Ode to Sergeant Joe Friday: “Just the facts, Ma’am.” [Dedicated to teachers who are assigning a research paper this spring!]

As a Baby Boomer, I watched “Dragnet” and, however corny and stiff the police show appeared on my black and white TV, it was always clear two things mattered to the gumshoe investigators. What was the data (physical evidence that could be measured (“See that blood on the carpet, Joe?”), and what credibility did the witnesses bring to the investigation in order to discover the truth? (“How did you know it was him, Ma’am?”…. “Because he was my, my lover!)

They got it right 100% of the time. Ah, Hollywood. If it were always that easy. But even today, those principles still are neither out of date nor are they irrelevant. The problem is that they are often ignored. In a Trump World of Fake News, how can we tell “Just the facts,Ma’am”—when we don’t establish what facts are? Here are some tried and true methods.

First. The data. Crunch the numbers and consider whose fingers crunched them. Let’s take the issue of the economy and whether the wage gap is really significant, i.e. “The rich get richer and the poor…have children.” In February of 2017, “In the last two quarters, Gross Domestic Product has risen more than 3%...but many people don’t feel the upside….According to the Pew Research Center report, the average hourly wage for nonmanagement private-sector work was $20.67, a measly $1.49 higher than 1964, adjusted for inflation.” [Time 2-5-18 p41] And that’s the average. Imagine the low end of the pay scale! So despite a “booming economy”—it’s not booming for the worker bees. Those are the facts. Legit. The Pew Foundation is as non-partisan as it gets. Numbers are numbers.

Let’s try the immigration debate. Is Trump deporting the bad “hombres”? He claimed he was going to do, as opposed to Obama’s deportation policy? In this example, let’s use data and an excellent knowledgeable “witness”—Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a constitutional and immigration law professor from the University of Santa Clara. His studies show,“Despite the President’s frequent talk of ‘rapists and murderers”; the most influential shift in 2017 was that ICE agents arrested 146% more noncriminals, compared to a year before [under Obama]. In 2016, 14% of the people whom ICE arrested had no criminal record. In 2017 close to 26% were.” [Time 3-19-18 p40] So clearly Trump is arresting a lot of “low hanging fruit”; people who were just easy to scoop up at 7-11 while they are heading to their low paying job. (This was the cover story in Time.)

Okay, one more. Global Warming and its effects on the disasters in various cities. It is public knowledge Trump claimed it was “a hoax’ perpetrated by the Chinese. In an article entitled “How We Know It Was Climate Change” by professor of earth systems science at Stanford, he concludes, “ This was the year of devastating weather, including historic hurricanes and wildfires….Did climate change play a role? Increasingly scientists are able to answer that question—and increasingly, the answer is yes.” [NYT 12-31-17 p.10] The article discusses the fact that these events are all of the highest magnitude in history because of the warming of the planet and the rising of sea level. No mention of the Chinese…or Russian hackers.

So apply these standards: legit studies and qualified sources reported by organizations that are adhering to the highest standards of journalistic ethics. (Remember, they can be sued and reporters fired.) When teachers assign research papers, demand source citations and teach students to inspect them. Wikipedia is only acceptable if the source is quoted directly and cited in the footnotes. Websites by organizations that do not adhere to journalistic standards are just left or right wing propaganda.

Is MSNBC, FOX, CNN legit? Consider this: whom they interview and if those interviews are part of a written piece in a journalistic publication or a journal like SCIENCE, authentic data or qualified sources. Don Lemon’s opinion is just that—one man’s opinion. He is not a lawyer who studies the case, nor is he a scientist. Rachel Maddow admits she is not a lawyer either, so she interviews them—often they are folks who worked directly with cases like Nixon’s prosecution. Fox’s Hannity is really unqualified. Not a college grad (no journalistic background); he is merely a radio shock-talker. Read up on him (or read my Hannitygate Blog). Same with Fox and Friends. They just gab about ‘stuff’…and have the ear of the president.

Final note: Teachers—your librarian is our best asset. They often purchase  research cites that  have published articles. DO NOT GOOGLE “Is racism still a problem?” You are likely to get all sorts of bogus ads, websites, and the fringe ilk who have little validity.