FACTUAL PUBLIC DISCOURSE - Part 1 of 2

FACTUAL PUBLIC DISCOURSE – Part 1 of 2

This petition is directed towards numerous organizations, far too many to post at the beginning of this presentation. Therefore, they have been placed at the end. They fall under the following headings: Journalism Focus; Election or Legislation Focus; Critical Thinking Focus; Think Tanks; Media Watchdogs; Government Oversight Focus; and
Unity Focus.

THE PROBLEM

It should be apparent that it is often quite difficult to get direct and completely factual replies to questions put forth to politicians, pundits, public relations officers, celebrities and others who have a notable media presence in the public sphere and speak regularly about societal issues and politics. In their responses to questions (especially open-ended questions) or within any self-originated statements, it is not rare to notice the use of rhetorical tricks and a presence of overall evasiveness. This is not always the case, but it takes place on enough occasions to cause concern. Furthermore, we often encounter situations where a public figure, outside of an interview, voices something controversial and is then suddenly unavailable or they outright refuse to answer clarifying questions. Similarly, it is commonplace for reporters, the ones who generally ask questions, to use various rhetorical tools of deception to insert their own bias into the questioning equation in order to rattle or mock the interviewee. In essence, the public is being played by far too many interviewers and public figure interviewees with respect to the discernment of any truths, or falsehoods, related to political and policy related areas of concern.

In questions, answers or assertions pertaining to the political realm, speakers (or writers) commonly toss in biased terminology involving all grammatical elements (adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns, etc.). For example, the emotionally-tinged word "pranced" may be used when "walked" is usually more factual and even-handed. Often, a single sentence uttered by an interviewer or interviewee will have a litany of unsubstantiated claims and false characterizations which would take hours for anyone to fully unpack.

Generally speaking, when our public discourse is heavily imbued with qualities that are less than truthful, the speech arena becomes dominated by virulent emotion; void of fact, logic or reason. Cognitive biases and logical fallacies rule the day. As a result, society gets further and further away from possible solutions to pressing problems. And things won't fare well for us unless honest, truth-based interactions between opponents become the norm.

THE PROPOSAL - OVERVIEW

It is suggested that a system, network, or as used herein, "coalition", be established involving pertinent institutions from both sides of the political spectrum, as well as neutral institutions that have an interest in both securing fair public discourse and enabling the development of a greater informed electorate. Through a centralized governing body, this coalition would ultimately pressure or entice public figures of all types (as described above) to vow to always and without fail answer certain unbiased coalition-generated questions in limited, prescribed situations. Written replies provided within a reasonable time frame would be acceptable.

This effort would specifically involve the use of questions that have respectively been built upon an established "template" of non-biased wording, previously approved by the coalition. There would be countless available templated questions from past submissions, each containing various blanks for the insertion, when needed, of neutrally stated information that is pertinent to an issue at hand. Potential interviewers would simply select the question templates (having blank spaces) that would work for what they have in mind to ask. They would then fill out the blanks in an appropriate, neutral manner. After information relevant to the focus area of the interviewer has been inserted, a near-finalized question would be at hand. This would go back to the coalition for one quick and final review to ensure it is bias-free. It would then be authorized for use.

It should be emphasized that a vow by a public figure who has decided to comply with coalition questions and provide answers when asked would strictly be a vow to answer those questions, nothing more. This system would by no means require the cessation by both reporters and public figures of elsewhere participating in the deception-prone questioning (and answering) practices that have long been in place within society. But nothing would keep such outside, falsehood-prone discourse, by a public figure who has signed on with the coalition, from being challenged with subsequent coalition-generated questions of clarification that he or she would have to answer.

ELABORATION ON THE QUESTIONING COMPONENT

Let's begin with the creation of questions.

