Editor’s note: Why Grasswire will not cover incendiary political rhetoric

In testimony before a Congressional board in May of 1963, journalist Edward R. Murrow — then the Director of the United States Information Agency — spoke to the dangers of lies and propaganda.

“To be persuasive,” he said, “we must be believable. To be believable we must be credible. To be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.”

At the time, it probably was as simple as that. Television was the big disruptor in the news industry at a time when most people still got their information from the papers and the radio. A time when editors hand-picked the news for consumption by the masses.

Cable news eventually disrupted television and radio, and the Internet disrupted the entire news industry and journalistic process — in both good ways and bad. Good in that people are now able to access information from every corner of the globe at breakneck speed. Bad in that people now have the ability to consume only the news that caters to their interests and opinions — and completely disregard the rest.

For years, the news industry — print, radio, television and digital — has tried to strike a balance between interesting and important. Nowhere is that more true than in the commercial news industry, where interest is the business and information is the commodity. In today’s world, it is much easier for for-profit media organizations to swing the pendulum toward the side of interest over importance— ratings and clicks, after all, keep the lights on.

But such methodology becomes a problem when the news industry lends its powerful and influential megaphone to unsavory actors who self-gratify by deliberately misleading the public. Nowhere does that appear to be more true than in politics, where candidates from all sides seem almost too eager to say or do just about anything to get their time in the spotlight.

In the American political circuit, there is no shortage of colorful, entertaining characters who embody both perplexing and entertaining positions, including opinions on how they’d like to “make America great again.” But hateful political rhetoric — including suggestions that a group of people should be negatively targeted for special treatment because of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation—is not entertaining. It is dangerous.

Grasswire is a news organization. We take our responsibility to deliver verified, factual and important information to our audience very seriously. As with any news organization, the information we report is seen in the eyes of our audience as credible, and that credibility can lead to influence and action.

We do not feel that everything said by a candidate — including, but not limited to, incendiary and logic-less rhetoric—is worthy of coverage. And we feel we would be irresponsible if we offered harmful and dangerous rhetoric even the slightest modicum of credibility by amplifying it through our coverage.

As a news organization, Grasswire has decided to decline coverage of hateful, dangerous and baseless rhetoric when it is delivered by an individual or group who is not in a current or potential position of political influence or power, or when it is obvious that it is spoken, written or published merely to attract attention to one’s group or self. We will, however, cover political statements when they are delivered by individuals in a current or potential position of influence or power, and only when those statements are rooted in logic and truth.

We will also cover political statements that purport to be true, but are verifiably false or overwhelmingly misleading. As a community-oriented news service, we have fact-checked most major news events, including almost every American presidential debate this election season (save for two, mostly due to accessibility issues). Verifying information — whether it be a viral video, a Photoshopped image or a statement delivered by a politician— is the foundation upon which Grasswire was launched more than two years ago. Although our product and services have changed, our principle of delivering authentic, truthful and important news and information has not.

We feel hateful and incendiary rhetoric delivered solely to draw attention to one’s self is not authentic, truthful or important. It is a ploy to attain the media spotlight. And it is a distraction from real, important issues that deserve our coverage and our attention.

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Austen Allred, Founder & CEO, Grasswire
Joanne Stocker, Managing Editor, Grasswire.com
Matthew Keys, Managing Editor, Grasswire.com

Community contributors:
Andrea Adams
Carol Alfonso
Christopher Clarke
John Feras
Justin Gann
Amanda Hill
David Lay
Braeden Mayer
Kashif Osman
Francois Pigerre
Stephen Repetski
Thiago Elias Rezende
Mohammed S.
Terin Stock
Thomas Taylor
Kelly W.
Dan Wade
Simon Y.
Justin Zheng

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