The Kirchners’ 100 Lies

The title of this post is nothing if not loaded. It is a value judgment of sorts, an implication that the Kirchners are not to be trusted: He, Nestor, is a liar and she, Cristina, is too. Generally speaking, respected newspapers, magazines and other media outlets do not use the word “lie” to describe a person’s actions or statements. Doing so implies a kind of character judgment that many careful journalists are loathe to associate themselves with. Imprudent use of the term indicates that a reporter has stepped atop a pedestal of public propriety, removed his cloak of objectivity and assumed the role of judge instead of journalist.

This can be dangerous for readers, for reporters and the people they write about, and for the public at large. But reporters also have a duty to describe reality as accurately as possible. And a simple fact of life is that people do lie, often repeatedly. So the question arises: When is it fair for a reporter to say someone has lied? When is it fair to describe someone as a liar?

Former U.S. Senator John Edwards recently admitted to lying about cheating on his wife. Given the blatant nature of his lie, and his public confession to it, reporters should feel no ethical misgivings about saying Edwards lied. But what if the lies, or perceived lies, are not so blatant? What if the lie is subtle or seems relatively harmless? Or what if the “lie” is deeply suspected but hard to prove? Here, journalists have to be much more careful.

By way of example, consider the Argentine government’s recent claims about poverty. In May President Cristina Fernandez said poverty had declined to 20.7% from 54% in early 2003. “These are numbers that make us proud,” she said. The achievement was laudable. Unfortunately, economists said it was implausible. Many economists, including Ernesto Kritz, who runs the Society of Labor Studies, said the government was likely underestimating the number of poor people by about 4 million. Kritz said the real poverty rate at the time was probably around 30%. Other economists offered similar estimates, while charity organizations and Catholic church officials said that poverty likely had increased within the past year.

Adding to this, half way through last year the government stopped publishing poverty data. But Kirchner went even further. He fired national statistics agency specialist Cynthia Pok after she warned that poverty estimates could not be accurately made unless the government also accurately measured inflation data. Instead of praising her for being a patriot and a whistle blower, Pok’s superiors sacked her. Economists said that when Fernandez said poverty had declined, she did so based on a report using discredited inflation data. That data, even according to off-the-record comments by members of Kirchner’s own government, likely underestimates inflation by two or three-fold. But inflation data makes the difference between statistics that show millions of people falling into poverty or being lifted out of it.

Critics attacked the president, calling her a liar. Most journalists, on the other hand, simply reported the discrepancies between the government’s data and that provided by private economists. Did the president lie? Who can say for sure? After all, she may have been given faulty information. Or the private economists may be wrong, or she may really believe that poverty has declined. In this latter case, it is certainly logically possible that she could have been guilty of saying something that was untrue but without doing so intentionally. And intentionality – that is, intended deception – seems to be a key element of lying.

Whatever the case, the point here is not to examine the veracity of the government’s poverty claims. Instead, it is to look at some of the things journalists must consider when writing about the people – in this case, politicians – and their truth claims.

All of which brings us to the point of this post.

The newspaper Perfil has begun posting videos whose goal is to show how Cristina and Nestor Kirchner are dishonest. The title of the series? “The 100 Lies of The Kirchners.” How is that for clarity! The conclusion is forgone, the verdict in, the judgment rendered: The Kirchners are liars. There is nothing subtle about it, no room for interpretation.

In case anyone doubted it, Perfil has taken sides. It has thrown down the gauntlet, and issued a challenge to the Kirchners. The paper will release a new video daily for 100 days that – so says Perfil – will highlight the Kirchners’ disregard for the truth. Perfil says the videos will demonstrate how the Kirchners have failed to keep their word. Will Perfil keep its word to its readers, to you? You be the judge.

Link: Perfil Story
Link: Videos

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