It depends on where the meaning of "lies" lies.

It's a lie by any reasonable-man standard.  The sentence is constructed in such a way that only one conlcusion is reasonable: the investigation is into terrorism and the crimes of the suspects are not otherwise qualified.

I think context matters here. There are three types of articles, each which would have different rules, in my opinion:

1. Commentary (editorials, opinion pieces, etc.): no problem calling someone a liar--it's clear it's the author's opinion

2. News analysis--calling someone a liar is probably too strong, but raising the question of whether someone could be a liar and presenting the evidence for that possibility is okay

3. Regular news report--presenting the evidence and allowing the reader to come to his or her own conclusions is best; in this context, I'd avoid any accusation of lying because it's too subjective

Reminds me of when Bush campaigned for his tax cut, tossing the average savings figure around as if it had any meaning.  The number was widely debunked -- most artfully by those who pointed out that if you had Bill Gates over for dinner, the average income at the table would skyrocket, but Bill would still have most of the money -- and I assumed the Prez would stop using the misleading figure.  But he didn't.   And as always, the reason he didn't, and the reason it continues, is because he got and gets away with it.

I can't tell you how many people, especially GOPers, like to use the phrase "taken out of context." And I'm sure both parties do take things out of context. Yet that phrase has taken on a different meaning.

Now, if you take something "out of context," then the person who made the statement is completely absolved from saying it at all.

And this is what happens when, as Josh's writer said, the media leaves fact-finding to pundits and editorialists. Thier job is to report what fits their point of view. The job of the media is to report and investigate THE FACTS. Facts can either be proven or disproven, yet the media today reports one sides OPINION and the other sides OPINION, without regard to which side is factually correct.

We should also remember that intentional misleading or only telling a portion of the truth is also a LIE.

I say that on authority of the Honor Code of the Unites States Military Academy (West Point), a school I dreamed of attending as a youth. Their code actually rules that it is worse to tell some truth while withholding the full story than it is to lie outright.

While I respect any friend of Josh, if this person represents the view of the US media as a whole, we are in big, big trouble.

Tying this back to Mark Danner's remarks about the unprecedented mendacity of the current leadership ... I had to think about that statement. Is there really more “frank mendacity” now than there was during the Vietnam War or during Watergate? Certainly plenty of spectacular lying has gone on under both Democratic and Republican administrations over the past generation or two.

The lies and misrepresentations of the Vietnam and Watergate were designed to cover up wrongdoing and policy disasters – they were political survival tactics. But with Bush, lies are just a normal, everyday political and policy tool.

The difference between then and now is, of course, is a unique convergence of spin, power, and ideology. Political spin has always been around, but it reached new heights as the news cycle accelerated, and controlling or managing it became a key function in the White House. Our current leadership took this a step further, with the aim not just of controlling the news cycle but replacing it with an alternative "conservative" narrative of reality. It’s now impossible to tell where the BS leaves off and the lying begins – a line the media could once reliably detect. If everything is spin, then there is no truth and no lies, and as you point out, the media haven’t yet figured out how to handle this.

I don't know if journalists need to directly call them lies.  But a journalist could point out that either the president is willfully mispresenting the facts (i.e. lying) or, perhaps more disturbingly, completely unaware of the facts.  These are the two possibilities and I think it would be absolutely fair to report it this way.

It has been a long time since I studied ethics; I would have said, or agreed, I think, that something that is "knowingly false and conveyed in a way that is intended to deceive" is a lie. If it is not technically a lie, it is just as good--just as bad--as one.

And, yes, journalists, reporters, anyone, ought to feel some obligation to point out when somebody talks that way, even if they don't feel like calling it a lie. If you just pass on stuff to others without pointing out that it is knowingly false, and that the way it is conveyed is intended to deceive, you might even be said to participate in the deception. The obligation, as it so often does, lies principally with the audience, the readers, us. If we do not complain, or demand higher standards, who will? But if we do not know in the first place that something is knowingly false and conveyed so that it will deceive, we will remain ignorant, and mute.

Also, presidents should keep higher standards.

