12 reasons to be skeptical about political journalism

Be aware of oppo, beat sweeteners, data dumps and “fairness signaling”

I want to say this straight away: Most political journalists try to be fair and serve the public.

But I want to say this, too: Some don’t.

In addition, there are news practices that are not necessarily wrong but are mysterious and poorly understood. So here are a dozen things to keep in mind when you consume political news.

1. “People in the know”

Beware of disembodied statements. When journalists attribute information to “observers” or “people in the know” or “political insiders,” it may mean they didn’t get anyone on the record but thought it was true, so they put the idea out there anyway. The “observers” might be anyone — lobbyists, colleagues, spouses, Uber drivers. Related to this is the practice of throwing shade on something anonymously, such as saying a proposal “drew criticism” without naming any of the critics.

2. Oppo

Plenty of the exclusives in which news outlets expose politicians’ wrongdoing come from “oppo research” fed to the news outlet by the politicians’ opponents. The news outlet checks out the information but doesn’t disclose where the tip came from. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this if the information is correct, but it does allow the opposing campaign to launder allegations through supposedly objective media.

3. Anonymous cheap shots

Journalists’ overuse of anonymous sources invites abuse. One especially bad practice is to report anonymous opinions, as opposed to anonymous facts. An anonymous fact is: “A congressional source said a bill is being drafted to raise the minimum wage.” An anonymous opinion is: “The source said opponents of the bill were ‘brain-dead Neanderthals.’” When journalists repeat cheap shots while providing cover for the person saying them, it’s patently unfair. Unattributed opinion is also uninformative because the reader has no opportunity to assess whether the anonymous person has an ax to grind. This kind of sniping can seem like theater of the absurd. Back in 2010, Politico actually ran this paragraph: 

“For Washington consultants to sit around and personally disparage the governor anonymously to reporters is unfortunate and counterproductive and frankly immature,” said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

4. The source with three heads

Here’s another kind of anonymous source abuse. When I was an editor at a daily newspaper, I once caught a reporter trying to describe the same anonymous source in three different ways, which would’ve made readers think he had three separate sources, not one. 

5. Getting the first word

A trick by politicians to get their spin out there first is to offer a reporter an exclusive under the condition that they not interview anyone else on the subject before the story runs. 

6. Scoop magnets

Why do certain reporters get so many exclusives? Three possible reasons: A) They’re talented reporters; B) They’re being spoon-fed information by politicians in exchange for treating them nicely; or C) They’re getting info from politicians who want to punish the reporter’s competitor for previous tough reporting.

7. Softballs

When a politician tells an interviewer, “That’s a great question,” it probably isn’t.

8. “Beat sweeteners”

When a reporter writes a warm human-interest story about a politician, it may be part of an effort to soften up the politician to get a better story later. Beat writers’ stories that make politicians look good are known in the business as “beat sweeteners.” I’m not saying most reporters do this – I’m just saying it happens enough that there’s a name for it.

9. Working the refs

Some politicians put a lot of pressure on their press aides to badger journalists with complaints about stories. In sports that tactic is known as “working the refs” – griping about alleged unfairness in hopes of getting a break later. But with the internet being such a fluid conveyor of news, press aides sometimes call with specific demands about an already-published story, such as insisting that a verb or adjective be changed in a headline. A former reporter I know calls this practice “using the internet like a dry-erase board.”

10. “Fairness signaling”

When a news organization’s reporting is making a politician or party look bad, the news outlet often jumps at the chance to overplay anything that makes the other side look bad so the news org appears unbiased. Republicans benefit from this since they’re more corrupt these days. I call this “fairness signaling.” It explains what major media did with Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 and what they’ve done with Joe Biden’s age this year. 

11. Late Friday data dumps

It’s not an accident when politicians release damaging information about their own administrations around 5 p.m. or even later on a Friday. They’ve got news that they know will come out eventually, and they want to bury it over the weekend. When I was the Chicago Tribune’s metro editor, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel did a late Friday data dump with documents proving that police covered up the murder of teenager Laquan McDonald by an officer. We called in a team of reporters and finished a detailed story around midnight, in time for the early edition of the Sunday paper. The late Friday data dump didn’t work that time, but it often works in other cases.

12. It’s OK to say no to polls

Polls get overplayed in political coverage these days, but some polls shouldn’t get played at all. I’m thinking of the internal polls that campaigns sometimes feed to reporters. Such polls simply aren’t trustworthy. If the campaign didn’t like the poll results, it wouldn’t share the poll with the media. It’s possible the campaign did multiple polls and shared only the one that made the candidate look good. My best advice to consumers of political news is this: Ignore the horse-race polls. When the people on TV start talking about polls, go make yourself a sandwich. 

Have other thoughts on political journalists' methods of operation that people should be aware of? Share them in the comments.