Applying Independence
Lesson 9:3
Embedded Files
We'll be using an example 2014 investigative piece from the Washington Post to highlight each part of IMVA/IN.
Above are headlines from a few stories about the US Secret Service. In 2014, the agency came under fire for a series of missteps which led to breaches in White House and Presidential security. They include a fence jumper who made it inside the White House, an armed felon who got on an elevator with then President Obama, and a series of shots that were fired at the White House that the Secret Service didn’t know about until a cleaning staff found the broken glass.
After fence jumper Omar Gonzalez made his famous breach of the White House grounds in 2014 with a knife, the agency was asked about what happened. They answered that they caught the man right inside the door.
When the White House press secretary was asked -- he gave no corrections to the account. However, when the truth came out, it was found that Mr. Gonzalez had gone beyond the set of doors that the Secret Service allegedly had apprehended him at.
In the rush to find more information as the story continued to develop, cable news outlets brought on "experts" to speak on the incident, including Ron Kessler, a journalist and author of 20 non-fiction books about the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and the CIA, and Tom Fuentes, a former FBI assistant director.
Their statements follow below:
It is at this point that we highlight the first letter of IMVA/IN:
I:
I:
Independent sources are better than self-interested sources
Independent sources are better than self-interested sources
No source of information will be totally objective in their take on a situation. We all bring our own views into statements that we make. However, in evaluating the relative level of independence that a source may have, we ask:
Does this source have anything to gain by withholding information or making misleading statements?
If there is a conflict, or if the subject is one that is highly susceptible to self-interests (think the death of a relative, or personal political outcomes), the most reliable sources have no stake in the outcome.
Independent experts, for example, are less likely to mislead us than partisans.
Going back to the example with the Secret Service ---
With all of the sources mentioned above, if we look through the lens of independence with each, while keeping in mind that no source is perfectly independent, the news consumer might consider the following:
What sort of self-interests might need to be protected on the Secret Service's end? (Reputation? Status?)
How about for the two experts?
Ron Kessler has made a career of writing about the Secret Service, the FBI and the CIA, sometimes quite critically. He doesn’t work for them. But…problems probably help sell books.
Fuentes may be a little more independent. He has no book on the market. He has no federal paycheck.
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