The centerpiece of this system would be the framing of questions for templates in a manner which is completely void of accusatory hinting, name calling and so forth. It would prohibit the use of any rhetorical tricks. Also, there would be no place for the development of open-ended questions (or divergent questions; probing questions; evaluation questions; inferential questions, etc.), as the likely wide-ranging answers to such questions would be more prone to being filled with pure opinion, which in turn, could be deceptive or evasive. Instead, the preference would be with "laser-focused" questions, such as closed-ended questions (which could include yes-no, choice); recall and process questions; and factual questions. The emphasis with our questions is in securing facts, not prompting opinion or emotional appeals. Of course, the above-stated types of question inclusion-exclusion could be adjusted however the coalition sees fit; these are just introductory proposals for types of acceptable or unacceptable questions.

It must be conceded that the above-described limitations on the type of questions to be allowed may come across as rather limiting. But the preferred types of questions, once finalized, will elicit specific and well-defined interviewee answers which can be more easily confirmed, or challenged, by the neutral elements of the coalition. Doing the same with answers by interviewees to open-ended questions and similar questions which allow wide-ranging answers would be too arduous for the proposed coalition to validate. But again, any answers to open-ended (and similar) questions found in other outlets could easily be subjected to our more focused approach and have good prospects for bearing fruit.

Part of the template creation process for questions would include an agreement to exclude certain words when others could be used to the same effect, but without overall negative or positive connotations (see the above interchangeability of "pranced" with "walked." We would seek neutral terminology.

The coalition being proposed would have the mission of continuously crafting question templates based on the above-stated classification system (closed-ended, etc.). Although many of the templated questions could be created in advance without any specific issue or subject matter in mind, many could be developed by participants (such as reporters) to address a specific situation in the news cycle. Such a creator would start out by phrasing their question under proper non-biased structure and wording, and then remove, and replace with blanks, specific identifying information unique to the news issue at hand. This would result in a neutral-oriented template. This question template, with its scattered blank spaces, is what would be anonymously submitted by a reporter to the coalition for a hopefully expedient evaluation. This overall template format would help forestall any bias against a submitter. Upon coalition approval of a templated question and timely, exclusive use by the creator, it could be used over and over again in interactions with people on either end of the political spectrum. There would be nothing in the structure of template questions which would suggest any type of political orientation or bias. As the template list gets longer, a way of classifying the types of questions would be needed for easier selection. It is possible that AI could assist in this regard.

Discussion further below gets into the fleshing out of coalition approved templates with information for its various blank spaces, which would focus on a specific public matter under consideration.

Part of the template submission process would involve a method to disguise the identity of the questioner, in all stages, from receiving coalition partners who may secretly or openly support certain political ideologies. There will always be a potential for internal corruption of principles. We would therefore need to have something akin to VPN (but not VPN necessarily) which would enable anonymization. A different "ID" would need to be generated for each new question submission, either a template submission or a fleshed-out submission. As an aside, there would be a strict prohibition on email conversations between the submitter and any reviewer. That would include the use of emails with disguised names or aliases.

Perhaps the following sample template question could enable quick comprehension of our approach for questioning by the reader. "On (date and time) you stated in (television interview; article; press release; etc.) within the (television program name, publication name, etc.) that (person name) was against ever providing (a type of public service) to (some grouping within society). You specifically stated: '(the exact quote would be placed here, surrounded by slightly shaded text, before and after the statement, which would ensure proper context is known).' Could you tell us exactly what factual source (such as: a written statement by the target asserting this belief; sworn witness testimony by someone; or available video) was the basis for this assertion?"

The person selecting this question for use would have pulled it from an already approved template list, which they may have originated or not. The questioner would simply fill in the blanks with neutral wording (as alluded to in the parentheses, above) so that the completed question would work in addressing the issues or matters that interest the questioner. As shown, the question template is without any hint of bias; it cannot be seen as being unfavorable or favorable to the recipient. In other words, the finalized question should be fair and logically consistent.

