In the context of the media, a grain of salt is a necessary shield against the atrocities one can find in newspapers or broadcast television, such as biased news reporting, opinionated articles and other remnants of yellow journalism. However, this skepticism should be maintained (or maybe even more so) even when the information presented is unbiased and accurate.
We all know that reading about something is very different from experiencing it. Through reading the newspaper (I will focus on print news, though the issue applies to other media well), readers become informed about what is going on, but can only reach a certain level of understanding-not because they may not be experts on the issues at hand (experts solely armed with theoretical knowledge suffer the same difficulties)-but because they have not experienced the events firsthand.
To understand the importance of a particular event, facts are not enough; background information is needed. The problem with this is that news pieces are generally pithy and to the point: "who, what, when, where" and off to the presses, providing little background information as reporters assume their readership already has basic knowledge about the subject at hand.
In domestic affairs, this knowledge comes from readers' own ways of experiencing national or regional phenomena. For example, to understand an article about gross domestic product fluctuations, people do not need to have read about the hardships accompanying a depression in their own country; they have experienced them directly every time they receive a paycheck. Background information for domestic affairs is very accessible, mostly because of the ramification of policies or events as experienced in our everyday lives, and because of extended media coverage that make readers well acquainted with current events.
For international affairs however, background information is not as readily available. The general population, for obvious reasons, does not have significant direct experience with global current events. As a result, to put international news in context, readers mostly rely on previous articles in the international section of the daily paper. These articles themselves are brief and straightforward, again answering all the "W's."
This detached manner of news writing as a means to cleanse the news of all possible bias often "simplifies" the problem and this is more noticeable when covering international affairs. While news reports are supposed to be objective and unbiased, this objectivity and consequent lack of context often causes the reader to miss the actual significance of the event and the magnitude of the consequences.
A recent foreign incident that has been neglected in news coverage in this hemisphere is the arrest of Alberto Fujimori, the Peruvian ex-president, in Chile. Fujimori, who flew to Chile from Japan (where he had been living since he resigned the Peruvian presidency and claimed Japanese citizenship so as not to be deported), had been attempting to return to Peru and relaunch a presidential election campaign for the next elections. The extent of media coverage on the arrest included but these bare facts and a brief mention that Fujimori had resigned the presidency after the corruption under his administration was uncovered and that he has 22 trials pending.
While the articles in The New York Times and other newspapers are not necessarily inaccurate, they still do not do justice to the reality that the Peruvian people are currently facing. Important information that may not have been considered relevant was left out of the articles, oversimplifying the issue.
Fujimori has 22 trials pending in Peru. This fact was accurately reported in the international press. However, according to an international agreement, if he is extradited to Peru, he will only face trial for those offenses that are considered crimes by the country that extradites him (Chile). Many of the crimes of which he has been accused are not considered crimes under the Chilean government. This fact was barely mentioned, if at all, in foreign news reports, and yet it is one of the biggest political implications of the issue, directly impacting the Peruvian people and their future leadership.
The fact that relations between Peru and Chile are extremely tense right now, because of a recent dispute about maritime boundaries and because of historical confrontational conduct between the two countries, makes the route Fujimori chose to return to Peru all the more alarming. This facet of the issue, however, was not mentioned in articles. Readers were expected to know about the previous feuding between Chile and Peru. While not directly related to the event itself (the article, after all, was not about political relations between the neighboring countries), this aspect was important to at least mention; it affects the political atmosphere surrounding the extradition arrangements soon to come, and thus is extremely relevant.
The news coverage of the Peruvian ex-president's return, while accurate, fails to portray the real circumstances and the real effects the events surrounding it have on the Peruvian people. It is not that foreign correspondents and journalists abroad do not understand the real situation. They most likely do-after all, they are right there amidst all the action-and while they can transcribe information very accurately, they are much less successful at translating a comprehensive understanding to their readers.
This is why the grain of salt is so important. When trying to avoid bias, as readers, we are concerned with being told too much (too much unnecessary information on one side of the argument). However, we must be careful not to go to the opposite extreme in our quest for objectivity, contenting ourselves with too little information and context.
As a final thought, the idea that learning through hearsay is different from learning through experience can be directly applied to history textbooks: perhaps we should also question our understanding of historical facts. We know the facts, but do we recognize the meaning of what happened and its significance at the time? Can we ever really understand something by just hearing or reading about it, even from experts? There's always something that is left behind through secondhand information that would otherwise not. If newspapers are, as the cliché goes, "a rough draft of history," and if we know that a newspaper cannot always grasp the real significance of the events it covers, then we should not be so sure that our history textbooks do better. Use that grain of salt.
Lora can be reached at vlora08@amherst.edu