I opened my copy of the Star this morning and found this misleading headline:

Trump assails recount, cites illegal voting

Then I read the first paragraph of the Associated Press story:

President-elect Donald Trump claimed without evidence Sunday that “millions” voted illegally in the national election, scoffing at Hillary Clinton’s nearly 2 million edge in the popular vote and returning to his campaign mantra of a rigged race even as he prepares to enter the White House.

The AP got it right: Trump “claimed without evidence” that people voted illegally. The Star headline got it wrong by writing that Trump “cites illegal voting.” “Cites” implies that Trump was referring to evidence or proof. In fact, he threw out a wild, unsubstantiated, debunked claim of voter fraud.

[Full disclosure: Since I’ve lived in Tucson, I’ve begun the morning with the Star spread on my lap and a cup of coffee in my hand. It’s how I open my eyes. I support the Star. I read it cover to cover. I recommend everyone who can afford to subscribe should do so. We need our local dailies. That makes me a loyal critic of the paper who wants it to be as accurate and credible as possible.]

I looked at other paper’s headlines for the same story. Most of them use the “claim without evidence” construction. The Star headline is the outlier. Another headline that includes the word “citing” uses it correctly: “Donald Trump, Citing No Evidence, Claims ‘Millions’ Of People Voted Illegally In The 2016 Election.” [boldface added for emphasis] Interestingly, the headline is a revision of an earlier version which received heavy criticism, as you’ll read below.

This isn’t nit picking. It’s about the role of the media to cover the news accurately and to be acutely aware of the fact that many readers don’t read further than the headline and the first paragraph. Get either of those wrong in a news item and readers get it wrong.

Jay Rosen, an Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University, has a terrific Facebook post on this point. He believes the media is being tested by the Trump regime to see how it will respond to misstatements and outright lies. According to Rosen, the real news in this story is “the fact that [Trump] feels entitled to say this without a shred of evidence— THAT is the news, not the fact that he said it.” Media outlets that normalize false statements from Trump help blur the line between fact and falsehood, a line Trump spent the campaign trying to erase.

Here is Rosen’s post.

The other day, I had a conversation with a journalist at USA Today that alarmed me. Deeply. More on that in a minute.

Everyone in journalism — from the headline writers and the social media crews to reporters on the front lines and the editors they work for — should know by now that they are going to be tested by the regime of Donald Trump.

Everything they went through in the campaign taught them this. We need them to be ready. We need them to grasp what is at stake. There isn’t time to fall into normal routines and slowly wake up to the fact that they don’t apply. Winter is coming. They need to prepare.

For example: when Trump makes baseless charges like “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” the fact that he feels entitled to say this without a shred of evidence— THAT is the news, not the fact that he said it. But CBS News played megaphone for Trump, headlining its story like this:

‘Donald Trump: ‘Millions’ voted illegally in election.

UPDATE, 8:50 pm: After getting heavy criticism online, CBS just changed it to: “Donald Trump, citing no evidence, claims ‘millions’ of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.”

My exchange with the editor for USA Today was about the same problem. I wrote it up on Storify. My post is called: Evidence-based vs. accusation-driven reporting. As you will see, the editor did not understand the difference when I tried to point it out.

But it’s a critical distinction that cannot be ignored. We need journalists who understand evidence-based vs. accusation-driven, but we also need readers and viewers and internet-users who are willing to speak up when the distinction is overridden. (Sometimes it works, as you can tell from the CBS example above.) My piece equips you to speak up like that. Please read it and pass it on by liking or sharing this post. Thank you.

This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2016.

24 replies on “Dear Daily Star: An Unsubstantiated Claim Is Not a Citation”

  1. Safier states in this blog that he is a “loyal critic of the [Arizona Daily Star] who wants it to be as ACCURATE and CREDIBLE as possible.”

    Strange, that. In light of the quality of his own commentary, if he wants the Star to be “as accurate and credible as possible,” it would be better for him to call himself a “hypocritical critic” of the Star.

    HYPOCRITE: someone who claims to have moral standards or beliefs to which his own behavior does not conform

  2. It’s nitpicking. You do it so well.

    Ms Stein called for a recount citing no evidence of vote fraud. Why wasn’t that the story? Then NBC says she couldn’t have acted alone. In comes Hillary (the known liar) and now we see it is George Soros (Communist) that’s funding and pushing this through.

    Where is the media? Still licking their wounds from getting their tails kicked in the election. But, they still won’t do their jobs in a non partisan way.

    All of us have opinions. The media’s job is to bring us facts. Not some of the facts or half of the facts but all of the facts.

    Anything less, we don’t need.

  4. Trump’s behavior is reflective of Mental Instability. He is a CROOK and Unfit to Serve in Public Office. These facts were recognized (prior to the Election), generally, by the Republican Leadership who did NOT support him. After the Election, they fell in line like sheep.

