An Epistemic Approach to Best Practices in Journalism

AN EPISTEMIC APPROACH TO BEST PRACTICES IN JOURNALISM

A thesis submitted to the Kent State University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Departmental Honors

Alexander Bryan Johnson

December, 2020

Thesis written by

Alexander Bryan Johnson

Approved by

______, Advisor

______, Chair, Department of Philosophy

Accepted by

______, Dean, Honors College

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE OR ACKNOWLEDGMENT………………………………………………..vi

CHAPTER

I. A Brief Examination of Journalistic Best Practices……………….………1

II. A Brief Examination of Contemporary Epistemology……...…….………8

III. The Application of Epistemological Principles to Journalism.…...…...... 17

IV. Case Study: Bob Woodward, President Trump, and COVID-19...... 24

REFERENCES...... …...31

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my advisor and professor Dr.

Deborah Smith, who provided a great deal of guidance and showed an amazing amount of generosity with her time as I completed research. I would also like to thank the members of the oral defense committed which addressed this thesis: Associate Professor

Mitchell McKenney, Dr. Deborah Barnbaum, and Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett. I want to express my gratitude to the Honors College for awarding me the Crawford Senior Honors

Thesis Scholarship as I worked to complete this. Finally, I would like to thank my family, who expressed great patience and support each day I uttered the phrase, “I’ve been working on my thesis.”

iv 1

I. A Brief Examination of Journalistic Best Practices

How do we determine whether or not journalists have done their job well?

Typically, best practices in journalism focus on whether or not journalists meet certain ethical criteria. For instance, there are at least three-dozen codes used by various industry organizations that provide guidelines based on ethical theory (Society of Professional

Journalists, n.d.). While there is considerable variety in how organizations and individuals conduct moral evaluations and apply principles in the field, the concept of best practices is consistently seen as an ethical concern. For instance, in 2005, Media

Studies professor Mark Deuze wrote that a key characteristic of journalists is an occupational ideology focused on meeting certain altruistic criteria: “Journalists share a sense of ‘doing it for the public’, of working as a kind of representative watchdog of the status quo in the name of the people” (Deuze, 2005, pp. 446-447). According to a 2009 survey of 400 journalists conducted by Beam et al., nine out of ten journalists believed that “it is quite important or extremely important for news organizations to do journalism that serves the public interest” (2009, pp. 738-747). Furthermore, focusing on journalism in Asia, media educator Eric Loo writes, “At its simplest level, best practices are often equated with the best tradition of journalism ‘to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable’” (Loo, 2009). Thus, there is a cross-cultural, intra-disciplinary conception of ethical responsibility to one’s audience that tends to shape journalistic best practices at every level—individual, organizational, and industrywide.

However, this single idea appears to be where consensus ends on best practices in journalism. Perception of a journalist’s ethical responsibility tends to diverge upon application of theory at an individual (and often even institutional) level, resulting in a lack of coherence (Deuze, 2005, p. 443-447; Martin and Souder, 2009, p. 129; Christians,

Wilkins, and Cooper, 2009, pp. 69-82). “Everything depends on whose definition of

[public good] holds sway,” Michael Ryan writes in his research for University of

Houston (2001, p. 15). Hallvard Moe, another professor of Media Studies, notes that there are several conflicting perspectives on how public service broadcast and new media can be defined in a policy context, let alone applied for public benefit (Moe, 2011, pp.

65-66).

Though the notion of public service is a widely accepted one, its breadth and ambiguity make it difficult to rely on for formulating best practices. A potential solution to this problem may involve looking for a unique and common thread among various conceptions of public service journalism. What features consistently dictate our conduct across the board for all conceptions of public service journalism? A research team under the guidance of journalism educator Paul Voakes developed four possible dimensions of

“civic” or public service journalism: (a) enterprise, (b) information for decision-making,

759). More expansively, civic journalism as described by Voakes could be an approach that:

1. consists of professionals who take the initiative to develop content aimed at solving a

community problem;

2. provides the public with the information necessary to make important choices;

3. facilitates conversation on issues between audience members through the content

produced by its professionals, or

4. brings the concerns of citizens to leaders who could affect change.

In Voakes’ survey of 1,037 journalists, an overall average of 81% of those surveyed said that they either strongly (44.3%) or somewhat (36.7%) approved of the preceding approaches in journalism, though agreement varied significantly on the validity each specific one. (Voakes, 2009, pp. 760-765).

It could be argued that none of these characteristics uniquely typify journalism, however. For instance, a social worker can be said to develop material that solves a community problem, provides the public with information necessary to make important decisions, facilitates discourse, and brings attention to important issues where appropriate. The legal counsel for a local government can be said to do the same in a different way, as could a community outreach officer at a police station. None of these qualities are particularly journalistic but are more generally public service-oriented.

