Opinion: The ever-expanding definition of ‘fake news’

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If you are not a Trump loyalist, you may feel disgust, or even amusement, when he tries to undermine freedom of the press by labeling any reporting he does not like as “Fake News!”

But that condemnation is no joke.

In a lengthy TV interview of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, an Axios reporter uncovered something sinister when he asked her to define Fake News.

She started by saying that, obviously, inaccurate reporting is Fake News, but then expanded her definition by condemning journalists who fail to consult with the White House during the reporting of a story, so that the White House can help “shape” the story.

Institutions — whether the White House, a corporation, a school board or a sports franchise — try to protect themselves from being held accountable; they often try to shape a story by saddling a reporter with a public relations person who insists on sitting in on the reporter’s interview of an executive. Or who, to protect the boss, tries to steer a reporter to a source trained not to reveal anything harmful.

Savvy reporters know when they’re being “massaged.” Or when a PR person tries to “shape” a story.

This is not to portray all public relations practitioners as devious. In fact, the best PR people routinely advise their clients to tell the truth as quickly as possible — to get ahead of the story and, by being open, to earn public trust.

One of the best PR professionals in the Twin Cities, Kathy Tunheim, once represented Northwest Airlines. She told me that when one of its planes crashed in Detroit, in 1987, killing all but one of the 155 people on board, Northwest’s CEO, Al Checchi, called her as soon as he heard the news and asked her what he should do.

She said, “I told him to get his fanny on a plane to Detroit immediately, step out onto the tarmac and tell the press and the public how sad he was at the losses, and how determined the airline was to find out what had gone wrong and to correct it.”

He took her advice.

How well equipped is this young White House press secretary to give her CEO such valuable advice? Her job — as she sees it — is to be steadfastly loyal and to protect him and his policies. And to attack the news media for doing their job — as they see it — to get facts and report them.

People who suffer when facts harm them will often attack the messenger. Ethical journalists are not “out to get” institutions and people they write about: They are out to get facts, and if the facts warrant it, to hold those institutions and people accountable.

Honest journalism — often described as being delivered without fear or favor — is not a vendetta; it’s an invaluable service to the public and to democracy.

Gary Gilson is a career journalist and former executive director of the Minnesota News Council.