This is a well-intended bit of advice to Gov. Kristi Noem and her staff: Check it out. Always.
Do not assume that everything anyone tells you is true. Do not assume, in fact, that anything anyone tells you is true.
Do not make such assumptions even if something seems likely to be true, even if it comes from one of your constituents, even if it comes from one of your ardent supporters, or even if it supports something you believe to be true.
Consider first the old, overstated journalism cliche: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
Actually, I’m fine if you make an assumption that your mom loves you without checking it out. It’s a reasonable risk. And you probably have already done your background reporting on that.
Anything else of substance? Yeah, check it out. Maybe twice.
In particular, you should do that before using it in a public statement, where being accurate is as important to governors and their staffs as it is to reporters writing news stories. Readers and listeners and watchers have the right to expect that governors and reporters will be credible sources of information.
Which means reporters and governors, and governor’s staffers, have a great, solemn responsibility to check things out before they share them with the public.
That’s something I have failed to do on occasion in my reporting life. And it’s apparently something Noem and her staff failed to do, in at least one instance, in preparing her budget address to the state Legislature earlier this month.
I learned about it through one of the credible sources of information any citizens should rely upon: a newspaper. In this case, it was the Rapid City Journal and an opinion piece written by Ryan Bruns, superintendent of the Northwest Area School District in Mellette, S.D.
In the Journal piece, Bruns expressed his concern about Noem’s budget proposal for state aid to local schools. Times are tough. State revenues are struggling. Noem’s proposed budget — which can be changed by the state Legislature — reflects that, including in state school aid.
So there’s that issue, a big one, and Bruns understandably used the Journal space to urge a funding increase to keep pace with ongoing educational costs, in particular keeping South Dakota teachers out of last place nationally in pay.
But he also told a story of being teased by other school administrators after Noem’s budget message, part of which apparently left the impression that “we have no internet in Mellette.”
He wrote that Noem said cars were lined up outside the school in Mellette on many nights as parents brought children to the school because they had no high-speed internet otherwise.
Bruns said that was “unequivocally untrue.” They do have high-speed internet in Mellette, he wrote, “along with running water.”
Bruns hadn’t actually seen Noem’s budget message. He’d only heard about it, from credible sources among his school-administrator colleagues. But he checked it out anyway, by calling Noem’s office. A Noem staffer confirmed that Noem had said what had been described to Bruns, and that the governor heard the story about no internet service in Mellette from a man she’d met “during her travels,” Bruns wrote.
Why would the man have told the governor something that wasn’t true? Who knows? People get things wrong, intentionally and unintentionally. People talk without knowing, and gets things half right or not right at all. A lot.
Why wouldn’t someone on Noem’s staff have made a single phone call to the Mellette School District to ask a simple question: “Is what we heard true?”
That’s five minutes. Or 10. Or maybe it’s a couple of mails exchanged with the principal or an assistant or a business manager, rather than assuming that a single source was correct.
I have failed to properly check out stories presented to my readers. I’ve felt terrible about that. And I’ve apologize for it. And tried to do better.
After contacting Noem’s staff myself, I know they feel bad, too. And are committed to doing a better job of checking things out before passing them on.
That’s essential. Facts are important. The truth matters. that’s always been true. But at no time in my lifetimes has it been truer than now. At no time in my lifetime has the truth been more seriously under attack.
Part of that is the confusing image of reality created by the internet and especially by social media. There facts and the truth and reality are often blurred beyond recognition and public commentary is looser and less reliable — and often meaner — than it has ever been, in my lifetime, at least.
Add in the AM radio factor, where fact is often something to be sued and abused to create a version of the truth for someone’s advantage.
And add in the cable news factor, where news and commentary are often blurred beyond easy distinction.
And then add in the Trump factor, where facts and truth take a White House beating as, perhaps, they never have before.
Whether you love Donald trump or hate Donald Trump or fall somewhere in between, you have to admit — if you’re being honest — that his commitment to facts and the truth is, at best, half-hearted. At worst, it is adversarial, even dismissive.
Presidents have always twisted the truth to their advantage. But I can’t recall a president who has so often disregarded the truth. Does he lie or does he just not care whether what he says is true?
I’m not sure. But his cavalier attitude in the way he presents or passes on information further diminishes the standing of fact and truth in public perception. He is, after all, the president, the leader of the free world.
Has he ever said to staffer: “Hey, check this out before I retweet or use it in a speech to make sure it’s true”? Maybe. I hope so. But I tend to doubt it.
I have to believe that Noem’s staffers spend plenty of time checking things out to see if they’re true. I assume Noem wants and expects that. And in an address of more than half an hour there’s a lot to write and manage and double check.
I assume the Mellette gaffe was an honest oversight, an assumption made in the hustle to get ready for the budget message and provide a compelling story within it.
And I’m going to assume this error, this bit of sloppiness in preparation, isn’t a sign of a lack of commitment to the facts and the truth by Noem or her staff.
It’s not a huge thing, in the course of human events. Still, it’s worth a reminder: Facts matter. The truth is important. And if something someone tells you seems too good to be true, it probably is — too good to be true.
So check it out. Always.
And don’t make assumptions that something is true — except for that thing about your mother, of course. You can probably take a chance on that.
