he's referring here to the secret White House tapes
that Richard Nixon made of most conversations in the Oval Office
between 1971 and '73, tapes that captured him approving a plan
to divert the investigation in to the Watergate break in.
Clear obstruction of justice that led
to his resignation in August of 1974.
Nixon got Nixon.
The "Post" didn't get Nixon.
According to Ben Bradley.
And Bob Woodward, in Earth year terms, has said somewhat the same.
"To say that the press brought down Nixon, that's horse poop."
I think that's what those are for.
Anyway, he is -- He too has been adamant
about this heroic journalist interpretation being a wrong headed
interpretation of Watergate.
And I think the ombudsman for the "Post" back at the 10
or 12 years ago, a great guy by the name of Michael Getler --
He was ombudsman after that for PBS for a number of years.
Getler captured it correctly, that it was not the "Post,"
but it was the FBI [inaudible] acting in bipartisan fashion,
and the courts, that brought down the Richard Nixon administration.
It wasn't the "Post."
And I think that was quite right.
Because to roll up a scandal of the dimensions
of Watergate required the collective,
if not always the coordinated efforts, of many forces
and factors including special prosecutors, federal judges,
both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, Justice Department, and FBI.
And even then, even then with all these forces arrayed
against Richard Nixon, he would have walked,
he would have survived the Watergate scandal,
had it not been for those tapes.
Had it not been for the clear cut evidence
that showed Nixon was culpable of obstructing justice.
It needed that kind of certain evidence
to dynamite the president from the Oval Office.
He resigned in August of '74 before he could be impeached and convicted.
He certainly would have been both.
So why does this interpretation, this media myth
of the heroic journalist, why does this live on?
Why does this persist?
Why is it the dominant narrative?
At least three reasons.
It's convenient shorthand
for explaining the Watergate scandal nowadays.
It's been 45 years since the burglary
at the Democratic National Headquarters, and there's been a lot
that happened during those 2 and a half years of the Watergate period.
Who was doing what, and where, and who was Haldeman,
who was Mitchell, who were all these guys?
It's -- It was hard to keep it straight at the time.
It's impossible to keep it straight these days.
So what we have as the dominant narrative is a simplified easily
accessible shorthand that explains Watergate, that embraces the essence
of the scandal, I.E. Richard Nixon resigned,
but adds a little media centric window dressing to it.
That it was because of these dogged intrepid reporters
that Richard Nixon lost his office.
Easy to explain.
It's convenient.
It's simplistic.
It avoids the complexities
of what was a very sprawling and complex scandal.
And it's also very reassuring to journalists.
It lives on because it's a reassuring tale.
It's an affirmation tale that journalists can make a difference,
that they can be decisive forces and factors in the greater scheme
of things in American politics.
It's a media centric interpretation,
but it's also one that's reassuring to journalists.
Let's move on to another more recent, if you will, media myth.
That of the coverage of Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago, 2005.
The media themselves patted themselves on the back saying,
"This was a triumph, a media triumph."
I call it the myth of superlative reporting.
There was a lot of self referential praise in the immediate aftermath
of the hurricane's passage.
It made landfall just east of New Orleans, and in the aftermath
of the hurricane's passage the dikes protecting the city were breached,
flooding much of New Orleans.
In the aftermath the likes of Dan Rather were very extravagant
in saying that this was a high heroic moment
in American journalism.
He called it one of the quintessential great moments
in television news ranking, right up there
with the Nixon/Kennedy debates, the Kennedy assassination,
the Watergate coverage, you name it.
It was a landmark, Dan Rather said.
And the media narrative about Hurricane Katrina was much
like that, that this was a memorable moment
in which the media found their voice and were able to confront and stand
up to public officials, local, state, and federal,
holding them accountable for what was a pretty muddled response.
Especially by federal and local authorities in New Orleans
in the aftermath of the hurricane.
The reality, though, was quite different.
The reality of the reporting was quite different.
There was no high heroic moment in American journalism.
And in important respects the coverage
of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath was badly flawed and exaggerated.
They got it wrong.
Crucial details.
Journalists were in error.
They described scenes of apocalyptic horror and mayhem, and lawlessness
that the storm supposedly had unleashed across New Orleans.
They told of snipers firing at medical personnel,
snipers firing at helicopters.
They told of bodies being stacked up like cordwood in the Superdome
and convention center where people sought refuge
from the storm's after effects.
