Will Get Fooled Again…and again…and again
One day last week I found these words written on the whiteboard in the journalism lab: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
I laughed out loud (a mordant chuckle really–to borrow a term from Bob Somerby). And that drew a few curious looks from the students in my feature writing class. I explained my chuckle to them as I erased the board: I saw this for the first time in my introductory textbook when I was your age. What made me laugh is that what this represents–a discipline of verification–is the lost art of journalism. Which is really a bad thing because–in a very real and important sense–this discipline IS journalism.
Something awful happens between the lessons we teach students about journalism done right and what they end up producing as professionals. Sometimes the results are entertaining, e.g. the tale of Heywood Jablome. But, at other times, the sheer laziness and stupidity makes me sad. Clark Hoyt, public editor for The New York Times, takes a look at how “Margaret B. Jones” fooled the mighty book review apparatus of the great ”paper of record.” Here’s the part that struck me:
Kakutani said she did not try to verify the account of Margaret B. Jones because Riverhead sent her a 10-page Q. and A. with the author, discussing her life story and the book. Kakutani assumed, she said, especially after the celebrated case of James Frey, who made up parts of his best-selling “A Million Little Pieces,” that “the publishers had vetted the book and that they had probably had lawyers review the book as well.”
Over in House & Home, Green’s story idea was assigned to Mimi Read, a well-respected freelancer based in New Orleans. Read flew to Eugene and spent five hours with “Jones.” Read did not approach the story skeptically because the assignment had come from The Times, giving it built-in credibility, and because it was “an at-home-with story, which I understood to be a single-source story.”
Jones was convincing, Read said. “She spun out this reality full of details,” including the stories of gang members in photos around the house.
In other words, these stenographers believe what their mothers tell them.
What’s so galling from the perspective of a 50-something apprentice curmudgeon is that this fake would have been so easy to catch–as Hoyt’s column clearly points out–if someone had just done the very basic thing journalists are supposed to do: Check it out.
I suppose there are all kinds of excuses. I’ve yet to hear one that absolves journalists of their responsibility to practice journalism (assuming that’s what they intend to practice).
[Ed. Note: Yes, I'm being harsh. Too harsh? I don't know. Any human system is vulnerable to human assumptions. And it is just not possible to publish a newspaper, even a great one with top professionals, and get everything right all the time. We all get fooled. But I am very concerned that journalism is losing the thing that makes it journalism--a discipline of verification.]
I’m not sure if, or when, there was a discipline of verification or if it’s another “good ole days” myth.
I do think that the overuse of anonymous sources along with wire services and an assumed credibility if it comes from another journalist contributes to a lack of verification.
I’m always amazed when an anonymously sourced story gets picked up and repeated by other news sources. Even worse, the anonymous source gets translated to “the New York Times reported this morning” or the WaPo, or the AP or Reuters, etc.
Perhaps journalists should be less concerned with whether mommy loves them or the government lies and more concerned with how untrustworthy their peers are.
Tim… There certainly could be a bit of mythology working here. But, I’d prefer to think of it this way: A thing called journalism (in the modern sense) can hardly be said to exist without a discipline of verification. No golden age exists for this. The discipline is, however, imperfectly practiced–always has been and, perhaps, always will be. We appear to experiencing a particularly low moment in journalism history in regard to the discipline.
The mother quote isn’t supposed to be clever or even funny. It was taught to me as deadly serious.
re: the mother quote, Deep Throat, J-School and Newsroom Religion
Tim- You certainly won’t find me defending bromides. The “mother” crack is certainly not one, IMO. Journalism doesn’t exist outside a discipline of verification. I wonder what the benefit would be to skepticism regarding the necessity to check what sources tell you. Without verification you have gossip and rumor–two things journalism should be about challenging. Without verification you have journalists thinking they know more than they actually do–never a good thing.
Some of these journalistic sayings certainly are bromides, e.g. the “afflict” quote. And they certainly should be critically examined.
And you’ll get absolutely no argument from me re: “I’m arguing that journalists (in school and/or on the job) are taught NOT to be skeptical of their own or the bromides they are taught.”
I just fail to see how the “mother” quote is a bromide. There’s nothing about it that soothes the journalist. You either check your facts or you don’t. You either live up to it our you don’t. And if you don’t, you’re practicing a pretty poor brand of journalism.
But… perhaps journalistic *behavior* makes it seem like a bromide, or journalists treat it as such by assuming they properly practice the discipline when too often they don’t. This would fit “taught NOT to be skeptical” mentioned before. And again, I agree this is far too often the case (not in my classroom, however).
No, no myth this discipline of fact checking. A discipline of verification did exist – - especially as journalism was taught in the wake of Watergate – - when I was being taught.
I only wish I’d retained those lessons when I became a lawyer and on occasion wanted to believe my client!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day (or is it?)
Saying the mother crack is a bromide doesn’t make it untrue. Where it once may have been an interesting and forceful way to express a “new” adage, it has become uninteresting and commonplace from overuse.
But let’s say it’s not so unoriginal and overused as to make your eyes roll into the back of your head, “As if I’ve never heard THAT ONE before.”
It still ain’t working.
Tim… OK. I was wondering if part of your problem with it was aesthetic. And I won’t fight you on that
So how should we express it? But your final observation is more important: why ain’t it working?
My best guess on why it ain’t working?
It’s more important to fill the news hole first with the least resources than to verify what’s going in to it. At the risk of sounding repetitive, that drives “the overuse of anonymous sources along with wire services and an assumed credibility if it comes from another journalist.”
Merry Sunshine Week
Another problem complicates the situation. When reporters aren’t tied to beats they often lack the background information putting a particular situation into context.