Let's talk about evidence in news reports. Sometimes evidence is obvious to everyone. If there's a massive street protest in Hong Kong, it's not hard at all for the news reporters to include evidence. There will be many photos and videos of the protesters. The police would probably make a public statement. So the news audience outside of Hong Kong, who can't witness the event in person, can be very certain that the protest really took place. You don't need to question that fact. Images from hundreds of eyewitnesses and official police statements are what we call direct evidence. Like fingerprints and DNA, certain evidence is clear cut. But not all evidence is equal. We say journalistic truth is provisional because it takes time to verify facts. More often than not, what we have as evidence in the news comes on a spectrum. For example, let's say there was a police shooting in your community. You read a news report that says hundreds of eyewitness photos and videos have been uploaded on the internet, and the web article includes some of those images. That's a solid evidence to prove that the shooting actually took place. That news report also quotes an anonymous police department clerk who's overheard a rumor that the police office who fired the shot has been suffering from severe depression. That is very weak indirect evidence to talk about the officer's mental health. If a reporter somehow manages to come by a medical record of the officer in question, and it shows that he was, in fact, not mentally stable, then that's stronger evidence. Although invading someone's privacy like that is a whole other discussion that journalists should have in the news room. If an expert in criminology who specializes in police shootings has also commented on the incident, even though he's not directly involved in the investigation, you need to evaluate him as a source, and then place him on the spectrum. I would probably put him somewhere in the middle, towards the indirect side, because he's an expert but doesn't have direct knowledge in this particular case. Now, let's think about how evidence is used in news reports. It's extremely rare that journalist have all the solid information they need to give perfectly truthful accounts of news events. Instead, when journalists construct stories, they make inferences. In other words, when they put small pieces together, they come up with some likely scenarios based on what they have. They present those possible scenarios to the public. Now, I want to add a few more facts into the mix in our example. Let's say there's another source in this story, a medical doctor who treated the officer in question until two months ago. This doctor believes that the officer was perfectly capable of conducting his duty. She doesn't think his mental health was a factor in the incident. I would put her opinion here, because she's reliable and has direct knowledge. The reporter also obtained a preliminary investigation report, and it says a blood test suggested the officer was under some sort of medication which could have affected his mental state at the time of shooting. Another strong piece of evidence I would say, although, it contradicts what the doctor said. The last piece of the puzzle is the officer's Facebook. He updated his status 3 hours prior to the shooting, and he said that the psychiatric treatment worked and he no longer needs to rely on medication. He feels great about it. This is a tough one. But let's say, I put it in the middle because it's hard to know what to make of his comments just yet. With all these facts at hand, if you were a reporter, what sort of story would you tell to the public? Was the officer under the influence of some medication? The investigation report seems to suggest so and this is scientifically verified information. But, there are other sources and some pieces of evidence that contradict the preliminary report. If a reporter decides that the interim investigation report is the most reliable fact, she would make this a news angle. The story would probably mention at the beginning that the blood test results show the officer in question had been under the influence of some medication before the shooting and it could have influenced his judgement. After that, the story would also include some other facts that contradict this evidence such as his doctors comment and the Facebook posts I mentioned earlier. In other words, this story would not say what happened. It would start with the most likely scenario with the evidence the reporter has, but it also lays out other possible explanations. I hope you can see what I'm driving at. Journalist could only infer what has likely happened with the information they've gathered. They weigh their evidence until stories based on them. But the story might change completely on the following day with a new piece of evidence. So what should the news audience do? We should know that as single news report almost never tells the whole truth, because it takes time for the truth to come out. It takes time to verify each piece of evidence. We should know that news media inferences could break down. A smart news consumer should evaluate each piece of evidence and ask questions like is this direct evidence or at arm's length? Where does this statistical figure in the story come from? Is it reliable evidence in this context? Can I find the original copy of the medical study this news report's citing? Now, I know you don't have time to do all that for every single news story you encounter, but one thing you can do is not jump to conclusions. Before you take any action, you should look at all the evidence in the story and say do I know enough to say one way or the other, or should I wait for journalists to figure things out? And in the meantime, keep monitoring how the story develops.