They talked about roving gangs preying on tourists,
terrorizing people who took refuge in the Superdome.
They said children were the victims of sexual assault,
how one seven-year-old was raped and had her throat slashed.
They also spoke about other horrors.
Sharks plying the flood waters of New Orleans.
Things like that.
This was a U.S. and an international media response.
International media, particularly the British media,
just loved this story about the apocalypse of New Orleans.
This was a moment in which the United States was going
to -- being brought down.
And the British national media just ate it up.
But so did the U.S. news media.
The media narrative, the dominant media narrative, was of chaos,
anarchy, mayhem, and few, if any, of these horrific accounts
of lawlessness, anarchy, and the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina's passage were true.
Some reporting of that afterwards found
that almost all these stories were based largely on rumor,
were exaggerated, and untrue.
The effects were to paint for America and the rest
of the world scenes of unimaginable horror.
And they had the effect of defaming a city and its people
at a time of their greatest need.
And these misreported stories about anarchy and chaos and mayhem
in New Orleans also had the effect of slowing the arrival
of federal aid and assistance to New Orleans.
The deployment of aid was slowed down because the situation seemed
so untenable that you could not put people in there
until you were certain that everything was under control.
These news reports in the first days
after Hurricane Katrina's passage made it clear
that the situation was not under control.
In fact, it was one of mayhem and chaos.
As I say, that was untrue.
It was largely debunked.
In fact, a bipartisan congressional committee looking in to the response
to Hurricane Katrina touched on the media's coverage too.
It came to the conclusion that if anyone rioted in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina, it was the media.
But, as I say, chaos was the media narrative.
And I believe we have some front pages on the display table there
that suggest as much, including the one that is on your far right
from the "Times-Picayune," the New Orleans newspaper.
"Help Us Please."
The subheading read, "After the Disaster Chaos
and Lawlessness Ruled the Streets."
And that, as I say, was the dominant media narrative.
So I think it's important to keep in mind that early accounts
of disasters often are in error.
Not always, but they often are.
Hurricane Katrina was one of those cases.
And it's also I think useful to keep in mind
that mainstream media are not always going to get it right.
They're not always going to get it right.
So, with that in mind, I'd
like to offer a few practical straightforward suggestions
that may be useful in combating fake news.
From whatever the source.
From whatever the source.
My first suggestion -- There are five of them.
My first suggestion was that one about the mainstream media.
They can get it wrong in the early reporting about disasters.
My second suggestion is develop an ability to take the sniff test.
The sniff test, it's akin to when you open the refrigerator door
and the milk has gone bad.
You know, you know it.
And it's like that with news stories.
If something just doesn't seem quite right, if it smells a little off,
then maybe you should treat it
as something that's maybe not quite accurate.
Like the shooter in Las Vegas.
I mean those early reports that appeared on Facebook
and Google were probably a little too exaggerated to be true.
To pass the sniff test.
Be wary of sources of stories
that rely exclusively on anonymous sources.
One of my favorite examples of that is the "Washington Post's" report
in early April 2003 about Jessica Lynch,
a young 19 year old waif-like army supply clerk from West Virginia
who signed up for the army to be able to use the benefits later
on to go to college and get a degree.
She was in a supply unit.
She was in a maintenance company.
Never expected to see combat in Iraq.
But because of a wrong turn that her unit took in the early days
of the Iraq war, right after the invasion began in March of 2003,
Jessica Lynch's unit came under ambush in the city
of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.
And the unit was badly shot up.
11 people were killed in the unit.
Several were taken prisoner, among them Jessica Lynch.
She was badly injured and was rescued by a special operations unit
on the first of April, 2003.
It was the first time that an American prisoner
of war had been rescued from behind enemy lines during
combat operations.
The first time since World War II.
Two days after the rescue the
"Washington Post" reports this story on the front page.
That she was fighting to the death.
Based on two anonymous sources.
And the "Post" has never identified them.
Jessica Lynch was reported to be fighting like a female Rambo,
taking on the -- Attacking Iraqis, firing her weapon
until she ran out of ammunition.
She kept the Iraqis at bay despite herself being shot and stabbed
and seeing colleagues fall all around her.
It was an electrifying story.
It was a story that was picked up by news organizations around the world.
It was a story that was irresistibly good in a lot of ways.
It was based on two anonymous sources.
