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Dave Winer ☕️

A new rule for journalists.

End the interview on the first egregious lie.

Turn the lights out, switch off the recorder, get up and leave.

And your report should state clearly that this is why the interview was terminated.

It never should have been tolerated in the first place.

70 comments
Joey Gibson :fez:

@davew I have a friend who keeps saying that "at least he answered questions”. Ugh. It doesn't matter to him that every "answer" was an outright lie.

Chris Mackay 🇨🇦

@davew Prediction: precisely zero journalists will follow this rule. Disqualifying.

Maddy :verifiedp2:

@davew You are either a Journalist, or you promote lies for clout.

Lewis Edwards

@davew This is the answer. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go directly to media jail.

Locksmith

@davew
Or contest the lie and confront the liar until either the liar gives up, or the interview is over.

gentlegardener

@davew thank you have been screaming this at
The tv For years Now.

And frankly it would Make NEWS! (The first 30 times). There could be a count on the nightly news of the names of news orgs and journos who refused to continue.
And then it would save your org and all of us time and money.
I believe you dont do this because you want the next one
Getting called on in next presser
Getting answer to your next shouted question in the gaggle
Getting the next interview
Scoop
Job

Angry Centrist

@davew An alternative scenario is to call out that first lie, don't let them move on, don't let them gloss over it or tell another lie unanswered, and make THEM get up and leave. It makes for satisfying closure, though of course there are filthy sleazebags like Vance and Cruz who'll just continue denying it. Frump's head would explode (and then we might be rid of him!)

tessarakt

@davew Also, candidates, do the same in job interviews.

Eric Lawton

@davew

Otherwise they're stenographers, not journalists.

Colin B.

@davew I'd be happy to give them a warning.

"That's obviously not true. Care to change your statement?"

Then they get exposed and are forced to either tell the truth (hah!), or get left sitting in the dark.

Dave Winer ☕️

@swordgeek

Yes I would give them a chance to correct it too.

kolya

@davew I think I prefer a fact check after the interview instead of journalists deciding what is a lie and who may speak.

Kipppunkt

@kolya @davew
A fact check is a nice thing. But i think a journalist has to intervene imediately and clearify as good as possible. Else the interviewed person had the possibility to use lies for a bigger picture.

kolya

@Kipppunkt @davew
So what. Let them tell their lies, let the journalists do their work by reporting the facts and then let the people decide.

kolya

@Kipppunkt @davew
...unless you think the people might fall for the lies if they are painted as a bigger picture, because the people are too stupid to see through it and need guidance by cutting off unwelcome interviews.
In which case you're an authoritarian and I don't care about what you think journalists should do.

kmetz

@kolya @Kipppunkt @davew I think people who believe in certain „big lies“ aren‘t stupid, but tricked and emotionally abused. And I don‘t think such violent behaviour by certain liars can be tolerated, that it goes far beyond being „unwelcome“.

What I‘d like to see is interviewers who just keep persisting on such a lie after first occurence, visibly no longer taking the person serious. Who laughingly and forcefully persist until someone cries, time runs out or the guest just leaves.

kolya

@kmetz @Kipppunkt @davew
yes, but I'm sure it's never you who gets tricked and abused. it's always others who you fear might get the wrong idea.
what if they think the same about you? what if Trump gets elected and uses those same clever "rules" you guys are making up here to silence your side? this is why journalism needs to act as impartial as possible, because that will help you when shit hits the fan.

Kipppunkt

@kolya @kmetz @davew
I do not think journalists should yell their truth to the interviewed or journalists should win a discussion. But I wish journalists have background knowledge, mention facts when lies are spoken and ask questions to uncover misleading arguments.
Of course they should be polite.

Dave Winer ☕️

@kolya @Kipppunkt

let the liars find another way to misinform the people.

kolya

@davew @Kipppunkt
sometimes it feels like I'm in the third wave experiment.

bamfic

@kolya @Kipppunkt @davew a lie can travel around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes

Geoff Berner

@davew it would be fantastic to see Rachel Maddow hang up on Harris the moment she claims she and Biden "ended the pandemic" but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Callisto

@Geoffberner @davew They wouldn't be getting away with saying that now, if journalists had done as the OP suggests the first (and second, and hundredth) time someone said "droplet"

Geoff Berner

@callisto @davew it doesn't really work. Who decides what the political truth is? Judges? Shriners? Oprah?

Bela Lugosi's Dad

@davew but! If they do this, the person they were interviewing will not come back for another interview! They would be forced to go investigate and report on things instead of being handed bullshit on a plate! Can you imagine the chaos?

Zorro Notorious MEB 🪷🪷🪷

@davew That's not going to happen. I saw Jake Tapper do it once. I forgot who he was interviewing. I suspect CNN reprimanded Tapper because it hasn't happened again despite numerous opportunities.

Boycott advertisers, cancel subscriptions, cut out your viewing and tell the owners why. The journalists work for them, not for us

Killick

@AlgoCompSynth @davew

Just stop watching TV News. TV News is a cancer. They want sound-bites and a moving picture to get ratings. They were click-bait before there was click-bait. Reading the news is much healthier for us and for our politics, IMO.

JonChevreau

@davew then most interviews with #TheDonOLD will end in the first 30 seconds!

relogi

@davew
how do people react so calmly to being lied to? journalists not calling out lies are effectively (metaphorically)watching rape in silence; silence IS complicity

gentlegardener

@davew repeat: it is all about the future: next job promo soundbyte
Interview question scoop for the news org rather than about truth in the present moment

brightside

@davew I like the sentiment of your post, 100 % ! I always thought that journalists have historically been there to report news to the people and to inform them. And to fact check and to make sure democracy doesn't go downhill. Not to help making profit for few and not to amplify countless lies.

