NOTE: I used to have several older essays on the paranormal posted on my author site. When I recently updated the site, I removed all this material and decided to post it here. Here's one of those essays, originally posted in 2003.
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20/20 Blindside:
John Edward Takes a Hit
John Edward appeared on ABC's newsmagazine 20/20 the other night (December 5, 2003). Unfortunately I missed it, for the simple reason that I didn't know about the segment until after it aired. Nevertheless I was able to get the gist of the twelve-minute segment from the ABCNews.com site, which included an apparently complete recap of the show (2024 update: web page is no longer available).
From what I can tell, it was a typical hit piece, a smash-and-grab attack designed to make Edward look bad. ABC promos on the Internet queried, "Can John Edward pass a skeptic's test?" But there was no test, just routine footage of skeptic Michael Shermer saying that Edward's claims are "baloney" and that his abilities can be explained by the mentalist trick of cold reading. I have already written about the inadequacies of the cold reading explanation in two previous essays, "Some Thoughts on John Edward" and "More Thoughts on John Edward." I won't rehash those points. Still, a few things may be worth noting about this forgettable moment in TV tabloid journalism.
First, the reporter on the story was Bill Ritter, who had previously done a hit piece on another psychic, James Van Praagh. Here is how Shermer himself reports it in an earlier article: "Later, an ABC television producer flew out from New York to film me for an investigation of Edward they are conducting [another show, not the 20/20 segment]. The segment began as a 'puff piece' (as she called it), but a chance encounter in the ABC cafeteria with 20/20 correspondent Bill Ritter, with whom I worked on an expose of medium James Van Praagh a few years ago, tipped her off that Edward was, in fact, a Van Praagh clone and that his talking to the dead was nothing more than the old magicians' cold reading trick." (Shermer, "Deconstructing the Dead," viewable here as the second entry in the thread.)
Ritter, then, was evidently not an impartial reporter, but someone who was out to get Edward right from the start, and who had already tried to "expose" him once before.
Commenting on the piece, on air, was 20/20's John Stossel. Stossel sent out an email to his fans, dated December 4, that touted the show: "Bill Ritter quizzes the hottest psychic of the moment, John Edward. Edward makes big bucks claiming he 'talks to the dead' on his syndicated TV show. His audiences are often convinced he's speaking to someone's dead uncle or boyfriend. Edward says it's not his job to be right all the time; his job is to be a medium and to pass on the information. Ritter assembled a group for Edward and he did make some connections for them … but he had a lot more misses. I was pleased that Ritter then invited Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society, to comment on Edward's 'cold reading.' Shermer says that so-called psychics rely on unleashing lots of numbers, names, illnesses, events - things that are bound to resonate with at least someone - until he finds a 'hit.' Then audiences are impressed. Thank goodness for the Skeptics Society, which offers a more rational explanation for Edward's hits, and continually uses science to challenge claims of the paranormal." (Ellipsis in original; this page is no longer online.)
Evidently, then, Stossel was also not impartial, since he had already sided with Shermer's Skeptics Society in condemning Edward's technique as "cold reading." The two reporters covering the story - Ritter, who reported it, and Stossel, who commented on it - had strong, overt, preexisting biases against Edward.
Note that Stossel says the Skeptics Society "offers a more rational explanation" for Edward's abilities. "More rational," in this context, seems to mean "more in agreement with the materialist-rationalist philosophy that I subscribe to." That this is the case is evident when we take a look at Stossel's intellectual bona fides, revealed in an interview with Full Context, an Objectivist (i.e., Ayn Rand-oriented) magazine. He tells the interviewer, "I am now reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time and I am thrilled and astonished that this woman could know so much so many years before everyone else did and express it so beautifully. And express some of the theories I feel in my stomach, as I go out to do battle." (2024: link has expired.)
Ayn Rand is another subject I've dealt with elsewhere. Suffice it to say that anyone who feels Rand's angry, militant worldview "in [his] stomach" or anywhere else in his anatomy may be a paragon of Objectivism but hardly of objectivity. And a journalist who sees his work as "go[ing] out to do battle" is less interested in a dispassionate, impartial review of the facts than in proselytizing for his belief system - a belief system that is, of course, "rational." (Aren't they all?)
