Topics Business

Question If a newspaper receives letters to the editor taking a position that has been proven factually inaccurate, is it nevertheless the editor's responsibility to print one or more of these letters? Is it more important to demonstrate that others hold a different point of view, however inaccurate, or to convey only accurate information? (Maybe this example is too political or specific, but this came up in regards to the subject of where President Obama was born.)

Accepted:
August 19, 2010

Comments

I believe editors have no such responsibility to print known falsehoods that some want to see in print. In fact, I believe editors have a responsibility not to print such letters. If editors practiced such misconceived "even-handedness," then this would provide a powerful incentive to determined groups to use such letters to create uncertainty in a public that often isn't very capable of discerning what's true and what is not. Reading many letters to the effect that Obama is foreign-born and hence ineligible for the Presidency may persuade a sizable minority of US citizens that their country has been hijacked by foreign agents. And groups could then abuse the letters-to-the-editors facility to inspire this persuasion, perhaps in preparation for terrorist activities such as the Oklahoma City bombing.

Companies could also abuse this sort of false even-handedness. Thus, imagine a company A that sells an expensive drug which reduces the symptoms of some dreadful disease. And imagine that a competing company B has developed a vaccine that can decimate this same disease (and therefore A's market for its product). If editors were committed to the kind of even-handedness you're contemplating, then the shareholders and employees of A would have a strong incentive to write many letters to editors all over the place stating (quite falsely and without evidence) that B's vaccine causes impotence, depression, or body odor.

The editors of media have a responsibility conscientiously to inform the public to the best of their ability. Where the evidence is uncertain, they should say so and give space to the best arguments against their own views. But where the evidence is overwhelming (as it has been for quite some time in the controversies over whether smoking is dangerous to health, over whether there is human-made global warming, over how people get infected with AIDS), editors have a responsibility to convey this to their audiences and to keep out the crackpots and those who would from ulterior motives manipulate the public.

Sure, this sort of editorial discretion can be and frequently is being abused. But this abuse is best kept in check through the multiplicity of media. If one paper denies that there is human-made climate change and keeps out any opposing voices on the ground that they are evidently ill-informed, then these voices can find or create other news media in which to state their case. The best evidence does not always prevail, to be sure, but (in a society with reasonably free media) it does generally do pretty well in reaching the public. And this advantage would grow, not shrink, I believe, if more editors saw their responsibility as I proposed.