Photo from NYTimes

In late January, the “confrontation” between a Catholic high school boy, Nick Sandmann,  and a 64-year old Native American, Nathan Phillips, became viral on social media. First off, the racial and discriminatory controversy was sparked by a video instagram post by Kaya Taitano, who is a student at the University of the District of Columbia. The content of the video featured Phillips singing in his native language and playing the drums while Sandmann stands right in front of him, smiling. Sandmann and several of his fellow high school classmates are all wearing Trump hats, and the students in the back of the video are seen cheering and chanting. According to Reuters, the students were “mocking” Phillips, and were heard shouting “build that wall.”

In Taitano’s post, she expresses her disgust towards the boys. What followed was the post’s sudden attention on Instagram as well as a series of tweets on Twitter (Teen Vogue), including politicians and citizens alike. I do not want to analyze the truthfulness of the online reports because it is very hard to determine whether the words of Phillips and Sandmann are truthful in the first place. We all know that the presence of the media will alter the actions of people, thus it is all the more difficult to evaluate their inherent thoughts and motives at the moment of the event, even if they claim they were thinking in one way or the other. For example, in a later report by NYTimes, Sandmann claims:

I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict […] I was not intentionally making faces at the protester. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation.

Two filters distances us from the truth, which is the truth of how Sandmann feels deep down about this Native American man and whether he was actually racially discriminating against him. The first filter is his claim that “everyone had cameras.” This statement in itself suggests that he was very much aware he was filmed, thus imposed self-control. He could have acted differently if so many cameras didn’t even exist. The second filter is his spoken words under the pressure of a society who disapproves of his “supposed” actions. Of course, he would choose to justify his innocence, and whether it is the truth is beyond our reasoning.

I believe it is appropriate to say that the invention of social media is scary. In this case, social media gave all the “evidence” out to the world before news channels did, and news channels everywhere extracted “evidence” from social media itself, calling the news something that went viral on social media. The fact that the word “viral” is now commonly used to refer to events that become a hot topic in the online virtual space, it seems that the power of news outlets in carrying out information—and factual information at that—has largely diminished. The significance of this phenomenon is that while the virtual space is the home of social media, it is not the original home for journalism and news reporting, and the latter two had to adapt to this space and essentially evolve to fit this modern space.

Now comes the question, what is the role of social media and should it meddle with providing news, if what it provides may even be called “news”? Although I do not have an answer, I do think that William Lippmann would be disappointed to see the current state of media affairs and news reporting.

In his paper titled “Liberty and the News,” Lippmann proposes a very utopian vision of news reporting which I do not believe will be achieved any time soon. In fact, many of the problems that Lippmann notes are aggravated by the intervention (or overlap) of social media spreading information to the people, sometimes and oftentimes at a faster rate than news stations do, for social media is composed of the people and do not require the professionalism of news platforms. But, Lippmann is fearful of the lack of requirements in writing, saying, “What are the qualifications for operating daily on the brain and heart of a nation? None.” (Lippmann, 781). It is no surprise that the virtual space has created the perfect environment for online users to share their information and thoughts infinitely, for unlike news platforms, the individual is not a professional institution that needs to process information and think how to best convey information. Even social media platforms such as Facebook chose to delete the original confrontation video from its platform, limiting the flow of information and establishing a kind of control over its users. Is this the problem then, that professionalism in news reporting and large media companies is actually detracting from information efficiency and consumer interest?

Originally referring to journalists working in news, Lippmann’s argument here may also, surprisingly, be applied to social media users who spread information:

The sensible procedure in matters affecting the liberty of opinion would be to ensure as impartial an investigation of the facts as is humanly possible. But it is just this investigation that is denied us. It is denied us, because we are dependent upon the testimony of anonymous and untrained and prejudiced witnesses; because the complexity of the relevant facts is beyond the scope of our hurried understanding; and finally, because the process we call education fails so lamentably to educate the sense of evidence or the power of penetrating to the controlling centre of a situation. (Lippmann, 779)

The “anonymous and untrained and prejudiced witnesses” in the Sandmann-Phillips case may very well refer to all of the people who held their cameras to the scene, posting their recordings on social media, and then voicing their own opinions about the matter, coloring the situation and provoking heated debates. Furthermore, the news channels had to use videos and photos from these social media sources as “evidence,” perfectly characterizing Lippmann’s concern that the news is “dependent upon” such witnesses. Lippmann expresses a futility in the reality of news reporting, which has continued to this day.

Lastly, Lippmann believes that “good reporting requires the exercise of the highest of the scientific virtues” (Lippmann, 782) and that there is “room, and there is need, for disinterested reporting” (Lippmann, 783). While I do believe this should be the ultimate goal of news reporting, Lippmann lived in a time when social media didn’t exist. Now that it does, we are faced with a magnanimous power that does not require professionalism in itself, twists the professionalism of news platforms, and changes the entire realm of information communication. If we strive for Lippmann’s utopia, social media must be tamed before it can ever succumb to the goals of news “professionals.”

Works Cited

• Elizabeth, De. “Yes, the MAGA Hat-Wearing Students Are Teenagers. That Doesn’t Exempt Them From Responsibility.” Teen Vogue, 21 Jan. 2019.
• Hay, Andrew. “Students in Trump hats mock Native American; school apologizes.” Reuters, 19 Jan. 2019.
• Lippmann, Walter. Liberty and the News. Forgotten Books, 2015.
  Mervosh, Sarah and Emily S. Rueb. “Fuller Picture Emerges of Viral Video of Native American Man and Catholic Students.” NYTimes, 20 Jan. 2019.