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I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali prosody show. Today two major documentaries are taking on the news THIS PAGE ONE the behind the scenes glimpse into the gray lady. And Errol Morris his take on tabloids. And this is in the midst of the voice mail hacking scandal that's undone Rupert Murdoch's London based rant. So it's no wonder that since the 1930's NEWSROOM drama has been a favorite topic for tensile town gets like His Girl Friday. And it happened one night serve up the irresistible door wearing reporter who gets the scoop. And the gal the Citizen Kane offers a morally twisted publishing tycoon and from Carl Bernstein to Clark Hollywood's newsmen have been every man heroes and superheroes. This hour we look at muckraking at the movies. But first it's new research on how gossip literally affects how we see things. Up next from gossips to gumshoes. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying after more than

two and a half hours of testimony by Rupert Murdoch and his son James to a British parliamentary committee. Larry Miller reports the session was interrupted by a young spectator who lunch for the elder Murdoch with what appeared to be a paper plate filled with shaving cream. Police pounced immediately handcuffed the man and took him away the session was temporarily suspended. Earlier Murdoch described how he felt being questioned. This is when I tumbled and I live. Murdoch claims he was totally unaware of phone hacking or police bribery at the tabloid News of the world. He says he was lied to and doesn't know who's telling the truth and who isn't. I don't know that that is what the police are investigating and we help in that way. But you acknowledge that you were misled. Clearly. But Murdoch says he does not believe his top executives knew what was going on either. For NPR News I'm Larry Miller in London. Now Murdoch's former News International chief executive Rebecca Brooks is now testifying she

resigned last week as the phone hacking scandal continued to grow. Shuttle Atlantis is coming home bearing the honor of being the longest flying in the final spacecraft of NASA's retiring shuttle program. Atlantis has undocked from the international space station keeping with tradition I assess astronaut Ronald Garrett Jr. rang the naval ships. Atlantis morning International Space Station for the last time. Thank you for your 12 patients to be on the stair stepper capping off 37 special missions to construct this incredible orbiting research facility. Dr. Stuart software I think I will see you back on Earth in the fall. The shuttle is expected to land in Florida Thursday builders broke ground on more single family homes and apartments in June up by nearly 15 percent from May. That's a strong showing in six months. But Danielle Karson reports it's still well below the levels seen in a healthy housing market.

Although home building finally showed some signs of life last month the prospect of a huge batch of foreclosures hitting the market could leave builders with little appetite to keep up a brisker pace. More than a million homes are piled up in the court system waiting for a foreclosure stamp. Mike Larson is a real estate analyst with Weiss research builders know there's this huge pile of hidden homes out there that the banks are to continue to parcel out into the market. Yes they pick up the pace a little bit in June but I don't think there's going to be a consistent drive until we get rid of that overhang. Analysts say the housing market won't recover until the labor market improves. Last month the economy added a dismal 18000 jobs. Larson says quote people who don't have jobs don't buy houses it's as simple as that. For NPR News I'm Daniel Karson in Washington. At last check on Wall Street the Dow is up one hundred twenty three points to twelve thousand five hundred eight. This is NPR. Democratic and Republican negotiators are working to end the impasse over deficit reduction to avoid a potentially devastating default on the government's financial obligations. The government has until August 2nd before it defaults

on its debt. The U.S. stock market is Boyd by strong earnings reports out this week from various companies including IBM and Coca-Cola and strong home construction data but optimism is tempered by debt related troubles in the U.S. and Europe. Washington still deadlocked over the details of raising the debt ceiling as we've said and European leaders are trying to prevent the debt crisis in Greece from severely infecting Spain and Italy. Thursday EU ministers will meet in Brussels to talk about a second bailout package for Greece. Now a Greek taxi drivers blockaded a major airport and brought central Athens to a standstill today as a protest against measures to open up their profession. John Psaropoulos reports from Athens those measures are a condition of the bailout money Greece is receiving to stay afloat thousands of Athens taxi drivers blocked several central avenues with their vehicles for hours impeding tourist access to the National Archaeological Museum. The blockade eventually turned into a convoy moving toward parliament before it disbanded. At the same time drivers in Greece's second largest city of Thessaloniki

blockaded the airport there preventing passengers from coming in or out. Taxi unions have now extended their 48 hour strike by a day inconveniencing tourists in the midst of a heat wave. They are against government plans to allow an unlimited number of licenses across the country and to let large operators set up cab companies that would corner chunks of the market. For NPR News I'm jump opulence and Athens and I'm Lakshmi saying NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the John D and Catherine team across the foundation committed to building a more just verdant and peaceful world. More information at Mac found dot org. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. There is new research that gossip can literally change the way we see people. According to a study in the journal Science negative gossip about someone actually alters the way