    Let us hope that this Election was conducted fairly without Internal or External Vote Manipulations; the Former is an Act of Treason; the Latter an Act of War.

  5. HOUSTON, TX. November 27, 2016: True the Vote (TTV), the nations leading voters rights and election integrity organization, today released a statement with respect to President-Elect Donald Trumps claim that millions of individuals illegally voted in the 2016 Election.

    True the Vote absolutely supports President-elect Trumps recent comment about the impact of illegal voting, as reflected in the national popular vote. We are still collecting data and will be for several months, but our intent is to publish a comprehensive study on the significant impact of illegal voting in all of its many forms and begin a national discussion on how voters, states, and the Trump Administration can best address this growing problem.

    True the Vote (TTV) is an IRS-designated 501(c)(3) voters rights organization, founded to inspire and equip voters for involvement at every stage of our electoral process. TTV empowers organizations and individuals across the nation to actively protect the rights of legitimate voters, regardless of their political party affiliation. For more information, please visit http://www.truethevote.org.

    True the Vote has long been a lightning rod for criticism from the left, and was among the organizations targeted for abuse in the IRS scandal.

  8. As I was saying before my computer weirded out on me.
    Francis. Like I told that pencil-neck geek Safier…..
    DONALD J. TRUMP. PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A. Deal with it.
    Have Mommy take you to McDonalds for a happy meal. Maybe that will help cheer you up.

  11. There are plenty of things that should be monitored that go unobserved and unreported while the liberal media continues to gorge itself on Trump’s provocations and then regurgitates glob after glob of obvious and unnecessary (and unappetizing) commentary on these provocations for our consumption.

    NEWS FLASH! : the provocations will not stop. They are, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, part of the man’s method. So do you stop covering local governance and state governance and (if you’re an “education” blogger) what’s actually going in real educational institutions (if, that is, you ever bothered to cover any of that in the first place — a big IF in the case of David Safier)?

    Not if your intention is to be “accurate” and “credible” … and relevant. But we’ve known for some time now that that is not Safier’s intent.

  12. Any day now Safier will post about Trump’s pick for education secretary, and he will be SCANDALIZED about what a CHARTER MAVEN she is and how horrible the PRIVATIZATION agenda of the EVIL CORPORATE CLASS is, and what a CRIME it is that people like this malign and undermine the many shining public district examples of democracy, transparency, and excellence in education….like TUSD. (Only he’ll leave out the TUSD part, of course, as he always does except when he’s making excuses for their failure to desegregate and their failure to deliver anything resembling a quality education to the vast majority of students attending this fantastic PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT.)

    Accurate and credible reporting? I don’t think so.

    Advocacy for improving education, including public district schools? Nope. Sleights of hand to distract the ignorant from observing what’s really going on is more what’s proffered here.

  16. There is not a shred of evidence of voter fraud. The people making the claims typically don’t even know how voter registration or voting work.

    Just one of many example. Under Republican Rick Scott “the Florida Department of State created a list of 182,000 potential noncitizens that had voted. That number was whittled down to 2,700, then to about 200 before the purge was stopped amid criticism that the data was flawed given the number of false positives”

  17. Seeing that you are NOT ALLOWED to ask anyone for ID or proof of citizenship and anyone can fill out a voter registration application even by mail. I would say THERE IS NO WAY OF EVER TELLING how many NON citizens voted.

    There are 14,000,000 Green Cards in the US
    There are 14,000,000 work permits
    There are 10,000,000 Work and family Visas
    There are 21,231,396 Visa Waver Program
    There are 30,000,000 lllegals.

    All can vote says the SCOTUS by Swearing they are Citizens of the US! Lying should be enough deterrent. LOLOL !

  18. I wonder if it will be possible, in the current political climate, for citizens to remember that there is something called the truth that exists outside of and separate from the partisan story lines being ceaselessly, relentlessly manufactured on both sides of the political spectrum.

    When it comes to voting, the system is, on the whole, reliable, but it is not perfect. Attention should be focused on what is actually weak in the system and on efforts to improve it, not on wild partisan accusations of massive fraud. We saw ludicrous conspiracy theories and unfounded accusations on both sides of the political spectrum during the run-up to this presidential election. Here is one that Safier himself offered to the public:
    http://m.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2016/08/08/election-integrity-resurfaces-as-a-national-issue-thanks-to-vladimir-putin

    Democracy cannot function without voters having confidence that their votes will be accurately tallied and reported. Those who throw doubt on the validity of the voting and reporting system without solid factual grounds for their claims and without concrete proposals for solving the problems are irresponsible.

