In media — TV and social media in particular — words and intentions have meaning, and sometimes influence. But actions carry a heightened value.
The media news
business follows words -- especially from our more senior political leaders — because they have news value. But actions? A person sending bombs to high-profile politicians and public
figures, a murderous attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue — these a serious news story about the lethal consequences of weaponized words and deeds.
The question is how to cover it.
For example, a source to journalists proves to be continually unreliable — say, a politician who lies a lot. What is the integrity
move?
Yes, politicians lie — even former President Obama noted this. But for many, it is a matter of degree — a couple of lies or thousands.
advertisement
advertisement
To remain on solid
ground, journalists look for proof. Sometimes with videotape, you can plainly see the differences between lies and reality. TV news networks have a job — to weed out fact from
fiction, using all resources including videotape, government data, whatever. The more reliable evidence, the better.
Here is one recent weed-pull from Fox News Channel’s Shepard
Smith on-air Monday, refuting
President Trump’s talk of an “invasion” of immigrants: “There is no invasion. No one’s coming to get you. There’s nothing at all to worry about.”
The bottom line: Do TV consumers always see the difference, and for that matter, TV advertisers — those spending millions on TV and digital media platforms?
We all know Facebook
has had fact/fictional issues with its content. For a long time, Facebook didn’t believe it was a "news organization," just a pipe for consumer connection. Now it has had a change of heart
— although it hasn’t exactly been calling itself a distributor of journalism.
Yet Facebook, Google and Twitter all have monitor-like staffers who weed out appropriate and
inappropriate content. Fact from fiction? News organizations might call these people editors.
Either way, advertiser dollars head to all media platforms. They have little choice with media
fractionalization. Revenues higher not only among TV news networks, but also on Facebook. Despite a second-quarter slowdown in user growth rate at the social media platform, its ad revenue continued a
sharp climb, up 42.3%.
Journalists talk to lots of people. They hear information, rumors and also outright lies.
If sources routinely fail to be reliable — let’s say
they make over 5,000 misleading or false claims over a two-year period — it's reasonable for journalists to shun them and look elsewhere for credibility. They would probably also want to avoid
that source's tweets, Facebook posts, press releases. Why give them the ink, time, or pixels?
But if such people also hold top posts in government, they get increased news attention,
regardless of spurious claims.
Politicians always want our attention. But news organizations can pick and chose. So can marketers. They can take action — or not.