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The Federalist
I’m Shocked,
Shocked To Find Liberal Bias At This Major Journalism Conference
By Kelsey Harkness
July 5, 2016
In June, I had the honor of attending one of the top journalism
conferences in the country, if not the world. For three days, I rubbed
shoulders with reporters from places such as The New York Times, USA
Today, and ProPublica.
Call me naïve, but I expected to learn about fairness, integrity, and
hard work. This means giving equal weight to politically divisive
issues such as gun rights, women’s health, and policing. Instead,
during some training sessions I watched top professionals in their
fields encouraging political bias against conservatives before
reporters’ pens could even hit paper.
Bias at a lefty news organization would be expected, and the same for
those on the Right. (For full transparency, I am employed at a news
organization that is openly affiliated with the conservative Heritage
Foundation.) But to preach political bias at a conference that
represents the gold standard in journalism is alarming, and is
something that we, as journalists, have a duty to address.
The purpose of the 2016 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference
was to share investigative journalism tips and tricks from one reporter
to another. The concept behind the conference is selfless: fellow
journalists openly share their most successful secrets so we
competitors in the field can come together for the greater cause.
Attendees could choose from more than 100 sessions with hundreds of
speakers representing a diversity of topics.
To be clear, only a select few appeared politically charged. But those
that were reflect a dangerous outlook for the future of journalism, and
it’s time they were called out.
Two panels in particular caught my attention. The first was called “How
to investigate the war on women’s health.”
The ‘War on Women’s Health’
“How to investigate the war on women’s health” is described publicly
online as such:
How to investigate the war on women’s health
Speakers: Hannah Levintova (Mother Jones), Molly Redden (The Guardian
US, formerly Mother Jones), Nina Martin (ProPublica)
In the first quarter of 2016, state lawmakers introduced more than
1,000 restrictions on sexual and reproductive health—more than 400
related to abortion alone. This election season, this conflict will
rage on and will touch millions of lives. That’s why this realm is ripe
for investigative reporting. A panel of reporters and editors who cover
this beat will offer advice on how to dig deeper on reproductive
rights. They’ll discuss intersections with other beats, the unique
challenges of interviewing sources on either side of a stark
ideological divide, and best practices for researching the major
players involved—the donors, lobbyists, scientists, and politicians.
For starters, “The war on women’s health” has no basis in fact. The
language assumes lawmakers deliberately aim to harm women, which is an
extremely bad-faith assumption. There is no proof of this malevolent
design, either. Further, according to a May 2016 Rasmussen poll, only
25 percent of likely U.S. voters believe a “war on women” even exists.
Yet a top journalism nonprofit organization adopts this language and
uses it to teach young journalists how to cover the area of women’s
health. Then, organizers of the conference extended panelist
invitations only to journalists from outlets such as Mother Jones who
unabashedly support this premise.
This is deeply troubling for a number of reasons. Conference organizers
could have chosen any issue in the world to train and equip young
journalists to cover. The ones that they do pick send the message to
reporters and editors in newsrooms nationwide: these are the issues
that are worth your time.
One might ask, if we’re training young reporters to investigate
“abortion restrictions,” might they also investigate “abortion safety”?
And what about the other “millions of lives” that will be lost due to
abortion? Are those lives not worth investigating?
I don’t mean to discredit the important work that Mother Jones, The
Guardian, and ProPublica have done in the area of women’s health. But
in assembling this panel, IRE sends the message that only one political
view of women’s health care matters. Only one side of women’s health
care is worth investigating. In a country where only 29 percent of
Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances,
that message seems a bit unfair.
In May 2013, Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist who operated a late-term
abortion clinic in West Philadelphia, was convicted of first-degree
murder for killing multiple babies who were accidently born alive
during the procedures (by “snipping” their necks with scissors, no
less). He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for leaving
a 41-year-old refugee, Karnamaya Mongar, lying on an abortion table to
die. For these charges, and many more, Gosnell is now serving a life
sentence.
The media greatly failed in their duty to investigate or even report on
this case, where baby body parts were routinely shoved down the garbage
disposal “to the point where they plunged it one day and an arm popped
out.” This failure is generally accepted by media on both sides of the
aisle as fact.
After attending this conference, it became clear to me how we missed
such an atrocity. It made me reflect on what kind of responsibility
we—as journalists and editors—bear for allowing these atrocities to
happen sometimes, not even behind our backs.