LA Legault 🍉

@davew @pattykimura

If you can convince the editors of that, you win a prize

Pete

@davew Yup, do that and watch just how quickly American politics change.

Mind you, there will always be scum sucking networks like Fox that will air any lie unchecked but that's on them.

Daniel Marks

@davew It would be enough if journalists did not report these statements uncritically. If their public officials are liars, then the public should know.

Brad Macpherson

@davew If you can't go full Paxman, at least don't pander to the lying arseholes. Fully agree.

FelisCatus

@davew would be a brilliant idea if most journalists were honest and unbiased. Unfortunately TV hosts apply double standards, easy questions for the politicians they like, and making their best to discredit the other ones.

Imagine the scene:
TV anchor: So, Mr Sanders, your manifesto says you want to tax the rich, but everyone knows that's impossible, so what would you do were you to be elected?
Bernie: Of cours it is possible, and I...
TV anchor: That's an egregious lie! End of the interview!

Dave Winer ☕️

@FelisCatus

they aren't journalists imho if they can't agree to that simple rule.

FelisCatus

@davew I agree. Then the root of the problem is that so many people working as "journalists" are not journalists.

Deriamis

@davew @mastodonmigration Or just don’t interview a known habitual liar in the first place. The only reason I can see for doing that is the sensationalist promotion of misinformation. It doesn’t matter if the person in question is a political candidate, presidential or otherwise. Promoting any candidate’s lies along with their disgusting ideology isn’t required of private companies by the First Amendment.

Dirk Ritter

@deriamis @davew @mastodonmigration

Correct. You're asking a question, a few guys raise their hands, opinions may differ, but in all other settings, you never let the known, notorious idiot and liar answer it. Never, ever.

What the media are doing here is the active promotion of lies and they know it pretty dammn well, because they're all professionals. Shame on 'em!

»What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics« by John Lloyd probably describes it better, BTW...

Nini

@deriamis @davew @mastodonmigration Sure but isn't the point of the journalist to counter the lies and to report the truth of a situation? The habitual liar will lie unrelentingly as is their nature but letting them go unquestioned seems like an abdication of responsibility. It's less effective promotion when you're getting countered on your position and made to face your lies. Anything else is a fluff piece.

Elie 🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 (He/Him)

@davew @lisamelton at that point there would be no more interviews with politicians. Can only be a positive thing

Saebhiar mac Domhnáill

@davew Then the non journalists get free reign to promote those lies.

enoch_exe_inc

@davew Alternative rule: put those enhanced interview techniques the CIA spent way too much money at the cost of way too many human beings into practice and treat the interview as if it were an interrogation. Think of yourself not as a journalist, but an inquisitor sent by the Powers That Be to extract information from the interviewee, no matter the cost, for a nebulously-defined ‘greater good’—in this case, ‘the preservation of democracy’, whatever that entails.

enoch_exe_inc

@davew The reason I think this is a viable alternative has to do with my opinion that those aligned Democrat need to grow an extra vertebrate or two, that the solution to the Republicans not playing by the rules is for the Democrats to use their President’s new powers to punish them, and that the time for diplomacy is long past. Your party is in charge, for Sobek’s sake; do unto them before they do unto you!

AlexanderMars

@davew if we’re just spitballing, just make it illegal for politicians/candidates to lie. I mean, if a pol makes an objectively false statement, then any citizen they represent ought to be able to sue them for like dereliction or whatever. Because looking at how many reporters are still on xitter, the level of integrity needed for reporters to brutally shutdown liars or racists just isn’t there. They need the clicks/engagement or whatever metrics they’re evaluated on too much.

Tony Mullen

@davew the capitalist corporate media are for entertainment, not news gathering, hence the constant bullshit.

Full Metal Archaeopteryx

@davew

Just gotta have a backup guest for the rest of the program... because if it's TFG, the interview will end in five minutes

Whiskers

@davew It's a great idea. But being able to make the call 'That is a lie' on the spot might be difficult without fact checking. Networks would be uncomfortable. Fact checking takes time. We need to harness technology to do it in real time.

TAI

@davew I wish people would just stop with "people need to see this" bullshit. we've seen more than enough and it just feeds into his just lie enough times and many believe it. They are accomplices

TAI

@davew the media has sold out any chance of ethics. Many have made careers from the trump era. Look at the salaries and ratings boost from the spectacle, they have sold their souls for this. Trained seals begging for the next fish from him. They are ALL his greatest enablers

crazyeddie

@davew Nah, man. Call them on it. Ask until answered. Sit there for an hour looking at them if that's what it takes. "Sir/madam, that's a lie...evidence, evidence,...would you care to answer truthfully?" blink blink, stare...then actually air 60 minutes of you just looking at each other.

Bluedepth

@davew Adamantium Testicles would make such a booming racket. Attached to a journalist with moxie, it’s dangerous. Maybe even to the point where it could resurrect the Fourth Estate. Walk softly and waggle those huge clangers.

Nazo

@davew In the end money overruled all reason. It pays more to let them lie, then print their lies verbatim as if that's enough on its own. People will surely just get on their own that it's a lie, right? (The funny thing is, apparently memetic thinking is so powerful that even knowing it is a lie still affects people's thought patterns when they see it repeated enough.) And of course the right knows this and has taken full advantage...

(And yes, a handful on the left too. It needs to stop)

Nini

@davew An exception to this rule: if you can counter their lies with factual information then you may stick around and ask further questions. Gotta be good at this though, if someone's willing to tell a lie then they're going to be slippery and try to evade.

Yes, I know, this is just gotcha journalism you might think but no, just regular investigative journalism here, sorry that the questions aren't going easy on you. Stop lying and they'll stop.

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