our visual systems perceive a person's face. And these findings suggest that we are hardwired to respond to gossip. Something that might have been linked to the survival of our ancestors. Joining me to discuss this research is Lisa Feldman Barrett a distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University and an author of the study. I'm also joined by Nicholas DiFonzo a rumor expert and professor of psychology at Rochester Institute of Technology. Welcome to you both. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. You can join the conversation at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. How has gossip helped you or has it harmed you. And what function do you think gossip serves among us. 8 7 7 3 0 1 0 8 0 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 and you can send us a tweet or write to our Facebook page. Professor Baer let me start I have to say I feel like I'm drowning in gossip these days. I mean maybe it's because it's more accessible maybe because it seems to be creeping into

every part of my existence these days. So it's everywhere so I think it's important to know that from a scientific viewpoint. What how you define gossip. Because the way I may be defining it it may be something entirely different so what is it and what is it not. Well there are different definitions that scientists use but the main definition is where you learn something about someone in a way that you did not have direct experience with so you didn't see it happen to the person you didn't observe it in any kind of direct way. It's a secondary way of learning without experience direct experience. And just to put everything on the table Nick DiFonzo you're a rumor expert so what's the difference between gossip and rumor. Just as Professor Barrett said Gossip is evaluate if social chat usually about someone who is not present. It's typically about a topic that's considered to be private or individual in nature. It's also typically negative. Rumor is on verifying that

information in circulation. So when you call something a rumor what you really mean is it's doubtful not sure if it's true because something gossip you typically mean that it's a titillating bit of slander about someone. OK. Now the reason we're talking about this is because you had did an interesting you were part of an interesting study Lisa in which you challenge people to sort of remember certain things by looking at at their faces. Explain to us exactly how the study went in a brief way and then how people came out at the end. And so we were really interested to understand how a person's feelings would influence how they see another person literally. And a very easy way to change someone's feelings is to gossip tell them gossip about a third party. So what we did is we showed our participants neutral faces faces that had no expressions on them and we gossiped about these faces we said oh this person kicked a dog or this person helped an

older woman across the street or this person mailed a letter so we told them either positive or negative or neutral gossip about the face. And then later in the experiment we presented each face to one eye and a house to the other eye. And in such cases the way the visual system works if I present two very different images one to each eye your brain encodes them both but consciously you only see one so your brain is choosing which image to be conscious visually. And what we found was that in two experiments only the neutral faces that we had negatively gossiped about dominated in visual consciousness meaning subjects saw those faces consciously for longer than any of the other faces. And so what this means is that the brain finds you know what structurally looks like neutral information a neutral face but the brain finds it more salient and interesting and important

when you've previously said something negative about it. Why. I mean you suggested that perhaps this is a way was a way of survival back in the day in the early days but you know I'm just curious about why we couldn't just as easily come away with a positive but we don't seem to. Yeah no we don't I mean we actually we actually ran several experiments to to see whether people learn positive gossip equivalently well. So it's not that if I tell you something really positive about someone you can remember that. It just doesn't affect your visual system in the same way. And the when you say why I mean there's an an anatomical way to answer that by looking at networks in the brain and and what's you know how the brain regions that are important for feelings actually project to the brain regions that are important for vision. So that if I tell you something negative about someone it's not just going to change how you interpret that person's behavior it you'll actually see them differently. But then there are other ways to answer the question why. Like for example we

as a species we live in groups that's our major adaptive advantage. And what sets us apart from from other species in order to live in groups you have to be able to get along but also get ahead. Right you need to be able to cooperate but also compete and gossip business really efficient way to do it because you don't have to learn about other people. Therefore Ables and also the potential threats they. Posed to you by direct experience you can just learn quickly and efficiently by having you know someone tell you something. Nicholas DiFonzo I can see that if we are only retaining in terms of perception who we see the negative part of this this has huge implications for you know how we sort people every day in our lives. How do you see that as a something that we should be paying attention to actually. Well that's right that's one of the first things we sort people by is whether they're positive or negative

toward us whether they can hurt us or whether they can help us. And in fact there's a whole series of studies that shows that people are much more attuned to negative information than they are to positive information. They think about it more and they remember more. And so this work that has been done goes hand-in-hand nicely with that research showing we are more in turn with the negative and definitely gossip. This is one of the few positive aspects of gossip is that it can tell us about a harmful person in the group. I mean if you hear something harmful about a person who is associating with your child. That's very important. You want to act on that at least you want to investigate it because you're responsible for the welfare of your child. Well but you know so OK something that comes to mind is there have been a number of stories across the country where people in a neighborhood are upset because an alleged sex offender lives among them.

