Fact, not opinion

I’m going to play devil’s advocate because I think this is actually an interesting question. What is the difference between facts and opinions. Looking at the comments you highlighted, I see a number of legal facts and one single opinion.

It is a legal fact that there has been a sustantined attack on women’s reproductive freedom. If you consider Roe the affirmation of the right for women to have reproductive freedom–which the court did–then attempts to eliminate that legal (and Constitutional right–is a sustained attack on that freedom. That’s a fact.

Now, people can have disagreements about the merits of that freedom, but the Roe decision was about reprodocutive freedom. That was the core of the court’s decision.

It is also a fact that the government has created law-free zones at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, other places around the world. The Supreme Court has acknowledged that and the Bush adminstration has acknowledged that. It is a fact.
The only real opinion is about the hijacking of public policy by religious fundamentalists.

Now, I think Greenhouse’s comments were unwise and impolitic given that they create the impression of bias, even if there is none or little. It’s not enough to endeavor to be unbiased, but it is also important to avoid the impression of bias. I am confident that she Greenhouse is aware there is multiple views on contentious issues. Saying there is a sustained attack on reproductive freedom doesn’t mean she doesn’t realize there are multiple views, it’s just that she personally agrees with the legal fact.

“The copy chief at my paper told me that everyone has biases and opinions and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that. What she doesn’t like, though, is when reporters say their clear biases and opinions are statements of fact. That’s where personal opinions are dangerous.”

That is an interesting statement. Especially for reporters on the religion beat. I would say that most conservative Christian reporters are biased in thinking their faith is the only (true) way (and would clearly believe its a fact). How can any of them then fairly report on a non-Christian faith? They obviously believe their subjects are “wrong” and “going to Hell”. I’m sure some conservative religion-beat reporters even go to conferences and give talks that would raise the hackles of non-Christian readers.

I would say that most conservative Christian reporters are biased in thinking their faith is the only (true) way (and would clearly believe its a fact). How can any of them then fairly report on a non-Christian faith?

An interesting observation. I’m curious, Terry, whether you think you could ever return to being an objective reporter on religion after being an opinion writer and blogger where you’ve expressed strong opinions and biases about religion? Do those views prevent you from ever doing objective journalism?

Many of those who support abortion rights are making the assumption that what they are terminating isn’t a human life desiring of protection. Once society defines when life begins, the next step is define what rights and protections are due that life. When one defines life at a certain stage of development prior to use, then limitations on abortion is a logical next step.

We don’t allow infanticide since we all agree that the child is a human life with all the rights and protections due the child.

If I may correct one point (as an attorney, I may know something about it), there is no such thing as a “legal fact”. Every court’s decisions, even those of the United States Supreme Court, are called “opinions”. Just because the court’s opinion in Roe vs. Wade was pronounced in terms of “reproductive freedom”, that does not turn the court’s opinion into “fact”. Even they knew that.

“It is a legal fact that there has been a sustantined attack on women’s reproductive freedom.”

It is not a fact — it is a falsehood — that prohibiting abortion in any way restricts a woman’s freedom with regard to whether or not to “reproduce.” The fact is that abortion occurs after reproduction has occurred — when a woman aborts, she already has “reproduced.” Abortion is no more about “reproductive freedom” than is infanticide.

I think Greenhouse is a brilliant reporter — for The Nation. Or perhaps The New Republic, although she may be too liberal for that magazine.

The issue is not her opinions. The issue is her reporting. I no very, very conservative Christians who are journalists and are NOT accused of being biased and one-sided. The issue is the reporter’s basic commitment to journalism.

So, should the Times make her a columnist? What would be a good solution to the problem (and there has been a problem with her reporting for a long, long time). What would happen if the Supreme Court coverage team was more diverse and balanced? What if she had to work with and share space and info with people whose views directly clashed with her views (something that traditional religious believers experience every day that they work on team projects in mainstream newsrooms)?

What should the Times do?

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

These are the legal facts and conclusions of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. In essence, they are saying there is a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. Any attempts to limit that righth would be an “assault.” Granted, I wouldn’t have used the word “assault,” but I would also argue it is not an “opinion.”

Not being able to see that is extremely problematic.

Well, that is an opinion. Listen, I think what Greenhouse said was unwise, but I don’t think her defense is as off-base as you think it is. You have issues with Greenhouse that pre-date this dispuite. That’s fair and we all have bones to pick with reporters. That’s why you have a blog after all.

But the question is how she deals with those biases when she reports. Okrent says he never received a complaint about her biase when he was Public Editor.

Michael,
You are confusing your opinions with facts.

You obviously have trouble with her politics, but can you say that impacts her reporting?

How can it not? I think the alternatives are:

1) Hire reporters with no bias. Tough on HR.

2) Hire biased reporters and don’t worry about it. Your readership becomes self-electing. (“Okrent says he never received a complaint about her bias when he was Public Editor.” That doesn’t mean she isn’t biased, just that the readership either didn’t care or didn’t say anything because they knew their concerns wouldn’t matter. Similarly with awards won — they award may simply represent the biases of the award committee.)

