Here are some rules that we recommend to mainstream media as they publish and broadcast their messages to us in the 30 days until voting is completed and the 79 additional days till Inauguration day 2021. These ideas will also be useful for all media and all journalists.
Don't invite repeat liars onto your live shows and give them a live mic. If you do give them the mic you know already exactly what they will do which is to use your media reach to amplify their corrupt message more widely.
Don't show video clips with verbatim segments of someone telling known lies. Likewise for audio broadcasts or podcasts.
Don't publish op-eds riddled with lies.
Don't parcel out the lion's share of your earned media to any single person. It can't all be about He Who Must Not Be Named. E.G. If you are going to focus on one hospitalized covid patient, make sure you leave more than equal room for the tens of thousands of other hospitalized covid patients.
A few abbreviations that will prove useful in this post and going forward..
HW - He Who - as in he whose lies, disinformation, incitement, etc. must not be amplified - aka the current president
HM - his minions and enablers
WH - The White House]
If you need to report on a lie or on misinformation, or on disinformation, or hate speech, or incitement to violence, always give the correct information about that subject first. Tell us what you already know and what you have verified. Then report that. For example, HW or HM or the WH has lied again about the subject in question. But do this without verbatim quotes of the actual lies or giving air time to the person speaking those lies out loud. Reframe them in your own words if necessary. Many times it won't be necessary.
Be especially vigilant about false equivalence, both-sides, he said-she said in situations that are wildly asymmetric. If there is blame to share, it is ever so rarely 50-50.
As we mentioned previously, stop using "unprecedented." Find a better adjective that adds explanatory power to why a particular action is worthy of being reported on.
Before you report breaking news, be really clear about what you already know and share that with your audience. That way your breaking news will stand on the shoulders of all the good work you have done up till this point.
Who to follow. If you are interested in those whose are writing and talking and thinking in depth about vital journalism issues such as the ones listed above., I depend on Jay Rosen (NYU), Margaret Sullivan (Wapo), Dan Froomkin (Press Watch) and James Fallows (The Atlantic). They have the answers that mainstream media needs to get things right in 2020. We cannot afford for them to fail.
