Comment: What Would a Good Democratic Argument Shop Look Like? -- Part 2

A necessary long-term project would be to create a politico-media culture in which accuracy matters.

The goal here would be both (a.) that the news media calls people on false statements – whether deliberate or not, and (b.) that the news media, with appropriate rigor, checks the validity of statements they report.

How would an argument shop go about trying to change the culture in this way? I don’t know of any way other than to catalogue the media’s errors, publish them, and demand correction. I envision something like what Media Matters for America does. You’d use a couple full-time researchers/editors. They would do their own research, and they would solicit and follow up on tips and research sent to them online (or offline) by anyone.

They would send letters to the culpable reporters and editors, demanding either that the apparent error either be justified or that it be corrected. Additionally, the shop would publish a daily chronicle of errors in the news media – with full supporting evidence. They would publish this on a DNC website and send out a subscription-only email newsletter – giving the contact info for the culpable reporters and editors.

Of course, if you are going to call people on their errors, you had better be serious about being accurate yourself. That would go for people in the shop and for Democrats generally. That’s fine. We Democrats value truth. The shop would occasionally commit errors, and it would acknowledge and correct them when the errors are pointed out.

Media Matters is invaluable. I do not suggest that the party replace them, but merely that the party must engage in the same work of policing the media. The more watchdogs, the better. The party has more clout than an independent group when demanding that news outlets correct their errors. (Again, we’re talking about misstatements of fact – did Joe Wilson say Cheney sent him on the trip? for instance – not editorializing. News outlets are not entitled to their own facts, but they are entitled to their own opinions.)

I consider this project to be the work of an argument shop because reason and argument depends upon a culture that values factual accuracy. Absent that, we are mired in a stew of half-truths and lies, with argument being irrelevant, with the game being one of unprincipled propaganda. That is more or less what we have today (though things could be worse than they now are). In any event, I would put this project in an argument shop, but it wouldn’t have to be there. It must be done by the DNC itself, however. The project is vital, and it requires the prominence and clout that would come from being a DNC effort.

More on the argument shop later.