Teeming with Lies
by Davis Bitton

One of the “primary sources” historians use are newspapers.  How reliable are they?  What are the cautions that should be exercised when quoting them?

News is one thing, according to a long-standing distinction, and editorials another.  On the editorial page and in columns one found opinion.  It might be thoughtful and worthy of all acceptation, or it might be immature and poorly informed.  But at least it was identified as opinion.

The news, on the other hand, is supposedly factual.  “Just give us the facts, Ma’am, nothing but the facts.”  We hear Sergeant Joe Friday trying to get solid information instead of a babble of emotion.  News articles, one supposed, contained a straightforward, unbiased recital of what happened.  In journalism classes (no longer fashionable) students were instructed to start a news report by answering the “W” questions: Who?  What?  When?   Where?.  Why? is also a “W” question, but it might require more than surface investigation.

The distinction between factual news and editorial opinion was never fully maintained.  Some reporters and some papers earned a reputation for reliability and thoroughness.  Others didn’t even pretend to seek such a goal.

What do you think of the accuracy and adequacy of the press now?   The present coverage of news, it seems to me, is an instructive laboratory.  From it we can learn a great deal that should help in evaluating the same kinds of sources in the past.

The two American newspapers that are given an authority above all others are the New York Times and the Washington Post.  I have never understood this.  Who made this decision?  I don’t remember casting a vote.  Why should not the Christian Science Monitor or the Baltimore Sun have equal credence?  Or the Washington Times and the Deseret News?  Are we so lacking in ability to sift and compare that we have to rely on one or two privileged sources of information?

As everyone knows, or should know, both the two major newspapers have been scandal-ridden.  Reporters have been fired for making up stories.  At least one editor was forced to resign.  But the problems run deep and will not be easily solved, perhaps never solved.

Put yourself in the position of a newspaper editor.  Consider the power you have.  First is the selection of what to include, what stories to cover.  You can’t do it all, and so you select.  Then comes the question of who writes the story.  Do you have a reporter on the scene or do you simply draw from a news service?  In either case, how reliable is the reporter?  Do you have any checks?  Any desire to get another point of view?

Eric M. Johnson, a U.S. Marine Corps reservist, back from serving in Iraq, comments about one of these reporters and one specific situation being reported.  Johnson contrasts what he witnessed with the inaccurate, agenda-drive reporting of 31-year-old Rajiv Chandrasekaran,  bureau chief for the Washington Post in Baghdad.  “Chandrasekaran showed up in the city of Al Kut last April, talked to a few of our officers, and toured the city for a few hours. He then got back into his air-conditioned car and drove back to Baghdad to write about the local unrest.” 

Given the influence of the Post, the extent to which other newspapers simply reprint its articles or base their own on the same leads, Johnson’s frank evaluation is not reassuring.

Once you have decided which stories to cover and which reporter to rely on, you, as editor, decide where to place it.  Will it go on the front page or at the bottom of page four?

Especially important, you or someone you select writes the headline.  Capturing the reader’s attention seems to be the most important requirement.  Try a simple exercise.  Read a news article and then write your own headline, comparing it to the one printed.  The habitual slanting and distortion of our newspapers is readily discerned.

What is the bias or the world view of the editors and reporters?  Can we imagine that this has any influence on the selection of stories and the way they present news?   If the answer to this question isn’t obvious, you might start by reading Bernard Goldberg’s two books Bias and Arrogance.

Writing to John Norvell on 11 June 1807, Thomas Jefferson was not complimentary to the papers of his day.  “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,” Jefferson wrote.  “Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.  The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.  I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time.”

This sounds pretty extreme.  Would we be better off without newspapers?  Should we believe nothing we read?  Should historians ignore them?  I wouldn’t go that far.
 Even Jefferson admits that we can learn of major events.  “General facts may indeed be collected from them,” he writes, “such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, etc., etc.; but no details can be relied on.”  Okay then.  A Senate committee meets, takes testimony, and makes a report.  I can probably rely on those three facts.  But I have a right to be suspicious about the way the findings are presented.