A fully-fleshed out question, with blank spaces that have been filled in, would be submitted in an anonymized manner (as described above) to the coalition for final approval. Although the fleshed-out questions should receive near-automatic approval if it closely adheres to the established process, it should be pointed out that when a question is in this final review stage, any person or persons on the coalition may block its approval. Ideally, this would be for valid reasons. But a motivation of political bias may not be discounted. Perhaps the submitter could be requested (not ordered) to make an alteration or two. Assuming the submitter wants to leave it as it is, the coalition would need to have determined in advance some way to address such internally generated objections, which, from a rational perspective, are completely out of bounds. For example, banning questions on the basis of a reviewer thinking that it is not relevant could be prohibited. In any case, if a fleshed-out question is ultimately blocked by one or more members, it would eventually be posted on the coalition website with the ID numbers (not names) of those in the coalition who objected, their arguments for refusal and their requests (if any) for alteration. Over time, if a trend of obvious political bias to one side develops, political organizations on the other side could take advantage of it and levy reasonably valid charges of corruption in the coalition. Hopefully, such situations could be avoided. Admittedly, a disguised bias in coalition staff might be a weak link in the question development process. It is imperative that the potential for such situations be given thorough consideration.

After a question receives a final and hopefully expedient approval, it can be directed to the intended interviewee by the creator of the question. Although the creator may choose to identify himself or herself to the interviewee at this time, they could remain anonymous if they wish. But the question recipient would at least be informed that they are receiving coalition-generated questions. They would need to know this specifically if they had already signed on as a participant in the overall program. There might be an option to have the originator be the only one with access to the answer, for a limited period of time (e.g., 24 hours). This would help in ensuring an exclusive status for a story.

Due to the even keeled nature of questions that have received full coalition approval, there should be a lessening of resistance to overall participation in the coalition program by elected officials and other public figures.

Despite the obvious fairness of this process, we have to realize that many elected officials, commentators, celebrities, etc. are reluctant to be recipients of biased questions, "gotcha" questions or questions that reveal their possible ignorance of facts. A simple recollection of video where an elected official continues walking down the hall when approached by a reporter, or refuses to take questions after delivering a one-sided speech, will attest to this. If we are to secure public figure participation and a vow to work with the coalition, as interviewees, we need to take this into account. Therefore, the proposed system would involve the eventual publishing of questions and their targets on the coalition website. Later text discusses how such postings would play a role in securing an informed response and also enhance the prospects of interviewee participation. The targeted recipient would be given one week (maybe more, maybe less) to respond, in writing. Our expecting immediate replies might be a bit unrealistic. The reader is referred to later text which elaborates on the answering of such questions.

This system would not be workable if a participating question recipient were to be bombarded with thousands of questions each month. Therefore, some limitation on the number of questions to be forwarded to a recipient, per week (or day, month, etc.) would need to be established.

In this system, a finite number of people with a confirmed status as a member of the press (neutral or otherwise), as well as pundits and commentators, would be granted an automatic right of question review by the coalition. But we must concede that reporters and others in the media universe do not always have a full grasp of certain issues and that many members of the general public can have something of value to contribute. We therefore need to have a way to also enable their participation in question submission, without laying a framework for an overwhelming number of spam submissions.

It is suggested that designated organizations on either end of the political spectrum be selected to not only offer their own questions in an anonymous manner (alongside reporters, pundits, etc. as described above), but to, most importantly, receive and evaluate for suitability helpful questions submitted by the general public. They would be filtering the submissions. Such organizations would be part of the political wings of the coalition. And to avoid the occurrence of spam questions going to them, they could demand a modest "membership fee" from individuals, using a credit card. These organizations could, in turn pare down the submissions to a manageable level and only forward ones which would advance their search for specific information.

So far, we have focused on developing questions for submission to public figures or representatives of organizations, for eventual inclusion in news reports. We should also consider adopting this system to allow individuals (and reporters, etc.) to submit, solely through the designated political organizations within the coalition, possible questions that certain elected officials could incorporate into currently ongoing public hearings. It is conceivable that individuals who are not in positions of influence could have good insights into whatever matters are being investigated in hearings. Since hearing participants are compelled to answer questions, such submissions would bypass the need for question templates and a need to go through a standard coalition review process to eliminate bias. It is the public hearing official who would mull over any suggestions for suitability. Then again, a bypass would open the door for open-ended questions.

ELABORATION ON THE ANSWERING COMPONENT

We now turn our focus to the answering of questions.