Neither of the "Post" reporters whose bylines appeared
on that story were in Iraq at the time.
They reported the story from Washington.
The story turned out to be wrong in all important respects.
Jessica Lynch was in Iraq.
She was in Nasiriyah with her unit.
She did not fire a shot during the ambush.
Her gun jammed.
And she was in the backseat of a Humvee
as it tried to escape the ambush.
And she, as the Humvee was trying to make its escape from the city --
She was in the backseat with her head
down between her knees saying, "Oh, my god.
Please get us out of here.
Oh, my god.
Please get us out of here."
The Humvee was struck by a rocket propelled grenade and was thrown
in to the back side of a disabled tractor trailer truck.
And Jessica Lynch was seriously injured in that crash.
She did not suffer gunshot or stab wounds,
but she was badly injured in that crash.
The "Post" never explained how it got it wrong, so badly wrong.
It never discussed who its sources were.
On one occasion one of the reporters said in an NPR interview,
"Our sources for that story were not the Pentagon.
They were not military sources.
We could never get anybody at the Pentagon
to talk about Jessica Lynch."
Which left people wondering, "Okay.
Who could it have been?"
Who could it have been?
Anonymous sources in Washington.
And the town is just full of them.
The point here is to be wary of stories based on anonymous sources.
Here are a few more suggestions.
Wait. Wait.
I'm not done.
Try to cultivate a little viewpoint diversity.
Check your biases.
I guess this is a recommendation that students hear a lot.
Check your biases.
You know, if you're used to reading the "New York Times," why not pick
up the "Wall Street Journal's" opinion page every once in a while?
Just to see what else is going on.
Develop a taste for viewpoint diversity.
And don't be fooled by satire either.
Don't be fooled by satire.
People are, and it's out there.
And it's plausible, but really would kind of fit
in to the fake news definition, I guess.
And some of the best satire appears in the "New Yorker."
Andy Borowitz is great, and his satiric column appears periodically.
And this is one example of Borowitz's satire.
People get fooled by this.
They think it's true because it's so good, and it's --
You know, it's on the cusp of plausibility.
On the cusp of plausibility.
So let me just recap.
Remember that early accounts of disasters often are untrue.
There are errors there.
And to be wary of those.
Hone that ability to develop the sniff test.
If stories don't seem to be quite right, you're probably right.
Applying your logic, applying your experience, saying, "Hmm.
Maybe it's not quite true."
The sniff test.
Be wary of stories based exclusively or largely on anonymous sources.
This is a real trap for journalists.
They need to do more about this.
This is a toxic equation many times in which they rely
on anonymous sources, and do so cavalierly, in my view.
Cultivate viewpoint diversity.
And don't be fooled by satire in the media.
And to close, another example from Borowitz.
People believe this.
This one went viral in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election.
Again, just plausible enough.
It's just believable enough.
So maybe it was true.
Thank you folks.
Thank you very much for your attention.
[ Applause ]
>> Speaker 2: [Inaudible] time for some questions.
>> Joseph Campbell: Questions?
Comments? Yes, sir?
>> Speaker 3: I would take issue
with two things [inaudible] what you said.
I think in your definition of fake news in not allowing
for intent then you don't acknowledge
that news media do make mistakes.
They've always made mistakes.
Out of sometimes carelessness, sometimes bad sources,
sometimes misinterpretation.
But there's [inaudible] in there that when they find
out about the mistakes they correct them.
Which malicious fake news doesn't.
Second point --
>> Joseph Campbell: I think on that one I --
Let me just answer that because it's so good.
I would take issue with that.
I don't think the news media are very good
about making corrections on big mistakes.
When they get somebody's age or address, you know hometown,
wrong, they'll quickly do that.
But on a major story that they screw it up, the tendency is not
to roll it back, not to retract it.
The Jessica Lynch story, granted it's 12
to 15 years old now, it's an example.
They never explained.
The "Post" never explained how it got it so badly wrong.
>> Speaker 2: But other media corrected it.
>> Joseph Campbell: Not exactly.
We don't know exactly how the "Post" got it wrong.
We know that she herself later said that she was no hero,
although she also said, "I could have taken credit
and no one else would have known."
It would have been a [inaudible] there,
but nonetheless she never did say, "I was a hero."
And, you know, she never acknowledged hero status.
To her credit.
So anyway, I would argue that news organizations really hate
to roll back major stories that are wrong.