A staff writer at a well-known regional daily in the US:

<span class="603131302-14062005">In this case, George Bush's statement is factually defensible, but meant to give a false impression. It appears that terrorism investigations have led to identifying 400 suspects, but that in the final analysis about half of the suspects aren't suspected of anything related to terrorism, and only one in 10 were convicted of terrorism activities. It's a sin of omission, more than commission.</span&gt

If Bush's statement gives one impression, but the real truth is something else, then just say so. Is that too complicated for your hyper-professional, dupe of a journalist friend to grasp, Joshua Micah Marshall? 

Today's journalists are like scientists testing Uri Geller's supernatural powers. Geller doesn't play by the rules like the scientists, so they are conned. But Geller folds like a house of cards before someone who knows the con like James Randi. Where's our journalistic James Randis? Bush doesn't play by the rules, and Josh's friend's excuse is that if Bush makes a statement that is literally true, but in context is deceptive, the journalist must report it with a straight face.

As Harry Frankfurt would say: Bullshit. 

Just one further comment to clarify my earlier post. A good (responsible) newspaper will make it very clear to the reader which of the three categories the article falls within. If it's not clear to the reader whether the article is intended to be opinion, analysis, or straight news, then there is a problem. Lots of news outlets (particularly cable news channels) blur these distinctions.

One pitfall responsible journalists should avoid is assuming that presenting two sides of the story equally results in objectivity. In reports about climate change, for instance, many newspapers feel obligated to present two sides of the argument. But when the scientific community is 90% in agreement with one side and only 10% in agreement with the other side, presenting both arguments with equal weighting is misleading. A good reporter will state that the majority of scientific opinion supports one view and that the alternative view is a minority opinion (not necessarily wrong, mind you, but not the most widely accepted view). Similarly, journalists should report any other relevant information that might influence the judgment of a person presenting an argument for or against a position--for instance, does the person work for a think tank with a particular agenda or was the scientist's work funded by any organization that might have an agenda. All of this information is necessary for the reader to make an independent judgment of the truth value of the information presented in a news story. Unfortunately, reporters are rarely this thorough.

I would think the press could disassemble the semantics of a statement by a person of interest so that readers could judge for themselves whether the person quoted is a liar.  Rep. John Sullivan (R-MBNA,Okla) recently called Social Security a Ponzi scheme at a town hall meeting.  The reporter quoting his remarks in the tulsa World, never defined a ponzi scheme to his readers.  If he had, then all the readers would have concluded for themselves that Rep.Sullivan deliberately lied about Social Security in that statement.

I've heard and read many journalists claiming the mantle of "truth seekers."  Just reporting "he said, they said", is not reporting the truth; it's more like a press release FAXs on newsprint.

My grandma used to say a lie was ANY communication intended to deceive. She gave no quarter: if you said something or didn't say something, if your tone or body language was intended to communicate something other than your words, if you included some unnecessary confusing details or omitted necessary ones, all because you intend for the recepient to not fully grasp the truth, then it was a LIE.<div><br /></div><div>What the writer of the letter is retreating to is a legalistic definition, not a moral, ethical or commonsensical one. Well, IMHO newspapers aren't meant only for lawyers. So if the explanation of a reporter only allows for legalistic interpretations, then it's a dodge, an abdication and, ulimately, cowardice.&nbsp;</div>

Imagine if reporters wrote the local crime stories the way political articles are written! People would be a bit disturbed to read an article about a bank robbery that didn't clearly assign culpability. For example:

"The money is mine," said the burglar, in a claim that's misleading at best.

Joshua's reporter friend's words are the ones that should be in the article:

It's a sin of omission, more than commission

That's what the reporter writing the Post article should have called it -- he should have very explicitly and clearly pointed out that Bush committed a sin of omission. If calling it a 'sin' is too controversial for the Post, the reporter could have said "...misleading at best because Bush omitted critical details," or (better) "Bush omitted facts in order to make a claim that's misleading at best." (and thus used active voice in order to blame the guilty party, rather than talking about the claim or using passive/'weasel-word' voice)

The people reading this site are great newspaper readers, as I'm sure the people who actually write the articles. We can read between the lines. But in order to get through to Joe Public, it's very important for journalists to actually draw conclusions -- something in the first paragraph that someone skimming through the paper would see as she flips to the sports or classified section.


