Making Sense of a Senseless Act

Before we knew a single thing about the man who killed five people including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, and gravely wounded a Democratic congresswoman, the blogosphere and social media were adding 2 plus 2 and getting 22.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) was on a “hit list” of congressional seats “targeted” by Sarah Palin’s political action committee, for her vote on health care reform.  The PAC even put out a map of the U.S. with little crosshairs over the districts the Republicans vowed to take back. So it was an easy leap to make: “The attacker must be some wacko who took Sarah Palin’s hit list too literally.”

I quickly flipped on CNN to see if this narrative was part of the mainstream coverage.   CNN was being cautious.  Anchor Martin Savidge approached the subject only in the most oblique way, at one point asking Congressman Jerry Nadler, “Do you think in any way the national discussion and the national temperament could have weighed into what happened?”

Nadler picked up on the intimations, answering, “I certainly hope that people who are thinking of making intemperate or violent statements will think twice and that we will remember that in politics we have no enemies.”

This what I like to call a “classic paralipsis* moment” for the news media.  It usually takes the form of some variation of “it would be irresponsible to speculate, but if we had to speculate…”

With all news media on a 24-hour news cycle, no one thinks they can wait for facts anymore before taking a guess on what is often unknowable.   In fact, reporters know if they jump to a conclusion, and they happen to jump to the right conclusion, they can pat themselves on the back for being a great journalist, and their bosses will think them prescient.

But it wasn’t long until we began to learn a little about the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, who seems to be a paranoid government-hater.  There’s nothing to suggest he’s motivated by the level of partisan political discourse.

But even if he had said on his Facebook page he was committing this horrific crime in the name of Sarah Palin, she would be no more responsible for his actions than Al Gore was for the gunman who took hostages at the Discovery Channel.  (He cited “An Inconvenient Truth” as one of his inspirations, and his extreme environmentalist views motivated his attack.)

It wasn’t long before this became the dominant theme, even as news outlets like The Washington Post admitted there are no hard facts to determine the motivation:

[Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tucson: Did it stem from state of political discourse? — Washington Post — Dec 8, 2010]

The non-confirming confirmation

There was another illustration of sloppy journalism, when NPR reported Giffords had died.  That was based on bad information, but even worse was CNN’s “confirmation” of the NPR report.

A CNN breaking news e-mail attributed the report of Giffords’ death to a single law enforcement source, but initially CNN never gave any attribution on the air.  It just kept reporting that CNN had “confirmed” the congresswoman had died.

Eventually contributor Mike Brooks came on the air to say the information came from his law enforcement sources.

The problem is with the word “confirm.”  That’s a very strong word.  Confirm means to state with assurance a fact is accurate or true.

CNN did not, in fact, confirm the report.  It had information from a law enforcement source, who obviously did not have direct information.  To confirm information, you have to talk to someone who knows the information.  Otherwise what you have is secondhand “unconfirmed reports.”  That’s what CNN had.  And that’s what it claimed was confirmation.  And that was a lapse of journalism standards.

For my journalism students, here are the lessons:

1. It’s not the number of sources that counts, it’s the quality of the source.

2. Your source has to have direct, firsthand information to be a “confirming” source.

3.  Even if you have no reason to think your source is wrong, attribute, attribute, attribute.   Unless YOU know it firsthand, attribute your information.  If it comes from law enforcement, say that.  If it comes from a hospital spokesman, say that. If it comes from the family, say that.

4. Do not report someone has died unless you know it for a fact.

*paralipsis: noun: Drawing attention to something while claiming to be passing over it.