Posted by Eugene Volokh:
How to make substantive criticism look like guarding professional turf:
[1]Eric Muller (IsThatLegal?) posts an open letter to the media from
various historians:
We represent the Historians' Committee for Fairness, an
organization of scholars and professional researchers. Michelle
Malkin's appearance on numerous television and radio shows and her
comments during these appearances regarding her book IN DEFENSE OF
INTERNMENT represent a blatant violation of professional standards
of objectivity and fairness. Malkin is not a historian, and she
states that she relied almost exclusively on research conducted or
collected by others. Her book, which purports to defend the wartime
treatment of Japanese Americans, did not go through peer review
before publication. This work presents a version of history that is
contradicted by several decades of scholarly research, including
works by the official historian of the United States Army and an
official U.S. government commission. In fact, the author's
presentation of events is so distorted and historically inaccurate
that, when challenged by reputable historians, she has herself
conceded that her main thesis in incorrect, namely that the MAGIC
intercepts of prewar Japanese diplomatic cable traffic, explain and
justify the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. As Malkin
states, her critics have noted that "once the decision was made to
evacuate ethnic Japanese from the West Coast, many ancillary
decisions were made--and MAGIC doesn't explain all or even most of
them. True...." (see her website, www.michellemalkin.com, August 6,
2004)
It is irresponsible of your producers to permit Michelle Malkin's
biased presentation of events to go unchallenged as a factual
historical presentation. We therefore respectfully demand that you
formally apologize to the Japanese Americans who have been
slandered by Ms. Malkin's reckless presentation and invite a
reputable historian to present a more even-handed view of the
evidence.
The historians may well be right in their criticisms of Malkin; I
haven't been following the controversy closely enough to have an
expert opinion. But it seems to me that they've framed their
criticisms in a way that greatly weakens their argument.
What do they start with? They're professional researchers -- good
enough as it goes. Then they allege that Malkin isn't "objectiv[e]"
and "fair[]" the way that professionsl are. Well, I certainly support
objectivity and fairness, but my guess is that (1) many historians
themselves are pretty biased; (2) a longstanding, and plausible,
criticism of the very people who are likely to be sympathetic with
Malkin is that many historians are indeed biased towards the Left; and
(3) the media thrives on contentious presentations, where two
partisans duke it out, either on the same show or over time. They
think it makes for more interesting programming, and they think that
it's quite fair. I doubt that supposedly objective historians will
persuade them, or their viewers, otherwise.
But then, it seems to me, it gets worse: Malkin isn't a historian, and
relied on research done by others. Well, the media publishes
commentary by people who aren't professional academics, and who rely
on research done by others, all the time. That's what columnists
usually are. You might not get tenure in a history department if you
rely on research done by others, but such reliance doesn't disqualify
you from appearing in the media.
Nor, more importantly, does it make you wrong. And while not being a
professional historian may make it more likely that you'll get some
things wrong, it's hardly a guarantee of that -- plus sometimes an
outsider to a profession can indeed help puncture professional
orthodoxy (though I suspect it happens less than outsiders might
like). The same goes for peer review; even if peer review dramatically
improves accuracy (maybe), the absence of peer review hardly proves
inaccuracy. And in any event I'm pretty sure that the media and the
public don't treat peer review with the reverence that professional
scholars in peer-reviewed disciplines might. The
not-a-historian/relied-on-others'-research/no-peer-review sentence
will likely sound to many like a guild guarding its professional turf
against upstart competition, not a substantive critique that should
make the media or viewers take notice.
So the first four sentences, it seems to me, frame the issue entirely
the wrong way (especially since the first sentence's reference to
professionalism, which is unobjectionable on its own, ends up looking
like more turf-guarding in light of the following sentences). And then
the letter gets to the heart of the argument -- the point that should
be persuasive to media and to viewers, and that appeals to
acknowledged media ethics: Malkin is wrong. Now that might persuade
people that she ought not be trusted, and that at least some contrary
voices should be called on to rebut her arguments. (The call for an
apology to soothe hurt feelings seems to me to return to the
unpersuasive, because it distracts from what's accurate to what's
offensive, but at least it doesn't smack of trying to defend guild
authority.)
That, it seems to me, is what the historians should have started with:
They should have put their strongest argument -- the claim of grave
inaccuracy, and the reasonable call for an opportunity to respond --
front and center. And then they should have stayed on that message,
perhaps even beefing it up with more telling details.
Instead, they buried the lede. (Should they have taken their own
advice and left this sort of writing to professional, credentialed
journalists or press relations specialists? I don't think so, but at
least I don't think they would have then made that mistake.) But
worse, they buried it under a different lede that, it seems to me,
frames the argument exactly the way that professional academics ought
not frame it -- at least if they want to persuade their lay readers.
Perhaps I'm mistaken; I too am not a professional press relations or
public relations expert, and I'm sure I have many blind spots myself
when dealing with people who don't share my own professions'
preconceptions. But my sense is that the historians really did err in
their rhetoric here.
References
1.
http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2004_08_29_isthatlegal_archive.html#109404285228914607
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