To not be so clear and upfront with readers is, itself, a (venial, inadvertent) sin of omission.

if you want the jury to say it to you, you've got to say it to them.

Brooksfoe,

The game you speak about between journalists and readers reminds me of Orwell's 1984, in which Winston and Julia engage in an incredibly obtuse 'game' to get information to each other.


I re-read 1984 recently, and what struck me most about it wasn't the 'big brother is watching!' stuff. It was the constant need for everyone to suck up to the leadership and tell them that everything is JUST GREAT! when it really wasn't at all. In 1984, people are told that there's 'more tobacco this month!' and 'more victory gin this month!' but neither are true, and smart people in that society knew it but didn't/couldn't say anything. That's a lot like Bush's false proclamations of 'better economy this month!' and 'more terrorists caught this month!' that otherwise smart journalists fail to label as false.


The great crime in Orwell's 1984 society is that no one was willing (and at that point, able) to call the people in power on their bullshit. People who wanted to speak truths had to resort to silly games to do so. That is true today -- it's rare for anyone to call Bush and his co-conspirators out on things, and where journalists have to engage in a "language game," as you wrote.


Not to be alarmist, but the consequences of failing to speak honestly and clearly when things go wrong could be very dire for this country if left unchecked.

The idea that we can never know what is in the mind of a person who deliberately misleads us is absurd.  We can, and in criminal and civil law routinely do, infer intent from the circumstances.

On Bush and his deliberately misleading remarks about prosecutions of 'terrorists' under the Patriot Act, we know that he has access to the specific facts:  the exact numbers, the crimes charged, the verdicts/pleas, hell, he could even get a list of the names, addresses and ages.  From that range of information, he chose one set of numbers.  In his speech, he used the numbers he chose in order to make a claim that is false, not misleading, false!

Moreover, where a person is in a position of trust, or where a person has reason to believe his statements will be relied on, that person has a duty not to mislead.

The phrase 'misleading at best' allows the reader to believe that there might have been an error, or that there is room for misinterpretation, and that may be the result of shortcoming or lack of information on the part of the person hearing the statement.  That is not the case here.  Bush is the only one in possession of the facts, he chose the facts he used in a misleading manner.

And this not the usual political puffery.  It is not saying "we've prosecuted plenty of terrorists."  It is a specific mistatement of the facts, made with knowledge that it is a mistatement.

I get what the staff writer is referring to.  There are situations where 'lie' would not be appropriate or accurate.  This is not one of those situations.  There is a line, I can't say exactly where it is, but Bush's claim of 400 terrorist prosecutions is on the side marked LIE. 

Lies, Weasel words, Liesels, Sleasels

Al Franken, the author of "Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" has on Fridays on his Air America show a game called "Wait Wait! Don't Lie to Me!" In that game he defines lies and variations on what I'll call mendacity.  They are "lies, weasel words, liesels and sleasels."

I'd say that reporters that are so concerned about an accurate description of public projections of mendacity might get into the habit of using some of Franken's extensions on the nuances of lie. Franken points out that the Inuit have many words for snow. There should probably be as many words for the varieties of lies put out by Republicans.

Atrios recently had a post describing a self serving press-media "Catch 22" whereby they didn't have to report on the Downing Street minutes because it was old news. "Everyone knew" that the Bush government was lying to America to con Americans into the Iraq war.  Those lies weren't reported at the time because there was no 'smoking gun' proof.  Sort of - maybe if the minutes were revealed then they would have reported the lies. Then again maybe it would have taken a Nixonesque reality TV video of the lying strategy sessions, though I doubt even that would have been enough for today's press. They'd have probably required a "second source" video angle.

Catch 22

But this weasel press attitude has created what I see as a pattern of contempt from the government towards their toady press and sadly the Americans that are most affected by government "lies, weasel words, liesels and sleasels." It bothered me when Dick Cheney wore his "CHENEY" winter football stadium jacket and hiking boots to the somber remembrance ceremony at Auschwitz.  The press played it as a sort of fashion faux pas, quoting the government's disdainfull excuses that Cheney wasn't prepared for the cold weather and wore what he had available on short notice.  Consider a Vice President wearing a bull's eye coat with his name in bold lettering on it.  The Secret Service would never allow it.  They had to be over ruled. But there's no proof, and so the snickering "high five" to the holocaust denier crowd from Cheney was given a pass.