You know someone who's being tracked by the police he's usually it's he living there OK so that would be a fact. Perhaps one could gossip about here is that person who who is he what he did blah blah blah. And then in your wheelhouse Nick Professor DiFonzo I can see rumor spreading that you know well he's going to get out and run amok among the neighborhood next door or whatever and I see this becoming just building on itself and my goodness with the way that we have such intrusive media right now and I'm not talking about media news media I mean just all manner of media infiltrating our spaces. It seems to me that gossip and rumor can just take over in a way that is not positive. Well there are many bad and socially caustic socially destructive things about gossip in fact I would say that gossip as it is currently practiced is predominately bad or are harmful to our social life. I mean it's it's motivated often by bad motives

I want to hurt somebody. I want to aggress against somebody I want to exclude somebody from my social network or I simply want to have a laugh at their expense. And it makes me look at them as less of a person they're more of a joke and occasion to to have a gleeful chat. Worse than that is this especially celebrity gossip gossip about somebody in order to feel better about my own behavior. I mean if I. Think about the offenses of somebody who was especially supposed to be in a position of authority or respect or responsibility. I can at least look at that person and say Well at least I'm not as bad as they are. Look what they did and at least I don't say that I ought not to do that sort of thing. So there's a lot of it. You know I was going to say that you know following your train of thought you know you think about you know the Tiger Woods of the world or for that matter Chris Hansen. I don't know if you know

but he was the reporter on Dateline NBC that used to catch the predators and he just got caught having an affair. You know so it's you know on and on and on and I feel like I know way more about him and that business and the fact that J Lo and Marc Anthony are getting a divorce and you know Bill and Giuliana Rancic are dropping a baby and we could go on and on. So you know if if if it impacts it's scientifically and in the long term way how I see some of these people that I don't know by the way it definitely is a negative thing. I'm wondering Lisa is there a way to reverse that can I once I've begun to see somebody negatively. Is it possible then to learn or to use gossip in a more positive way and reverse that. Well let me just I'll answer your question but I just want to say one thing about the negative impact of gossip and that is that gossip. If it's efficient it's an efficient way for us to learn about

each other. So if I want to convince someone unconsciously I want to convince them that another person is not going to say I want to convince you that this person is negative and I want to do this in an unconscious way. One thing I can do is every time I show you picture that person I can apply an electric shock to your wrist. Oh great. Well I would know that. Well you might you might wear a little clever actually cerements But in order for you to learn that that person is negative I'd have to shock you 200 times. I mean you would take a lot of experience for you to learn that that neutral looking face was negative. If I had you learn that way. Whereas if I just tell you that person kicked a dog. I only need to tell you twice and you will carry around a negative impression of that person for you know several days for example so something really mild and really mean. We've been talking you know here about very dramatic examples

but what would our experiments show is that even if we say something negative and pretty pretty mild compared to some of these other things it has a lasting impression and it effects people in an unconscious way in the sense that when in these experiments that we did using this paradigm called by an ocular rivalry where we present different images to each eye and see how they compete for consciousness. This is not something that is can be affected by your ability to adjust. Just saw I m going to see a house or a face I'm just going to decide to see the face and see different and see it differently. Yeah originally so right. It's not something that can be influenced by conscious decision and if so what that means is in order to overcome gossip you would have to the impact of gossip you would have to make a decision to try to do that after. Gossip is already had its influence in this very quick and unconscious way in your brain.

So this makes it clear why somebody says something and you say wait a minute that's that's not true here are the facts. And yet they say no I don't believe you. Yeah that's that's what we are there is this there is this effect in psychology called anchoring and adjustment and that is once you're told something negative for once you believe something negative. You're always that's your anchor and you're always adjusting away from that point of view. And even in animals once you've learned something negative about an environment or a stimulus object or whatever it's indelible that learning. So once something because once something neutral becomes negative it's negative and you're always adjusting you know away from that position. And that's just kind of how we are built mammals are built. This is depressing. He does like attention and you know other kinds of things that help us you know overcome our our more automatic responses.

