Don't let partisans dictate our terms

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A couple coincidences of timing this year provide valuable lessons and reminders for journalists.

As controversy over the irresponsible use of confidential sources by Robert Novak and Judith Miller was bringing disrepute to the practice of reporters granting confidentiality, Mark Felt’s family identified him as Deep Throat. We remembered the outstanding journalism and public service of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which couldn’t have been possible without granting confidentiality to sources.

As President Bush sought a Supreme Court nominee who would satisfy his conservative base’s desire for a “strict constructionist,” Rosa Parks’s remarkable life came to an end. Her story reminds us to be careful in accepting partisan labels in our reporting.

I will be presenting a workshop on accuracy this weekend in Nova Scotia. Much of it, of course, will focus on getting the facts right and verifying their accuracy. Now I’m going to rework my notes to make sure I stress that reporters not let partisans define the terms they use in their reporting. Using partisan terms can distort accuracy.

In any political controversy, one of the key battles is defining the terminology. If the argument is waged in your terms, you have a tremendous advantage. Conservatives seeking to reshape the Supreme Court have done an excellent job of defining the terms of the battle. They are seeking to put “strict constructionists” on the court to put an end to “judicial activism.”

As they define the terms, strict constructionists “interpret the Constitution as written” while judicial activists “legislate from the bench,” creating new laws and rights with no constitutional basis. Partisans are free to cast their arguments however they wish. That’s our tradition of free speech and vigorous debate. Responsible journalists, though, should not accept or use the terms from either side.

The abortion debate provides an example. One side favors keeping abortion legal. The other side favors outlawing abortion. Pretty simple. You could easily and accurately use the shorthand of pro-abortion and anti-abortion to describe the two sides.

But they don’t use those terms. The pro-abortion forces argue that they are not really in favor of abortion. What they favor, they say, is giving a pregnant woman or girl a choice. After all, it’s her body. So they call themselves pro-choice.

Interestingly, though, they were pretty much silent in the 1980s when desperate cancer patients were arguing for the legalization of Laetrile. And you don’t hear them speaking up now for the legalization of methamphetamine or heroin. Surely if the issue is choice, the cancer patient or drug addict has as much right to make decisions affecting her body as the pregnant woman.

The other side is equally deceptive in its definitions of terminology. Rather than being depicted as anti-anything, they say they are pro-life. They are rather selective, though, in their application of this passion to protect life. Embryonic stem cell research and assisted suicide are worthy of their pro-life passion, but not war or capital punishment.

Reporters who write about the issue need to be careful in using the terminology, avoiding “pro-life” and “pro-choice” except in quotes. Too many reporters reveal a bias by using “pro-choice” as a neutral term but not using “pro-life” the same way.

While both sides have been equally successful in defining terms in the abortion battle, conservatives have outmaneuvered liberals in the rhetorical battle for control of the Supreme Court debate. Liberals don’t have a widely used pejorative term that’s the equivalent of “strict constructionist” or flattering terms that mean the same thing as “judicial activist” or “legislating from the bench.”

Rosa Parks’s life reminds us, though, that those terms aren’t necessarily accurate. A strict constructionist supposedly interprets the Constitution as written. Well, that’s exactly what the supposed judicial activists of the 1950s did, saying that the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment means that a weary black woman has the same right to any seat on the bus as a white passenger. It was absurd to say that the Jim Crow laws provided equal protection.

Some of today’s strict constructionists, despite their supposed reverence for the words of the Constitution, didn’t even discover the 14th Amendment until they were casting about for some grounds for federal interference in the 2000 Florida election recount.

Voters and partisans are entitled to their views about which judicial philosophy the nation should adopt. That debate is a healthy and stimulating part of our democracy and twisting the language to support your point of view is part of that debate.

Journalists should cover that debate without using the language of either side, though.

Even in our coverage of the controversy over use of confidential sources, we let partisans who oppose us – those who wish to damage the credibility of journalists – define the terms we use. Many news outlets routinely refer to “anonymous sources” when the journalists in question know the identities of the sources.

An anonymous source would be an unknown caller tipping a reporter that Joseph Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent. When Scooter Libby tells a reporter that Wilson’s wife is a spy, but tells the reporter not to print his name, he’s a confidential source or an unidentified source, but he’s not anonymous.

Using these partisan, and often inaccurate, terms is almost a subtle form of plagiarism. Just as the lazy reporter lifts a passage from another source rather than finding original words, the lazy reporter lifts a label from partisans rather than finding neutral, accurate terms.

sbuttry@americanpressinstitute.org

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