Tucker vs. mainstream media explained
Mainstream media is flawed and biased, but still a hellava lot more reliable and trustworthy than Tucker.
Yes, the mainstream-media sucks. Yes, they have a left-wing bias. Yes, platforms censor free-speech. But no, the criticisms by those like Tucker Carlson aren’t rational. Despite their flaws and biases, the mainstream is still based upon the principles of (classic) liberalism. In contrast, Tucker Carlson just spews populist conspiracy theories, and does not defend principles.
This post defines those principles. We are talking about classic liberalism, not left-wing liberalism. Indeed, today’s toxic “wokeism” and “cancel-culture” are as much an attack on classic liberalism as Tucker’s populist conspiracy-theories.
The reliability of a story is not whether you agree or disagree with it, or even if it turns out to be right or wrong. The reason we can’t judge stories this way is because there is no neutral arbiter of truth.
Instead, the reliability of a story is the process used to craft it. Specifically, a story can be judge by two elements:
How clearly it states its claims, being upfront and straightforward about what it means, rather than talking around issues, implying things without ever stating them.
How well it supports anything claimed in the story, with specifics, citing the source, how well it makes it easy for the reader to hold the journalist accountable.
These principles are classic liberalism. They are the basis of other fields, like law and science. You have to clearly state your claim, then support it.
Pick any story, like those on the front page of the New York Times. The first paragraph clearly tells the reader what the story is about. In the body of the story, everything stated cites a source. What’s important isn’t what fact the journalist tells us, but where the fact came from, so that we the reader can go track it down.
Such stories have other principles, too. For example, they generally try to show “both sides” of an issue. These are all secondary to the first two principles: being clear at what you state, and citing support for what you state.
I pick the NYTimes here because they are the very worst of mainstream journalism. Somehow being at the top has made them immune to criticism, so they get away with a lot of crap. For example, they have an abusive relationship with Washington DC insiders. The Society of Professional Journalists has a paper describing the problem, calling it the “Washington Game”, where journalists agree to publish propaganda in exchange for access. But even though everyone knows this criticism is aimed at the NYTimes, that they play this game more than anybody else, nobody is willing to say so explicitly.
An example of this Washington Game in action is this story blaming the DNC leaks on Russia. The opening paragraph states:
American intelligence agencies have told the White House they now have “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee, according to federal officials who have been briefed on the evidence.
The story is clear about what it states, and it clearly cites “federal officials”. The problem is that it doesn’t name the federal officials. This means the reader can’t hold hold anybody accountable for the claim.
There is no whistleblower here, violating their oath of secrecy in order to expose corruption in government. Instead, it’s almost certainly somebody authorized to talk to reporters, to make statements they aren’t held accountable for.
In reality, at this stage in the story, the administration wanted people to believe it was Russia even though they had no evidence to back up it. Thus, they go to the NYTimes and make a deal: push this story even though they have no evidence, citing anonymous officials, and in exchange, NYTimes will get early access to the next reliable story where officials do go on the record. Because the NYTimes story does this, prostituting their ethics, they become the “paper of record”. When real stories break, they have the best sources of the even to quote on-the-record.
Everyone knows this is what happened in the above story. I’m not writing some wacky conspiracy-theory about how the mainstream-media is all corrupt. It’s just that they shrug their shoulders. This is even often the plot point in various TV series and movies, like Sorkin’s The West Wing as the press secretary negotiates this with the press. The Netflix series House of Cards, showing a very corrupt politician explicitly negotiating this for access. It shows how some colleagues are jealous of the journalist for having access within the government, while others oppose that journalist for their obvious ethical problems.
The point I’m making is that the NYTimes is still vastly more credible than Tucker Carlson, on any issue. Tucker rarely makes his claims clear, or supports them. Indeed, he rarely makes claims at all, he’s usually “just asking questions”. When he does do things right, making a clear claim and citing a specific source, it’s rarely done in a trustworthy way.
For example, one of Tucker’s recent segments claimd “American soldiers are fighting Russian soldiers in Ukraine”. He cites as his sort this document from the recent Pentagon leaks. It clearly says that 14 US SOF are in Ukraine, but doesn’t say they are fighting. Indeed, the bottom describes their recent activities being only training.
The Guardian, a left-wing British newspaper even worse than the NYTimes, does a much better job describing this document. It says “It is unclear what activities the special forces may have been engaged in”.
The point is that Tucker deliberately lied, claiming the document said things it didn’t. In contrast, every reputable and even less reputable mainstream-media platforms did better. They clearly described what the document said, rather than deliberately exaggerating what it might’ve said.
This discussion isn’t about what’s true here. It doesn’t matter if Russia was responsible for the DNC attacks. It doesn’t matter if special operation forces are engaged in combat in Ukraine. You don’t get credit for being right just like you don’t get credit for guessing a coin toss. If you guessed “heads” correctly, it’s not due to some special ability you have, but chance.
It turns out that we eventually got a lot more evidence Russia was behind the DNC attacks, and eventually named officials went on-the-record to claim this. This doesn’t change the fact that the above NYTimes story is bad journalism.
We are talking about principles here. When the NYTimes quotes an anonymous source in government, we know that the story is crap, because we can’t hold it accountable. But most of NYTimes stories aren’t crap. They cite sources and facts that we can hold accountable. There will still be biases and flaws, but as readers who understand how such stories are written, we deal with them. When they make mistakes, they issue corrections.
In contrast, Tucker follows no principles. His premise is that the mainstream and elite are corrupt and can’t be trusted, and only he (and his readers). can see through the truth. Even as he spews vague, unsupported, and misrepresented material, it doesn’t matter, because he’s fighting the good fight.
Mainstream-media sometimes fail at adhering to their principles of truth, but this is still far better than Tucker Carlson who has no such principles. He’s fighting for a higher Truth™, where even lies are Truth™ as long as they support their higher purpose.
I’m a centrist. I’m terribly frustrated at the flaws and biases of the mainstream-media, how everyone knows the problems at the NYTimes, and yet, nobody cares. I can clearly document the problem, as I do in this post.
But it’s still mostly trustworthy, far better than Tucker himself, who doesn’t even try to be trustworthy, because he’s Right™.