Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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A
note from the president
Once again we have been reminded of the first rule of journalism: Accuracy,
accuracy, accuracy.
The shame of Patricia Smith, The Boston Globe columnist who made up
portions of her work, is a tragedy not just for her and her newspaper but
for all of us. Its timing could not be worse, coming on the heels of discovery
that the rising young magazine writer Stephen Glass fabricated at least
part of 27 of the 41 articles he wrote for The New Republic. This was followed
by the equally startling $10 million settlement with Chiquita by Gannett
in Cincinnati and the retraction by CNN and Time of their nerve gas story.
Four examples in such a short time of the travesties of journalism do
not make a trend. Unfortunately, they do add damage to an already eroding
public confidence and trust in the news media. This is especially serious
for newspapers, where a half-dozen recent surveys document credibility
sliding even faster than trust in local and network television news.
In the case of Smith, the ASNE board of directors had little choice
but to withdraw its 1998 Distinguished Writing Award, especially after
her editors at the Globe urged us to do so. It was the first time ASNE
has had to take back an award. No one who watched the extraordinarily gifted
columnist recite her poetry at our April convention can avoid feeling her
pain, but ASNE must practice what it preaches.
We have no way of knowing how much journalism has been damaged
by these episodes, but they underscore the importance of ASNE’s three-year
Journalism Credibility Project.
ASNE’s nationwide credibility survey is now being analyzed and validated
by Urban and Associates. A similar questionnaire has been completed in
70 representative newsrooms. From these studies we expect to know the extent
to which readers’ eroding trust for us is caused by their perceptions of
bias, tabloidism, intrusiveness, shifting roles, deception and — most importantly
— inaccuracies.
Are hyped headlines hurting us? How about inaccurate quotes? Is it more
important to be first, or a day late but right? Do unnamed sources do damage?
What about typos and mistakes in spelling and grammar?
My gut tells me accuracy is probably the key issue. Nearly every story
of any length has at least some little mistake. Anyone who has been the
subject of a story knows this. A date gets confused, a quote misunderstood.
They are not always big errors, but for readers who know the facts, they
are another blow to our credibility.
Take a look at the current issue of The Freedom Forum’s Media Studies
Journal. Six of America’s leading editors are asked to relate what it feels
like to be on the receiving end of news coverage. They speak with one voice.
They are satisfied "simply not to be burned," to quote Dave Lawrence.
Magazines, of course, have fact checkers. Once we see the results of
the ASNE research, we may want to think about that approach in certain
situations. Marshall Loeb, editor of Columbia Journalism Review, believes
such procedures would make sense for certain kinds of newspaper articles
such as complicated and controversial articles or series.
As a practical matter, the pressures of daily deadlines and the volume
of copy make the magazine approach impractical on a daily basis at newspapers.
We can envy the magazine luxury, but even if it were possible, most of
us couldn’t afford it. Forbes magazine, for example, has 25 people dedicated
to checking facts. For every issue, each of them gets two to four stories
to validate. Imagine the staff requirement to duplicate that on a daily
newspaper.
The Globe, in fact, had established a spot-checking system by editors
of columnists a couple of years ago, and ultimately that’s what caught
Smith. At most newspapers multiple levels of editing are the safeguard.
In the final analysis, we must place our trust and our faith in reporters.
That is why the Smith episode so saddens us.
What will be learned from the credibility initiative? The aim is a much
clearer idea of the root causes of our dwindling trust, as well as answers
to what we as an industry can do about it. We will have hard information
on what is driving the problem. Eight newspapers are serving as test sites
to confirm our conclusions and experiment with solutions. Undoubtedly one
of the important lessons will be that accuracy is a foundation of our trust
and credibility. A passionate devotion to accuracy might just be what the
doctor orders.
If that occurs, as I believe it will, things will not have changed as
much as we may think. Two decades ago another ASNE president, Bill Hornby,
said in somewhat similar circumstances that editors would do the most for
the cause if they "would just make accuracy our fetish for the 1980s."
Like an old alcoholic, we may have to take the pledge again.
Seaton, ASNE president, is editor-in-chief of The Manhattan (Kan.)
Mercury.
