Smartphones cause trouble for public figures

Some politicians carry threats to their lives in their hands.

News stories in recent weeks have been offensive or ill-advised Text messages They blew up the careers of several young Republicans in a chat group, and led a candidate into the White House I signthreatening Campaign From a Democrat running for Attorney General in Virginia and embarrassed Federal Public Prosecutor.

The memories are still fresh this spring Unintended inclusion Photo of a journalist in a Signal series where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other leaders discussed the military strikes, perhaps the most embarrassing moment of the second Trump administration.

As for journalists, the situation is completely different. Smartphone bad behavior is fertile ground for journalists seeking insight into the people who look up to our leadership — and a challenge in locating stories when “this is fake” looms as a default defense.

An unfiltered look at how public people express themselves in private

Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Special Counsel, withdrew his name from nomination on Tuesday. His support in the Senate collapsed after Politico’s October 20 report on Ingrassia He said in a text chain That he had a “Nazi streak” and believed that the federal holiday honoring the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. should be thrown into hell.

Less than a week ago, Politico newspaper revealed A Telegram group chat With leaders of youth Republican groups across the country engaged in racist and violent talk. So far, the outlet says seven people have lost their jobs because of the story.

“Part of the reason this line of coverage is so important to POLITICO right now is that it gives readers as close a look into how powerful people think and express themselves in private as they’ll ever get,” said Alex Burns, the paper’s senior executive editor.

He described the texts as one of the few remaining frontiers of unintentional originality. They recall earlier moments of infamy, such as President Richard Nixon’s ill-advised decision to record his White House conversations, transcripts of which brought the phrase “deleted expletive” into the American lexicon.

There are countless sad moments captured by “hot” microphones, such as during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, when President Ronald Reagan joked to a radio address in 1984: “We’re going to start bombing in five minutes." Most public figures now know that almost everyone around them carries a smartphone with a video camera.

Some of the recently discovered text messages — images of black people called monkeys or “watermelon people,” or images of gas chambers or urinating on the graves of dissidents — are startling and dark. You can’t help but wonder: What were they thinking? Were they thinking?

Probably not, said Cal Newton, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University, in part because texting has become a ubiquitous, low-friction means of communication in today’s world. The guard people have when talking to other people – be reasonable, civil and careful – is often missing.

Some parts of our brain “don’t recognize the text on a glowing piece of glass as I’m talking to other people,” Newton said. Bad impulses, the tendency to exaggerate or exaggerate, escape because they cannot see the reactions.

However, it’s not as if people don’t understand, on some level, that they are communicating over a medium where conversations can be saved on screenshots. There were nervous warning signs in some of the chats: “If this chat leaks, we’re going to get scammed,” said one young Republican.

It reminds Sarah Krebs, a professor at Cornell University who studies the intersection of politics and technology, of politicians whose affairs have ruined their careers. Everyone sees the cautionary tales, but they don’t stop the behavior.

“There’s an overconfidence — this can’t happen to me. It’s happening to other people and it won’t bring me down,” Krebs said.

High level of newsworthiness in private conversations

Beyond transcripts, Burns said Politico is in the market for other open source reporting, such as audio, video or behind-the-scenes memoirs. He did not say whether Ingrassia’s texts came as a direct result of how Politico handled her previous story, but he believes his outlet has proven that it handled those stories responsibly.

He said there was a high level of newsworthiness to cover private communications.

“We don’t just put out things that are embarrassing or vulgar;" Burns said. “There’s a specific reason why this material is newsworthy, and we explain in stories why we think it’s more than just people venting their energy in private.”

While Politico’s stories immediately impacted careers, voters will ultimately decide how much National Review’s October 3 story will impact Jay Jones, a candidate for Virginia attorney general. In a text message to a former colleague in 2022, Jones said former Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert should get “two bullets to the head.” He described Gilbert’s children dying in their mother’s arms.

Jones apologized for the texts and did not dispute their accuracy.

In a statement to Politico about her story, Ingrassia’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, said he did not concede the authenticity of the “alleged” messages. “In this age of artificial intelligence, verifying allegedly leaked messages, which could be outright lies, manipulated, manipulated, or lack critical context, is extremely difficult,” he said.

Tell the public why they should believe reports

The ability to now fabricate something that appears real, combined with the public’s distrust of the media, forces news organizations to tell readers as much as possible about how to verify material without breaking agreements with confidential sources.

In its story about the January 2024 conversation in which Ingrassia participated, Politico said it interviewed two other participants. He explained why the sources were not identified and asked the person who showed reporters the entire series to say why they had come forward. The second person verified Ingrassia’s phone number.

to Story in Lawfare This week on how Lindsey Halligan, the Virginia prosecutor in charge of the case against New York Attorney General Letitia James, messaged reporter Anna Power on Signal to complain about some of her reporting, Power detailed how she made sure it was really her. Bauer assumed it was a hoax. It is rare for a US attorney in a high-profile case to contact a journalist.

She met Halligan once, years ago, and asked the dispatcher to say when that meeting was and who she was with. After the person answered correctly, Bauer checked with another source to see if the phone number the messages came from was indeed Halligan’s number.

Halligan later complained that their text conversation was off the record. Bauer explained the rules of journalism to readers: A source must assume that a conversation with a reporter is on the record unless there is an express agreement to the contrary ahead of time — which was not done.

The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg He wrote at length About how he handled being added to a Signal text message thread related to military operations. He too initially thought it was a hoax. He removed himself from the chat group when he was convinced it was real, and then received confirmation from the National Security Council.

Said Burns: “It is always our responsibility to show the reader why we are absolutely convinced that the material is authentic."