And we can think of other examples, perhaps more recent.
The Hurricane Katrina case is a more recent example.
There was like a one off look back by many news organizations.
The "New York Times," the "Post," the "Philadelphia Inquirer,"
the "Times of London," sort of took a look back to say, "Okay."
The "Times-Picayune" in New Orleans, to its credit, as well,
took a look back and said, "Okay.
How did we get this story so wrong?"
The story of mayhem and violence and Mad Max like mayhem in New Orleans.
And they did a one off shot about that.
That wasn't really a retraction.
It was just sort of saying, "A lot of news reports were based
on rumors that were out of hand."
And that was it.
It was a one off.
So yeah. I'm a little reluctant to embrace that notion
that there is this corrective mechanism
that news organizations really like to embrace.
And your second question is?
>> Speaker 2: I think you're giving short shrift to Woodward
and Bernstein's role in Watergate that you don't acknowledge the role
that the media did play in revealing the depth of the corruption
of the Nixon administration.
If the media hadn't kept the heat on in the summer of '72 and the fall
and so on, we wouldn't have had congressional committees.
We wouldn't have had deeper investigation.
So I think you leave the right impression there when you say,
"Well, the Post didn't bring down the president."
But the "Post" and other papers
and organizations laid the groundwork for that.
>> Joseph Campbell: Maybe.
I think you're right.
There were other organizations reporting the story
in the early days of Watergate.
But the news organizations were clearly behind the Justice
Department's investigation, the FBI's investigation.
They never learned anything from the news media
that they didn't uncover themselves.
This is not to tout the FBI or the Justice Department,
but they had a pretty good understanding of the scope
of the scandal well before the news media.
And sources for the "Post" as well
as other news organizations were the FBI and the like.
So Sam Ervin who was the chair of the Senate Select Committee
on Watergate, which held hearings in the spring and summer of 1973,
identified a number of forces and factors, including the news media,
but many others as well who helped prepare the ground
for the hearings of that summer.
So I would argue, and do argue in my book, that it's a marginal role
that the news media had in uncovering and keeping the heat
on during the Watergate scandal.
Even if you -- Even if we accept that the news media were good
in keeping the attention level up there, it's far --
It's a far cry from saying that the news media brought
down Richard Nixon.
It's quite a different interpretation.
Finally on that point, Woodward and Bernstein themselves have said
in their book that they were kind of like out of ammunition on Watergate
by the end of October 1972.
And they were talking about writing a book and so forth,
"All the President's Men," which they did late
in that year and early in 1973.
So they too were sort of at bay by the end of October in '72.
Yes, ma'am?
>> Speaker 3: [Inaudible] their ideas
in getting the biggest headline the fastest because [inaudible] now
that Trump in Puerto Rico saying
that at least this is not the catastrophe that Katrina was.
And I think that he's referring to the narrative of [inaudible].
>> Joseph Campbell: He may have been.
Look. It's -- You know, the president is going to, you know,
command -- Oh, I'm sorry.
Yes. I knew I was going to forget to ask you to --
ask myself to repeat the question which was related
to the biggest headline and Trump's visit to Puerto Rico
and linking the hurricane damage there to Hurricane Katrina.
Did I do justice to your question or is that just totally butchered?
>> Speaker 3: Well, I [inaudible] use that one as an illustration
of why various media want to get a dramatic first statement
of particular events, and this is one
that we had a recent [inaudible].
>> Joseph Campbell: Sure.
The media's preference to get a prominent story,
a big headline story, first, yeah.
There's no denying that the news media are sort
of inherently programmed that way to get --
To report something major accurately and in a very, very timely fashion.
And that's one of the elements that's one
of the fundamentals of American journalism.
You see it in the long history of the Associated Press.
The news service that goes back to the 1850s and continues
to be a thriving source of news today,
its two imperatives are to be fast and accurate.
You don't always get both, but that is what they seek to do.
And then in this age of the digital world everybody's becoming a wire
service reporter essentially.
All journalists from major news organizations are posting
to the online sites very quickly.
And very swiftly.
And that's essentially the AP imperative,
to be fast and first with the news.
And so I think what we're seeing is this little understood
transformation of American mainstream journalism
into wire service journalism.
Everybody's becoming a wire service journalist.
Hope that answers your question.
Yes, ma'am?
