This week, Griffin shares five points on how to report- and listen to- the news. What should you be looking for in reliable journalism? Do you understand the message being delivered, and is it verifiable? What to look for, what to look past, and what to think twice about, on this week’s episode of Inside Reproductive Health with Griffin Jones.
Transcript
Griffin Jones 00:00
If you have a friend who is he or she that you argue with a lot, and they present to you information from new sources, media sources that they follow that you're thinking, How the heck can you not see the bias that they're leading to you. And here is how you are going to get that person to at least see a little more clearly, you're going to be able to do this a lot more effectively than winning any kind of argument against them. And hopefully, you apply it to yourself to. So instead of telling someone the bias in whatever information that they're absorbing, give them this checklist. I'm going to give you this checklist, I apply it to myself as a news viewer, I hope you apply it to yourself before you check anyone else's bias.
This is an ode to a journalism professor that I had 20 years ago, this is long before I ever thought about doing any kind of journalistic endeavor. I only took one broadcasting course in college, I think, and the this course taught me how to report the news, it was teaching students how to report even though I knew that wasn't going to be my career, I used it on how to view the news. And I contacted my professor Ron grave after 15 plus years of having taken one class within one semester, sure that he didn't remember me in retirement, and contacted him. I think two years ago, even before we started positioning inside reproductive health as a media company, before we started doing anything with news coverage for inside reproductive health, I just wanted to use it to have as the viewer and to be able to immortalize his lessons in some way. So the checklist that I came up with is inspired by the teaching lessons that Professor graves taught us on how to report the news, I think is very valuable for how to watch the news. He called his teaching lessons on the one hand, and he would also say, on the other hand, and I think the other hand, is actually the reason for the one hand the other hand, is that perhaps there's no such thing as pure objectivity. But the one hand gives us some rules that we can get a lot closer than we otherwise would. This is part of inside reproductive health editorial style guide, but you should use it for watching any kind of news that you normally watch local news, political news, maybe not sports and entertainment, because I don't think that's real news.
There are five items on our checklist. The first two are fairly self explanatory. The first is that it answers six basic questions who, what, where, why, when how? The second is that it has a clear point, what's the main message that the story is getting across the other three, I think can use a bit more explanation. The third is that it's clearly attributed exactly what source a piece of information came from. Example, according to a February 16 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, or the governor said on Tuesday, I remember in Professor graves class when we would report on something the city would say the city budget is going to be passed on Thursday, and he would say who says the budget is going to be passed on Thursday. How do you know that it's going to be passed on Thursday. Councilman Smith said it'd be passed on Thursday. Then say Councilman Smith says the city budget will be passed on Thursday. Fourth is that it fits into context of a bigger picture. It reports on trends, not anecdotes. We see a ton of anecdote reporting and contemporary media reports on trends and then it compares trends. It uses facts and figures, not man on the street interviews. Fifth is that it's free of flowery language and editorial judgments. There's no adverbs. Like chillingly alarmingly, tragically, there's no superlatives. It was the best it was the worst. There's no promotional items. It uses exact numbers or best estimates, we would say if there was a lot of people at the event, and Professor grave would say a lot. Like 40,000 was a no like 60. And he would say, then, say 60. And it's free of comments on how good or how bad something is. It lets the viewer the reader decide. I don't watch cable news, I don't consume most popular news sources. But at the gym, there's two different cable news channels on each one that reports how the other one only reports Bs and the tickers below them talk about one group of people's lies or this dastardly plan or this horrible event. The best of news reporting lets the viewer Have the reader designed for him or herself. So those are the five main points answer six basic questions has a clear point, it's clearly attributed fits into the context of the bigger picture. And it's free of flowery language and editorial judgments.