Generally speaking, the various occupational duties of the social worker, legal counsel, or public outreach employee largely differ from the duties of the journalist, even if they similarly involve the notion of providing a public service. For that reason, someone who provides a public service in the sense that Voakes or Deuze describe might be a good public servant, but this does not necessarily entail that they are a good journalist.

However, once we know the purpose of something, we can determine what a good or bad instance of something looks like based on whether or not it achieves that goal. Therefore,

the question remains: What is the essential purpose of journalism qua journalism, irrespective of whether we consider it a public service or not?

In order to answer this question, one must examine what is left when we separate journalism from the broader notion of public service. Traditional definitions of journalism focus on identifying it as a set of actions that include investigation, writing, selecting and editing information. However, like the public service-oriented definition, this description fails to distinguish the industry from other proximate ones such as

“public relations practitioners, entertainers, lay ‘journalists’, technical supporters to media coverage” and others who engage in the same actions (Görke and Scholl, 2006, p.

651; Deuze and Witschge, 2018, p. 167). Another method of identifying the unique and essential qualities of journalism requires the pursuit of an answer not from the perspective of a journalist—many of whom see their own work as a public service, as previously noted—but from an external “instrumental” or “functional” perspective

(Deuze and Witschge, 2018, p. 167).

German science journalism professor Alexander Görke and economist Armin

Scholl note that journalism as traditionally conceived “can be identified as a societal system providing society with fact-based, relevant and current information, whereas public relations information need not be fact-based or current and entertaining

‘information’ is not fact-based but fictional” (Görke and Scholl, p. 651). This definition of the industry as one with the sole end goal of providing information to society pushes us back into the discussion of journalism as a public service, and again overlaps with

other proximate industries; however, it does provide insight into other features that can best be used to describe the essential purpose of journalism.

Görke and Scholl write that another “system theoretical” approach can distinguish the industry from these other fields by considering role it plays in society.1 As they describe it, “[The] systems theoretic approach states that journalism offers meaning and orientation by constructing and reducing world complexity with the help of its own rules and operations” (Görke and Scholl, p. 652). What is interesting about this other view of journalism as a societal system is that it discards typical notions of objectivity (which, in the context of journalism, focuses on neutrality and freedom from bias) and factuality in favor of the following view:

“[S]ystem theoretical adaptations reject the idea that mass media could represent

or reflect reality as it is. Consequently, it is not possible to criticize journalists and

media coverage for distortions of reality. Instead, journalism is modelled as an

autonomous institution (system) of society, which does not convey information

passively, but generates it depending on its own rules (‘‘eigenvalues’’) in order to

provide orientation for society” (Görke and Scholl, 2006, p. 652).

In other words, accuracy and truthfulness is, in this view, less important than the perception of accuracy and truthfulness by the audience. “Actuality” is considered artificial, and instead all that matters to the journalism industry and the broader public is whether or the “journalistic reality” presented is considered trustworthy by the audience.

The journalism profession changes in order to conform to outside pressure, not to better

1 Their work is based on sociologist and systems-theory proponent Niklas Luhmann’s reflections on the mass media in his 1996 work Die Realität der Massenmedien.

accord with the concept of actuality. Hence, any comparison of the accuracy of journalistic coverage with the real world is, in this view, unnecessary. (Görke and Scholl,

2006, p. 651).

Two significant takeaways that characterize this view: (a) “Actuality” does not matter as long as the journalistic narrative is trusted, and (b) the profession of journalism is a system of society that is largely integrated with its audience, not a separate entity that engages in a causal or asymmetrical relationship with the audience as a public service view would instead suggest.

In this thesis, I will reject several ideas that characterize this version of the system theoretical approach—namely, that journalists cannot be criticized for distortions of reality (which would presumably include mis- or dis-information); that journalists cannot accurately represent reality; that it can or should spontaneously “generate” information; and that it functions with the express purpose of responding to pressure from the audience. However, their approach does lay the groundwork for a definition of journalism that is neither wholly dependent upon public service nor the “traditional” definition of the journalism profession, but which is supported by a set of recognizable rules and procedures for providing fact-based information for audiences.

In this text I will propose the following definition of journalism to build on, based on all previously cited research on the topic: A rules and operations-based practice characterized by relevancy, currency, and factuality; and which entails actions such as investigation, writing, and selecting, editing, and publishing information to and for an audience. Parts of this definition have epistemic implications, particularly with respect to

those qualities that emphasize the pursuit of knowledge: a focus on the information- gathering process as well as the factuality and relevancy of the content produced as a result. The previous frameworks all fail to address various epistemological principles that should govern the practice of journalism. The systems-theoretic view approach fails because it prioritizes the mere appearance of truth over reality. The public service definition fails because there are a wide variety of applicable ethical and philosophical theories that journalists can adopt to achieve their goals, but very rarely do these theories explicitly address core epistemological principles. Furthermore, it is uncertain how journalism as a differs from other industries which carry out the same or similar actions with the goal of serving the public. Finally, the “traditional” view of journalism focuses on the actions and procedures that journalists typically engage in when doing their jobs, but it does not focus at all on the goals, motivations, and justifications behind them, which are again epistemic.