A more obvious snickering government lie is the recent Rube Goldberg explanation of the magical journey of the urine of a supposedly not very discrete American soldier at Gitmo.  This soldier, we're told, took a relaxed but ill advised piss near an air vent and somehow that piss traveled through nearby duct work and directly onto a Muslim detainee and his Koran. Does anyone believe this story?  Was it even put out as anything but a snarky, "Yeah we're lyin' but FU! Whatcha gonna do about it?" Since there's no proof that it's a lie and unless there's some written, signed, notarized documentation story boarding the lie, discovered within some vague temporal proximity to the expression of the lie, then it's not news.  According to our main stream media.

By that logic, a hypothetical newly disclosed surveilance tape of the killing of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman by OJ wouldn't be news because "everyone" knew he commited the infamous murders.  Yeah. Right.

And so we've got a government that lies to us and insults us and laughs at us, while sending our young off to kill and be killed in the name of 9-11 and defending America. Oh, and at the same time that government empties the treasury for cronies.

Call it a lie, don't call it a lie, it doesn't matter. The President is playing politics and you know we do the same.

We don't, though.  The claim that Bush's opponents lie as much as he does is the ur-lie, the lie from which all other lies flow.

the Bushes lie with Scienter. That is to say knowingly or with reckless disregard to the truth or falsity of the statement.  For example the aluminum tubes episode.  The minority opinion in the intelligence communtiy was that the tubes were to be used to enrich uranium. The majority opinion, based upon the experts at Oak Ridge was that they could not be used for that purpose with out major modifications. 
The presentation as fact, without qualifiers, that Saddam had sought the tubes to enrich uranium was with reckless disregard to the truth. This is intent to decieve. This is by all standards, a lie. Yet to my knowledge the US mainstream media has yet to call it a lie. 
It would be most instructive to review when the US MSM uses the term lie when referring to Presidential lies. Is it only after the President leaves office? Is it only when the subject matter is sex? Was it only in the 19th century? Paging Dr. Alterman!

Here's what  I got:

Post Failed.



Subject is too long (max is 50 characters).

Interesting.

So see March 7, 2005. TPM archives. Topic: Joe Klein. Two posts.

Get the picture?

Among other common lies, we have the silent lie -- the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth.  Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.

Mark Twain, "On the Decay of the Art of Lying"
----
A lie of omission is still a lie; and if the President will not provide the full depth of facts -- that is, if he will not provide complete context for his pronouncements and assertions -- it falls to the press to do so.  This is necessary, at the very least, to maintain the illusion of an informed electorate; but if the press merely reports the words spoken by an official figure, without filling out the story with associated and verifiable facts, they do the public a grave disservice.  Maybe the staff writer thought you were insisting that journalists should also editorialize; however, that is an overstatement.  It would be enough to say, "here is the President's statement; and here are the relevant statistics."  Anything less amounts to tacit complicity because people, who are perfectly capable of forming their own judgments, are not able to because the information presented to them is not more complete.  In taking such pains not to be seen as "thinking for" the public, many media outlets have simply stopped giving people anything to think about.

Back in the run-up to Iraq, Rummy posited that it would be just ducky to lie to our allies for the greater good.  With the hue and cry he backed off that modus operandi...publicly.  But c'mon, talk about the sin of omission.  What conclusion should we draw from that anecdote?  That he lied about not pursuing the policy?  Hmmm, is this why those memos keep leaking out of Britain?  Or does that slice of the policy make logical that he and the rest of the Bushies see nothing wrong with lying to US for what they define as the greater good? 

The Bushies telegraph themselves a lot [note to self, must brush up on "projection" in psych texts].  Note to media:  stop worrying about spineless Democrats and consider the state of your own spine.  Back in the spring of '01 Bush smirked that he found nothing wrong with dictatorships as long as he got to be dictator...and here we are.

If it quacks like a duck....and swaggers like a Texan...it's a tall tale.  And kudos to Anon law clerk for your post about changing the balance.   He who frames the argument prevails.

Dissembling.