>> Speaker 4: I was interested to hear what you said about journalism
and heroes because I've noticed the last several disasters
that you see the CNN reporters or the ABC reporters, whatever,
out there capturing themselves on tape, you know,
either using their boat to rescue someone
or help them lift the rubble.
You know? Pass out water and stuff.
And I'm just wondering what the profession --
the ethics of the profession.
Or what ethics are taught in journalism schools that sort
of allow you to get so involved
or to use this tragedy for self promotion.
Is this -- It seems to be the norm now.
I don't know.
It seems like [inaudible].
>> Joseph Campbell: It's a really great question.
The question was the ethics of injecting one's self
in to the coverage of a major story such as a hurricane
in which you would be using your own boats or other equipment
to help people or to call attention to the dimensions of the disaster.
There was a very interesting "New York Times" article
on this very subject in the immediate aftermath
of Hurricane Harvey, I believe, in which they were talking
about the TV reporters who were standing out in the winds
and the rain and the storms.
It got to be so -- such a cliche anymore
that it's like almost unwatchable.
My wife will watch this stuff, but I just can't put up with this anymore.
It's just like so routine and predictable
and doesn't tell you anything.
Okay. We know the winds are high and there's a lot
of rain, but that's a hurricane.
And it's -- I don't know why they do it.
I don't think it's a way to get, you know, new ratings.
In fact, the ethics of it are a little bit dubious.
One of the touchstones of American journalism is not
to involve yourself in the news.
I think that that barrier, if you will, is eroding somewhat.
It's not as hard and fast as it may have once been.
And I think there's also a historic tendency for journalists to want
to inject themselves in to the news.
And William Randolph Hearst did it
with his New York journal back in 1897.
He came up with an approach to news called the journalism of action,
saying, "We're not just going to report and comment on the news.
We're going to step in and make a difference
to the extent that we can."
So we're going to right the wrongs to the extent that a newspaper can.
And, you know, Hearst was doing this with some forethought, I think,
because he wanted to become president of the United States
and used his newspapers as a stepping stone to the White House.
Never happened, but nonetheless he came
up with this participatory journalism, the journalism
of action, that we can see echoes of today in some of the episodes
and examples that you mentioned.
Journalists coming out there, you know, rescuing people
on their own and so forth.
And I mean it's -- Look.
A lot of news coverage is ratings driven.
And this is one way to help drive the ratings is to --
If you have the dramatic rescue and the heroic journalist out there.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
There was a question on this side.
Yes?
>> Speaker 5: yeah.
So I'm a folklorist and folklorists are actually quite interested
in fake news for a number of reasons.
The American Folklore Society meeting is in two weeks,
and we have four organized panels on fake news.
>> Joseph Campbell: Fantastic.
Listen. If you need a last minute replacement,
I'd be happy to step in.
>> Speaker 5: But the --
So my interest here is that I find it's true with fake news
that often even though -- Whether or not you want to include intention
as part of the definition of fake news, it's often the case
that someone's agenda is being served by the fake news story,
whether it's the source and the reporter's just a dupe
or whether it's the reporter.
I mean -- And this is true both in very specific cases
like [inaudible] Pizza was aimed at the election,
but also in general cases.
I mean I think that in the case of New Orleans there's an agenda
of sort of [inaudible] conservatives to say, "If the police were unable
to help you for five minutes,
everyone would loot and you'd be murdered."
And there's also an agenda of rapists
to say black people are always looting and raping.
And you see this.
You -- All the footage of alleged rapists and looters were black,
even though those people weren't really doing what was being claimed.
So I think you can often find these kinds
of agendas underlying the stories even if they're not the agendas
of the reporters themselves.
Can you comment on that?
>> Joseph Campbell: Sure.
Comment about the agendas that may be behind,
lurking behind, fake news.
In the case of New Orleans post Katrina the agenda --
Some of the most lurid tales about violence and mayhem
and so forth were coming from the mayor and the police commissioner,
the most senior authorities in the city
who journalists would be I guess excused for thinking that they were
in positions to know what they're talking about.
I mean it's not like journalists were following up
and pressing them on, "Okay.
Where did you get this information, Mister Mayor?"
Because he was saying 10,000 were going to be, you know --
the death toll would be 10,000 in New Orleans,
which would be just staggering.
It was about a tenth or so of that, but anyway their agenda --
The police commissioner also was putting out lurid tales
about little babies being raped in the Superdome and stuff like that.