With that said, what exactly are these epistemic principles that journalism relies on? How can we use them to identify the essential features of journalism? And finally, is it possible to use this new information to formulate best practices in the industry? In the next section, I will provide a brief examination of contemporary epistemology, and in the final section I will discuss how the principles explained apply to the journalism industry and could potentially be used to formulate best practices.

II. A Brief Examination of Contemporary Epistemology

Epistemology, simply put, is the study of knowledge. An adequate account of all important theories that exist in this branch of philosophy is beyond the scope of this thesis. However, for the sake of understanding, a brief description of the study and one or two significant contemporary theories will be mentioned to help show its goal, value, and current state.

Philosopher John Greco writes that everything written about epistemology has sought to answer one of three questions: “What is knowledge?”, “What can we know?”, or “How do we know what we do know?” (Greco, 2017, p. 1) A single unifying definition of knowledge has eluded philosophers, but there are certain points of agreement—especially concerning what is commonly called ‘propositional knowledge’.

One definition of propositional knowledge that dates back to Plato’s Theaetetus describes it as justified true belief (JTB). For a subject S and proposition p, the following criteria must hold for it to be the case that S knows that p:

1. p is true.

2. S believes that p.

3. S is epistemically justified in believing that p.

A proposition is true when it correctly and accurately depicts the world. It is important to note that the actual truth or falsity of a proposition (its truth-value) is completely independent of whether we subjectively acknowledge it as true or false. Truth

is usually not considered an epistemic concept, but a metaphysical one. Philosophical discussions of truth by itself are not typically focused on our interpretation of it or relationship to it, but instead what is or is not the case independently.

A belief is a propositional attitude, or a stance on a proposition. To believe a proposition is to take that proposition to be true. One believes that x, where x can take on the value of some claim about the world. For instance, one can believe that it is raining outside. However, one’s belief that it is raining does not guarantee, nor even make likely, that it is true.

There are many different kinds of justification. For instance, one may discuss

‘justification’ in the sense of moral standards when evaluating whether an action is morally right or wrong to carry out. One can also discuss ‘justification’ in the sense of prudential justification, which considers whether or not an action is in one’s own self- interest, regardless of whether or not it is morally justifiable. For the purposes of this discussion, we are not interested in these or any other notion of justification except epistemic justification – whether or not a subject (a person or “agent” in a situation) has a reason or warrant for holding a belief. It is the kind of justification that aims at truth, and it increases the likelihood that a belief is true. Once again, however, neither justification nor belief guarantee that a proposition is true. One can hold a justified belief that is false.

This idea is known as fallibilism. Returning to the raining example, one’s perception that the sky is dark and that water droplets were falling would provide epistemic justification for the belief that it is raining. Having this visual information makes the belief that it is raining more likely to be true. However, such a view is fallible because it may not

actually be the case. It could just be a cloudy day, and the neighbor’s sprinkler may be severely malfunctioning.

I know that it is raining under this model if:

1. It is raining.

2. I believe that it is raining.

3. I am epistemically justified in believing that it is raining.

The JTB analysis of knowledge was widely accepted until the mid-20th century, when philosopher Edmund Gettier published a research paper presenting counterexamples that suggest that while these three are necessary for knowledge, another element is required (Gettier, 1963). For the purposes of this discussion on epistemology as it applies to journalistic best practices, these three elements will remain the focus since they are still widely accepted as key criteria for knowledge. Furthermore, some argue that it is possible to conceive of justification in such a way that Gettier’s counterexamples do not arise.

It is clear that justification is a seemingly ubiquitous and essential component of epistemology. However, there are several important distinctions to make between different kinds of epistemic justification. First, epistemic justification can either be inferential or non-inferential in nature. Non-inferential justification is not held in virtue of anything else one believes. Instead non-inferential beliefs are arrived at based on things such as sense-data or perceptual experience. For instance, by perceiving a green patch visually, one is justified in believing that it is green (however, non-inferential views such as this are fallible, as we saw with the malfunctioning sprinkler example).

Inferential justification requires that a belief be supported by some pattern of reasoning, other belief, or plurality thereof. Inferential justification can be modeled as such: if one is justified in believing a set of propositions, P, and one is justified in believing that set P either inductively or deductively entails proposition Q, then one is justified in believing that Q. One has good reason to believe that when it rains, the ground is wet; further, by looking outside and seeing drops of water falling from a cloudy sky, one may also be justified in believing that it is raining. From these two previously justified beliefs, one would be inferentially justified in believing that the ground is wet, in this case, by way of a deductive inference.