All right well much more on the other side of the break I'm Kelli Crossley. We're talking about new research on gossip and how negative talk about a person can literally change the way we see someone. I'm speaking with Lisa Feldman Barrett a distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University and Nicholas to funds though a rumor expert and professor of psychology at Rochester Institute of Technology. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 0 170 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. What do you think about the role of gossip in society. Did you know once you had a negative thought it's hard to change it. Has gossip ever changed the way you looked at someone. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 back after this break. Keep your dial up. Eighty nine point seven. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the castle group celebrating its 15th year delivering public relations social media and events management results that drive business locally nationally and internationally. You can find more information at the castle

DRP dot com and from Elsa Dorfman Cambridge portrait photographer. Still clicking with the jumble format Polaroid 20 by 24 analog camera and original Polaroid film online at also Dorfman dot com. An al Qaeda operative believed to be a CIA informant detonated a suicide bomb inside a fortified military base killing seven CIA agents in late 2009 and the next reported to be Warrick tells us about the man who carried out the attack and how he was able to pull it off. His new book is called triple agent joins us. This afternoon at 2:00 an eighty nine point seven WGBH. Can you put a value on public broadcasting soldier David Nash can. I

was in a Frontline documentary called The wounded platoon frontline investigates the Invisible War of war. First off to frontline people I was lost right after the broadcast. The V.A. called me and they're like hey we'd like to start the process of getting you your health benefits back because of every deviation from Seymour when you download the free WGBH i-Pad app on iTunes meetings of the WGBH board of trustees and the WGBH Community Advisory Board and their respective committees are open to the public information about dates times and places can be found at WGBH dot org slash meetings. I'm Cally Crossley This is the Kelly Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about gossip. According to a new study in the journal Science negative gossip about someone literally changes the way we see them. Joining me to discuss this research is Lisa Feldman Barrett a distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University and an author of the study.

I'm also joined by Nicholas de Fonzo a rumor expert and professor of psychology at Rochester Institute of Technology where the 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 seventy 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. What is your experience with gossip been and do you see any redeeming qualities in it. Evolutionary reasons for it is this kind of behavior that we should just try not to indulge in 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. So here's the question. We're come and we're really kind of sort at the beginning of the of the presidential campaign over and over we hear not just in the presidential campaign but in other political campaigns they take the polls they ask people how do you feel about negative campaigns. Overwhelmingly people say I hate them i don't like Maybe I don't can't stand that. I think it's horrible. Stop it yet. We're now over at the. On the other side of the election. They've asked people what was the

major influence in a decision making. And most often it had traced right back to the perceptions that they formed based on that negativity this seems to be straight out of your study. Oh yeah. Yeah absolutely so when we hear negative information about someone we hear negative gossip. It changes immediately our feeling about that person. It even changes how we hear their voice whether we find their voice aversive to listen to. And if this happens in a very quick and efficient manner because gossip has been so important to allowing us to live together in groups and it allows us to learn very fish and only you know who is friend and who is foe. And you know what other people's weaknesses are so that we can you know avoid them or capitalize on them. And so it's not surprising that people are most voters are most affected by negative campaigning because negative information has an immediate and. Sometimes difficult to

counter the impact on you on your feelings. And there's a lot of evidence to show that when we're making decisions we're very influenced by our feelings and then we come up with thoughts and and reasons after the fact. So Nicholas DiFonzo here's the thing about that though I think of gossip as being untrue I know rumor you're going to tell me rumor definitely isn't true because you know there's no facts involved there's just what I thought this morning. But I still think I've got gossip. I don't think of gossip as a fact. I just want to get Nick's take on this so how do how do you how do you I don't know how to how to effect a change. If you're telling people if they're saying I don't believe in negative campaigning I don't want to do it. But it's clear that they do believe it in the end. I don't think it's a force for good if it's if the information is wrong. Well first of all let me disabuse you you've heard a rumor about rumor. Actually you can get a guy who can actually turn out to be true.

Rumors just simply confirmed tests that are not properly tested statement that's in circulation. Lots of times people are trying to figure out what is true. Hey did you hear that our department's going to be downsized. What if you heard about this and in fact your department may or may not end up being downsized whereas gossip can certainly be a verified fact. We know for example that one of our former presidents had an affair with a young intern in the White House. That's a fact and yet when we repeated it is it is gossip. OK so the question then is well when we share gossip is there any redeeming value to it. We've already been talking about how it functions as a detector of people that might harm us. It's very powerful and pervasive effect. We are hardwired for it it appears this and the study shows us even more that we're hardwired for for this sort of conclusion. When it

goes awry of course is when it's inaccurate or when it's used for. Put it this way political purposes when it's used to exclude people unfairly or label them in a way that will exclude them from my group or not get our vote. So that's why we have social strictures social rules and Marree about not gossiping. You can look at all of the. Even though we do it all your time. Yeah. Well yeah. Well that's right. We're we're we're taught that we shouldn't be wantonly gossiping and yet it's something that we have a tendency to do. Part of it is natural. I make the distinction about whether or not something really is badly motivated gossip if you're intending to hurt someone or just to have a joke at their expense as opposed to if you're carefully sharing some information with another person in order to protect them. And I wanted to warn them about the possible harm that they might get from someone else.

