Some of this week’s readings dealt with integrity and factual accuracy in journalism.
The case study we looked at in class, “Eagle Snatches Dog,” is one of the more benign examples of printing a fabricated story. When we read the story in class, we knew we were looking for something wrong, so it was easy to tear apart the editor who ran the story: “What was s/he thinking?” seemed to be the class’s consensus. However, once I took the time to think about what I would have done had I been the editor, the situation becomes much more understandable.
It is suspect that the story, which was incredible to begin with, had only one source, but it’s also easy to justify it. Plus, while the story related by the source is out of the ordinary, it’s also plausible.
Finally, and this is the part that really got to me as I was thinking about this case study — what were the real consequences of running an amusing, off-the-wall story that ended up being a fabrication? And if I were the editor, would I have run a correction?
Printing any kind of misinformation usually warrants the running of a correction, and I felt like I was being a bad journalist by questioning if I would. However, this isn’t a Jayson Blair/Janet Cooke kind of “fiasco,” as incorrectly reported stories are called in the “Skeptical Editing” article — no one was misquoted, nothing was plagiarized, there was no Pulitzer at stake and readers weren’t worse off for having read the story (unless some of them were real die-hard dog enthusiasts). It was just an amusing story, so my instincts say a retraction/correction would just be spoiling everyone’s fun. Where to draw the line, though?
In general, however, I think the principles outlined in “Skeptical Editing” are good ideas that are too often overlooked in the newsroom, particularly when you’re approaching deadline. As a copy editor, I know there have been nights where I’m so concerned with the little things — proofreading and checking names/titles — that I probably haven’t thought about the big picture of the story.
I especially like MacCluggage’s suggestion of having editors/copy editors from different areas in the newsroom go over each other’s work. If news desks became each other’s prosecutors and really scrutinized the stories and played devil’s advocate wherever possible, I think a lot more stories would be more concise and easier to understand.
One of this week’s sources was the Wikipedia entry on joint operating agreements among newspapers around the U.S. In theory, this seems like a good idea — with more than one newspaper in a city, you have the possibility of getting conflicting points of view, more information from one paper than the other, the same story told in different voices, etc. However, in practice, it seems most of these agreements fail and one of the two papers goes extinct anyway, leaving the other paper to take on all the previously shared expenses itself, not to mention reverting to having only one point of view again.
Why have more than half (18 out of 28) of the operating agreements failed? I don’t think there are that many cases of one paper being so markedly better than the other that the worse one disappears. Is it because newspapers in general are declining, so one paper per town is more than enough to sustain?
And what happens to the remaining paper after its competitor/ally is out of the picture? Do they ever have trouble meeting production costs? Do they lose advertisers or readers who were loyal only to the other paper?
The rest of this week’s readings deal with the issue of blogs being used as hyperlocal news sources. This can either be done very well or very badly, as demonstrated in the “Potemkin Village” article for the Online Journalism Review. I think it depends on talent, resources and location.
First of all, and Debbie Galant of the Barista blog essentially says this in her interview, talent makes a lot of difference. I don’t think her blog would be as popular if she didn’t already have the beginnings of a readership from her days with the New York Times. If just anyone were to start a local blog reporting on happenings in their town, it would probably take much longer for it to catch on.
Secondly, resources — be they having enough people to write/take photos, enough startup to last until advertisers are interested, or the means to get in touch with the people who should be interviewed — are probably just as important.
Location is not as big of a deal, but some cities definitely lend themselves more to the creation of a hyperlocal news blog than others. I would think more liberal cities with a younger (21 to 35) demographic would be more likely places for a news blog to flourish.
In general, I think if done correctly, hyperlocal news blogs can be a very valuable resource for their cities. I think residents would feel more comfortable posting comments on a blog page than typing letters to the editor of a paper, so blogs encourage more reader feedback. Also, blog writers have the ability to be more partial in their stories, which adds a more distinctive voice while also asking questions and making observations that a print news story wouldn’t. Stories that ask harder questions or call someone out can also deliver results more than a regular newspaper, which in turn could also encourage the papers to try to achieve the same results.
Ultimately, if blogs and newspapers start trying to outdo each other, there will be a level of competition that makes each strive to be better and better. News blogs coexisting with newspapers could have the modern equivalent to the relationship that was the premise in joint operating agreements.