Increasingly, journalists seek to be the arbiters of truth and justice. They “fact-check” but often conflate their own opinions for fact. Likewise, on the front pages of leading newspapers, many foreign affairs reporters will substitute hard news for “news analysis,” basically glorified op-eds, a practice that both erodes trust in the news and exposes false assumptions and political opinions that can pollute reporting.

While some journalists seek to force facts to conform to popular political narratives, others are consummate professionals. Everyone gets things wrong, however. One academic friend, for example, often quips that as a historian, he gets paid to predict the past, and he still only gets that right 50% of the time. Still, just as academics and think-tankers — certainly, myself included — often get things wrong, it is important to recognize just how destructive foreign affairs journalism can be, especially when well-meaning or ideological journalists get dictators wrong.