From Mirriam-Webster

Main Entry:dissemble
Pronunciation:di-*sem-b*l
Function:verb
Inflected Form:dissembled ; dissembling  \-b(*-)li*\

transitive senses 
1 : to hide under a false appearance
2 : to put on the appearance of : SIMULATE
intransitive senses   : to put on a false appearance : conceal facts, intentions, or feelings under some pretense
  dissembler \-b(*-)l*r\  noun  The term "dissembling" means a deliberate falsehood- a lie. But with less of an emotional charge.

Exampe:  Bush's infamous 16 words about the bogus uranium imports from Niger. While it was factually true that the Bushies had heard a report about Iraq wanting to import uranium from Niger from a foreign intelligence source (Italy, Britain?), it was also true that they knew the substance of the report was bogus (the reason why they dropped it from the Oct '02 Cincinnatti speech).

Alternatively, we could give the word a little extra presidential punch by citing the latest entry into the Bush Dyslexicon- "dissassemble"; as in dissassembling the lies about Iraq.

 
Propagandee

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fair and balanced used to mean presenting both sides of an issue honestly. Journalists do not have to call a lie a lie. They just need to give equal time (or more time) to the other side (so the other side can call a lie a lie).

A while back the NY Times published an editorial rightly condemning the Pentagon-issued fabrication about the death of Pat Tillman. This was as cut and dried a case of lying as any you will ever come across in a situation that doesn't involve a 5-year old and a cookie jar. Yet the Times managed to write 400 words on the subject without using the word "lie."

Kudos to Marshall for pointing out journalist's recalcitrance to use the word "lie."  It's definitely not a word that can be used by anyone, lightly.  But I do believe that it is not hard for journalist to simply make a Nexis search and reveal contrary information (and not cop out and only couch it by saying that an opposition party source says otherwise).  If the point of the journalistic "calling" is to present "truth" to the public, then journalists should be called to the mat for failing these ideals. 

SR,

If not, ask yourself:

1. Why hasn't Mr. Joshua posted the Times Union of Albany, N.Y. story on Rep. John Sweeney, Tom DeLay's lapdog, getting heat from the locals about his Social Security dodge?

2. Why hasn't Mr. Joshua posted anything after March 7 regarding Joe Klein?

3. Why did Mr. Joshua ask for the material from TPM readers on Joe Klein March 7, and then fail to post on Mr. K.?

4. How/where did Mr. Joshua so quickly land the money for this lovely cafe? Cafe's don't grow on trees, even in cyberspace.

Just a few queries to ponder.

Have a nice day!

Does a 50 character limit on subject lines strike you as too restrictive?

As for TPMCafe censoring you, I notice that your enraged -- and slightly demented-sounding -- posts are still up.

Perhaps journalists can't call a lie a "lie," but I have seen them clearly state that, in their view, a statement was false. I remember that during the flap of Michael Moore's accusation that Bush had gone AWOL, Tim Russert brought the topic up with Tom Brokaw and somebody else. Both Russert and Brokaw were absolutely adamant that there was absolutely no reason to think that Bush went AWOL, and the said something along the lines of "that is just not correct." Naturally, they didn't discuss what they all knew Moore had meant by his remark. Still, the press appears to be able to call a spade a spade. But I have yet to see any of that certitude in the media, especially Meet the Press, with respect to the falsehoods repeated by Cheney (e.g., the Atta-Iraq meeting) on television.

There are two components to a lie: the falsity of the statement, and the speaker's knowledge of that falsity.  Given the inherent difficult in knowing the speaker's state of mind (unless you have evidence for it, like an email or something) I can understand journalists being reluctant to call something a "lie" and even more so to call someone a "liar."

But what about calling a statement "false" or "not true"?  I think Josh's comment is just as valid there: journalists are loathe to even make that simple judgment.  Good ones will give you the data that allows you to reach that conclusion on your own.  But when's the last time you saw a story that quoted Bush or Cheney or any administration official and then said, "But that's not true. Here's why"?   

Josh, I agree that calling something a lie is saying something very specific about the alleged liar's state of mind: that the person said something that s/he knew was not true.  Unless the person making the allegation knows that this is what happened, there is insufficient justification for using the "l" word.  (and I qualify accordingly what I said in my post under the single-payer thread)

Making