His reasoning he said later was that he didn't want to be held --
He didn't want people to think that he was covering anything up
or withholding information.
Therefore he was pushing everything that he heard, including rumors
and lurid tales of violence that were unconfirmed --
just pushing them out in to the media because he didn't want
to think that people were --
that he could later be accused of covering things up.
Within a month or so he had lost his job, and the mayor finally --
Although he was reelected, he was later indicted and convicted
on corruption charges and is now a federal prisoner.
Not related to Hurricane Katrina, but I think sort of speaks
to the quality of public officials in New Orleans at that time.
So they were pushing an agenda for sure.
Absolutely.
And I think that there probably was an unspoken agenda
that the journalists were pushing too, that we can expect
that this kind of thing would happen in a largely black city.
There were columnists for the "Washington Post" who pointed
that out in the immediate aftermath of the coverage of the lurid
and exaggerated coverage.
And I think they were right.
Absolutely right.
One more question?
Yes, sir? You were very eager.
[ Inaudible ]
How much time do we have?
We could -- This is it?
Okay. Okay.
Make it a good one.
Hardball here.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Joseph Campbell: The question has to do with fake
or spurious quotations that run rampant on the internet.
That's for sure.
The internet can be a good way to debunk if belatedly some
of these lurid and exaggerated tales and bogus quotations among them.
The Monticello site has also a page devoted to phony quotes attributed
to Thomas Jefferson, and it is the first item that if you do a search
for Jefferson quotes, that's the first return on Google.
Fortunately.
So I guess the algorithms were working well in that case.
But some of these tales are just so bizarre that you almost --
So bizarre that maybe they are true.
One of my favorite Jefferson quotes was --
And you may appreciate this because of the agenda behind it.
It's that -- Says that Jefferson in 1781 said,
"Some of my finest hours have been spent
on my back veranda smoking hemp and watching as far as I can see."
There is no evidence in his papers, his letters, his speeches,
his correspondence which was voluminous,
that he ever smoked hemp.
They made hemp at Monticello for clothes
and for rope and things like that.
It wasn't really smokable quality, I don't think.
And he himself was not a smoker, Monticello says.
There are no accounts of any of his many visitors
to Monticello ever seeing Jefferson lighting up.
You know, they grew tobacco there, but he never smoked it.
He never smoked hemp.
And yet this quotation -- It's one of my favorites, actually.
Appears to have been born digitally.
It was made up somewhere early in the digital era,
and has been used as an example of, "Okay.
If Jefferson smoked hemp, then why lot legalize marijuana?"
In fact, Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate for president,
not this most recent time, but his -- 2012?
In 2012 he was on a talk show and invoked this quotation.
Didn't Jefferson say that he liked to smoke hemp?
And as an example of, okay, third president and one
of the founding fathers and author of the "Declaration
of Independence" smoked hemp.
Then it's good enough for us, right?
So there is an agenda behind that, and it's one of these quotes
that you just find on Twitter all the time.
There is no, no attempt to knock it down or to say, "This is bogus."
But it is quite clearly.
And there are many others.
I mean great men and women are often -- who are deceased are --
Great quotes are put in to their mouths
and they never ever said these things.
And Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, you know, you name it,
George Washington, there are lots of phony quotes attributed
to these famous people of the past.
And that's one way these famous quotes or these bogus quotes live
on by attachment to famous people.
>> Speaker 6: One case with Washington is something
from a newspaper in the '30s that quoted [inaudible] and then
in the next sentence editorializing about gun rights,
but those two sentences [inaudible].
>> Joseph Campbell: They get mashed together,
and then lesser known people who made a comment,
it sort of gets transferred to the likes of Lincoln
or Jefferson or Einstein.
I mean they're out there.
There are people who like, you know, follow this stuff.
And one of the best debunking sites that I know and I encourage you
to check out is called Quote Investigator.
And he does a fine job of debunking bogus quotations.
And he has a presence on Twitter.
It's social media, and it's refreshing to see that kind
of debunking done of bogus spurious quotes.
>> Speaker 7: [Inaudible] bring this discussion to an end unfortunately,
but let's thank Joe one more time.
>> Joseph Campbell: Thank you.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
Thanks, everybody.
A great audience.
Thank you for your fine questions.
>> Speaker 1: This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.
Đăng ký:
Đăng Nhận xét (Atom)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét