Fairness Has To Be An Effort

When writing a news story, reporters always have to make choices about which facts are most important and which phrasing is most accurate in delivering the information.

A primary example is when a reporter needs to tell readers why comments from a source important to a story aren’t included. Does it make a difference whether the story says that person “declined” to be interviewed or if the person “refused” to answer questions?

It makes a lot of difference as far as setting the tone for the interaction. If the source politely says “I’d rather not discuss it,” an argument for “declined” can certainly be made. But what if reporters have been trying for days to get the police chief of the Uvalde School District to answer questions the public has a right to expect and that chief continually evades requests for interviews? Maybe “refused” is the best description for what he’s doing. “Declined” is kinder and gentler. “Refused” is adamant, in your face.

Likewise, reporters covering, say, a speaker addressing a city council shouldn’t tell readers the orator was “angry.” Nobody can get in that person’s head and know their emotional state. But the reporter can accurately write that the speaker pounded his fist on the lectern, that his face turned red as his voice grew louder and that he slammed the door on the way out of the meeting. Was that anger? The reader can decide that for themselves.

I thought about some of those reporting lessons last week as I read stories about the U. S Supreme Court, which had a really newsworthy few days as it approaches its recess until a new term in October. The stories I’m talking about covered the court’s decision regarding New York’s law on whether people there can carry a gun in public.

As many news stories did, a reporter could have written that the Supreme Court justices expanded gun rights. That’s certainly how critics of the decision described the ruling.

Another way to report it might have been that the Supreme Court invalidated a law that limited the rights of U.S. citizens outlined in the U.S. Constitution. Supporters of unencumbered gun rights via the Second Amendment would undoubtedly prefer that wording, since it supports the notion that the right existed but was trampled on by the limits New York placed on the vaunted law-abiding citizen.

Perhaps the most accurate way to say it was that the Supreme Court invalidated a New York law that requires people to demonstrate a particular need before the state would issue a license to carry a gun in public. Then let the court’s ruling and the opposing sides cast the constitutional implications in whatever ways they choose.

Does any of that matter to the average reader? I think so. One of the fair expectations of news reporters is that they do their best to deliver the facts, including the various arguments from the differing sides. At least in a general circulation newspaper, readers ought to expect straightforward reporting.

Reporters don’t always get it perfect, but they work at it.

One of the biggest challenges they face, however, are readers who, for one reason or another, have come to believe no coverage is fair unless it only serves to confirm their own beliefs or, at the least, doesn’t offer any perspective that might challenge what they believe. And undoubtedly there are plenty of publications in this media-saturated world willing to cater to a particular worldview. Indeed, their business models rely on their “slant.”

I’m not saying their coverage can’t provide valuable information but relying only on “echo chamber” sources is a surefire way to become intolerant, misinformed and, potentially, misled.