Surviving Autocracy

by Masha Gessen

During the presidential campaign, National Public Radio took the position that it would not call Trump a liar or call his statements lies. In a letter published on the network’s website, Senior Vice President Michael Oreskes explained: We want everyone to listen to us and read us. We want our reporting to reach as many people as possible. It is a well-established piece of social science research that if you start out with an angry tone and say something a listener disagrees with, they will tune out the facts. But if you present the facts calmly and without a tone of editorializing you substantially increase the chance that people will hear you out and weigh the facts. That is why the tone of journalism matters so much. We need potential listeners and readers to believe we are presenting the facts honestly, and not to confirm our opinions. . . . It is not overly sweeping a thought to say this is a nation built on a faith in facts. At NPR we still hold that faith in facts. . . . We doubt that you, our audience, needs us to characterize people, least of all presidential candidates. . . . The more we inflame our tone, the less people will listen. What we need these days as a network, and as a country, is for people to listen more. Oreskes was making an explicitly political judgment without acknowledging or perhaps even recognizing that it was political.