(Featured image taken from “Mike Pompeo goes to war on wikileaks” on The national interest)
Lies. Fake news. President Trump and his staff have been smearing journalism with these labels since the start of his presidency.
Because of that, I wasn’t surprised to hear that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo avoided answering interview questions on NPR and released an angry statement against reporter Mary Louise Kelly.
But reporter Jason Breslow creatively caught my attention with an intriguing headline:
Pompeo Won’t Say If He Owes Yovanovitch an Apology. ‘I’ve Done What’s Right.’
After that, Breslow created bold subheadings to sustain my curiosity.
But creativity aside, would this article pass John McManus’s “SMELL” Test?
It’s time for us to stop and smell the prose(s).
Sources
Each story has two types of sources: the author, and the sources within that text.
Now, we can identify the author: Jason Breslow, political reporter on NPR.
But what I want to analyze are the sources within this article, specifically Mary Louise Kelly and Mike Pompeo.
Because the article focuses on Kelly and Pompeo’s interview, they’re the main sources. Thus, Kelly and Pompeo have a high proximity to the story.
Both Kelly and Pompeo also have high expertise. Kelly is an experienced national security correspondent, so she specializes in political journalism. On the other hand, Pompeo is the head of U.S. national security and has expertise in making key foreign policy decisions.
But were Kelly and Pompeo really free from conflicts of interest?
Many of Pompeo’s comments were evasive. So already, we can tell that his stake in the story is to preserve his reputation.
I’ve defended every single person on that team.
Mike Pompeo, NPR interview
But would it be reasonable to say that Kelly also wants that, too?
She’s a well-known journalist, so it’s sensible for her to want to protect her reputation. For both Kelly and Pompeo, their fight to defend their honor can result in slight conflicts of interest.
Thus, I think both sources had medium independence. They’d both want the article to show their side of the story (which it does).
Motives
It doesn’t look like Breslow has a motive. Because he constantly presents facts and quotes, he leaves no room for his opinions in the story. In fact, this was the only sentence Breslow wrote that potentially sounds remotely emotional:
Yet perhaps no action has been more controversial than the administration’s decision this month to launch the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s influential Quds Force, outside the airport in Baghdad.
Jason Breslow, NPR reporter, “Mike Won’t Say If He Owes Yovanovitch an Apology“
Breslow’s factual tone results from the purpose of his article’s message: to inform the audience of the interview between Pompeo and Kelly and contextualize it within current politics.
He even tries to best represent both points of view by including Kelly’s off-record encounter with Pompeo and an explanation of Pompeo’s statement against NPR.
But as we saw with Kelly and Pompeo’s independence, the sources themselves might have an underlying motive to preserve their own reputation. Yet because Breslow’s only motive is to inform, he explains both Kelly and Pompeo’s sides evenly.
Evidence
I wasn’t surprised that most of the hyperlinks linked to NPR articles.
But Breslow actually linked to two non-NPR websites: the Hugh Hewitt Show and the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia.
Within this article, it features the audio interview with Kelly and Pompeo, multiple hyperlinks to other related NPR articles, and only two non-NPR links… 
NPR featured a quote from Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Mike Pompeo 
This embassy website features a speech by Pompeo on his Iranian policy
Breslow takes one Pompeo quote from each website. He said on the Hugh Hewitt show that he “never heard” of Yovanovitch’s potential surveillance, and emphasized “reestablishing deterrence” with Iran on the U.S. Embassy website.
Initially, I was skeptical of the U.S. Embassy article. They labeled this specific article as a “Speech,” since Pompeo gave these remarks at Hoover Union conference in Stanford. So why was it on the Indonesia embassy site?
A quick Google search verified Pompeo’s speech at the Hoover Institution. But while the Hoover website only summarizes the event, the U.S. Embassy transcribes the speech.
But because Breslow only quoted from two external sites, this suggested that he would much rather use quotes he already has access to. In other words, he only used quotes that he and the readers can verify with certainty.
Logic
Logically, it checked out. The internal flow was consistent with the audio interview that Breslow reported on. Externally, it also stayed consistent with the situation in Iran and Trump’s dismissal of Yovanovitch.
(I mean, it’s on National Public Radio – I’d hope the logic checks out!)
Left Out
Why didn’t Marie Yovanovitch say anything about this?
For one, the headline mentions her name – so wouldn’t it make sense for her to respond?
Even a quick Google search of Yovanovitch doesn’t reveal her thoughts on the Pompeo interview. In fact, the only recent information I find is her retirement from the U.S. State Department.
If they did, her response would have enhanced the story with another perspective. Not only would Pompeo have confronted the reporter, but he’d also face the employee he allegedly failed to protect.
Concluding Thoughts
Even though Breslow showed both perspectives, he can’t control his reader’s interpretations. Liberal readers may sympathize with Kelly’s injustice, while conservative ones may criticize her for her reporting practices.
But we can’t limit ourselves to these interpretations. Instead, we should seek verification journalism, where the story balances accuracy with context. This NPR article is a solid example, since it provides facts and statements with the interview’s context.
By analyzing this news story, I was able to confidently label this story as verification journalism equipped with credible political information.
Girl Meets The World of Media 