The Ins and Outs of Internal Edits

This segment from a 2007 episode of On the Media features radio journalists turning their focus on themselves, offering an expose of their own practices of altering recorded audio of interviews — for the sake of clarity and never when it would distort the speaker’s meaning or personality, of course.

It’s an interesting dimension of radio programs but one that most audience members don’t think of, especially if this segment’s producers are to be believed that the manipulations of radio work are harder to perceive than those in other media. If your interviewee stutters, do you have to air some of the stuttering? If your interviewee gets confused and loses their train of thought, is that never fair game, is it always fair game? How might that be dictated by the focus and goals of your piece? Is it really possible that the Car Talk guys leave air time in which one might add more laughter in post-production?

Write first, then call sources?

Madison’s own Capital Times took a little egg to the face this weekend when:

“For a period of about 40 minutes Saturday, The Capital Times posted on its website and on madison.com a story that falsely said that U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson were joining state Rep. Steve Nass, R-town of La Grange, in pressuring the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to purge its archives of posters from last year’s protests at the Capitol in Madison.”

The story was posted on Facebook, where it drew immediate criticism from readers. The link to the original story is no longer active, and the Cap Times released an editorial (which is where the above graf is from) explaining the context of the story.

Basically, editor John Nichols saw a fake news release that was drawn up by a staff cartoonist and ran with it. To his credit, he did suspect something was awry fairly quickly, but not before other editors had posted it online.

While this seems like a simple mistake that was quickly corrected, the incident does beg the question of how newsrooms can ensure accuracy in a 24/7 news cycle, where it’s easy to get stories out and hard to totally erase mistakes. How can journalists balance accuracy with timeliness in an environment that sometimes puts these goals in competition?

Also, think about the risks of writing a story, based on a news release, without verifying sources FIRST. What are the ethical implications of this work process?

Twitter Is All in Good Fun, Until It Isn’t – NYTimes.com

Twitter Is All in Good Fun, Until It Isn’t – NYTimes.com.

Excellent summary of some recent Twitter implosions.

Here’s ESPN’s latest take, as well:

http://deadspin.com/5888975/twitter-is-not-your-personal-playground-espn-reminds-its-employees

Is it fair to reprimand employees for social media posts in their off hours? When, if ever, is a media worker a person and not an employee? Do these considerations affect how you think about working in media someday? Are you establishing good social habits now?

Pudding the cat goes national. Fair use?

A friend and former student of mine, Samantha Hernandez, wrote a story for the Door County Advocate about an amazing cat named Pudding, who saved her new companion’s life hours after being adopted. The Huffington Post picked up on the story and it quickly went viral.

While Samantha told me she was thrilled to see the story go national, she was a little disappointed that the Huff Post story linked to the Green Bay Press Gazette, a paper in the same chain as the DCA that also ran her story, and made no mention of her as the reporter. Furthermore, the Huff Post lifted so heavily from the story for its report that there was no real incentive to click through to the original story.  MSNBC’s Today took a similar approach, as did others—many of which linked back only to the Huff Post story.

See the Door County Advocate story: http://www.doorcountyadvocate.com/article/20120217/ADV01/120217059/Kitty-earns-his-keep

See the Huffington Post story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/22/cat-saves-womans-life-hours-adopted_n_1293820.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

See the Today story: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46504285/ns/today-good_news/

A few days later, a columnist from the New York Times called her to check on the story to make sure it wasn’t a hoax, which was then subsequently rehashed in a column that cited both Samantha and the Door County Advocate.

See the NYT column: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/opinion/collins-republican-truth-or-dare.html?_r=1&src=tp

Take a few minutes to read the stories.

Did the Huffington Post and MSNBC attribute adequately? Should the reporter’s name be mentioned also? Was the level of information they used acceptable under copyright regulations? How about from an ethical standpoint? Consider the same questions for the NYT column.  Is there a difference? Why?

Radio Silence on Team Executive’s DUI

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ ended their first week at spring training amid reports that team president Frank Coonelly was arrested for DUI during the Christmas holidays. In response to those reports, the sports-talk radio station that now carries the team’s games initially banned the topic from its shows. The order apparently came from the station’s general manager, and stayed in place until pressure from fans on Twitter convinced the station to relent.

This controversy is an example of the strange, and ethically murky, relationships that have developed between sports teams and media outlets.  Over the past 30 years, many journalists in sports departments have asked to be held the same ethical standards as those in the news department. They have their own code to follow. The Associated Press Sports Editors code of ethics frowns on writers taking checks from teams for contributing to team publications or serving as official scorers. And yet, media organizations enter into commercial relationships with teams all the time.  Some, like the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox are owned by media companies that own outlets that cover the teams.  Others have bought naming rights to stadiums, or pay to advertise in the arena.

My guess is that media organizations make these arrangements because they view sports as somehow outside the bounds of serious journalism, which means ethics are less pressing than the benefits from being associated with the home team. But sports teams are major community institutions and should be covered as such. My question is, what should the terms of engagement be between the business side at media outlets and sports teams?

Oops: Why it’s important to talk to the people you write about

A Politico reporter made a serious and groan-worthy error this week when reporting on Obama’s visit to Master Lock in Milwaukee: she saw the Wisconsin flag and assumed it to be a union flag. Then, she framed her story about that issue, saying the fact Obama spoke in front of the American flag and a union flag finally shows that he’s pro-union.

Oops.

But this isn’t just a blooper — it’s what happens when reporters don’t work hard enough to get the story. The Politico story wasn’t exactly hard news — it aimed to provide an interpretation of the situation. But before doing that, you need to get your facts straight.

Mike Elk, a reporter who spent a lot of time in Madison last year covering the union protests, writes that the Politico error shows that reporters are not diligent in covering workers. I’m not sure I buy the argument that this kind of error somehow happens with workers more frequently than with others. He’s right, though, in his argument that a reporter needs to dig deeper (in this case not a lot deeper!) before putting pen to paper (or, um, fingers to iPad).

Huffington Post offers a slightly different interpretation.

Former j-schooler and Pulitzer Prize winner dies while showing us why journalism matters

Anthony Shadid, who studied in Vilas Hall in the 1980s, died yesterday while sneaking out of Syria to file a report.  He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting in the Middle East.  According to the NYT obituary today, the Pulitzer committee had this to say about his first award:

His extraordinary ability to capture, at personal peril, the voices and emotions of Iraqis as their country was invaded, their leader toppled and their way of life upended.

He sacrificed himself multiple times in order to give voice to the voiceless.  (He was shot in 2002, kidnapped in 2011, and ignored his allergy at his own peril – eat that Chuck Norris).

Shadid, who walked the halls that you guys do and spoke to j-school students last Fall, died from an asthma attack trying to tell the story of people who were fighting for their freedom.  He knew that he had an allergy to horses, but walked with them anyway to sneak across the border, because journalism is heavily monitored by the Syrian govt.  This guy showed us how journalism can be more important than life itself.

So the questions are:
Do journalists have an ethical obligation to put the story above their own well-being?
Do they have an obligation to friends, family, country not to put themselves in danger?
Does the journalist have a greater obligation to give voice to those without one?
Did Anthony Shadid have a responsibility to obey the restriction of the Syrian government?
Does the Syrian government have any responsibility for his death?  Does the NYT?