One of the most pressing debates in contemporary epistemology is between proponents of internalist theories of epistemic justification, and those of externalist theories. Internalists believe that a subject must have direct conscious access to that which justifies the belief; this can be through means such as introspection, memory, or internal reflection on an explicit process of reasoning. Externalists, on the other hand, believe that it is not necessary for subjects to be in cognitive possession of any such reasons. On the externalist view, the justification for a belief need not be (but still can be) something consciously accessible to the subject. Externalist positions on epistemic justification are new to this discussion, and prior to the mid-20th century, all theories of epistemic justification were internalist in nature; as philosopher Laurence BonJour writes,

“[Until recently] no serious philosopher of knowledge would have dreamed of suggesting that a person’s beliefs might be epistemically justified merely in virtue of facts or relations that are external to his subjective conception,” (BonJour, 1985, p. 36).

Externalist theories of justification are best epitomized by the work of

Philosopher Alvin Goldman. One of Goldman’s early claims was that knowledge can be defined as follows: “S knows that p if and only if the fact p is causally connected in an

‘appropriate’ way with S’s believing p” (Goldman, 1967, p. 369). Goldman suggests that perception, memory, and valid deductive inference from true premises are examples of things that appropriately connect a subject’s belief with a fact. However, one might ask what an appropriate causal connection between a true proposition and a belief could be.

These processes are only appropriate, he argues, if the fact that makes the proposition P true causes the subject to form the belief that P; the belief does not have any power to make the proposition true itself (Goldman, 1967, p. 370). On this view, knowledge occurs when beliefs are caused (in the right way) by the states of affairs that make them true.

Alvin Goldman understood that his theory suffered from several significant difficulties. Goldman tried to include both inductive and deductive reasoning as causal processes, however inductive reasoning was much more difficult to incorporate. This is because inductive reasoning is not “truth-preserving” like deductive reasoning, meaning that it can only make conclusions highly likely to be true and does not guarantee the truth of the inferred belief, even if one starts with true beliefs as premises (Goldman, 1967, p.

361). As a result, his epistemic theory changed with his 1979 publication entitled “What is Justified Belief?” While he retains his externalist stance on justification in it, he goes further to address how a belief can be justified without conscious access on this view. He settled upon the concept of justification as the principle whereby one arrives at a belief through a “reliable cognitive belief-forming process” (Goldman, 1979, pp. 91-94). Thus,

Goldman’s epistemological theory is referred to as “process reliabilism.” On this view, the fact that a belief was formed by way of reliable process will confer justification on the belief.

Goldman splits reliable belief-producing processes into those which are unconditionally reliable and those which are conditionally reliable. An unconditionally reliable belief-forming process, under Goldman’s definition, is one which is belief- independent – it does not require previous beliefs as inputs – and tends to produce true beliefs. For example, visual perception of a close object in a setting with good lighting is a reliable process that produces beliefs about the object that tend to be true. (In contrast, the same process would be unreliable in poor perceptual conditions, such as a dark room.)

On the other hand, conditionally reliable belief forming mechanisms are belief- dependent, meaning that they require previous beliefs as input. Belief-dependent belief forming mechanisms are conditionally reliable if and only if, when they take true beliefs as input, they tend to result in a true output belief. This is best exemplified by valid deductive reasoning or strong inductive reasoning. This ability to account for reasoning

(and especially inductive reasoning) as a belief-dependent, belief forming process was in large part the reason Goldman shifted away from his causal theory towards this reliabilist theory of epistemic justification. For instance, in the example in which one is justified in believing set P and one is justified in believing that set P entails Q, one can conclude that

Q by way of valid deductive inference and would thereby be justified in concluding Q.

However, even if one is justified in believing Q, and one is justified in believing that P entails Q, one is not justified in concluding that P. This would be an example of the

fallacy of affirming the consequent. The reliability of general inferences such as these depend on the validity of the argument forms used.

Process reliabilsm, in turn, has set the stage for other similar epistemological theories. After Goldman’s early work on the subject, some philosophers argued that

Goldman’s definition of justification focused too exclusively on belief-forming mechanisms (Baehr, 2011, p. 49). As a result, some now seek to incorporate the idea of

“virtue” into theories of epistemic justification for a more fitting definition. Virtue in

Western philosophy is a concept that dates back to ancient Greek philosophers Plato and

Aristotle, and which is defined by non-excessive elements of character (e.g., courage, benevolence, respect, etc.) as the key criteria to be used in moral evaluation. However, philosophers like Jason Baehr note that some virtues are excellences of intellectual character which, when adhered to by a self-reflective agent, frequently result in true beliefs. This is the key component of “virtue epistemology.” Unlike Goldman’s causal theory or his later process reliablism, virtue epistemology incorporates a largely volitional character-based element to discussions of epistemology.

