Many years ago, I saw a piece in the local paper about how a new author had gotten her start. As I read the article, I found myself arguing with the reporter. “That’s not how publishing works,” I thought. “Those aren’t the steps to publishing a book.” This wasn’t a case of biased reporting or bad sources. The reporter, quite simply, didn’t know what he was talking about. And so he painted a picture of book publishing that I knew was incorrect.
It wasn’t a big deal, really. The new author had, in fact, become a success – good for her. The reporter hadn’t accurately described the publishing process, but hey – no harm, no foul.
Then the penny dropped. What if every article I read is just as inaccurate? What if stories about subjects I’m NOT an expert in are also just plain wrong?
Fast forward 20 years, and we live in a world where no one even reads the article, never mind checks the background and source material. A headline is enough to “inform” the public, and a tweet is all the detail anyone needs.
Like you, I read the news these days with a heavy dose of skepticism. But I’m still susceptible to the “everyone agrees” argument (which has become a substitute for fact-checking). I read a headline this week claiming the vaccine provides better immunity than having had the virus itself. Actually, the headline was everywhere, citing a CDC study in Kentucky. CDC, multiple outlets, scientific study — it must be true, right?
Step One: Read the article. Which repeated the headline’s assertion that reinfections for unvaccinated people are “over twice as likely” compared to those who’ve been vaccinated. Step Two: Look at the study itself. The “Study Summary” repeated the finding. Step Three: Read the fine print. Only then did I find a few interesting qualifications to the conclusion. For instance, the report noted that “persons who have been vaccinated are possibly less likely to get tested.”
Wait a minute. This study only looked at people who proactively sought a test? So, if a vaccinated person didn’t get tested, maybe because they were asymptomatic, or felt mildly ill but thought – hey, I’ve been vaccinated, so this can’t be COVID – then they aren’t counted here? We already know the vaccine can make reinfection cases less severe, so … doesn’t this pretty much invalidate the entire study? I mean, we have no idea how many vaccinated people just didn’t get tested, but may well have been reinfected. Sheesh.
But that’s not all. The report also noted that only people who got vaccinated in Kentucky were counted in the “vaccinated” pool; if you got your vaccine in another state, this study has no way to track that. So … doesn’t this mean that there could have been any number of people who actually were vaccinated, and got reinfected, but wound up in the unvaccinated category for purposes of this study? Good grief.
How often are the details ignored as long as the narrative has been promoted? The vaccine is better than “natural immunity,” says the narrative, so the media will doggedly find and report any news that supports that storyline. (Taking a pot shot at Rand Paul is just a bonus.)
I’m not an anti-vaxer. But I am a pro-truther. And when data and facts are twisted to suit a political narrative, it’s time for everyone to pay attention to the details.
Let me give you another example from another highly polarized topic: election fraud. I’m working with an author on a book that looks into what actually happened in the 2020 election. I’m not an election expert, but my author is, so I was eager to ask about recent headlines (repeated and circulating everywhere) proclaiming that the Arizona audit proved there was no fraud.
“It would be funny if it weren’t so maddening,” my author said. The audit report was 90 pages long, my author explained, and included at least five findings that were highly indicative of fraud. But one paragraph in the report – one paragraph – confirmed that the hand count was similar to the machine count. “Garbage in, garbage out,” my author continued. “All this means is that when they went back to count the ballots by hand, the counts matched. Actually – they didn’t match – so that’s worrisome in itself. But what the media liked is that they didn’t show that Biden lost. Well, of course not. They just recounted the same fraudulent votes they counted the first time. That doesn’t prove anything!”
Stay with me here. Whether you are pro- vaccine or anti-vax; whether you believe there was election fraud or you think that’s a crazy conspiracy theory — it doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not we can trust the information we get… and what to do if even friendly sources can’t be trusted?
To quote one of our finest Presidents: Trust but verify. None of us has time to become an armchair expert in every subject. We have to rely on reporters and analysts to provide us with information. I suggest a three-step approach:
1. Start by reading articles you know something about. By focusing on articles that overlap with your own expertise, you can be a good judge of accuracy. Find the writers and outlets that are reliably accurate, based on what you know first-hand.
2. Stick with these writers and outlets, expanding to their coverage of new subjects, and do a little research to make sure they are as responsible covering topics you’re unfamiliar with as they are in covering what you know. Research like looking at the source material to see if information was cherry-picked or fairly reported. Or asking your friends to review articles in their own areas of expertise and experience, to help you evaluate how accurate they are.
3. Expand your network further by reading new writers and outlets whose coverage dovetails with your core group of trusted sources above. The goal is not to create an echo chamber, where you hear the same thing over and over, but to create a trustworthy list of writers and outlets who have proven they respect the facts — even when those facts contradict a particular narrative.
I’m generally tough on journalists, suspicious of their agendas and skeptical of their motives. But it’s hard for a reporter to be an expert on every topic too, and grueling to face a deadline when you have sources to track down, details to check out, information to gather, and a story to write. There are good writers out there – now more than ever, it’s important to find them.