OK well we've got some callers I want to get in on this conversation. Lisa from Webster Go ahead please. Hi. I think that God is a lazy man's sport. I think someone is to lazy to go out and have a life of their own. They hit back they criticize the boss that they haven't an active imagination at times but I think it's a destructive waiting in the sport. I think if you had a life you got busy doing things and compensating I don't think you have time for that. I've been party to hateful gossip and after a while I just like get out because you get to understand that. You can't change the present perception so why bother. Years people are going to believe what they hear anyway why bother. So you live your life. So that's my opinion. All right well thank you very much Lisa from Webster Massachusetts. We're 8 7 7 3 1 8 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Jeffrey from Rochester Massachusetts go ahead please.

I. I'm going to school minister in a nifty little parish here and I'm loving the parallel between an ancient commandment the ninth commandment is you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. And as I teach it with my parish the idea of that is you have no right to take away your neighbor's reputation by saying things that aren't valid. That this is a an intangible commodity of great worth your good name or your reputation. And it just strikes me as splendid that that contemporary science is echoing what ancient as you were saying social mores have taught is don't mess with somebody's reputation that's dangerous stuff. Thank you very much for your good program. All right thank you very much for the call. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH an online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley we're talking about new research on gossip. I'm speaking with Lisa Feldman Barrett a distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University and Nicholas DiFonzo a

rumor expert and professor of psychology at Rochester Institute of Technology. OK. Teaching from Boston Go ahead please you're on the callee Crossley Show right. Hi I just thinking people actually Lisa be happy 7.50 about me that someone had to be said that my all. So the making of the people who have to such a jab is C and that a lot or two will you know satisfied to put the people down there so they Gaddafi and say bad thing behind my back all the time. But in order to get angry I don't last long in that key south do better and bad that I get the more care of it and try to be naive and then your fellow nice people really realize that you're not as bad as you think. Well thank you very much for the call today. Lisa you know we should say that both you and Nicholas say gossip isn't always bad.

Yeah I think the caller was making a really good point and that is that reputations are also built by gossip they're not just damaged by gossip. I think that. You know we in other primate species in order to maintain social bonding they do things like groom each other you know they pick fleas off each other and and and we don't do that. At least most of the time. There are evolutionary biologists who believe that instead what we do for social cohesion is we gossip. So if Calley if I say to you oh you know you know that guy Nick who's in Rochester and then I tell you some things you see about him immediately. You and I have this closer social bond and so the function one of the functions of gossip is really this kind of social cohesion. And that is is a good thing. But I will say that you know a lot of what religious commandments do is they regulate basic aspects of humanity

like Sex and food and you know and also gossip right. I mean basically this is a this is a key fundamental aspect of human nature that we like to. Nothing thrills us or makes us more stressed than another human right. Yeah. And so we have to have rules to regulate how we talk about each other. But but because it's this very basic basic process you want to weigh in. Well just to respond to the caller it's not always nice to be talked about. It may in fact result in a and something awful coming your way. You may lose your job you may not have opportunities that would come your way otherwise. I sometimes receive emails and letters from people across the country who ask me about how to handle rumors but it's really gossip they're talking about and in particular if I've run into a situation where people say professedly fans

oh please help me dispel the gossip about my husband who there's a rumor but they really mean is gossip going around our church or our organization that he is a sexual offender or sexual molester and we no longer get any invitations to anybody's house. People avoid him they look at us. With frowns How can I rebut this. It's gossip and the first thing I do is I tell people to lower your expectations because this is a very very difficult rumor and bit of gossip to dispel. First of all it has to be untrue. I make sure that I'm talking about something that is indeed untrue. But how do you handle it when you are just simply nice they'll just say well they're being nice in order to appear nice to us. But in reality they are a fiend. Or if you get up in the middle of a meeting and say you know I'm not really having an affair with Charlie that raises more questions than

answers. And so it's very difficult to erase the effects especially negative gossip. And and I would just add at least I'm not a really good gossip in this way because if you bring me something the first thing I ask is How do you know that there were a portrayal thing in me. Well where is your first your primary evidence so I'm a little bit more interested in where the source of it is to make a determination about whether or not I would believe it to be true. I don't know how much fun I am in that way but. That's really the fact that you would even go ahead and ask me that question means that you and I are already in the moment having a more a deeper social conversation so in the moment that we have a deeper social connection. And this isn't a point about whether gossiping is good or bad it's a point about the fact that it serves a function in maintaining social cohesion and social connections and that we're hardwired to some degree you know that is what the evolutionary biologists argue. OK let's take another call Linda from Brookline you're on the Calla Crossley Show. Eighty nine point