And while it's not in this checklist, Professor Greg would often talk about the other hand, what's left out from the basic answers to our six basic questions. Why was this the main point? What's the limiting principle for what's a given for a certain citation? We could say Abraham Lincoln was the 16th, President of the United States. According to the Smithsonian, there are some things that I read, as we're putting out, say, I don't think that that needs a citation. I I think that that is well established. But I don't know exactly what that limiting principle is. And I suspect that it varies. I don't know that there is one limiting principle for the context of how it fits into the bigger picture. Did we give Opposing Viewpoints? Sometimes there's not an opposing viewpoint of a postal worker shoots up is co workers. There's not an opposing viewpoint, for it's good to shoot up your co workers. But there is context that might be unanswered, if we're reporting on postal workers shooting up offices. How common is that? Actually, among postal workers? How common is that, among other professions? Is there a reason we're focusing on postal workers as opposed to others? There's a lot of questions about the context into which certain stories can fit with regard to being free of flowery language, we can eliminate adverbs or adjectives, we can do that pretty empirically. There's no adjectives here. There's no adverbs here, we try to all but eliminate them. So that makes that part easy. But you still have to have nouns and verbs.
What are that if I say this investment bank is a giant investment bank, they're a banking giant, that's still a little bit of a value judgment. They're one of the biggest in the world that's probably not too far of a reach or if someone's under investigation, do use the word probe do use the word targeted, when you're not sure if they're guilty or innocent. Scientists, many of you are scientists are meant to prioritize the unknown over the known you're meant to prioritize what you don't know over what you do know, journalists should do the same thing. They should prioritize what they don't know over what they do know. And some verbs might exonerate someone will be bending more in the direction of exonerating someone while some verbs might be bending more in the direction of condemning someone. And journalists aren't meant to do that.
And whatever the limiting principles are, for those types of noun and those types of verbs, I suspect isn't a categorical law, either that there's that there's some subjectivity that can't be avoided. Now that you have your checklist now that you know the limitations to the checklist, there's different rules for different types of media, not all forums or news media, the podcast isn't news reporting, our podcast isn't news reporting, I'm in a position right now that I think is ultimately a good one. I'm in both the editor seat and the sales seat right now. And it can be awkward when you're in the sales seat, having conversation about how you're going to help the advertiser reach our audience, increase their leads, and you're talking about sales and marketing.
And then in another seat in the editor, see, you might have to launch something that isn't the most flattering about them. Most of the time, it's neutral ish. A lot of times people don't like it when it's not in their marketing or PR control. But most of the time, it's just pretty neutral. At some point, it could be something that's pretty bad. And for that reason, I think it's good that I'm in the sales seat and the editor seat right now, because if I can build the media company to the standards of these editorial standards, while I'm still physically in both seats, having both of these different interactions with sometimes the same relationships, and that's a really good foundation for when they are different people in different departments that these folks are responsible for editing and programming.
These folks are responsible for sales and the media company is built on the values that the editorial standards cannot be compromised. I'm guardedly optimistic about that. It's a pious hope the only difference between a sinner and a saint is a pious hope but let me remark with regard to the same rules for certain forum like my podcast are different from news media. I said most things are neutral but if you and I both live long enough, something bad will happen in our field something real bad if you and I are both blessed enough to live long enough and inside reproductive health we'll have to report on it even if it's a very dear friend of mine, a dear friendship can't escape the obligation of the news but a dear friendship might benefit from the other media that we have example Dr. Trixie Bambino gets in huge trouble for a whole bunch of sexual allegations does Oh, A bunch of bad stuff. CEO Rocco McGillicutty embezzled from the company frauds, insurance, to frauds, shareholders steals patient money. Instead, reproductive health will have to report stories like that. But I will also have Dr. Bambino or Mr. McGillicuddy. On my show afterwards to give their perspective, I'd be hard on them if the facts are there, and they're on my show, but I will let people come on my show. So I'm letting you know that right now, there are standards for the news. And there's different standards for other types of news media, I'm letting you know where I'm at so that you can see my transparency.
I don't hold my own commentary. I don't hold the podcast. I don't hold articles that I write myself that aren't news articles to the same standard that I hold our journalists to our news reporting editorial standards, too. And when something like this happens not if you and I are both blessed to live long enough, and people say how could you do this? I'm going to point to this episode right here and say I give people platforms to speak. I'm Griffin Jones. Good night, and good luck.
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You've been listening to the inside reproductive health podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take action to make sure that your practice thrives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society. Visit fertility bridge.com To begin the first piece of the fertility marketing system, the goal and competitive diagnostic. Thank you for listening to inside reproductive health