A refresher course on doing their jobs

Here’s a set of lessons, or guidelines that reporters and their editors should be using in their reporting on Iraq and the run-up to war with Iran.

• Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.
• Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate.
• Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should be make the headlines. The absence of supporting evidence for their assertion -- or a preponderance of evidence that contradicts the assertion -- may be more newsworthy than the assertion itself.
• Don’t print anonymous assertions. Demand that sources make themselves accountable for what they insist is true.

These lessons, or probably more simply, rules of journalism, don’t seem to simply be lessons in reporting that our media professionals should have learned from Vietnam and didn’t apply in the run-up to our invasion of Iraq, and they now aren’t using in the run-up to war with Iran. These seem to be the foundations of reporting that every reporter and editor should know and follow on every story they do. None of them should have jobs if they can’t follow these guidelines, but I guess their consumers aren’t demanding it. Anyway, with all of the alternative media these days, they are probably just supplying the nails to their own coffins.


Hat tip: Think Progress