CNN Policy

[Volokh, Eugene]

        My guess is that these questions come up all the time within news
organization.  Some reporter is assigned to story B rather than story A
because the higher-up thinks -- possibly with very little evidence, and
certainly with very little *publicly stated* evidence (since few media
organizations like to publicly air the details of why they have lost trust
in some of their journalists) -- that the reporter is likely to be
improperly biased about A.  Some producer says "this report seems inaccurate
or incomplete to me, let's have someone else counteract it."  Some anchor
cuts off some journalist because he thinks the journalist's position is
unsound.  Or even some institution sets up a general policy, because of what
higher-ups see as a pervasive pattern of error, whether on issues of
national defense, race relations, gender relations, or what have you.

        Each of these decisions can be challenged on the grounds that it's
unwise, unfair, or ill-informed, by those who are acquainted with the
particular facts, and who have the time and inclination to sift through all
those facts.  More broadly, if these decisions are publicized enough, the
public at large might lose confidence in the media outlet (as some people
have lost confidence in media outlets that they see, for instance, as having
a left-wing political bias).  But I'm not sure that this tells us much about
broader democratic constitutional theory, other than that we all agree that
unwise, unfair, or ill-informed decisions are bad, while wise, fair, and
well-informed ones are better.

        Eugene

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Justin Lipkin [SMTP:RJLipkin at AOL.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 1:47 PM
> To:   CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject:      Re: CNN Policy
>
>      As I understand the decision, Isaacson presumably decided that the
> news from Taliban controlled areas was either distorted, biased, or in
> some other way false.
> He then told his anchor people to make sure this distorted news is
> counteracted.  The interview I described showed that the reporter Nic
> Robertson was reporting that ordinary Afghanis (at least in Robertson's
> area) clearly supported the Taliban. Leon Harris then several times tried
> to challenge, perhaps that is too strong, Robertson's reporting as based
> on the biased or coerced testimony of the witnesses Robertson interviewed.
> Robertson several times tried to explain to Harris that the Afghani people
> he interviewed were not coerced.  Harris then ended the interview without
> giving Robertson a chance to reply by saying that even if the Afghanis
> were not coerced their views were less than reliable because the Taliban
> restricted what the people can see and hear.  Nothing in Robertson's
> reporting suggested that anything along these lines was true.  If Isaacson
> and Harris have reportable news that shows that the Taliban controls the
> news environment of! Afghanis to such a great extent as to render their
> views unreliable then report it, don't just assume it to be the case. (In
> such an event, I wonder why CNN spends so much time interviewing Afghanis
> given that we can know, in Isaacson's view, in advance that these
> witnesses are biased or coerced or unable to make reliable judgments.)
> Moreover, what troubled me, is not whether the chairperson or the front
> line anchor person engages in the questionable conduct.  The "questionable
> conduct," in my book, is the assumption, without  even an attempt to
> justify, that the news from Afghanistan is distorted and therefore should
> be counteracted by stateside anchor people. If there is justification for
> this contention, then report it as news and let viewers see it for
> themselves. If CNN did this, and then added that because the Taliban areas
> are generating so much propaganda, it is important for CNN's news staff to
> be especially vigilant by challenging or counteracting t! he distorted
> Taliban news, I would be much less troubled. But that is not what
> happened. I find it a stunning example of circular reasoning to say if the
> news reports show that Afghanis support the Taliban, then that in itself
> is evidence that the Taliban coerced or in some other way controls their
> views. I am concerned about using this question-begging argument as the
> basis of a policy of challenging the 'biased' news reports, when nothing
> in the news has supported the contention that there is bias. Finally, and
> this is the heart of my concern, I think this issue is an important one to
> debate, not necessarily concerning the analytic of constitutional doctrine
> or law, but rather whether some preferred theory of (deliberative)
> democracy, one that best explains and justifies constitutional law informs
> us that institutions, such as the press, so vital to our constitutional
> traditions should or should not act in this manner. I am perfectly willing
> to say that nothing in American c! onstitutional law condemns Isaacson's
> policy, and indeed I believe this to be the case, while simultaneously
> insisting that it is vitally important to debate whether some preferred
> democratic theory finds it desirable for institutions to act in this
> manner. What makes this an important constitutional issue, for me, is that
> it alerts us to the importance of formulating a theory of American
> constitutionalism which tells us the proper role of democratic
> institutions in American society--how these institutions should behave if
> they seek to exemplify the preferred democratic constitution theory,
> whatever that turns out to be, not how they must behave in order to
> conform of constitutional law.
>
> Bobby Lipkin
> Widener University School of Law
> Delaware
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