I paid QWest $150 this week to prove someone fibbed about one of our reporters.
I was probably motivated by vanity (I hate to be wrong about a staffer), but we re-learned an important lesson: Feeling vindicated should refresh our commitment to independent buttressing of reports that bear on people’s character.
This started after I threw a fit when a local agency witheld a customary report we think is important to the public.
A public servant told us -and his boss- that we were full of it. He was adamant that he had given our reporter the information face-to-face, early on the day in question. We disagreed. We only got the information after a tipster alerted us to call the public servant, who never volunteered the information until we phoned to seek confirmation of what the tipster told us.
On its face, it’s a squabble over who said what when. But the official, a senior and powerful person, was bluffing and his boss accused our reporter of covering up a mistake.
We put our reporter through the wringer, found no inconsistencies and then realized a phone log could settle the question. It took QWest a couple of weeks but when they produced the log, the codes clearly showed our reporter’s three minute, fifteen second call to the official’s cellphone. He swore they hadn’t talked. Clearly, they had.
Now, no one lasts very long in journalism if they can’t handle being called a liar. You grow a thick skin because people casually dump on your credibility, often to protect themselves.
A stipulation: Being human, journalists do commit typos, transpositions, math mistakes and blunders. We publish corrections and keep track of who is making mistakes. Those reporters who prove sloppy with the facts find other work.
But in a decade sitting in this particular uneasy chair, I’ve only caught one real liar: a columnist I fired when I learned his tear-jerker about a broken-hearted Little Leaguer was utter fiction.
Most of the accuracy complaints I field arise from things people wish they hadn’t seen in print, wish they hadn’t said or wish we wouldn’t focus on. When we simplify complex ideas, condense long conversations or leave out what seems extraneous to us and vital to readers…people call it a lie. I’ve learned to hear what they mean and stay calm until the phone call moves from accusation to constructive critique of journalism. Those conversations are worth every minute because our good intentions don’t matter if our journalism doesn’t capture the essence of events and people.
And that’s the value of a $150 phone log: For starters, it verified that our reporter was telling the truth, which allowed me to call out the fibber with an ace in the hole. Better yet, it gave us a personal jolt of the kind of independent verification that is the bedrock of excellent journalism. I hope you’ll hold us accountable to that standard.
I sincerely appreciate the commitment of the Post Register’s editors and reporters to excellence in journalism and adherence to high standards of journalistic ethics. I subscribe to the Post Register because I believe that its emphasis on journalistic ethics makes it a trustworthy source of information. Recently, however, the editors failed to adhere to two important elements of the code of ethics published by the Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp). This has prompted me to respond to your invitation to hold the Post Register accountable when it fails to meet its own standard of excellence. I will explain why I believe the editors failed, and make recommendations to address those failures.
On 10 December 2008, under the headline, “Editorial Quote,” the Post Register reprinted two sentences from a letter to the editor that was written by Tracey Noble and published by the Idaho Statesman on 9 December 2008.
The first section of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that journalists “should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.” Among the specific guidelines regarding honesty, the code specifically states that journalists should:
“— Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability,” and
“— Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.”
The Post Register clearly violated the portions of the code of ethics reproduced above by a) failing to cite the original source from which the two sentences were excerpted, which would have enabled readers to read Ms. Noble’s comments in their entirety, and b) reprinting the sentences out of context, thereby oversimplifying and misrepresenting the message Ms. Noble was trying to convey.
I believe that the appropriate course of action for the Post Register is to write a letter to Ms. Noble explaining the violations on the part of the Post Register and the specific actions it plans to take to correct them; seek permission from Ms. Noble to reprint her letter in its entirety, and then do so; publish an explanation of the ethics violations that occurred and why it is important that they be addressed; and publish an apology to Ms. Noble and Post Register readers for having allowed these violations to occur.
By the way, I do not know Ms. Noble or any of her acquaintances, friends or family members, and I have no interest in this matter other than my personal belief that news organizations have extraordinary rights and privileges, and must constantly be held accountable for exercising those rights and privileges in an ethical manner.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts and opinions with you and your readers.