seven Go ahead please. I Cally. I'm calling because my sister in turn was Cyber Bully and Bawly throughout the fourth grade with a with a posting that basically pictured him as a gay predator. And this was in the fourth grade and he really lost a lot of friends and it was horrendous here for him and we're trying to decipher whether we need to change schools next year or whether it's possible to do this. Well horrible increase like that in my from of the even know some of the language that was posted about him honestly. So I appreciate I'm particularly. For Barrett this question I'll take it up. Thank you. Thank you very much for the call Linda. Professor BAIRD So one of the things we know from animal research and also from human research is that when when you learn something

negative about another person or about an object or about a particular situation that learning is indelible it's very it requires a lot of effort to change your point of view. So it's when you're someone you know your child I have a 12 year old girl so I know a lot about about bullying and gossip from from personal experience to when your child is gossiped about in a really negative way. Unfortunately there's no easy solution to rectifying that situation the best. Option is to actually create situations where your child can have an opportunity to interact with as many other kids as possible because the one thing that that will you know repetitive

unambiguous feedback that is interacting with your son over and over will allow kids to to to see that that there's nothing to worry about and create as a parent creating a context you know creating opportunities for your kid to have those interactions is is probably a good thing. The other thing is gossip can sometimes especially when you're the victim of negative gossip it can sometimes kind of bond other people together in your defense so you sometimes can see coalitions being built. And that's because there are two human motive basic human motivations to get along and to get ahead and getting ahead sometimes means you know whoever was bullying your son was doing it probably in order to make themselves look better or important or in some how. Superior. And

so there may be other kids who could you know rally around your son and that could also be a positive a positive haven't you. With seconds to go Nicholas would you like to add something. Well yes there are several things that you can do. The name of the caller Wes. I'll just plug my chapter seven of my book watercooler effect in which I talk fairly extensively about how to combat negative rumors. And I also touch upon gossip as well. I think you have to appeal to the first of all you have to go to the social network and use informal contacts that you have in other words go to the people that are spreading information and give them information that they can spread as a counter gossip so to speak. If you can also when you're issuing a real quote unquote a rebuttal like this if you can point to the motivations of the people that were that are spreading the

gossip and that also is somewhat more effective a rebuttal than if if you simply deny it. Of course that doesn't help you very much you have to make a decision I think you're facing that is can your can your son handle evitable the difficulty of what they're going through. As I said the probability of success is not one it's less than one it's. It's maybe 50/50. All right well that's a sobering note to leave in this conversation but I thank you both for joining me. We've been talking about gossip the science and psychology of it. I've been speaking with Lisa Feldman Barrett assisting wisht professor of psychology at Northeastern University and Nicholas DiFonzo a rumor expert and professor of psychology at Rochester Institute of Technology. Thank you again. Thank you so much. Up next it's film critic Karen Daley on how muckraking is portrayed in the movies. We'll be back after this break. Keep your dial on a nine point seven WGBH.

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I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. Right now there are two documentaries in theaters about the newspaper biz. Page 1 the documentary about the New York Times and Errol Morris his latest film tabloid. Joining me to talk about Hollywood's long history with putting NEWSROOM drama on the big screen is our contributor film critic Guerin daily. Karen welcome back. How you doing Kelly. I'm well. If you missed the last time Karen was here talking about summer cinema check it out at WGBH dot org slash Kelly Crossley. I have to say at this moment there's theory going on in parliament across the water with Rupert Murdoch and what happened with not just one of his properties but now it seems to touch several No doubt this will be a movie. You know they're made for TV movie or a regular movie. But you know isn't it wonderful. Earl Morris is just a little bit of lightning here because his movie is called tabloid and this is this is the tabloid scandal. Exactly it's wonderful I love it.

Well let's just talk about the Errol Morris movie tabloid that is out now. Yeah. Takes place mostly in Britain. Yeah. It's a story about Joyce McKinney who is this young beauty queen from Wyoming who has an obsessive love affair with a guy named Kirk who happens to be a Mormon and one day he disappears and goes to England and it turns out in her mind that he has been abducted by the Mormons which is a cult. So she goes over there to rescue them. She kidnaps him she puts him in chains they have sex it's wonderful. And then he gets kidnapped by the Mormons again and becomes a big cause celeb for the tabloids in England. The mayor against the express. You can't make this stuff up they say. Here's a trailer for a documentary tabloid by Errol Morris kinky Shanks village Queen Mormon missionaries got a point there was something in that story for everyone. It was a perfect tabloid story. When I met my career it was like in the movies. It looks at me and if.