As indicated above, participating public figures would eventually receive questions that have been vetted for impartiality by the coalition. These questions would be available for viewing by the general public. However, the original submitter, likely a reporter, would have a brief period of sole access to the eventual answer. The question recipients would not be obligated to speak or make a public appearance in response; written answers would suffice.

During the interim time period provided to answer questions that have been cleared by the coalition, designated political organizations or members of the public as described above would be allowed to submit suggested answers to the question recipient with whom they have sympathies. Some might term this as "cheating", but all we need is for the question's ultimate target to sign-off the answer. We are not seeking to uncover any level of ignorance (which would greatly lessen cooperation by public figures); we just want to know where they stand on various matters and issues. Whether someone guided them to the ultimate answer would be irrelevant, particularly since we would be dealing with immutable facts, not the wide-ranging opinions found with responses to open-ended questions.

With further respect to answering, we would urge potential participating public figure interviewees to answer, in a precise manner, questions as described above. As already seen, the nature of such questions would not really offer an opportunity for the interview target to stray from the topic at hand and get into opinions or any language indicating a bias. That is, if the recipient adheres to expectations and responds appropriately. Ideally, with an 'incentive" as described below, they would vow to always answer such questions that arise from the proposed coalition entity in a direct and coherent manner. Under this basic arrangement, we end up with non-threatening yet compelling questions that can deliver clear and accurate answers.

Our ultimate goal would be to eliminate any prospect of participating public figures to evade giving direct answers without experiencing consequences. Either a direct and credible reply, including "I refuse to answer" would be provided or the question recipient could be publicly chastised as having been deceptive. It may seem that a participating public figure would be at a disadvantage with having agreed to answering any coalition-generated questions, but his participation could be seen as actually conferring benefits of great value (discussed below).

EVALUATING ANSWERS FOR COMPLIANCE

Some difficulties might arise in evaluating answers before they are released to the interviewer and eventually to the public. If a question asks for a specific date for something, a specific date should be provided. That should be beyond dispute. However, if bias within the coalition crept into such a simple matter as this, it would need to be addressed in a manner similar to what would be done with a bias against the creator of questions (discussed previously). If it is clearly evident that the interviewee is being noncompliant, that would need to be publicly revealed. Enough of such violations would ban them from the ability to tout participation to voters, if the question recipient is an elected official.

INCENTIVES FOR PARTICIPATION BY POTENTIAL INTERVIEWEES

Assuming that a general agreement or understanding is in place between organizations on opposing sides, the next step would be to come up with ideas that would help ensure that the influencers in society would take part and be responsive to such fact-based questioning. It is not expected that a substantial percentage would do so in an enthusiastic manner, as many are incapable of providing anything but emotion-laden responses. Subtle coercion might be the only recourse.

One way to obtain participation, likely with a low chance of success, would be to pursue the adoption of laws at various levels of government which would compel participation upon a person's election. This might also be extended to people in appointed positions. A requirement of this nature would be somewhat similar to requirements for elected officials to officiate at public meetings.

A different path would be to allow elected officials to independently decide whether to take part or not. If, pre-election, a candidate asserted support of the concept, legislation might be possible for a statement to that effect being printed on the election ballot for the candidate. This would be a positive incentive, as it would allow the public figure to claim he is a "straight talker" and not afraid of the truth, no matter what it may constitute. However, a notice of participation on a ballot would need to be paired with a law removing them from office if the pledge was not fulfilled, under certain parameters (this would not apply with the person having been hospitalized, out of the country, etc.). Or, they could be denied the special ballot notation in the next election if they have not fulfilled their agreement to cooperate.

Another group of potential participants would include those creating questions, namely reporters. It cannot be denied that many in this profession proclaim a mantle of impartiality, yet they commonly ask biased questions. Next would come pundits, commentators and the hosts of television, radio, podcast and streaming programs who editorialize. There is no conceivable way to directly mandate their participation, but if an elected official opts into the program, no one could preclude them from not speaking with all reporters, etc. from any non-participating media outlets (ones which have not required participation with the coalition by their reporters or editorialists). This refusal to speak would include denying their presence at any of their press conferences or events. The one drawback to this, with the participating elected official, would be that they may miss out on positive news coverage. Of course, such bans should exempt news conferences concerning public safety.