Naturally, with one reporter hungry to bag his second psychic, and another who comes to the table with a full-fledged rationalist-materialist ideology already in place, there was no hope for Edward to come out on top. Michael Shermer, featured on the show as the voice of reason, knew enough about the agenda of the segment's producers to lavish praise on the story even before he had seen it. In an email sent to readers of e-Skeptic magazine, dated December 5 (no longer online), he writes,
Tune in to ABC's 20/20 Friday night, December 5, to see Bill Ritter's piece on Crossing Over with John Edward ... They filmed at the studio where Crossing Over is taped, although there were restrictions imposed by the producers, of course. They also taped him doing readings on a small studio audience of their own that ABC culled from the folks waiting in line for The View, so there were no plants or shills ... I went to New York to review the tapes. Edward did not know I was involved.
I'll comment more in next week's e-Skeptic after I see how the edited version looks, but what struck me about Edward's approach was how different it now is from James Van Praagh, on whom Ritter and I did a debunking piece for ABC several years ago. Van Praagh is very sympathetic, even empathetic, with his subjects, and lets them guide the reading by what clues they give him. John Edward, by contrast, is more aggressive in his approach, insisting that his original statement is correct and that the subject is wrong ... Ritter told me that he thought Edward was much more sociable with the camera crew, jovial really, mixing it up with them on the breaks, etc. (almost used car salesman-like--my description), whereas Van Praagh, he said, was much more reserved and kept to himself. All of the production crew on the piece were totally skeptical, so I would imagine that the segment will reflect that.
This is interesting, partly for what it says and partly for what it doesn't say. What it says is that "all of the production crew on the piece were totally skeptical," an interesting admission of the segment's pervasive bias. Moreover, "Edward did not know I was involved." This, then, is the big showdown, the High Noon duel, between psychic and skeptic - Shermer waits until after Edward has done his job, then secretly reviews the tapes, with Edward never informed and never allowed to offer a rebuttal. Is it my mistake, or do these skeptics seem an awful lot like cowards, willing to pontificate in front of a friendly reporter, but afraid to confront their nemesis directly?
What Shermer doesn't say is also worth noting. He doesn't say what the onerous "restrictions imposed by the [Crossing Over] producers" were (although why Edward or Crossing Over would cooperate with 20/20 in the first place is beyond me). He also doesn't mention any successes Edward had in his reading with the panel. He doesn't mention that when Edward sticks doggedly with an audience member, the person frequently remembers a salient fact that does, in fact, validate what Edward was saying. He doesn't mention that Edward's insistence that he is right even when the other person disagrees is a violation of the most basic principles of "cold reading."
The ABCNews.com recap of the show describes Edward's reading of the specially selected volunteers as follows: "He then rubbed his hands together, closed his eyes and meditated before launching into a nearly 90-minute barrage of random names and numbers."
Random names and numbers? But isn't the whole point of Edward's approach that the information he gets is not random? I understand that skeptics disagree, but should the producers insert their editorial views into the factual content of the story so baldly?
ABCNews.com allows that Edward got some hits, but quickly explains this by citing Shermer, who "believes Edward has a strategy. He says he simply rattles off a lot of names until an audience member tells him the right one. 'He also offers up an assortment of common diseases,' Shermer said. 'All of us are gonna go, and we're gonna go from something pretty standard — cancer, heart disease. You can't go wrong with that,' he said."
So what we're being told is that the information Edward imparts is vague, generic, and random. Keep this in mind; we'll come back to it in a minute.
The piece continues: "One hour into 20/20's session with Edward, he turned to the side, toward the 20/20 crew and producer Michael Pressman. 'Is there a joke about somebody supposed to be a doctor?' Edward asked. Pressman told Edward he has a daughter who's a pre-med student. For more than 35 minutes, Edward quizzed Pressman with dozens of questions and observations and names. Only a handful turned out to be vaguely relevant; only one thing he mentioned was a concrete 'hit.' He guessed Pressman's wife's name. One good hit — out of 41 tries."
Notice, again, the slanted wording: Edward "guessed" the wife's name. Of course, if everything he says is purely random, then any hit would just have to be a guess – wouldn’t it?
Even so, one hit out of forty-one tries! Not good. We might notice that even the ABCNews.com write-up appears to indicate that he got two hits – the "doctor" reference and the wife's name. One plus one is two, or so I recall from my schooldays. Somebody at ABC can't count. Still, even two out of forty-one is embarrassing. One wonders, in fact, how John Edward ever got to be so famous if that's the best he can do.
But is it?
