Whether it’s the sale of Village properties or neighborhood opposition to AT&T’s plan for a cell tower on Mount Holyoke, the topics we cover as a local newspaper are often highly charged and contentious. As a community newspaper, we are committed to providing balanced coverage of any topic–no matter how significant or trivial. After all, a boot is only a boot until you’re the unlucky ant being crushed beneath its heel. No matter the scope of the story, we take our commitment to fairness and balance very seriously, and this attitude also extends to the principles of truthfulness and accuracy. Unfortunately, mainstream journalistic norms, which often place the ideals of balance ahead of the known facts, can also facilitate an atmosphere in which those with vested interests in the issues we cover garble the truth. Scholars who study the free press have a name for this phenomenon: the “balance trap.” The trap or ethical quagmire occurs when journalists report on issues without scrutinizing obvious falsehoods. Politicians, public figures and especially public-relations firms are quite aware of this loophole in journalistic ethics. On the national level, the most obvious example of a ‘balance trap’ issue is climate change, where both the majority and minority opinions are given equal footing without regard to the preponderance of scientific fact. On the local level, the trap is subtler and is propagated by smaller groups, or arrangements between entities with a vested interest in a particular outcome. A good local example of a “balance trap” issue has been our coverage of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s plan for a new substation (DS-104) in town. We have been following this issue for more than a year. As a result, we have studied hundreds of pages of public documents, interviewed dozens of people, and covered many meetings on the matter.’We have also published numerous articles, letters and even an editorial advocating for DWP’s task-force meetings to be open to the public. For the good of the community, we warned the DWP that if the task-force meetings continued to be held behind closed doors it would run the risk of having all its recommendations questioned by the public, regardless of each member’s individual intentions. We scrutinized the process and have given all sides of the issue, including DWP, an equal voice. More importantly, in our ongoing coverage of this issue we revealed certain details to be self-evident truths, such as the fact that DWP’s own evaluation, completed in 2011–long before the task force was formed–assigned an “F” in geology to the DWP parcel adjacent to Marquez Elementary. Yet, as more residents begin to pay attention to what is happening and we continue to give them a voice, the danger of this so-called “balance trap” begins to arise within our own coverage. For example, how can we quote someone whose statement contradicts something we have already reported as a truth in previous coverage? The answer is tricky and may often lead to heated conversations with people we interview; we may reiterate certain facts with annoying persistence, and/or correct false statements while speaking to people face to face. However, none of this will deter us from trying to the get to the truth. Sure, we may ruffle some feathers in the process, but tough reporting is all part of the process of serving our readers in an engaged, educated community. Our commitment to our readers–and the activists battling over a particular issue–is to maintain both truth and balance in all of our coverage. This will continue to be our guiding principle.
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