In one of the weirder sci-fi novels of all time, Stranger in a Strange Land, author Robert Heinlein introduced a social innovation. One of the book’s characters holds a special designation as the “fair witness.” By way of demonstration, someone asks the fair witness what color a particular house is. She answers by naming the color on the side of the house she can see. Most people would say “The house is blue” or “The house is white,” but Heinlein’s fair witness only describes what she can count on, which is the visible side. It’s an interesting idea to ponder.
Donald Trump has been elected president for a second time. His first term met with media opposition greater than anyone has seen in recent memory. The Washington Post went so far as to adopt the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” In explaining his decision for the Post to withhold any presidential endorsement this year, owner Jeff Bezos pointed to a decline in public trust as a major problem for outlets such as his. Trump is back. Will the media double down or take the opportunity to regain lost trust and once again become indispensable to public discourse?
Why has the credibility of media fallen so much? And how can it be restored? We could tell the tale of how mainstream media now cater to a variety of worldviews. We could describe the way audiences now instinctively gravitate toward those that confirm their opinions, but that doesn’t say enough. If the journalist class ever could do what Fox News claims to do—“We report, you decide.”—it appears to be dwindling. How much news is really news rather than an exercise in performing a one-sided analysis, drawing biased conclusions, and manipulating the emotional reactions of the audience?
While there is certainly room for analysis and drawing conclusions in the media and among journalists, we need to find a way to build up the more modest but absolutely vital activity of reporting. How many reporters could operate the way Heinlein’s fair witness does? How many can resist the temptation to place themselves as a kind of hero in a story telling us what it all means instead of just telling us what was said or what happened? Richard Nixon might have been ahead of the curve when he requested after his defeat in California’s 1962 governor’s race that the media assign just one lone journalist who would report what the candidates actually said.
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