Who would have thought that the concept “telling the truth is important” could be so polarizing?
Perhaps, in today’s American culture, it should not surprise me that my column last week criticizing Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson for intentionally lying in a press conference to entrap a suspect provoked a heated and divided reaction.
“Come on John, put on your big boy pants,” wrote JC, one of many readers who said the ends justify the means. “This has long been a law enforcement tactic to mislead criminals and lure them into complacency. I have no problem with the sheriff lying as I know why he did it.”
Others agreed with me about what is at stake:
“Thank you, Mr. Hiner, for your editorial today on the need for truth,” Alan said. “It is the greatest casualty of the times we live in, and which so few seem to care about. We are drowning in untruths, and yet we refuse to let go of the lies we agree with and which drag us down.”
You may be wondering why I’m coming back to this topic. First, it’s because of something Alan said – namely how pervasive and damaging lies are, and how often they take root and spread on social media. Second, it’s because I have a very recent and very disturbing example of this effect.
MLive and other major media outlets covered the August 7 visit of Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, to Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
On Sunday, former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump took to social media to declare that images of a large crowd were “fake” and “there was no one there!” Others echoed Trump’s calls and questioned photos of the event posted on social media by MLive.
MLive had four journalists on the scene. They are real, live people, just like the 15,000 or so other bodies crammed into and around a hangar. We documented it in photos and video, as did other media that were there.
“At 4:30 p.m. there were huge crowds there, a pretty dense crowd,” said Santino Mattioli, a videographer for MLive. “People were fainting from the heat. It was hot in there and a lot of people were crowded together. It was difficult to interview people because it was so crowded.”
But Trump’s claims sparked a flood of similar accusations in MLive’s social media posts, with some saying the photos and videos were doctored; others accusing the media of using artificial intelligence to create the images of the crowd.
This is not the “whining” of a “snooty” journalist, as several readers accused me of after my column last week. It is a stark and fundamental divide between us, both in terms of the truth and in terms of trust in the people whose job it is to seek it and report it.
“It’s ridiculous. I mean, we just don’t do that,” said J. Scott Park, photo editor at MLive. “I find it insulting that I, a legitimate news organization, am accused of doctoring a photo. I would expect you to fire me the same day if you found out I did that.”
You wouldn’t get on a plane if you didn’t trust that the pilot would make the best use of his training. You wouldn’t agree to an operation if you weren’t convinced that the doctor had the right intentions to heal you.
And yet in America, a large percentage of the population – probably people who already believe something – want to believe that people who dedicate their lives to accurately reporting and portraying news events are trying to trick them.
“I got into photojournalism because I didn’t think people would dismiss a photograph,” said Jacob Hamilton, a multimedia specialist at The Ann Arbor News who worked the Harris rally. “Today, people seem really reluctant to engage with things that contradict their beliefs.”
What frustrates our community-based journalists is that they have to demonstrate professional integrity on EVERY assignment.
“Yes, we cover presidential candidates when they come here, but we also cover your kids’ proms, your kids’ high school football games, your community events, your fairs,” Park said. “So we also doctor your kids’ prom photos?”
Here’s my point: If you don’t believe what you read in MLive or in our eight newspapers, then you’ve turned off the part of your brain that wants to see what everyone in the real world sees. Yes, a story or a photo may be a reporter’s or a photojournalist’s perspective from one angle, but that’s all we have: One perspective, in the moment, based on the truth.
And if you don’t want to be part of this community, please don’t insult our journalists by spreading your lies and conspiracy theories on social media platforms.
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John Hiner is President of MLive Media Group. If you have questions you’d like him to answer or topics you’d like to explore, share your thoughts with us at [email protected].
