Known Knowns, Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns: Rumsfeldian breaking news coverage
December 10, 2006 in General Media
J.D. Lasica points out a workable way news organizations can handle “up-to-the-minute” breaking news coverage: #
For years, mostly in talks at conferences, I’ve been suggesting that when news organizations cover breaking news stories, reporters and editors post updates with categories such as “what we know” and “what we don’t know at this time.” #This sounds like a reasonable way to cover breaking news online. Not only does it add a layer of transparency to the process (“we’ve verified these facts”), but it also adds qualification to the reporting (“These are things we can’t verify”). I’m wondering if any college media organizations have tried an approach like this? #
Still, seeing this Lasica post reminded me a little bit of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s famous “Known Unknowns” quote (listen to an mp3 of the quote here): #
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know #Should we call this the “Rumsfeld method”? #
[...] News in the Internet age. Add this to the debate over the 24-hour deadline: J.D. Lasica with what appears to be a very practical idea for handling breaking news on newspaper web sites. At Innovations in College Media, Bryan, tongue in cheek, suggests dubbing it the “Rumsfeld method.” [...]
[...] A nice post from Bryan Murley over at the Center for Innovation in College Media taking a tongue in cheek view of a post by J.D. Lasica on ways to treat breaking news online. [...]
Send in the Knowns
Some critics have unfairly accused our dearly departed and sincerely lamented Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of being ‘perversely obtuse’ and even ‘pedantically [i.e., ‘effeminately’] intellectual’ when he very clearly [and quite virilely, I might add] stated forthrightly, “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Actually, he was trying to say something rather profound here, about Being and Time and stuff. If you still find his statement somewhat baffling, it is probably because it has been woefully abbreviated and totally taken out of context. Now that the full, TOP SECRET ‘Knowns’ memo has been declassified and leaked to the New York Times, it should have become abundantly clear, even to a skeptical layperson blinded by cynicism — even if you happen to be one of those rabid, left-wing, liberal Democrats out for his blood and gloating in the ashes of his downfall and the false glow of your pyrrhic victory. The following is but one of many such helpful memos sent by Sec. Rumsfeld to his Field Commanders in Iraq (FCIs):
From SecDef to all FCIs — TOP SECRET (For Your Eyes Only)
Stupid and worthless reports that only say that something “hasn’t happened” (i.e., that recount only nihilistic failure, like some of the reports I have been receiving lately from my feebler FCIs) always catch my attention because, as we know, there are obviously known knowns (not to be confused with those nasty little know-knows we in public office valiantly try to avoid knowing, involuntarily leaking, or even plausible-deniably discussing); these are the things we know we know we know, or at least we think we know we know we know, whether or not we really know we know we know (or even knew or will know) them to be known, or not — who knows? Besides, all these so-called ‘knowns’ and ‘unknowns’ just boil down ontologically (or is that epistemologically? I can never keep them straight.) to a matter of Justified True Beliefs (JTBs) vs Unjustifiable False Mistakes (UFMs), all of which are sucked inexorably into the black hole of a Causal Nexus, anyway. Unless somebody’s lying — but that’s a subject for another discussion entirely. Besides, it’s all too ambiguously depressing. So just forget it.
But wait. We also know there are certain known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we know (or at least think we know) we don’t know, despite the best data available from our spy satellites and DoD CIFA analyses, although it may be possible that we don’t really think (or are willing to admit) we know them to be unknown, even if we do — and/or they aren’t. Things like WMDs. Or have they been reduced, like so many 'Abu Gahraib skylarks,' to the status of a politically incorrect know-know now? Anyway, who can tell for sure, them being (very possibly, even probably) unknown and all. Or not — particularly if we think we know them not to be. Known, that is — even if they are.
And then we now know there are provisionally known knowns and known unknowns, the often peevishly perplexing hemiknowns (almost-but-not-quite knowns or unknowns) or quasiknowns (as distinct from quasignomes, those freakishly quasimotile gnomens sometimes found swinging in belfries or tied down to revolving sundials): things we ought to know we know we know or not know, but don’t, really; or at least we think we ought to know we know and even definitely do, maybe, whether we actually ought to know them to be known, or not, and whether or not we really do know them to be unknown — and whether or not they are. Or aren’t, known or unknown — one or the other, both, or neither, as the case may be — when properly deconstructed, in the total context of all known and unknown knowns and/or unknowns, both foreign and domestic, universal or local; whether actually or provisionally known to be known or not, either now, in the past, or even in the future — if one exists. Or, for that matter, if any‘thing’ really ‘exists’ Out There, beyond the boundless ‘confines’ of the properly attuned and prudently prepared mindbody — the totally unknown (conceptually) and utterly inconceivable Kantian numenon of Objective Physical Reality-in-Itself that can be ‘known’ only by direct, unconscious and unbiased ‘perception’ or neo-Darwinian adaptation through DNA mutation and natural selection (not that I'm actually advocating an endorsement of neo-Darwinian evilution here, God forbid). Or, oh dear, is that slipping into the vast and impermissible chasm of Cartesian property dualism? Or, even worse, into the logically forbidden realm of Baconian Inductivism? Or into all that perverse ‘just seeing’ nonsense of Zen Buddhism? Then forget it.
Oh, but then there are all those sneaky actual and absolutely non-provisional unknown unknowns, the ones we not only don’t know, but we definitely don’t even know we don’t know them. These unknown (but not necessarily unknowably) unknowns are particularly difficult, but not necessarily impossible, to deal with, master, and overcome because they dwell in the realm of the highly speculative but not necessarily fictitious — things we haven’t even thought of making up, yet. This brings us to all those quivering sheaves of nonconceptual probability amplitudes wherein have dwelt the likes of Gödel, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Bohr and their ilk, but not Einstein — never Einstein. But let’s not go there, ‘Kay? We don’t necessarily know whether or not we don’t know, should, should not, could, could not, or don’t even care whether or not we don’t know them not to be known, or not, for God’s sake. Can you imagine? Even if they aren’t!
So that’s why we need a leaner, meaner, swifter military that will stay the course in Eye-wrack, no matter what. You know? You think God plays with dice here? You think I do? And well you should.
End Message
Sheer poetry. And now this Towering Intellect has been cast aside like last week’s fish. What a staggering blow and irremediable loss to the Country — and to the U.S., too.