News Credibility, Political Consequences and the Case of ICE
Prof. Robert P. Newman, the late head of the William Pitt Debating Union at the University of Pittsburgh, was one of the most nationally well-known professors of rhetoric and communication until his passing in 2018, and his specialty was evidence and credibility.
His book, Evidence, focused on what should be believed as opposed to what was believed, according to an array of criteria such as reporters’ relationships to a situation’s principals or ideological principles, contemporaneousness (is a source of information close in time to the observations made), reluctant testimony (is a source testifying contrary to his or her own vested interest) and the like.
(Ironically, as of this writing, AI (Artificial Intelligence) has the picture of someone who is not Newman next to a paragraph identifying and highlighting him.)
In the last 10-15 years with the explosion of media in competition to be first at the expense of being accurate–the 2013 Duke Lacrosse rape accusation, the Michael Brown “Hands up; Don’t Shoot” accusation, the Boston Marathon Bombing accusations; and many others, leading now to the Alex Pritti Minneapolis accusation—media credibility has led to a general diminution of belief in media accuracy.
https://www.csmonitor.com/
Medium has some commonsense advice for media that in their competition to be first mislead their readers:
“…[O]ur brains are wired to cling to the first version of a story we hear, especially when it feels familiar or validating.
For media organizations, this means issuing corrections is not just about honesty but also about timing, prominence, and clarity. Corrections must be made quickly, clearly, and visibly to maximize their effectiveness, and sometimes repeated to counteract persistent misinformation. A single update tucked at the bottom of an article won’t cut it—not when falsehoods are repeated across headlines, hashtags, and hot takes. If media outlets truly want to uphold their role as stewards of truth, then they must approach corrections not as a reluctant chore, but as a strategic and moral imperative.”
But the more vexing problem is how to avoid the errors that overdrive creates through destructive competition in the first place.
In fact, the Trump claimed invention of the concept of “Fake News” itself is even highly disputed.
The recent case of the killing of a protester in Minneapolis-in addition to other sundry consequences of violent acts–is a case in point of the destruction of believability in the rush of the competition to define news.
Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was, as described by the Minneapolis Police, an American citizen with no criminal record beyond a traffic ticket and who was legally licensed to carry a concealed weapon, but who, in the confrontation with ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents never claimed to have seen such a weapon on his person.
Pretti tried to approach an injured woman, but was not allowed to and was pepper sprayed. Then, in a buzzing blooming confusion, he ended up in a scrum with agents and was shot to death at the scene.
After the shooting, DHS posted a photo of a gun they said Pretti possessed when he was killed, but there is evidence that the gun was separated from him.
Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol Commander-At-Large Greg Bovino claimed the shooting was justified since Pretti had a gun, a claim similar to Kristi Noem’s depiction-made immediately and which may have been a premature judgment.
Within days, President Trump implicitly questioned Bovino and Noem’s descriptions, and Bovino was removed from Minneapolis. ICE’s Tom Homan, the universally respected – or, at least, relatively respected — acting director of ICE was sent to Minneapolis.
The protesters, not a uniform lot, were sure this was an uncomplicated case of first-degree murder of Pretti.
There are no disinterested sources to this story, and it is an exemplar of political partisans’ rush to judgment, the major source of non-credible perceptions of the truth in violent confrontations.
It has always been the case that news sources’ errors are and were embarrassing to the source. That is why corrections, which generally function to avoid lawsuits, are made almost invisibly inside the newspaper or journal which has committed the errancy.
One of the answers to the multiple conundrums presented by credibility clashes such as these is to slow down until there is consensus by respected sources.
Richard E. Vatz https://wp.towson.edu/vatz/ is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political rhetoric at Towson University and author of The Only Authentic of Persuasion: the Agenda-Spin Model (Bookwrights House, 2024) and over 200 other works, essays, lectures, and op-eds. He is the benefactor of the Richard E. Vatz Best Debater Award at Towson. The Van Bokkelen Auditorium at Towson University has been named after him.