Everyone likes to see themselves at their best and fears that others see them at their worst.
For journalists, those extremes are on vivid display this month on movie screens and our Twitter feeds.
The ideal of journalism, of people striving to find the truth and report it without intimidation from the powerful, is the engine that drives “The Post,” a new movie directed by Steven Spielberg that’s arriving in time for Oscar-season consideration. (It opens in major markets on Dec. 22 and everywhere else — including in Salt Lake City — on Jan. 12.)
“The Post” takes viewers inside the newsroom of The Washington Post in June 1971, when its rival, The New York Times, began publication of leaked documents detailing the history of the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1967 and how a succession of U.S. presidents lied to the public and Congress about objectives, tactics and outcomes. These documents became known as “The Pentagon Papers.”
The film shows how the Post’s irascible editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), played catch-up with the Times, dispatching reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) to get more documents from analyst Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), who provided the top-secret material to the Times.
But when a judge orders the Times to stop publishing its stories, Bradlee and the Post try to publish their own information. This puts the paper in a constitutional battle with the Nixon administration, forcing the Post’s publisher, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep), to jeopardize her family’s business to fight for what’s right.
“The Post” (for which I will write a full review later, when the movie is released) is the sort of movie that journalists consume like catnip. It shows us our heroes engaged in the good fight, learning the truth and reporting it as accurately and as fairly as they can. It also reminds everyone that this kind of journalism can make enemies — in this case, Richard Nixon — and standing up to them is the most important thing we do.
The reality of journalism is usually not as exciting as the movies, or as pretty. Sometimes it can get rather ugly.
In the past two weeks, reporters at three major news outlets had incidents where they had to retract or correct a story about Donald Trump:
In this Nov. 16, 2015 photo provided by ABC, correspondent Brian Ross speaks on "Good Morning America," which airs on the ABC Television Network, in New York. ABC has suspended investigative reporter Ross Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017, for four weeks without pay for the network’s incorrect Michael Flynn report on Friday. (Fred Lee/ABC via AP)
• A Dec. 1 report by ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross incorrectly cited a source, a confidant of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, saying that Trump as a candidate told Flynn to contact Russian officials during the campaign. ABC issued a correction, which said that source said Trump didn’t give that order until he was president-elect. ABC also gave Ross a four-week suspension, without pay.
• CNN published a correction after a Dec. 8 report about Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. receiving access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks. The CNN report said the Trumps received an email with the access information on Sept. 4, 2016, but the correction said they received it on Sept. 14, 2016 — an important difference, because WikiLeaks made the documents public on Sept. 13, so the Trumps weren’t getting access before everyone else did.
• On Dec. 9, Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel apologized for a tweet he sent (and deleted 20 minutes later) of a photo inside the Pensacola, Fla., arena where Trump held a campaign-style rally. The photo, Weigel learned too late, was taken hours before the rally, so didn’t show how many people were there.
In all three instances, Trump tweeted an angry response, used the phrase “fake news” and demanded people be fired or sued or investigated.
When reporters screw up, there are people ready to pounce, to decry the media as a whole — and people’s trust in the news and those who report it takes a hit.
The Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, released a study last week that found public trust in the media has actually gone up since Trump took office, with 49 percent of respondents having “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence in the media’s fairness and accuracy. That’s the highest rate since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Within the study, though, are some troubling numbers. Poynter found 44 percent of Americans believe the media sometimes make up stories about Trump. Also, 31 percent agree with Trump that the press is an “enemy of the people,” and 25 percent think it would be OK for the government to block news stories from being published — something the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Pentagon Papers case depicted in “The Post,” ruled is unconstitutional.
No reporter likes to write a correction. It’s embarrassing, humiliating and infuriating — and, if they’re too big or too frequent, career-threatening. But they happen, because we’re human beings and sometimes make mistakes.
Corrections are not evidence, as partisan critics of the media would argue, of the press lying or deceiving the public. On the contrary, they are the most obvious proof that the system works. Corrections show journalists being as transparent as possible and putting everything, even our faults, out where everyone can see.