Just as participating elected officials could benefit from being seen as "straight talking", so could a media outlet, particularly if it gave them a chance to outshine their competitors. A participating media outlet which employs pundits and other opinion makers would be able to proclaim their participation each day on front covers/pages or consistently through broadcast programs.

Theoretically, the advertisers of non-participating media outlets could be boycotted. They would face the option of either being in opposition to a process which indisputably gets to the truth, or in support of it. However, boycotts are difficult to sustain.

As for non-participating news outlets sharing the interview results of participating outlets, they could be obligated to make a reference to the source outlet as participating in the coalition's program

All it would take is for one participant in a market to shame their opposition. If this proposal were to take off, non-participating media outlets may begin to see their audience shift to participants.

Another group of potential interviewees would involve celebrities who make political statements. The problem we have with them is that they are very difficult to access; even more difficult than politicians. They commonly make controversial statements and then disappear. Effectively, they have the benefits of a large public megaphone without ever having to answer for what they say. They do not hold weekly press conferences and the only way to possibly get them is through their agents. Thus, it might be difficult to place any leverage on them. Still, there might be a few angles to consider. The main focus would be on media outlets, more specifically, the individuals or programs which commonly report on celebrities. Ideally, media organizations working with the coalition would be encouraged to deny publicity to any celebrity that does not take part. Realistically speaking, this would be difficult to do because of the cozy, symbiotic relationship between the news media and celebrities. The news media is highly dependent on entertainment themed stories. In light of this, perhaps each interview with a celebrity could at least include a statement, which would be truthful, that the celebrity does not want to be subjected to answering questions originating in the coalition that pertain to any statements they have made which involve politics or public policy. They need to keep in mind that a celebrity who participates could answer in writing, as discussed previously. There would be no obligation for them to answer on the air.

Another option, with admittedly little chance of being adopted, might be for various states outside of California to permanently deny access to cushy financial arrangements for any filming operations they may be asked to host if they do not get assurances that their actors and directors agree to compliance with the coalition program for a designated time period. Similarly, various government owned stadiums and other music performance settings could require artist participation in the coalition program in order to obtain the services of off-duty police officers for concert security. These steps bear some resemblance to past drives to remove movie production and prominent baseball games out of Georgia due to governmental actions there, so there might be a bit of a precedent. But the chances of this happening would be very low.

One option to help ensure participation would be to prominently post any refusals by celebrities who are politically vocal to take part in the coalition program. This could actually apply to all prospective interview targets. By itself, this may not carry much weight, but it would at least be available for people to consult.

GETTING THE PROPOSED COALITION OFF THE GROUND

Now that we have an overview of how this would work, let's get into the details on getting things set up.

First, we would need to secure cooperation among relevant national organizations in developing this project. Such organizations would need to have a neutral political orientation and desire honest public discourse among the above-listed actors in the public realm, particularly politicians and government officials. A key mission for this coalition would be to set up the operating framework and ensuring its continued neutral standing. Such an arrangement would help in gaining the confidence of the general public.

The next steps may not necessarily need to take place in a specific order.

A possible new step would be to secure the involvement of a few politically oriented organizations on both sides of the political spectrum at the national level. Their strength would be in their strong drive to "get" the other side and consequently monitor opposition statements and answers to questions that are publicly available. In turn, they could prepare questions for submission to the overriding, neutral body, for approval under the same process as outlined previously. If the neutral body concurs that the political entity has not tainted the aura of neutrality, it would be deemed as a valid, nonjudgmental question.

We have to keep in mind that some political organizations may actually prefer the status quo. As such, securing political organization cooperation may prove difficult. Still, if one side refuses to take part, they would have to realize that the other side would be fully justified in making public claims that the non-participating side was not willing to help get straight, no-spin answers to questions put forth to society's influencers. Hammering away at this point could only gain support from those in society who are undecided on public matters.

