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Lynn Walsh-When ‘The Public Loses at the End of the Day’
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Tuesday, October 3, 2017
 

STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The feud between President Trump and NFL players protesting social injustice has turned the spotlight on First Amendment rights.

Some say it’s un-American for the players to take a knee. Others say it’s un-American to say players cannot express their freedom of speech by protesting.

The time couldn’t have been more prime for a conversation about the First Amendment and the freedom of the press in America between constitutional scholar David Adler and Lynn Walsh, president for the Society of Professional Journalists and a member of the national Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee.

The two explored everything from Sinclair’s manipulation of the news to Artificial Intelligence reporters at the third annual Conversations with Exceptional Women held recently at Ketchum’s Community Library.

Freedom of the press has been under attack for the past nine months as high ranking officials in the Trump administration have accused the press of creating fake news, undermining what’s printed in newspapers, noted Adler. And the White House deleted climate change information from its websites minutes after Trump became president.

“We don’t know where that information went. Yet, it’s your information,” said Walsh, noting that lawsuits have been filed to retrieve the information.

Journalists had to fight to keep press briefings after White House staffers announced the Trump administration would quit holding them. But news organizations got briefings reinstated with the caveat that they couldn’t record them with audio or video—a practice that is unacceptable, Walsh said.  Journalists have also had to fight to cover the President’s travels.

“It’s not that I as a journalist want to follow Trump everywhere he goes. But, when journalists are not allowed to follow the President, that means that you’re not following the President,” she said. “Then we just get propaganda—what he wants to tell you. If you want to live in a society where you have free information, you need to allow journalists access to public officials.”

There’s always been an adversarial relationship between journalists and politicians, noted Adler. What’s new is the physical violence being directed towards journalists, along with threats against journalists on social media. Such attacks are designed to undermine journalists so the public won’t believe the stories they print.

“That’s the description behind authoritarianism,” he said.

Walsh said she has been shocked by how so much of the public seem okay with assaults against reporters. Among them: Montana tech millionaire and Congressman Greg Gianforte, who slammed a reporter to the ground breaking his glasses for asking a question about health care.

“Leaders in other countries are watching what’s happening here,” she warned. “They’re saying: If journalists are not allowed to cover things as they used to in the United States, it’s okay for us to restrict freedom of press, as well.

“My concern is the role of press has been completely diminished and it reduces our power to dig in to injustices and misconduct,” she added. “Do we want to live in a country where people are held accountable? Or, do we want to live in a country where everything comes from the top down?”

Walsh said her organization has been pushing technology companies to change algorithms to steer people to real, rather than fake, news.

If you want to question how credible an article is, look at the url address. An ‘ABC.co.com,’ for instance, should raise concerns.

“Look also at the grammar. If you don’t see commas and periods where they should be, that’s a huge red flag. Yes, copyeditors are limited but not that limited,” Walsh said.

Agency leaders are trying to control information with public information officers, which are really just public relations people, Walsh said. Not only do they fund podcasts, which are often nothing but propaganda, but increasingly they’re standing between their CEOs and journalists.

“I used to be able to get the mayor of San Diego on the phone. I can hardly do that anymore—I always get a staff member, instead,” said Walsh, who leads the NBC 7 Investigates team in San Diego.

“That’s problematic because a go-between often can’t get you the information you need as quickly. And a PR person can’t usually explain the science as well as, say, the researcher. The information you get is not as good—it’s been diluted all the way down. The public loses at the end of the day because the information they get is not as accurate, not as complete. Or maybe you just can’t get it at all.”

Walsh noted that some organizations, such as the Sinclair Broadcast Group--the largest television broadcasting company in the country, have forced stations to air more pro-conservative stories masqueraded as news to please advertisers. News organizations are not being forced to pull stories that might upset advertisers as much as they used to, she said.

Walsh noted that the Washington Post used Heliograf, a software application utilizing artificial intelligence, to cover the House, Senate and gubernatorial races during the past election. It can scroll through the news of the day, much as copy editors scroll through Associated Press news, and pick certain stories to share on social media.

This summer the newspaper launched ModBot to filter comments, flag stories that require monitoring and approve or delete online comments according to the newspaper’s discussion policy.

“Ideally, what happens is that journalists follow up on these stories to add to the content,” Walsh said. “But with fewer reporters in newsrooms, not every story can be told the old-fashioned way.”

Journalists are sometimes characterized as uncaring, unfeeling pit bulls that will stop at nothing to get a story. Yet “journalists are among the most self-scrutinizing of the professions I know. Why?” Adler asked.

“We have to be because at the end of the day we’re doing stories that could harm people’s reputations,” Walsh replied. “We’re always weighing how we can minimize harm with the public’s right to know. And, in some cases, we’re interviewing people who are sharing their most private moments with us. We have to be sensitive.”

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