The two overarching theories in virtue epistemology are virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Virtue reliabilists such as John Greco and Ernest Sosa build upon the work of Goldman by arguing that intellectual virtues are “faculties or abilities like memory, vision, hearing, reason, or introspection” (Baehr, 2011, p. 49). Whereas

Goldman himself does not typically use virtue-centric language in his writing, Greco and

Sosa make it the focal point of their epistemological theories by arguing that these mechanisms for acquiring information (or at least adherence to them by a subject) are

themselves intellectual virtues that should be considered the crucial element of epistemic appraisal. For instance, Greco writes in Agent Reliablism that under such a view,

“justified belief [is] grounded in stable and reliable cognitive character,” which includes faculties (1999, p. 287). The justification of a belief, under this view, depends on the utilization of these virtuous reliable cognitive faculties by a self-reflective agent actively seeking to maximize the proportion of true beliefs that they hold.2 An accident or unreflective use of a reliable process by the agent would not confer justification on the belief. However, some virtue theorists disagree that reliable cognitive faculties (or the reflective use thereof) fit the definition of epistemic virtues.

The competing school of thought in the area of virtue epistemology is that of virtue responsiblism. Virtue responsibilism holds that reliable cognitive faculties themselves are not virtues, but instead that virtues are elements of character that drive an individual to engage in the use of such cognitive faculties. The epistemic virtues are instead characteristics such as inquisitiveness, attentiveness, consistency, honesty, and open-mindedness, such that those who exhibit them may be more likely to recognize reliable processes with the goal of forming true beliefs. According to Baehr, “[One] might say that an intellectually virtuous person necessarily chooses or pursues the object of her virtue (e.g. knowledge or understanding) for its own sake, but that a person with various intellectual skills (skills with the same intentional object) might be motivated […]

2 “Historically process reliabilists have focused on giving an account of justification; by contrast, virtue reliabilists have focused on giving an account of knowledge. However, one certainly could try to extend one’s virtue reliabilism to justification. Indeed, if one assumes that knowledge entails justification, being a virtue reliabilist about the former seems to lead naturally to virtue reliabilism about the latter,” Alvin Goldman and Bob Beddor write in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016).

by other ends” (Baehr, 2011, p. 31). For this reason, responsibilists hold that intellectual virtue does not necessarily follow from willful cultivation of intellectual skill or adherence to the use of reliable processes.

Thus, the key difference between Goldman’s original “process reliabilism” and most versions of virtue epistemology is not whether or not there is some standard that we must meet in order to justify our beliefs. Instead, the major issue in contemporary epistemology appears to be whether we consider elements of character or consider reliable processes, faculties and mechanisms to be sufficient means of justifying beliefs

(and perhaps as a happy medium, whether or not we could consider volitional adherence to certain mechanisms to be virtuous in and of itself, as Greco and Sosa might suggest).

With some criteria for propositional knowledge identified, epistemology’s modern history briefly examined, and some of its strongest contemporary theories now explicated, it is now possible to return to the question of how the epistemic principles inherent in some of these theories play a role in journalism as best practiced.

III. The Application of Epistemic Principles to Journalism

How do these epistemic principles apply to journalism? Journalism at its core is an industry that deals in propositions as a commodity. These propositions, like any proposition, can be true or false; they can be justified or unjustified; and they can be believed or disbelieved by an agent. However, terms like ‘news’ and ‘journalism’ connote that the author (i.e. a journalist) has reasons to think that what is being published correctly and accurately depicts the world. In this regard, the journalist is very similar to a historian or scientific author in many cases. However, it also shows that the journalist is largely different from entertainment writers, fiction authors, and some of the “lay” journalists in their focus on epistemic justification. Typically, another major difference between journalism and these other sources is suggested to be a greater degree of relevance to an audience’s everyday life. True propositions that are relevant in a given context will be more useful to an audience (as a premise in an inference) than another, less-relevant true proposition.

The reporting period—the instance in which a journalist actually goes out and conducts interviews, collects media like audio, video, and photographs, or retrieves relevant documents or data—is the first part of the process in which a member of the industry begins to form their beliefs about the world as it relates to a particular story. The beliefs that arise during this process can serve as the basis for other beliefs and even an overarching narrative which is then succinctly presented as a headline, lede, or chyron.

The beliefs articulated by headlines are often belief-dependent, produced by way of inductive or deductive reasoning.3

The propositions in question almost always represent a belief on the part of the journalist, who typically makes some effort to epistemically justify them (indeed it would be strange, even concerning, if a journalist lacked any reason to believe the proposition reported). Journalists who make claims about the world will usually make some part of their own process of belief-formation transparent so that their audience can see how they epistemically justified those beliefs, with the assumption that members of the audience too will acknowledge it as justified, and adopt it as their own belief.