As a historian, I like to use old newspapers for their advertisements, showing what was being marketed to our ancestors in 1900 or 1870.
 I like to read the editorials.  These writers, often of strong views, were reacting to events of their day.  Whether I agree or disagree with their opinions, it is important to know what they thought.

I like letters to the editor.  To a degree they give us access to some views of ordinary people.  For Mormon history, published letters from missionaries in the field can be very useful  But they are not a scientific sampling.  If you have ever written such a letter, you discover that your letter may or may not be printed.  It may be shortened, corrected, or even rewritten.

Newspapers sometimes print speeches or reports or even judicial proceedings.  It may be  of some interest to have a reporter summarize what John Taylor said in general conference, but, knowing the spin he may place on it, I prefer to read the address for myself.  We can be grateful that many primary documents are preserved because they were printed by newspapers.

But there is no avoiding that built-in human trait we call bias.  Knowing the disposition of some of my contemporaries, I do not trust them when they write about the Latter-day Saints.  I refer to journalists who look down on religion in general, despise Christians, and consider Mormons to be bizarre creatures from outer space.

Am I being unfair in this depiction?  It is scarcely surprising that such people spend little time reading and interviewing.  If they do interview people, they often get most of their information from a half dozen ex-Mormons or Mormon-watchers with a huge ax to grind.  Since the writers and their informers see Mormons as freaks and weirdos, why should they treat them sympathetically?

 
When Salt Lake City was host city for the Winter Olympics in early 2002, reporters from throughout the world descended on us.   Appropriately, they focused their attention on the athletes and the events, but some also wrote background articles about the local culture.  Thanks to organized efforts to supply information and facilitate interviews, many of the resulting articles were interesting and accurate.  But a reporter from the Washington Post--are we surprised?-- said he was interested in one thing--Mormon underwear.  He wrote a long article on the subject.  He thought he was being cute and clever.

Some writers probably think they are being generous in seeing religion and its devotees as humorous rather than evil, although the distinction is often blurred.

Are we then to assume that newspapers of the past looked at the Mormons. 

dispassionately?  For many years, the Salt Lake Tribune was frankly anti-Mormon.   I open this paper at random in its issues of the 1880s.  I am interested in the territorial legislature.  I want to know what bills were presented, what speeches were given, what was passed.  The Tribune treats this legislature as a pack of clowns.  Everything is ridiculed.

What about general conference.  Any presumption that readers might have wished to know what was actually said is swept aside.  What is served up to them is, once again, the giggling, smirking description by a reporter who just thinks Mormons so absurd as to be off the map. 

Such coverage might be good fun.  For those who share the same views, jokes on the late-night talk shows can be hilarious.  But don’t call it news coverage.

During the 1840s, Illinois newspapers published articles about the Mormons at Nauvoo.  Were they accurate?  These editors tended to see the Saints as an economic, political, and religious threat.  Would such journalists threat the Mormons dispassionately or sympathetically?  Did they take the time to investigate the subject thoroughly?  Some current anti-Mormons gather quotations from anti-Mormon newspapers in the past and claim to be presenting solid primary evidence.   Are you suspicious of such a claim?  I am.

“The newspapers of the United States are teeming with all manner of lies, abusing the Saints of the Most High, and striving to call down the wrath of the people upon His servants.”  This comment is found in the Joseph Smith History for June 1841.  In view of the attitude of most current journalists to things religious, I find that statement perfectly plausible.

I read and use newspapers.  They are not all the same.  Within any given newspaper there are weak, biased, slanted articles as well as articles full of good information.  In studying the past, we can and should use newspapers.  Often they identify events that can be verified from other sources.  Or they report something that we have no reason to doubt.  Comparing two or more newspapers’ account of the same event is often highly instructive.   At the very least, they tell us what their readers were being fed.

But newspapers should be used with caution.  One should read critically, asking probing questions.  Who is the writer?  Is he describing what he observed?  What is her source of information?  What is the bias of the writer?  Why did he or she select and present the information in this way?  It always helps to find corroborative documents or additional witnesses.

Like all things human, newspapers have their strengths and their limitations.  Good historians know this.