Journalists, Don’t Mess with #TheDress

There is something important that every news gatherer should learn from the “Is that dress white and gold or blue and black?” debate. Simply stated: Perception is everything. Truth is an illusion.

Yesterday, two memes raged across the Internet—one because of the llama chase in Arizona, the other about the color of a dress. If I correctly understand the timeline, about which I could be mistaken: User Swiked posted the above cropped picture to Tumblr with question: “Guys please help me—is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Me and my friends can’t agree and we are freaking the fuck out”. Obviously, those colors are strikingly different. 

I initially perceived white and gold when seeing the photo after working for hours in the web browser. Later, after watching streamed video content, the dress appeared light lavender and gold. My wife sees lavender and grey. BuzzFeed News gets the, ah, buzz from a couple of academics about the differences in perception: “It’s about how your brain is interpreting the light coming into your eyes”.

If you gather and report the news, this meme is part allegory and another bit analogy relevant to what you do—and how much your storytelling is perception rather than truth. I am a longstanding critic of journalism’s making the pursuit of the truth the highest ethical standard, arguing there is no such thing. Consider this dress mess worthy teaching tool for why—and lesson for improving your reporting.

1. You can’t trust your perception, because there are unseen influences. Like our brain normalizes vision, we also rationalize based on many influences that shape our personal worldviews. Everything from culture to economic class to religion or politics, and more, shapes how we interpret what. You make all kinds of choices in compiling your report that impacts your perception and that which you create for others.

2. Because perception is unreliable bias is inevitable, whether from the news gatherer or the people he or she interviews, journalism’s “seek the truth” ethic is misguided. Journalists who believe they report the truth, lie to themselves and to others. Please also see my analyses “Bias is Unavoidable” and “In News Reporting There Is No Truth, Just Perspective“.

3. Assuming you report the truth is arrogant, and therefore further colors your perception. Arrogance is a constant undercurrent in news reporting, particularly that which is editorially curated. The idea being: “We print the truth”. But you don’t.

For new media, the worst examples of arrogance certainty are know-it-all-commentaries, of which there are too many based on too little original sourcing or reporting.

4. What you perceive to be true may be a lie. This, ah, truth makes the underlying arrogance about reporting truth all the more dangerous. This quote from former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee is spot on:

Newspapers don’t tell the truth under many different, and occasionally innocent, scenarios. Mostly when they don’t know the truth. Or when they quote someone who does not know the truth.

And more and more, when they quote someone who is spinning the truth, shaping it to some preconceived version of a story that is supposed to be somehow better than the truth, omitting details that could be embarrassing.

And finally, when they quote someone who is flat-out lying. There is a lot of spinning and a lot of lying in our times—in politics, in government, in sports and everywhere. It’s gotten to a point where, if you are like me, you no longer believe the first version of anything. It wasn’t always that way.

5. Because perception is unreliable, sourcing means everything in news reporting. I am a longstanding critic of unoriginal, single sourcing. Meaning: You don’t source something else when you can get information from sources you directly contact. I explain the importance in my now five-year-old post “The Difference Between Blogging and Journalism“.

6. You can only report with some seeming sense of accuracy by presenting different points of view. One of the most effective ways of presenting all sides of the story is seeking out multiple sources. The dress mess is great example. BuzzFeed consultants several academics, while Gizmodo uses experts who give different reasons.

7. Sourcing is also vital because there often are multiple truths. Consider these contradictory truths. Adobe Photoshop assesses the colors to be black and blue, which the dress’s maker confirms. In BuzzFeed’s poll, currently with more than 2.5 million responses, 71 percent see white and gold. Both are true, based on the reporting. More significantly, the dress’s real color when seen live and the other combination based on conditions captured by the cameraphone can both be reported as true.

From my “Blogging and Journalism” post:

 There are at least two sides to any story, usually more. Real journalists present all sides of a story, using multiple sources for balance and doing original reporting wherever possible. A quick survey of blogs reveals that many bloggers reporting news generally offer one side of the story. This one-sided difference is partly responsible for the Web being polluted by gossip, rumor, and innuendo posing as news.

8, Write what you can perceive to be true, based on original sourcing, but expect what’s true to change as you do additional reporting that illuminates more perspectives. Original sourcing that presents multiple viewpoints broadens the perspective in ways that diminish bias and improve accuracy. The worst reporting is when a blogger or journalist cites as single-sources something somewhere on the Internet, which could be blog, forum, news story, or social share. One exception is an analysis like this one that sources to make points directed at the cited sources.

The concept that journalists report the truth is a dangerously arrogant attitude. Bias is inevitable, while the news subject may look differently based on the vantage point. A pig is a pig, but the animal can be described quite differently when viewed from perspective of snout or tail. Vantage point influences perception, yours and your audience.

Have a look at my post “Responsible Reporting Cheat Sheet” for links to several stories that can improve the quality of your news gathering.