The following post in the Newsroom thread got me thinking about this topic, which I’ve wanted to discuss with an informed group. That’d be you people.
Those of you in the journalism game, print (what’s left of it), radio, TV, web: what fact-checking protocols did you learn in school, what did you learn on the job in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc.? With the rush to be the first to break a story in the world of the internet, is fact-checking something the reporting world no longer has time for? What are the rules now?
If you worked on a newspaper, you usually had several hours (at least) before the next edition. That gave you a chance to call sources and confirm reports. Even in the early days of TV or radio, you’d only be on the scene of a live event if that event was scheduled, or by happenstance (like the Hindenberg disaster – a radio reporter just happened to be covering the arrival).
With a live event, you don’t know much of the story as it happens. That leaves room for bad reports (e.g., Frank Reynolds reporting that Reagan had died). The more time between the event and the report, the better chance to get all the details, but when you have to go on the air right now, the standard fact checking just isn’t fast enough.
I’m not in the press, but to me the answer seems – practocally none.
Rule 1, above all others is – get it on the air FIRST.
Rule 2 (a distant second) is - include a disclaimer that the information is not confirmed.
Rule two seems to be discarded in short order – as you begin to repeat your “news”, the disclaimer may be included for the first couple of repeats but then gets left out.
People yell about errors but nothing keeps them from tuning in immediately to the next lurid story and being cranky if their source of news lags one second behind. It’s never about the providers and always about the audience. We get what we demand. We demand immediacy over accuracy. Therefore we get immediacy.
It will change only if the audience does. Is that a likely future in your eyes?
Well, I’m not one to hold dogfights just because the public wants to see them. I’ve never been (nor had to be) motivated by want an audience wants. Fortunately, I’m not faced with the dilemma of getting accurate news out first ahead of others who have no scruples about accuracy.
There are and have been for more than a century elite news sources and analyses for people who want more insight with better and deeper facts and are willing to wait for it. They have always had smaller audiences, but you can find them if you wish. There is no such thing as “news”; just a spectrum of types and styles.
That’s an entirely different issue, though, from fact-checking on cable and the internet.
How can it matter when there have been so many instances of wrong information from a single source that got onto the air?
I suppose they wouldn’t put something outright crazy on the air, like a quote from Biggus Dickus.
OTOH, one stationed aired some completely crazy stuff about the recent crashed landing in San Franscisco, after apparently getting (incorrect) confirmation of the story from the Feds/
My parents were both reporters. (My dad, in fact, was nicknamed “Scoop.”) Mom said more than once that whatever the other reporters did as far as fact-checking, she had to get it right the first time, because she worked in the weddings/engagements section, and people kept that stuff.
Related: A friend of mind got married and had her photo in the local paper, with the headline “Jane Doe Married.” Only her name was “Ann”. Unsurprisingly, the following week, the photo with the correct headline appeared.