For instance, a photojournalist who believes that he or she sees someone being injured at a protest may later write, “A protester was injured today” in an article. When the journalist does this, he or she is implicitly citing his or her eyesight as the unconditionally reliable process which justifies the belief (that is not to say, however, that beliefs formed by way of this process are guaranteed to be true). However, in order to show readers why he or she formed this belief, the journalist takes a photograph of what he or she sees occurring and shares it with the audience as if to say, “This is what I saw that justifies my stated belief.” In truth, what the journalist provides via the photo is an imperfect facsimile of what he or she visually experienced. At best, it reflects only those limitations and flaws of the reporter’s own belief-forming process. At worst, it is an intentionally inaccurate representation of the reporter’s experience and may be meant to misinform the audience in some way. As an example of this last possibility, a doctored or

3 When journalists are themselves witness to events that are articulated by headlines, the beliefs may be belief-independent.

blurry photograph may be used by a journalist to provide support for a proposition, even if it is a false proposition.

In order to avoid addressing such epistemic failures and ethical concerns that might follow from them, some members of the industry may ignore epistemic discussions entirely, reject the idea that the industry should (or, in the case of the systems theoretical view, even could) accurately represent or reflect reality, and focus instead on the institutional and economic role that journalism plays in society. In less formal terms, it allows the journalism industry to opt-out of responsibility for inaccurate depictions of the world because the approval of the audience supersedes any concept of actuality, which is said to be artificial. Deuze and Witschge note that systems theory approaches to mass media bear a certain “reluctance to be normative about what journalism could or should be” on an individual level (2018, p. 176). Furthermore, Görke and Scholl do not explicitly use the terms “misinformation”, “disinformation”, “falsehood” or “lie” in their text on the systems-theoretical approach to journalism. While systems theory proponents do not outwardly condone the behavior of a journalist who intentionally misleads readers

(and in fact tend to avoid making claims about what individual journalists should do at all, rather than institutions and systems), this view of journalism raises no concerns about misconduct occurring in the industry as long as the industry at large serves the purpose of providing audiences with information that they deem acceptable.

However, the fact that there are instances in which journalists may fail to accurately represent or reflect reality via their work does not entail the media’s complete inability to do so, nor does it entail that they have no responsibility to. Under the

proposed epistemic view, there are still propositions whose truth is independent of the actions or beliefs of a journalist or media organization. The journalist is tasked, in most cases, with using provably reliable belief-forming mechanisms to arrive at beliefs that are highly likely to be true and epistemically justified.

Some ideas in reliabilist theory are particularly germane to this discussion. For example, more recent developments in reliabilist epistemology examine “testimonial belief.” This form of reliabilist theory examines two parties – a subject and an informant.

According to philosopher Sandford Goldberg, in this instance a subject bases his or her belief on the testimony of the informant, whose testimony reflects his or her own belief- forming process (Goldberg, 2010, pp. 1-3). If the belief turns out to be false, then so is the subject’s. However, this is not the subject’s fault according to Goldberg – the burden of proof lies with the informant, or in this case, the journalist. This view becomes complicated and difficult to reconcile when the subject is another journalist, especially because the work of the journalist is expected to be based on beliefs that are highly likely to be true, and further (especially under theories of virtue epistemology) journalists are expected to do their best to verify the reliability of their own informant.

Epistemic justification in interpersonal contexts is an aspect of journalism that can easily be overlooked by members of the media and academia, especially those who ascribe public service definitions to journalism. This is because more of an emphasis is placed on the social consequences of publication rather than knowledge-based criteria of justification. None of this is to say that journalism is not a public service – merely that many views of journalism as a public service do not address the epistemic principles

inherent in journalism once ethical guidelines are established. In fact, as previously mentioned many journalists see providing helpful information to audiences as a fundamental responsibility and a key characteristic of their job. While focusing on the public interest, or even simply what interests the public, journalists may treat epistemic issues as ethical dilemmas (e.g. deciding not to publish well-justified content because the public or subject of discussion may not respond to it well).

Virtue epistemology shows potential as a way of connecting basic epistemological principles with a public service approach. Jason Baehr writes that although character- based intellectual virtues and moral virtues are often considered to be distinct, both can be considered others-regarding. “[A] person who possesses the relevant intellectual virtues completely or in their fullness will also be concerned, not just with her own share in the epistemic goods, but also with the share of others” (Baehr, 2011, p. 219). Members of the press (especially many who commit to a public-service approach) provide a compelling example of this in practice, since they seek to form beliefs with the immediate goal of establishing and epistemically justifying an overarching narrative for each story they produce. When this has been achieved, they then shift their goal to publication for a wider audience. The argument could be made that this creates an ideal systematic structure suited to virtue epistemology (perhaps even virtue theory at large) within the journalism industry. If this is the case, then industry members might benefit from the incorporation of virtue epistemological theories into their education and codes of conduct.