3) Hired biased reporters but ask them to leave their beliefs at the door. One solution, but few reporters can carry it off. I’m not familiar with Greenhouse. Can those who have read her say they have no idea what her politics are?

4) Hire biased reporters and balance the biases against one another. That’s possible, but it just about any organization (made up of baised people) will naturally tend to lean to one side or the other, and then the balance gets skewed.

5) Hire biased reporters but challenge them to recognize their bias and overcome it in their reporting. This is exactly what Greenhouse is not doing. Her opinions are “facts.” Of course this is going to color her reporting.

I don’t think bias isn’t the problem — we’re all biased — blindness is.

As I understand it, the issue is not that Linda Greenehouse has strong political opinions, it’s that she expressed them publicly. I can’t see this as an ethical issue, though it seems to violate standards of journalistic conduct, about which I know little. So I have no strong feelings or opinions one way or another.

I do feel it is possible to give an honest accounting on an issue even when you have strong opinions on it. If not, I can’t see how you could say one could ever have knowledge of the truth. In any case, every one has opinions and biases, not only those people you happen to disagree with.

One person’s “assault” is another person’s “challenge.” One person’s “fetus” is another person’s “baby.” One person’s “religious fundamentalist” is another person’s “devoutly religious.”

You see, the language one uses is typically colored by one’s opinions. So, one person could say it’s a “fact” that a 24-week old clump of cells in a woman’s body is a “fetus” while the woman herself calls it a “baby.” And both would be correct. But I doubt anyone who uses the term “reproductive freedom” doesn’t use other buzzwords of the pro-choicers, and that IS bias.

You can call their decisions “facts” if you like, but everybody, particularly anyone involved with a court, knows you are wrong.

Well, as a lawyer and a law school instructor and a journalist who writes exclusively about the law, I have to disagree with your “opniion” since your “facts” are not correct

Women have a right to get an abortion. That is a fact. People in police custody must be given a Miranda Warning, or the evidence can be suppressed. That is a fact. To preserve First Amendment rights, religious organizations are tax-exempt. That’s a fact. Now, there are certain situations where all of the acts may come with a caveat or an exception, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t facts.

We have rights. They are facts. We can disagree about what those rights are and in what situations they apply, but they are facts. While a court’s opinion on a legal conflict may be an interpretation of other decisions and thus an “opinion,” courts also define legal rights and therefore create legal “facts” about the state of the law.

Of the three examples that you give at the beginning of your last response, Michael, you have relied upon an amibguity in the word “right” in order to make the first statement more parallel to the two that follow than most people would read it. The second and third are factual statements of legal process, and the first can be interpreted that way; but most people, seeing such a statement out of context, would not read it that way. They would understand “right” to mean not merely a legal power established by the courts, but the metaphysical obligation that stands behind that legal power. And the existence of that obligation simply does not fall into the realm of fact.

And speaking of metaphysical: this discussion is starting to resemble some of the disputes about point-of-view that one comes across all the time in Wikipedia. I’m all for stepping back and taking her statements out of some prepositional calculus of bias and into more ordinary means of personal assessment: to whit, that her passionate advocacy presents the appearance of a conflict of interest right from the start. It’s hard for me to believe that she can separate herself that effectively from her advocacy when she sits down at her NYT keyboard. Quibbles about specific words that she is using read to me as no better than spin; I personally would be wary of her interpretations of events on this subject, and would wish that she would recuse herself from the topic. For the Times’ sake, I think they ought to be sensitive to the appearance of bias that she creates, even if it isn’t obviously reflected in her reporting. It’s especially an issue given how hard the media are on appearances on impropriety among politicians.

The problem with taking this down into religion is that people who tend to take enough interest in religion to report it well tend to be, um, religious.

Michael, does this mean you’ve abandoned your attempt to argue “The government…’had turned its energy and attention away from upholding the rule of law and toward creating law-free zones at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, other places around the world, the U.S. Congress, whatever. And let’s not forget the sustained assault on women’s reproductive freedom and the hijacking of public policy by religious fundamentalism’” are not statements of opinion? Speaking as a lawyer myself, I have a hard time believing you are even taking yourself seriously about this. I realize you said you were playing devil’s advocate, but I suspect the devil’s advocate to advise the devil this was hopeless.

“The government has created law free-zones (SCOTUS even agrees)” Well, no. At Guantanamo and other places, the government sought to create zones where particular laws would not apply. In Hamdan, the government did not argue (and the SCOTUS did not conclude) that no laws would apply at all. And I notice that you left out the list of particular “law-free zones” enumerated by Ms. Greenhouse. At Abu Graib, so far from creating a “law-free zone,” the government sent U.S. soldiers to prison for breaking particular laws. And the U.S. Congress a “law-free zone”? Care to explain how that is a statement of fact?

I see others, Mollie in particular, have noted the difference between statements like “the influence of religious fundamentalists in public policy” and “the hijacking of public policy by religious fundamentalism” . To put it very simply, “influence” and “hijack” don’t mean the same thing.