It is a time of considerable ignominy for The Wire. The organization was compelled to make not one but two retractions of major news stories it broke. The first withdrawal was a series of reports where The Wire claimed that the chief of the BJP’s Information Technology Department, Amit Malviya, holds special privileges that enable him to have posts removed from the social media website Instagram owned by Meta.
Meta summarily rejected the claims and called the evidence presented by The Wire, baseless and fabricated. After some back and forth, The Wire formally retracted its Meta stories. They apologized to its reader and claimed to be deceived by a “member of our Meta investigation team”. Yes, they claimed to be victims. Surprisingly or perhaps unsurprisingly, The Wire did not issue a public apology to the BJP or Amit Malviya about whom they made a spurious claim.
The second withdrawal was a three-part report that The Wire carried in January alleging that the BJP’s Information Technology Department used an application called Tek Fog to automate the retweeting of posts on Twitter, store a database of private citizens for targeted harassment and hijack inactive WhatsApp accounts. The Wire retracted the articles about Tek Fog On October 23, along with its stories about social media company Meta.
To adapt a famous quote by Oscar Wilde – To err once could be regarded as a misfortune, but to err so gravely twice is most definitely suspicious.
So What Went Wrong?
The Wire may not officially accept this, but its ideological and political stand is perfectly obvious to those consuming the content by the personnel they employ, and those who advocate for them.
It is this partisanship that is the core of the problem.
In the case of both Tek Fog and Meta stories, they were victims of confirmation bias. The story about the BJP being able to remove posts (critical of the government) from Instagram, engaging in targeted harassment, and spreading propaganda fits the narrative that The Wire has been pushing since its founding. This is the narrative that India under the BJP turning into a totalitarian state where there is no press freedom, any criticism of the government is censored, and there is targeted persecution of dissenters and rampant propaganda.
These are the kind of stories they dream of.
When they are presented with such stories, they were so overcome by the desire that it be true that they abandoned, whatever editorial standards they may have. One assumes they have a multi-level review of content that is published on their website, especially ones where such serious claims are being made.
But a multi-level review is meaningless when individuals at every stage of the review are also consumed by confirmation bias such that abandoned their primary instincts of skepticism. Hence they nodded at every juncture, patted each other on their back for the fine job they think they are doing, and pressed ‘Publish’.
The fact that they got two big stories so disastrously wrong certainly raises questions about the motives.
The impact of fake news
Mark Twain famously said that a lie will fly around the whole world while the truth is getting its boots on. Doubtlessly stories about Tek Fog and Meta were picked up by several news outlets around the world.
These organizations were also victims of confirmation bias and hold some responsibility for amplifying the bogus by abandoning journalistic rigor. A news organization is responsible for every word they publish, even if they attribute it to other organizations
Most news organizations who are ideologically and politically on the same plane as The Wire has lavished blandishments on The Wire, for their stories. Some continue to do so even now while they engage in whataboutery.
So what is the impact?
Perhaps reports such as the ones retracted by The Wire contribute to the periodic indices and rankings that are released about democratic rights and press freedom in India. There will be scenarios where some casual regular consumers read the stories but miss the retractions and hence presume them to be true. The loss both reputationally and economically caused by such stories can hardly be measured and is irreparable.
This is not to say that the media should not carry stories that show their country in a bad light, but they are obligated to be factual. The question remains should there be consequences for The Wire and other news organizations for getting things so disastrously wrong?
The Subscriber Model
This also brings up serious questions about the subscriber model.
The proponents say that this model is superior to the sponsor model. They say that corporate sponsors could be arm twisted by the powers that kill certain stories, hence the subscriber model gives them freedom because the paying public can never apply pressure.
But what about an outfit such as The Wire which has taken a political stand already?
They have developed a subscriber base of like-minded people who tune in to have their biases confirmed. They probably only want to consume content that demonizes the BJP and the right. If the new organization were to adopt a stance of fairness and carry stories about some of the successes that the Modi government they will receive backlash and could be branded as ‘bhakts’ and traitors to the cause.
Soon there will be total abandonment.