You fall in love with become obsessed by him the next thing you know he fell into thin air. I found him in England. The Mormons had a choice. I mean there was only one way to get her kind of Mormonism and that was to make love with him. Well there you have it. Yes I have to say I went in with us through this film with very little expectations and as with any Morris film there's always something new and different that comes out of it and I didn't know it so I was pleasantly pleased when I got to the end of the film. Oh good so we're not giving that away so we're not going to but I also worry about no spoilers on the callee crossing now and I gave that away. And by the way you know true story we're talking when we're talking documentaries we're talking true story. Yeah the other one that's gotten everybody's attention is page one no doubt because it's about the New York Times correct. And you know it's by ANDREW ROSSI I believe the guy the director of this. Yes. And it's based focuses on David Carr more than anything else and it's a little messy because it really is too broad. But if you want to take a

look at what's going in the newspapers today it's an excellent documentary and for that you get to see the kind of transition that's going on. The problems that they're facing as well as one particular writer David Carr struggling with with what the changes going on around him and he's something of a media star David Carr Here's a trailer from page one. The newspaper model is dying. It's a collision of two worlds and this new world is just kind of wants to crack it all up at the immediate moment. We're in the middle of getting your people out of the staff. Very. Good. To know very well. This is. Like I don't have a clear grasp on the enormity. Of the situation. The New York Times I go out of business. That's David Carr at the end he is a fascinating character and one of the most interesting parts of this if you like or even if you hate the New York Times it's interesting because this is cinema verite inside. I think it's also their downfall is a verily in my opinion a flawed film. Well it's

going to be it's messy messy right you don't have to focus on the exact Brun but it's just interesting to be inside. Yeah and I think because it's the New York Times that it succeeds in that it's the New York Times but on the other hand it's not really a microcosm of what's happening in some of the other papers with some larger issues than the New York Times has to face. Yeah but you know when we look when we're looking at films let's remember three days of the Condor OK because in three days of the Condor you have this wonderful action film about this guy uncovering everything and there's a CIA thing where does he take the information he takes it to the New York Times because back then it was a bastion where you could get information out to the general public. These things have changed now. I want to point out that for people who are interested in sort of getting the thoughts behind the mind of the director of this film ANDREW ROSSI last week on July 12th.

Emily Rooney interviewed him at some length about both his thoughts on the news media and the film so that might be interesting I guess I'm going to incent companies go to you're going to see this documentary now. The reason I started our conversation with these two because these are real stories told about the news biz when they're in this kind of a separate category but for ever there has been Hollywood's version on what the news biz is all about. And with that I think a sampling of wherever we are at the moment in cultural times. So let's go back let's go way back. Let's go back to Herman Mankiewicz and Ben Hecht because these are two reporters who who came out of Chicago and went to howling when Americans went first and when he was out there he cabled Ben Hecht and said millions to be grabbed out here and your competition is. Don't let this get around. And what they do is they came they came out to Hollywood they started writing. Screenplay one of them being front page which became His Girl Friday. The reason I start that is because when Hollywood went to sound they looked for Broadway

they looked at places that already had sound and they looked like Shakespeare and some of these other places and the sound that was coming out the script it was coming out was stilted and not very vernacular. They look the way folks talk the way the folks talk. You look at what these guys were writing especially like in His Girl Friday the dialogue is moving really quickly it's a got a patch why that is that is you know on the street and people recognize that plus you've got a theme of things moving around very quickly. So it was perfect cinematically. OK well yeah I just I love this film this is the 1940 classic His Girl Friday with Cary Grant as a newspaper editor trying to keep his star reporter played by the wonderful Rosalind Russell. I know you really I don't want to put in with me do you know what I mean about kill Yeah. You can't sell me that one of those shows I can't join you if I may that's why I'm pretty I want to go someplace where I can be a woman and be a trader. I try to return to Florida journalism you're a journalist killed a

journalist. How does that mean peeking through keyholes chasing after fire engines waking people up and then I think that's going to stop another war feeling because all the ladies and all of our reporters Well a lot of Daffy buttinski friends. How about a nickel in the pockets of a lot so I don't know why I don't know what's going on. Oh well he would know what it means to want to be respectable and. Live a halfway normal life. I think that that has so much going on there in terms of just where we were in our in our in our space and time as Americans and just change a few words and you could actually put it into 2011. Example she's talking about taking pictures off or hacking someone's phones and angling. So the dark side of what goes on with investigative journalism was always back there and in fact you take a look at Frank Capra's movies which aren't necessarily about newspapers but there's usually a newspaper person inside that. And they are large megalomaniacs who have large change Big Jim Taylor and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Meet

John Doe they're trying to manipulate the public through their newspapers. So Frank Capra was warning us way back in the 30s and 40s. Watch out for these megalomaniac newspaper owners and we should be a little bit skeptic and the other thing about this film is that it's one of the few that really stars a woman as the reporter and she and it was mostly admin as it were and again it was actually it was a male role and front page in the various versions. It's just Rosalind Russell is so good. I mean she just rattles that stuff off and it's so quick and so fast and so good. And her time is exquisite and the chemistry between she and Cary Grant worked very well too. That's really interesting now of course if people think if some were just ask OK what's a classic film about journalism or the news business. Depending on how you're defining journalism that would have to be Citizen Kane Citizen Kane. And again Citizen Kane is about a guy who is dabbling in the and the babbling.

