A San Francisco Chronicle story reminded me that the greatest lesson I ever learned about being a journalist — and a consumer — came from Lisa Simpson.
Lisa was at a jazz club and the guy next to her was grumbling about how bad the performer was. Lisa tried to enlighten him: “You have to listen to the notes she’s not playing.”
Mainstream journalists were taught for generations to be objective. We owed it to readers and viewers to give them The Truth — you know, “All the news that’s fit to print.” Since I’m a Murphy and this is St. Patrick’s Month, let’s call objectivity by its Irish name: Load O’Crap.
Journalists should be fair and diligent, of course, but expecting them to be objective is like expecting that jazz musician to play every note. It. Just. Isn’t. Possible.
Take the Chronicle story, which tried to be as objective as possible, and quickly proved that objectivity is impossible. It listed data on 11 items — bars, biking, commute time, distance from nearest airport, diversity, food retailers, libraries, movie theaters, parks, transit, walkability — ranked the Bay Area’s 25 largest cities in each category, then averaged the 11 rankings for its final list.
It’s a good, well-intentioned story, and the only reason I’m mentioning it is because a lot of people get fooled by “news” these days, especially those who grew up with Walter Cronkite and a daily newspaper. Sometimes untruths aren’t so self-evident.
If you know someone who might need a reality check, consider these tips:
Oh, those unplayed notes. The story didn’t include rankings for things like crime (San Francisco has become infamous for car burglaries) and education, both of which might be more important to you than, say, proximity to an airport. It also didn’t include weather, another of San Francisco’s relative weaknesses. Bay Area residents know that on most summer days, you can drive 30 minutes from San Francisco in any direction and find much lovelier weather.
(All right, so if you drove west, you’d technically end up in the Pacific Ocean and die a horrible death. But then again, even death has a warmer embrace than a summer in San Francisco.)
Some things are too ambiguous to count in the rankings. Are skyrocketing home prices good or horrid? Depends on whether you own or rent.
Where unplayed notes are dangerous is not in stories like this one, but in a lot of stuff that ends up on social media. If you hear about a hate crime or some other reprehensible behavior, look for all the notes — not just the ones the storyteller wants you to hear. Where did it happen? When? What were the details? Often the stories with few details are made up, wildly exaggerated or regurgitated from a few years ago, often to capitalize on people’s fears or biases.
Lies, damn lies and … If Elon Musk lived in a village with 200,000 homeless people, their average net worth would be about $1 million. Don’t spend it all on one tent.
Don’t let people manipulate you with statistics. If someone told you that Asians commit one-third of the crimes in San Francisco, you might gasp. And you should — I’m sure it’s nowhere near that. I just made it up. But here’s something I didn’t make up: Asians comprise one-third of San Francisco’s population, so if they did commit one-third of the crimes, it would be normal — not gasp worthy.
Companies and financial planners do this lots of times. “Our stock went up 50% last year.” Yeah, but it went down 70% the year before. Just as with those phony news stories, context is everything.
A matter of perspective. Some items on the Chronicle list that are presented as good might not be desirable to you. Maybe a diverse city with lots of bars and mass transit stations is your vision of hell.
That’s the other part of the objectivity myth. A lot of the Cronkite-and-daily-newspaper notion came from mostly white, mostly middle-aged journalists trying to please their mostly white, mostly middle-aged audiences.
But the country has changed and a lot of different notes are being played. Those who are nostalgic for the Cronkite days keep stamping their feet and fighting to preserve the good ol’ days, labeling anything they can’t clap their hands to as “fake news.”
It’s not fake. It’s just a different tune.
Murphy Slaw
Something old: What if your spouse was keeping a secret? Not just from you, but from themself? Suddenly, all the pieces fit.
Something new: Some of these things are new, some aren’t. All are pretty cool.
Something borrowed: When last week’s column mentioned that you could sing “Amazing Grace” to the theme from “Gilligan’s Island,” my friend Janet remembered this bit from comedian Andy Andrews. Versatile song.
Something blue: Yeah, sometimes we all feel like victims.
I agree with the premise that you need to read between the lines and look for the things that are left out but I can't agree with out and out lying when reporting things. I never get tired of watching Andy do Amazing Grace. Thanks for the mention :)