Hence they give their subscribers who are actually their paying customers what they expect. They drive further and further in one direction and facts become the casualty. News outlets view their subscribers just as makers of horror slasher filmmakers view their fans. These fans expect to see blood, gore, and inventive ways to eliminate humans, and that is what the maker gives them. When an organization takes a political position, they have to break ‘shocking’ news to remain in the headlines. It broadens their subscriber base and increases donations.
Like horror fans who become desensitized by the relentless gore, the subscribers become desensitized by relentless breaking news, they want more sensationalism and shocking news. Hence news organizations go further and further in one direction until they fall flat. News has become a commodity from which where the paying customer expects predictability of content and this is deeply problematic.
Since funding is the bloodstream of any organization, irrespective of whether the fund emanates from corporate sponsors or from thousands of regular subscribers.
The organization will have to cater to those who supply the funds to run their business.
Perhaps subscribers prefer a false story that confirms their bias to factual news that goes against bias.
Will The Wire lose subscribers after being proven wrong?
Most likely not.
How it should be
When matters devolve into such chaos it is worth stating the obvious basic facts. The function of any news organization is to report facts and carry educated opinions about facts. Facts are undebatable, while opinions could be subjective. The hope is opinions are based on facts and are insightful because of the perspicacity and the domain experience of the author.
Let’s consider an imaginary situation.
Fact 1: The Chief Minister launched a welfare scheme in his state four months before election day.
Fact 2: Some polls show CM’s political party leading by a wide margin and some show the party trailing for the elections to be held in a month.
Opinion 1: The CM sees his flailing poll numbers, and launches a welfare scheme in a desperate move to bribe voters, and prevent a humiliating routing at the polls.
Opinion 2: This scheme is linked to another hugely popular scheme previously launched by the CM. The CM had promised this scheme four and a half years ago when his party won the elections. The revenue collected by the state due to a boom in tourism has enabled this scheme. The CM is merely fulfilling a promise. It helps that it is near the elections. Many polls show the CM leading his opponent.
Both reports are based on fact and both are valid.
It is essential that the news outlet explicitly differentiates between reports and opinions.
Reports must be meticulously reviewed to ensure that they are not colored by opinion. Numbers and statistics must be preferred over adjectives. In fact, adjectives must be avoided.
Alas, most news organizations blur this difference even in their reports. Their reports are tainted with bias based.
They either state facts without context or state facts selectively to drive a political point or resort to complete fabrication or ignore inconvenient facts.
Most reports are provocatively headlined especially by online portals to attract audiences.
The Solution
So is there a solution to the mess that The Wire finds itself in?
Ideally, any news organization that claims to be neutral must employ individuals from all political and ideological persuasions.
The group that opposes any story for ideological or political reasons must be assigned the task of reviewing and fact-checking. They must then be compelled to present their reasons for debunking a story before the editorial board.
But that will never happen in current times because news organizations have chosen already their political side. Some may be upfront about it, others may hide under a cloak of neutrality.
Most newsrooms have devolved into echo chambers where total surrender is perhaps explicitly or implicitly demanded.
Perhaps the employees and even external consultants feel that going against the groupthink by expressing doubts will hurt their career prospects and pecuniary gains.
So hush up and nod obsequiously when they are asked about any ‘sensational’ story that fits their narrative and a spurious story makes it to their website.
A practical solution is to promote a culture of skepticism within a newsroom, and perhaps hire people of some variance within the ideological spectrum.
There could be an individual who is perpetually loyal to both the party and the ideology. There could be another who is committed to the ideology but skeptical about the party.
Every individual, within the newsroom, even a junior intern, must be empowered to speak and take an adversarial position against groupthink, especially for stories that fit the narrative and present ‘sensational’.
Einstein described Insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
It would be insane for news organizations to expect matters to improve without instituting drastic changes immediately
For the Reader
The quest for unvarnished facts hence becomes a very expensive and challenging pursuit for newsrooms.
Consumers have no choice but to assume that the news they consume is false until proven factual. They will have to apply effort and verify the same claims from myriad outlets before they develop an opinion about the facts. Sadly most people do not have much time and neither do they have the interest.
Consumers have no choice but to assume that the news they consume is false until proven factual.