Good grief it is based on William Randolph Hearst which is why it never really got out of the little ghetto it was in when it came out. But there's one of a quote about when the Spanish-American War is coming up and citizens you know came to us again is talking to his former. Trustee and he says you know don't worry about it. I will supply the war and we will be able to move for now sell copies. One of the things that I find and we're going to play a clip from in just a second is it now listening with today's ears it feels like this guy is Rupert Murdoch you know writ large back in those times it it just feels like it's very today because in this clip as we're going to hear he's really talking about the intertwining of politics and the news business. So this is from Citizen Kane. And in the scene Cain the newspaper publisher is talking with his legal guardian Walter Parks that are the problem is you don't realize you're talking to two people.

Charles Foster Kane is a scoundrel. His paper should be run out of town a committee should be formed to boycott him. You know if you can form such a committee put me down for a contribution of $1000 my time I mean all that I am going to serve them. Ira as such it's my duty and I'll let you in on a secret. It's also my pleasure to see what the decent hard working people in this community on robbed blind by a pack of money mad pirates just because. They haven't anybody to look after their interests. Yeah like he was. Yeah well again another great scene in Citizen Kane is when Charles Foster Kane is up for election and he's been involved in a scandal. Yeah a sex scandal and they're holding up two copies of the next edition. One says fraud at the polls. The other one says Cain win. It's like Yeah right this is this is this is what they're doing. They're getting they're trying to mold opinion. Now you and I know Guerin that for most of this time often on the public in real life off the screen has kind of conflicted relationship with members of the media

and journalists mostly negative. I mean there was a poll several years ago that used car salesman beat out journalists when asked who do you prefer right to the public. So there was a moment a shining moment in both television history and journalism history when it seems like that it changed. And that film was all the President's Men. Here's the trailer to the 1976 film All the President's Men. They tripped over clues. We like you. But boy all white house transactions are confidential and piece by piece they sold the greatest detective story in American history. This whole thing is a cover up it's run in real time so it looked as if it might cost them their jobs. Why do they get their reputations. You guys are about to write a story that says a former attorney general the highest ranking law enforcement officer in this country is a crook. Perhaps even the law it was the undercover activities involved the entire U.S. intelligence community you know actually endangered All the President's Men.

And that of course is the story of Watergate. The investigation by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward both Bob Woodward is still at the Washington Post where you did first did this story with Karl and Karl is now media analysts are you still in the business. But that moment in time Guerin seemed people seemed to think journalism but this is a great profession a lot of people were inspired to go into journalism here is the ultimate news with ink stains. Yeah. But you know just just to show you how quick that moment eclipsed here's here's a little we talk a little about three days of content that's 975 that's directed by Sidney Pollack six years later he makes Absence of Malice another film. But it's all about how you know a reporter is using a story to try and flush something out and hurt somebody else. So all of a sudden reporting was good. Six years later reporters are bad. And it's really become that kind of story that we're talking about these days. There are a few exceptions. There is the George Clooney film that he directed. Oh yeah that was a

very good about Edward R. Murrow Edward R. Murrow and even things like the soloist was a pretty good thing with the detachment of the reporter. He gets engaged with his audience again. L.A. Times reporter L.A. Times Times reporter. But you know what I think if we want to take a look at what's transpired with our view of reporters all we have to do is take a look at the 1953 Roman holiday with Gregory Peck which everyone loves as a princess movie but he's a reporter who's a real gentleman. Now we're not going to see that anymore. We're not going to see where a reporter is holds back the story the story is what is going to be pushed out there at all times. Absolutely. And also in the most recent films like state of play we're talking about reporters getting caught up in the story as well and being being objects of the story as the mean season 2 year in 1905 was written by was based on a novel by a real journalist John gets him back so it evolves but it's going to

continue and I would bet that you and I will be having a conversation about the Rupert Murdoch documentaries and films pretty soon. I certainly hope so. It's so rife for a great great story downfall. You know the Shard and Freud the whole the whole thing is just wonderful. Son favorite daughter all that. All right well we've been talking about newspapers on the big screen with our contributor film critic Karen daily Karen thank you my pleasure. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Kelly Crossley follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Kelly Crossley Show on Facebook today show was engineered by Allen mats produced by Chelsea Moores will Rose lippen Abbey Rizzi are in turn is Sarah Ward where production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station for news and culture.