Reporting on Guns
The second panel that failed to encourage the best journalism practices
was called “Reporting on guns.” The description, according to the IRE
website, is as follows:
Reporting on guns
Speakers: Lois Beckett (ProPublica), Ben Hallman (Huffington Post),
Mike McLively (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence), Jonathan Bullington
(The Times-Picayune)
With more guns than people in the U.S., you’d think there would be an
army of journalists covering every aspect of guns, from gun violence to
the business of guns to gun policy and everything in between. The
reality is, there are precious few journalism resources dedicated to
consistent coverage of guns. Most newsrooms only get involved when
there’s a mass shooting. Come hear from some of the best in the
business as we talk about how to cover guns and highlight recent
in-depth reporting on them. We aim to send you back to your newsroom
with story ideas you can execute right away, along with resources you
can use for the long haul.
In this case, the problem wasn’t with the premise of the panel, but
rather, the journalists invited to speak. Ben Hallman is a former
senior editor at The Huffington Post and current deputy editor for The
Trace, a nonprofit news organization funded by the the Joyce Foundation
and the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund (a gun-control advocacy
group that seeks to “unseat politicians who do the NRA’s bidding”).
Browsing The Trace and Hallman’s present and past portfolio, it’s clear
he has it out for the National Rifle Association.
The NRA, like any advocacy group, deserves to be held accountable. But
at a journalist conference organized by journalists, one might think
that you’d find a staunch Second Amendment supporter sitting next to
Hallman. Or, at least, someone who investigates the other side to the
gun debate.
If an organization preaching good journalism decides to invite an
advocate who represents the liberal side, that they should invite
someone from the other side.
Instead, accompanying Hallman on-stage was Mike McLively from the Law
Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
does some great work, but is a highly politicized organization that
advocates in favor of gun-control legislation, much of which groups
such as the NRA oppose.
If an organization preaching good journalism decides to invite an
advocate who represents the liberal side to the gun-control debate, it
should go without saying that they should invite someone from the other
side. Perhaps that’s why, when watching your TV at night, it’s so easy
to conclude that the majority of Americans support more gun control.
But a quick Google search of the polling reveals something much
different.
“While support for gun rights surpassed that of gun control in December
of last year, reaching a two-decade high, it has since fallen five
percentage points,” reads a 2015 Pew Research report. “Now 50 percent
say it is more important to control gun ownership, just slightly more
than the 47 percent who say it is more important to protect the right
of Americans to own guns.”
During the session on guns, Lois Beckett, the panelist who most fairly
represented both sides to the gun debate, asked attendees to raise
their hands if they thought the media were biased against conservatives
in their coverage of guns. The room went silent, with almost no one
raising a hand. Beckett, shocked, asked again. Instead of raising their
hands, the editors and reporters filling the room looked at one another
and laughed. They laughed because they all knew there is a liberal
bias, but to them, it’s funny. Nothing more.
If IRE truly seeks to help reporters understand these issues, the
organization needs to do better at including a ‘mix of voices.’
“We sometimes add experts to sessions if they’ve done research on a
topic or have information that can help the session,” Horvit said of
the decision to invite advocates such as McLively, adding: “For
example, we had a former police chief on a panel about policing, and
we’ve had judges and elected officials speak on sessions. While such
speakers almost certainly represent specific positions, the hope is
that the mix of voices adds to everyone’s understanding of an issue.”
A skewed panel like the one IRE hosted in June, however, runs the risk
of blinding up-and-coming journalists to an entire side of the gun
debate before they even get started. If IRE truly seeks to help
reporters understand these issues, the organization needs to do better
at including a “mix of voices.”
For the panel addressing the so-called “war on women’s health,” Horvit
admitted the title was “provocative,” but said “that is not an excuse”
for any bias that occurred. “I agree that in the future, we need to
look especially closely at both the focus and makeup of panels on
topics that cover politically charged issues,” Horvit said, suggesting
hope that next year, IRE leaders might look more critically at the
panels they compose.
To close the conference, attendees had the privilege of hearing from
the original Boston Globe “Spotlight” team, the group of investigative
reporters and editors who uncovered the Catholic church sex abuse
scandal. This meant having the honor of hearing from Marty Baron, who
led the original “Spotlight” team and now serves as executive editor of
The Washington Post. As he was on stage, Baron expressed frustration
about the current state of journalism, where the public now gets its
news from politically charged outlets that each has its own set of
facts. We can’t even agree on the facts anymore, Baron lamented.
After attending this conference, I gathered the problem goes far beyond
agreeing on the facts.
Read this and other articles at The Federalist
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