Category archives: Government

Are journalists corporate spies?

David Herrera,

A thought experiment:

When journalists investigate private businesses for wrongdoing, or upcoming products, or rumors, etc., do they commit corporate espionage? By “corporate espionage” (or “industrial espionage”), I mean simply when one business attempts to obtain information about another business for competitive gain.

Journalists usually work for privately-held media. Learning about other companies helps journalists against their competition by spawning fresh, potentially exclusive, stories to go on their websites or into their newspapers.

  • Journalists could argue that they provide a public service.

    Probably, but:

    • That doesn’t necessarily cancel out their engaging in business-against-business intelligence work.

    • Couldn’t the businesses that journalists investigate also argue, under the dominant ideology in this country, that they provide a public service by offering goods in the marketplace? If so, do they contribute better public services than do journalists?

  • Journalists could argue that, if the corporation is clearly harming the public, then the journalist has a stronger moral claim to investigate them.

    But, journalists can’t know about the corporation’s harm until after their investigation. Their investigation could demonstrate that the reporter’s hunch was incorrect, in which case we would have to go back to whose public service was greater.

Does it matter whether journalists are considered corporate spies?

If journalists coordinated with law enforcement before investigating private businesses (given that we rely on the government to watch over business otherwise), thereby working on behalf of a public agency, would their work stop being corporate espionage? [1]

  1. E.g., the journalists in Dietemann v. Time, who coordinated with the Los Angeles District Attorney before investigating a quack doctor. ↩

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Robert McChesney on press subsidies

David Herrera,

I have lots of respect for Robert McChesney (see his “Labor and the Marketplace of Ideas: WCFL and the Battle for Labor Radio Broadcasting, 1927-1934”) but his recent interview on PBS’s NOW is almost embarrassing. He’s on the show to argue in support of increased subsidies for the press — which isn’t a terrible argument in itself, but surely it can be made without chanting, ad nauseum, “the Founding Fathers!”, “the Founding Fathers!”

Note also the irony in the message at the bottom of the video window: “Did you know? Viewers like you are our largest single source of support.”

(Thanks to Bob Moser for the link.)

On argumentation in reporting

David Herrera,

Perhaps I’m being unfair to journalists, or to writers in general, but I can’t understand how an article like “Labor Campaigns Against Tax on Health Plans,” in The New York Times, could make sense as a piece of writing trying to inform me of something.

Consider (what I think is) the article’s conclusion:

Having failed to persuade President Obama to scrap a proposed tax on high-cost health insurance policies, labor leaders took their case Tuesday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and they said they received a more favorable response.

“[Labor leaders] said they received a more favorable response [from Pelosi].” Shouldn’t this be an extraordinarily easy argument to prove? All I need is a to read a labor leader telling me how they were received by Obama, and how much better their reception from Pelosi was.

But what are we told about the reactions of “labor leaders”? Only Andrew Stern saying: “I love the House, and I love the speaker.”

By what rules of logic and argumentation can we reach the conclusion from Stern’s statement?

If no such rule exists, why should we believe what the article is arguing? Why couldn’t the article have simply featured a few quotes?

What upsets me is that the kind of logic on display seems to be common among journalists–those who describe their role as helping people know about what their government is doing. It frustrates me that what passes for political journalism is appears to be devoid of basic argumentative skill.

But, I can’t back up with data the feeling that this writing style is common. It is just memory talking. So, I would welcome arguments to the contrary.

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Differences between reporting and journalism

David Herrera,

George F. Snell recently argued that “reporting” is distinguishable from “journalism” in the following way:

Reporting: A 747 aircraft crashed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean yesterday.

Journalism: A review of maintenance reports of the 747 aircraft that crashed last month revealed that the airplane had a faulty engine parts. Reports indicate that airline management ignored warnings that the parts were malfunctioning.

Journalism is getting beneath the news. It’s investigation, analysis and thoughtful commentary. It’s in-depth expository reporting. And people are still willing to pay for good journalism. That’s why newspapers and magazines that have placed a premium on providing good journalism have done better — for the most part — than those that focused more on reporting (the Wall Street Journal and New York Times come to mind).