What would require much more in-depth research by philosophers and media theorists, were they to adopt a virtue epistemology approach, is whether or not theories of virtue reliabilism or virtue responsibilism would better serve industry members in various journalistic contexts. While both can be considered useful tools for informing best practice, it may be beneficial to ask whether it is more effective to emphasize reliable methods of forming beliefs, or intellectual traits that we consider to be key to good journalistic behavior on a situational basis.

Epistemic approaches to best practices, even those focused solely on the reliability of our faculties, should also be seen as distinct from traditional views focusing on individual activity. Whereas a traditional view of journalism focuses simply on the actions that industry members frequently engage in (reporting, writing, editing, etc.), an epistemic view emphasizes identifying and embracing the driving principles used to verify what we know and how we know it before and while we carry out these actions.

In short, an epistemic approach takes what we already know about journalism as a medium for propositional content and combines it with epistemic theories that address the truth, belief, and justification of propositions. Further, by way of virtue epistemology, it also provides a potential avenue into public service that does not neglect the journalist’s role, first and foremost, as an epistemic agent.

In the preceding three sections, I have undertaken three tasks. First, I sought to examine and critique traditional ways of framing best practices in the journalism industry. Second, I presented several epistemic theories with a particular focus on what confers warrant or justification on a belief. Third, I have argued that these epistemic

theories can be incorporated into the notion of journalistic best practices with a particular focus on the role that epistemic justification plays in the industry. In the following concluding section, I will consider the implications of the research done in the preceding sections in the context of a real-world scenario involving Bob Woodward, President

Donald Trump, an interview regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

IV. Case Study: Bob Woodward, President Trump, and COVID-19

On February 7, 2020, Bob Woodward conducted an interview with President

Donald Trump that was later published in his book Rage. Months after it occurred, news outlets reported that the president was quoted by Woodward during the interview as saying he knew that coronavirus was a dangerous and, in many cases, deadly disease long before it had spread throughout the United States. Trump said that he “wanted to always play it down,” and follow this by saying “I still want to play it down, because I don’t want to create a panic” (CNN, 2020). The interview was not made public until September of 2020. Over 200,000 people would be reported dead in the United States by the end of that month (WHO, 2020). As a result, both Woodward and the president were criticized for not making critical information available to the public when they first had it.

Frequently, criticisms of Woodward on the subject of his decision to keep the interview unpublished until September suggest he failed to provide the public with information that could have been used to prevent many of the deaths that occurred. Most criticisms of the sort emphasize the importance behind the fact that President Trump was aware of how dangerous the virus was earlier in the year. This fact alone, some argue, was information that audience members could have used as a premise in their own process of reasoning concerning whether or not to take precautions such as social distancing, staying home and wearing personal protective equipment. Author and Esquire columnist Charles Pierce wrote in September that “nearly 200,000 Americans have died

because neither Donald Trump nor Bob Woodward wanted to risk anything substantial to keep the country informed” (Pierce, 2020). Members of the public felt as though they were denied a necessary public service, and this service involved receiving relevant information. The issue was an epistemic one in the sense that many people who learned about the content of Woodward’s interview felt that, because of Woodward’s decision not to publish the interview, they were unable to justify certain beliefs about what actions the American people should have taken.

Woodward defended his decision in his own interview with the Washington Post, giving the following reasons to media columnist Margaret Sullivan: First, according to

Sullivan, Woodward said that "he didn’t know what the source of Trump’s information was. It wasn’t until months later — in May — that Woodward learned it came from a high-level intelligence briefing in January that was also described in Wednesday’s reporting about the book.” Second, he did not know if President Trump was telling the truth about COVID-19 being dangerous, and said that such uncertainty was “always a problem with Trump” Third, Woodward said that he aimed to provide “a fuller context than could occur in a news story” (Sullivan, 2020). While he gives three reasons, there appear to be four purely epistemic notions underlying Woodward’s defense:

1. Woodward did not know if the president was justified in believing his own

statements that COVID-19 was dangerous, particularly due to a lack of other

relevant premises with which to justify such a belief about COVID-19 at the

time.

2. Woodward did not know if the president actually believed his own statements at

all. He considered the possibility that his informant was lying, in which case he

would not have been justified in also adopting them.

3. Woodward sought to maximize the number of relevant justified beliefs he himself

held, and as a result waited until he was able to justify more of his own beliefs

before taking any actions.

4. With respect to the preceding three points, Woodward sought to

provide audiences with as much relevant information as possible ahead of the

election and, unable to justify all of his relevant beliefs at the time, delayed

publication of his work.

The last two parts of this analysis of Woodward’s defense are extremely similar, but the distinction between them is important to consider in the context of virtue epistemology.