Still another grouping of possible participants would involve organizations devoted to journalism. They could, theoretically, work with the neutral entities of our coalition, but any assertions they make of being neutral themselves should be carefully evaluated.

We now move to securing the involvement of national media organizations for the conveyance of news and opinion. They would not necessarily become members of the coalition, proper.

It is foreseeable that many media organizations would be hesitant in using the proposed system. They might perceive it as a threat to reporter autonomy. But that is not our intent; this system would merely seek to augment what already exists and enable clarity to permeate the news. It is highly likely that the inherent power behind entirely factual commentary might conflict with the obvious, though unadmitted, bias in reporting by some national media organizations. Should they refuse participation, the only recourse would be a steady campaign to shame them. An appealing way to do this, as discussed previously, would be to encourage public officials and others who stand for straight talking and honesty and have signed on to refuse interviews by reporters from non-participating companies and to perhaps even ban them from attending their press conferences.

Regarding commentators and pundits, their corporate employers (many being national media companies, as just discussed) would be encouraged to make participation in the system a requirement. In return, the corporation would be able to tout that their people address matters with facts, thus imbuing them with an aura of trust. In order to further encourage the participation of pundits and commentators, any potential, already participating interviewees who expect adversarial treatment would be encouraged to completely refuse interviews by such people if they, too did not sign up. The interviewees would seek such an arrangement, as it would possibly subject the interviewer at some point to probing questions.

CONCLUSION

This is intended as a rough outline which those in a position to implement it would be free to tweak adjust where needed.

It is hoped that the petition recipients, in their respective positions of influence, could maneuver this concept into fruition.

However, as alluded to previously, if any amount of bias is allowed to creep in, it will start to be noticed. And that would be the end of the entire proposed system.

INTENDED PETITION RECIPIENTS

The reader will note that most of the following have a neutral public face. A small number of them are overtly political. Since we need the cooperation of all parts of the political spectrum, this inclusion should be justified. Their inclusion in the question approval process would be muted, if participation is permitted.

Journalism Focus: American Society of Journalists and Authors; Center for Journalism Ethics; Center for Media Engagement; Duke Reporter's Lab; Fair Media Council; Institute for Nonprofit News; International Association of Internet Broadcasters; (Investigative Reporters and Editors; National Freedom of Information Coalition; National Press Club Journalism Institute; National Society of Newspaper Columnists; Online News Association; Podcast Movement; Poynter Institute; Public Media Journalists Association; Radio & Television Correspondent's Association; Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Radio Television Digital News Association; Society for Features Journalism; Society of Professional Journalists; Talkers Magazine.

Election or Legislation Focus: American Legislative Exchange Council; Ballotpedia; Coalition for Free and Open Elections; Council of State Governments; Election Reformers Network; Freedom House; Institute for Political Innovation; League of Women Voters; National Association of Election Officials; National Association of Secretaries of State; National Association of State Election Directors; National Conference of State Legislatures; State Government Affairs Council; State Legislative Leaders Foundation; U.S. Vote Foundation; Veterans for Political Innovation.

Critical Thinking Focus: Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative; Foundation for Critical Thinking; Intentional Insights; Skeptic's Society.

Think Tanks: American Enterprise Institute; Brookings Institution; Center for American Progress; Heritage Foundation.

Media Watchdogs: All Sides; Media Matters; Media Research Center.

Government Oversight Focus: Congressional Management Foundation; Government Accountability Project; People Count; Project on Government Oversight.

Unity Focus: Big Tent Nation; Bipartisan Policy Center; Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress; Citizen Connect; Civic Health Project; Common Good; Commonsense American; Convergence; Country First; Divided We Fall; Fix Us; Fulcrum; In this Together; Institute for Liberal Values; Issue One; Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life; Listen First; McCourtney Institute for Democracy; Mediators Foundation; National Conference on Citizenship; National Institute for Civil Discourse; No Labels; Nonpartisan Reformers; Objectively; Polarization and Social Change Lab; Protruth Pledge; Public Agenda; Reclaim; Represent Us; Society Library; Stubblefield Institute; The Branch; Unite America; Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy; Voice of the People.