NPR will avoid using the word “lie” to describe statements that come from President Trump and his team, even when they contradict existing evidence.
On Wednesday, NPR Senior Vice President for News Michael Oreskes said that it wasn’t up to their reporters to decide when Trump or any administration officials are intentionally trying to deceive.
“Our job as journalists is to report, to find facts, establish their authenticity and share them with everybody. And I think when you use words like ‘lie,’ it gets in the way of that” Oreskes said Wednesday morning on “Morning Edition.”
“It’s really important that people understand that these aren’t our opinions, these aren’t just thoughts we happen to have,” he said. “These are things we’ve established through our journalism, through our reporting. And I don’t want to do anything that gets in the way of people seeing that reporting. And I think the minute you start branding things with a word like ‘lie,’ you push people away from you.”
Gerard Baker, editor of the Wall Street Journal, has also said that his publication will avoid using “lie” to describe untrue statements that come from the Trump administration. He wrote this month that he wasn’t comfortable with deciphering the “motive” behind comments that aren’t true.
The media debate over when to use the word “lie” resurfaced this week when Trump and his spokesman Sean Spicer again pushed Trump’s previous claim that millions of people illegally cast ballots that cost him the popular vote on Election Day.
Neither Trump nor his team have presented evidence to back up the assertion.
The New York Times has taken a different route. On Tuesday, the paper headlined an article, “Trump Won’t Back Down From His Voting Fraud Lie.” The previous day, a headline said, “Trump Repeats Lie About Popular Vote in Meeting With Lawmakers.”
On Wednesday, however, Trump wrote on Twitter that he would ask authorities to undergo a “major investigation” into voter fraud.
