Friday, Dec. 16, 2022 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Seeking the truth and casting doubt aren’t the same. As I listened to a conversation between Tucker Carlson and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder on Fox News, I realized how easy it is to confuse the two. Those of us who speak publicly about current events should understand the difference and lead by example.
From time to time, I listen to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” I regularly encounter “Well, Tucker said …” in conversations with my father. It’s hard not to be impressed with a commentator who is so ubiquitous that my own father refers to him like a personal friend that everyone knows. Since my father paid attention to the influences in my life over the years, I’ve decided to return the favor.
The particular segment that caught my attention offered a discussion about the recent attack on Paul Pelosi. The basics of the story have been widely reported. Suspect David DePape allegedly broke into the Pelosi residence and violently attacked Pelosi with a hammer. According to friends and a former employer, DePape has a history of mental health issues and drug abuse.
Unfortunately, filings between the Department of Justice and local prosecutors differ as to whether Pelosi opened the door for police or police opened the door of the residence. According to the interim San Francisco District Attorney, body camera footage shows that Pelosi was the one who opened the door.
A troubled man breaking in and attacking the husband of the speaker of the House isn’t in doubt. It’s awful regardless of how any of us feel about Nancy Pelosi’s politics.
The media should seek the truth when law enforcement provides conflicting accounts of what happened. The goal is to set the record straight. Traditionally, that has been the province of reporters. These days that function is often combined with commentary and opinion. Facts are often boring. Commentary shouldn’t be.
“Speaking of lying, it’s happening right in front of us,” Carlson noted to open the interview. He immediately began casting aspersions on law enforcement and a judge declining to release body camera footage at this point in the case.
“What is going on here? Are they hiding? We don’t know,” Carlson queried.
When Elder joined the exchange, the not knowing continued.
“Of course we’re speculating,” Elder said, “But somebody does not want somebody to know what really happened that day. I don’t know.”
Whoa! Wait a minute. Conflicting descriptions of events are one thing, but nobody is credibly arguing that Pelosi wasn’t violently attacked. We know plenty about the case. Now there’s someone hiding the truth from us?
Elder subsequently attempted to offer something he did know. “All I know is that the official story that we’ve heard — which is very simple, this guy broke into Paul Pelosi’s house and attacked him — does not appear to be the case,” he said.
What? That’s exactly what appears to have happened.
Carlson graciously noted, “I’m not interested in what Paul Pelosi was doing there.” In the middle of the night in his own home? Even that statement is loaded. It implies that Pelosi was doing something other than being asleep.
In reality, the story isn’t interesting except that Democrats and liberal groups seized upon the event to brand Republicans and conservatives as aligned with or responsible for DePape’s actions. To be fair to Carlson, progressives are indeed guilty on that front. Welcome to modern politics, where no tragedy isn’t the political opponent’s fault.
Gutter politics on one side of the aisle doesn’t justify keeping the audience outraged over ambiguities.
In a bit of comedy, Elder agreed with Carlson that the media has an “absolute right and obligation to figure out what happened” because he was personally attacked for making a snarky joke on the same day of the attack.
“Too, soon?,” tweeted Elder hours after the attack, “Poor, Paul Pelosi. First, he’s busted for DUI, and then gets attacked in his home. Hammered twice in six months.”
Elder wasn’t attacked by liberals trying to put him in league with DePape. He was attacked for failing to be a decent human being and making a tasteless joke about someone in the hospital with a fractured skull.
As the segment concluded, I wondered how my father would fill in the blanks if he heard it. Entertaining commentary doesn’t require undermining the truth with an avalanche of doubt. In fact, creating uncertainty is often a cheap attack when the facts don’t fully support our opinions.
The media plays a critical role in holding power accountable and correcting factual inconsistencies, but we also shouldn’t cloud issues when people, like my father, are looking to us for answers. Do members of the media truly want to know the answers to serve the public, or are we using the shadow of doubt to undermine a political adversary or opposing viewpoint?
The answer to that question makes a world of difference to our stories, our character and our audience.
Cameron Smith is a columnist for al.com.