20/20 lets us see only what the segment's producer and editor allowed on the screen. Still, thanks to the Internet, the other side of the story has gotten out, largely in the form of message-board posts from a fellow named Chris, who seems to have been part of the panel assembled for the 20/20 reading. I say "seems" because it is, of course, possible that the postings are fake, and that Chris isn't who he claims to be. To me, his statements have the ring of truth. Judge for yourself. (2024: the postings are no longer online.)
In a message posted on December 8, 2003, at 08:14, and titled "I was one of the people on the 20/20 panel," Chris writes, "Let me tell you, I was the guy with beard in the back row on the 20/20 panel. 20/20 did not show ANY of the things he [Edward] got correct. He told my wife (next to me) that she had a sister type figure who had a cancer in the chest area (she had breast cancer) that was cured, but now there is another cancer that is back (which is true). He also told my wife that she pretends to be stronger about the cancer than she really is. This is also true."
Remember Michael Shermer saying, in his analysis, that Edward "offers up an assortment of common diseases." Presumably he was referring, in part, to the comments directed at Chris's wife. But note that Edward did not simply mention cancer in a general way. He said that Chris's wife "had a sister type figure who had cancer in the chest area." "Sister type figure" is somewhat vague but indicates someone roughly of the same generation as Chris's wife, thus eliminating parents, grandparents, young nieces, etc. "Cancer in the chest area" is tolerably specific. The cancer "was cured, but now there is another cancer" – quite specific and apparently accurate. "She pretends to be stronger about the cancer than she really is" – perhaps a generic comment, but not everyone acts brave in the face of a possibly terminal disease.
Apply this "skeptic's test" to yourself: Do you have a sister-type figure who had cancer in the chest area, which was cured, but unfortunately has been superseded by a new cancer, which she is fighting with admirable but perhaps somewhat forced bravado?
If Shermer were going to respond intelligently to Edward, he would have to address details like these. Instead he relies on hazy hand-waving. Ironically, for all their talk about vague, general guesswork on Edward's part, it's the skeptics who seem to be guilty of issuing vague generalizations while indulging in specious guesswork of their own.
In a later post on the same day, Chris adds, "From the MOMENT Bill Ritter began interviewing us I knew what direction this segment would take. He was continually asking us 'negative' type questions. When all was said and done I knew they could take this segment either way but WOULD take it in a 'Let's show them how fake John Edward is' direction."
And the next day:
My wife and I went to Good Morning America and were chosen from that audience by Michael Mendelson (sp) a 20/20producer. They asked us who would be interested and my wife raised her hand.
The group reacted pretty well to JE, he is a VERY nice guy who allowed us to get pictures with him and autographs from him.
The funny thing is that the people who were negative along with Bill Ritter were the 4 people that did NOT get read that day. I believe if they had been read it would have been a different song they were singing.
As far as Michael Pressmen (the producer JE did read for), WEEELLLL, let me tell you.... There was a part in his reading to Michael that went as follows, I am writing this from memory, SO do NOT quote me but this is ABOUT what was said... this was NOT on the segment
JE - Are you going for a test of some kind for your chest?
MP - Ummmm, not really.
JE - Cause I see a problem in the chest area, you're going to have some type of scan done?
MP - Ummmm, not really.
JE - Hmmm, I can't let this one go ... You sure?
After SEVERAL minutes of this......
JE - I still see a chest scan of some kind.
MP - Look, I don't want to open my medical record here in front of my co-workers.
JE - I understand, no problem.
To me that was an admission that there was something there. There were several things that JE got correct when reading for Michael Pressmen. Of course, Michael was not going to give him an INCH! [All ellipses in original.]
So when ABC tells us that Edward, when reading the producer, had only one hit in forty-one tries, is the count accurate? From what we now know, there appear to have been three hits: the doctor connection, the wife's name, and the chest scan or chest problem. Since producer Pressman was obviously being uncooperative and refusing to validate anything Edward said, it is impossible to know how many other details Edward may have gotten right. And by the way, if Edward was trying to con everybody, why would he insist on reading the openly skeptical producer of the show - the person least likely to cooperate? Why would he persist in the reading if the producer was stubbornly giving him no feedback at all – feedback being the lifeblood of the cold reading technique that Edward supposedly uses?
In my two previous essays on Edward, I've expressed my own doubts and uncertainties about what he claims to do. Still, the more I see of the skeptics and debunkers, the more I begin to think that this guy is for real.
Which, come to think of it, puts a little different spin on things. After all, if it was 20/20's intent to undercut my skepticism and make me more willing to accept John Edward as genuine, then I have to congratulate them on a job well done!
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