On Reporting and Breaking News
January 10, 2011
As if by the Hippocratic oath, the maxim of doing no harm precludes journalists from reporting information which is not true. On account of the capability to make notice immediately, together with the modern news consumers’ demand which it spurs, news organizations have more and more often been faced with the question of timeliness over accuracy.
Journalistic integrity, generally construed, precludes reportage which violates the self-stated principle of truth seeking and trust-earning, fact-based coverage. Between the echo chamber phenomena, the viral tendency of information as first published and the immediate amplification and spread of this information around the internet, the impetus to be correct has been trumped by the necessity to publish first. Reasons include, but are hardly limited to, the perceived wisdom that being first is the crux of the contest for news outlets, the need to drive traffic and hence one’s brand online – and viewers on television – and the insatiable desire to beat the competition, which in this case, are others racing to report on the same matter in a distinguishable way.
Caution and corroboration, a posture that takes the time to confirm a piece of information must remain the highest priority of news organizations. This approach to breaking news can actually be saving grace. For, aside from the superior reputation which is built on true reporting, those that report bad information can revoke the standing and trust that retains an organization’s audience – in an instant, beyond recovery. In fact, there have been instances where reportage of a news story overtook the story itself. Let this comprise a crucial moment of clarity for some news media in the wake of its reportage on the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on January 8, 2011.
Only regret and demotion can visit those who report falsely that someone in surgery following a violent attack has died. Insistent retraction and correction of this inexcusable errata can never completely undo the harm done one’s self by making such false claims. It diminishes credibility, but worse, as relates to both the Giffords incident and the current news environment, it pollutes the internet and thus, as illuminated by the game ‘telephone’, provides for fodder-making based on false premises. Indeed, it confuses the real facts as they are released, and propels news consumers’ own conversations – as they further relate the news as they know it – into a spiral of speculation, doubt, or unfounded suffering and conclusions. Justified suspicion and the skepticism of a sacred trust broken inevitably result.
The traditional news media will continue to make the remote, disperse and far less resourced blogging and online franchise news more appealing if these high-profile, national news events continue to receive, even if very seldom, inaccurate or misleading coverage. The need for self-reflection would disappear; the cloud of criticism and public worry would evaporate if the possibility for such self-injurious practices, swirled about in the commons and proliferated online, were negated in favor of deliberate, considered reportage were the norm. This is what police departments and hospitals do prior to announcing facts to the public. Until that point, news media now routinely engage inferior witnesses, solicit unremarkable expert input, or, worse, fill the ensuing vacuum with conjecture. Those typing online and those who must keep talking “on air”. Ongoing, fluid situations in particular must be met with a principled approach as each iteration of the pronouncement of new developments
The organization that “had it right” and waited five or twenty minutes to rigorously confirm information correctly will always wins out over that which “went to press” with bad information. This, when a Google news search can’t distinguish veracity or truth, may seem less important to some news desks and confounding for those who seek to ascertain facts without the burden of cross-referencing sources themselves. But the wildfire caricature which this portrays to dependent news consumers is a disservice at the least, a purveyor of misplaced grieving at the worst. The living subject and the clamoring public deserve better.