This is because, as we have seen under some virtue epistemological views, a fully intellectually virtuous person "will also be concerned, not just with her own share in the epistemic goods, but also with the share of others” (Baehr, 2011, p. 219). The fourth argument he makes in support of his decision largely implies that it was for the benefit of the audience, whom he did not want to provide with beliefs that were not justified.

As Sullivan notes, it turned out that the president was more than likely epistemically justified in his belief, since Woodward found out later that the information came from a high-level intelligence briefing. However, Woodward was not aware of the briefing or its subject matter at the time. Should Woodward have published the information if he would have been unable to justify his own claims? If the only concern

in this situation was whether or not to publish information that people could use to potentially save thousands of lives, then the answer (in those versions of virtue epistemology that emphasize one’s concern with others’ share in knowledge) would undoubtedly be yes. However, this was not the only concern worth addressing, according to Woodward. As mentioned in the last section, the terms ‘news' and 'journalism' connote a level of truth, relevance, and thoroughness that is not associated with other sources.

He did not know if the president was able to justify his own beliefs, nor was

Woodward allegedly able to justify his own beliefs at the time. For that reason, there is an argument to be made by way of virtue reliabilism that he should not have published the information. If his goal was to provide audiences with propositions that he was justified in holding as his own beliefs—beliefs as close to the truth as possible—then it would require that he wait until as long as necessary to be justified in making certain claims, especially if no other virtuous reliable cognitive faculties were at his disposal at the time.

However, if there was more he could have done to determine if the president’s claims were epistemically justifiable or unjustifiable, then there would be some reason to believe that he should have published it. In either case, based on the statements made in the

Washington Post interview, it appears that Woodward believed he had a duty to verify the reliability of his source, which is largely in line with an epistemic approach to journalism. But Sullivan, in her column, notes that she asked Woodward,

"But why not then write such a story later in the spring, once it was clear that the

virus was extraordinarily destructive and that Trump’s early downplaying had

almost certainly cost lives? Again, Woodward said he believes his highest

purpose isn’t to write daily stories but to give his readers the big picture — one

that may have a greater effect, especially with a consequential election looming.”

(Sullivan, 2020)

Whether or not there was any considerable epistemic benefit to Woodward waiting so long to publish it is debatable, particularly when discussing epistemic benefits to the audience. In fact, since Woodward brought up the 2020 presidential election during the interview, it is possible that there is a non-epistemic, prudential aspect to his decision to delay publication related to a particular outcome he might want to see as a result.

However, there is certainly some merit to Woodward’s defense in that as the story developed, there would be more opportunity to provide audiences with a more epistemically-rich “big picture."

Under a process reliabilist approach to journalism, many of these issues may not have to be raised. Because it is not concerned with questions of virtue or non-epistemic responsibility, Woodward would have been epistemically justified in publishing something under this view as long as he utilized the reliable cognitive faculties necessary to form the beliefs and was transparent about the limits of the claims he was able to make. At the very least, if he heard the president make these statements about

COVID-19, then he would be justified in reporting only that he believed he heard it being said by the president under this view. If there existed some additional set of justified beliefs that would make what he believed he heard more likely to be true (e.g. he heard other experts say the same thing, acquired documents supporting what the president said, etc.) then he would be more justified in holding what he heard as his own belief and

publishing the claim in a more authoritative fashion. There would be no added element of virtue that would play into whether or not he should have published the information.

However, Woodward claimed in Sullivan’s article that he was not able to verify that

COVID-19 was a major concern from other sources. “Woodward said [that in February] there was no panic over the virus; even toward the final days of that month, Anthony S.

Fauci was publicly assuring Americans there was no need to change their daily habits,”

Sullivan writes (2020). In this case, it would have been difficult for him to know if what the president was saying was true, especially since he did not trust his source to consistently tell the truth.

Under a theory of virtue responsibilism, there are a variety of intellectual virtues that Woodward could have and perhaps did act in accordance with based on the situation.

For instance, self-scrutiny as an intellectual virtue could have led him to publish what he heard and what he believed, but to provide a disclaimer to audiences that he was unable to verify whether or not the source was justified in making certain claims about the virus.

Depending on transparency as a virtue, however, would have perhaps instead led him to disclose as much of the information related to this issue as possible and his motivation for doing so. Patience and careful observation as intellectual virtues, in turn, might have led him to wait until he was able to justify his beliefs, as he chose to in the end. Because of the large number of intellectual virtues available to a person at any given time, there does not appear to be one right answer under a virtue responsibilist view.

The goal of applying epistemic theory to this real-world example of journalistic conduct was not to definitively answer the question of what Woodward should or should

not have done. Instead, the goal was to show that epistemological principles already play a very important role in shaping the actions, opinions, and work of journalists. Because we have seen that such principles are already present, however, we know that epistemology can potentially open the doors to best practices, and it may be worthwhile for all committed industry members to begin looking to them for guidance on what best defines good journalism.

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