Whose journalism?

“It’s in-depth expository reporting.” How can journalism be different from reporting if it’s a particular form of reporting?

Setting that question aside, is it correct to say that Snell’s definition makes no assumptions as to who is investigating, analyzing, and commenting? If so, is it true that “people [I assume he's thinking primarily of Americans] are willing to pay for good journalism”? Were they ever willing to pay for it?

I present Exhibit A: the federal government. The government happens to have a Federal Aviation Administration, which, according to its Mission, “[issues] and [enforces] regulations and minimum standards covering manufacturing, operating, and maintaining aircraft.” The FAA issues reports on such matters. The Government Accountability Office also issues reports investigating, analyzing, and commenting on government activities, reports that news organizations generally find trustworthy [1].

Although it’s incorrect to say that federal agencies are the only groups capable of producing journalism (as Snell points out, the major newspapers and magazines do so as well), were we to support a higher taxation rate, of course, we would also be supporting for the invaluable journalism of the FAA, GAO, and others. But, I think I can just assert that Americans shudder at the word “taxes.” Is it then fair to assert that Americans are still willing to pay for good journalism? Or, does the question require additional clarification: Whose journalism?

Journalism and argument

Why is the distinction between journalism and reporting important? Is not the quality of a claim — its evidence and reasoning — more important than naming the species of the claim?

What if I were to tell you that a plane crashed outside my apartment yesterday. Would you believe me? Not unless you were given additional evidence, such as a quote from an airline official, or images from the scene. So long as a reader uses critical thinking skills, and thereby recognizing that some claims are more difficult to prove than others, shouldn’t we be discussing which kinds of claims are more important for us to preserve?

Notes

1. Here’s a report from The New York Times, which Snell approvingly cites, that uses a GAO report to add background to a story.

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A question of transparency

David Herrera,

Lawrence Lessig’s recent article Against Transparency and several subsequent responses [1] have stimulated my thinking quite a bit recently. I don’t feel qualified to say anything too significant or original about transparency because I’m new to the debates within the field. However, I have one immediate question.

First, let me briefly recap what attracts me to both Lessig’s argument and some of the responses to it.

Lessig worries about “naked transparency,” a term that is less than clear to me, but seems to represent those groups who advocate for releasing as much data to the public domain as possible, but who don’t have a plan for how the data can be most meaningfully used.

We know that most of us will not take the time to study the data and what they are capable of revealing to us. We will instead be myopic. We will allow the data to prove our conclusions and will not consider the ways in which we may be wrong. According to Lessig, the “naked transparency” movement ignores this reality. The data released in its name will be an trough for hyperbolic, irrational argument.

As several respondents noted, “naked transparency” as used in the article is basically a straw man. But perhaps more importantly, it’s not as if the level of hyperbolic, irrational argument is currently on the decline. Poor reasoning was here last year and it will be here next year. So, why should the constant misuse of data be relevant to whether more data are released? One instead hopes more data will increase, if only slightly, those times when someone presents a really strong argument to us.

Now, my question: Is there any empirical way to talk about the relationship between transparency and argument? As I understand the debate, one could assume there was a time before more transparency (BMT) and after more transparency (AMT). It would be nice if, in judging whether Lessig or his critics are correct, we could take the arguments BMT and compare them with the volume, or salience, or effect, or whatever, of arguments AMT. But how? And if we don’t have these empirical data available, does the transparency question thereby become philosophical — part of the debate about, say, the responsibilities of government?

As I said, this field is new for me. I would really appreciate your sharing of any good resources, books, or articles to help me understand the debate.

PS: Lessig responds to some of his critics in part by saying his argument is different from what I understood it to be: That some data are literally meaningless, or so complex as to be extremely difficult to understand, and these are the data that will be misused and that the “naked transparency” movement needs a plan to handle. For my part, I don’t really see the original article making this point, but I will assume he at least meant it. Regardless, is this question not also an empirical one? Which data are these uber-complex ones? How do we draw that distinction?

1. The articles I read in response to Lessig:

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