    When it comes to education, we have the same problems with irresponsible partisan commentary on both sides of the spectrum.

    Contra some of the Democratic partisan commentary in Southern Arizona:
    Some poor urban public district school systems (like TUSD) are not delivering uniformly high quality services to their constituents. Observation of and accurate reporting on these districts is needed. Some valuable commentary on the problems in poor urban systems in the U.S. (Kozol’s SAVAGE INEQUALITIES is one example) has been provided. But the problem is ongoing; it has not stopped because of the right’s efforts to back the formation of an alternative system (aka “privatization”). At the same time that we need to defend the right of public district school systems to exist and to receive adequate funding, we need to provide ongoing observation and honest commentary on actual conditions in public district schools. If we allow some groups, in their effort to defend public district schools, to look the other way when there is malfeasance in public district school governance and administration and to try to silence honest descriptions of some of the problems that do need to be solved (what some members of the faction Safier affiliates with have done when it comes to TUSD), we’ve already lost the battle to defend this system. In order for the system to function well and to be something to which parents can confidently entrust their children, honest commentary and ongoing efforts to improve it cannot be quashed.

    And contra some of the partisan commentary about education on the right:
    Laws governing charters and the privates that receive public funds from vouchers, ESAs, etc. need to be strengthened. Some charters and privates currently operating are irresponsible and should not be receiving public funds. The charter and subsidized private system as a whole needs the kind of oversight and transparency public districts are supposed to operate with. (Just as public districts need to actually operate with the oversight and transparency they have in theory but sometimes do not have in practice.)

    Seeing everything in terms of a simplistic drama between easily identifiable villains and heroes is a form of entertainment, but it’s not journalism, and it’s not what’s really out there in the world. The tedious and unexciting fact of the matter is that close attention paid to observing and reporting shades of gray and engagement in constructive bipartisan problem solving — not a never-ending program of indulging in paranoid fantasies and mudslinging — is what actually gets policy modified in ways that benefit the citizenry.

    We will get nowhere as a nation as long as partisan hysteria remains the pervasive M.O. on both sides of the political divide.

  19. You are on to something. I think we watched the birth of the liars politics when Bill Clinton was caught lying under oath. from there we have slid down a slippery slope and it will be hard to return from it. We must hold our elected officials accountable. It doesn’t do any of us any good to be constantly lied to.

    I am trying to teach my children not to act like politicians. I don’t know what else to do.

  20. Now I see the connection with Kanye West. How did he get in the middle of this election dispute? And he blames Hillary?

    On Saturday, West ranted about a few longtime friends and acquaintances, including Jay Z, Beyonc and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.

    Ive been sent here to give yall my truth, even at the risk of my own life, West said on Saturday night. At the risk of my own success. Ill give yall the truth. Jay Z, call me, you still aint called me. Jay Z, I know you got killers. Please dont send them at my head. Just call me. Talk to me like a man.

    On Thursday during his concert in San Jose, West editorialized about racism and the Black Lives Matter movement before praising President-elect Donald Trump.

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-kanye-west-lapd-20161121-story.html

    Has Hillary commented on the Pizzagate story?

  22. The incorrect wording probably was an innocent mistake, but I appreciate your point. Thanks for sharing.

  23. I don’t think the wording was a mistake, and I think the article was great. I am loud in my critique of Safier for his biased reporting on TUSD, so its only fair to be equally loud in my defense of his work when it’s good and insightful. This normalization of the lies and corruption that politics is accompanied by more than ever right now has been a real issue for the media. In fact I wonder how donations to the various non-profit media outlets are going (I refused to donate to a media that didn’t cover ANY substance, just the b.s. surrounding the electoral period and didn’t even cover AT ALL the biggest phenomena happening in the country, Bernie Sanders’ campaign. I wonder how many others responded similarly).

    I too have always enjoyed opening the paper and drinking coffee, but with the new management, I have almost given up. There is, essentially, no more coverage (or VERY reduced coverage) of TUSD, almost as if the guy at the top successfully scared the daylights out of both the journalist who used to cover it and the editorial/ownership staff. At the same time, there were NO recommendations for local school board or superintendent of public education races–in other words, wherever the new owners come from, its not this area, and local news is of little interest to them. But its the only reason I take the paper–if I want non-local news, the NY Times has always done a better job than simple AP repeats….I support the CONCEPT of newspapers, and I support the smell of the ink and the sound of the pages turning. And I REALLY support good investigative journalism (endangered species that it is) But its increasingly difficult to support the Star for its local news…or lack thereof.

  24. …and I would add to that kvoa local news. It has become a waste of my 10 pm time. If you change to 9 or 13 they are all running the same special interest stories, almost like they start the day with the same assignment editor. Or do they all have moles on the inside? What happened to creative journalism?

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