Mining Accurate Info
Paul Holmes, long-time chronicler of our industry, has entered the blogging fray. In his posts today, he opines on the alleged cop-out by Washington Post editor Len Downie for not apologizing for the misinformation his newspaper published on the fate of the West Virginia miners. Mr. Holmes joins Post media critic Howard Kurtz in taking Mr. Downie (and many others) to task for blowing it and then passing the buck.
“But the fault lies with the journalists for not instinctively understanding that early, fragmentary information in times of crisis is often wrong. You don’t broadcast or publish until it’s absolutely nailed down…” Kurtz writes.
I’m not sure I agree. My edition of The New York Times also carried the wrong information on its front page. The paper at 3:26AM on Wednesday issued an e-mail alert correcting itself: “News Alert: Mine Company Official Reports 11 of 12 Miners Thought to Have Survived Are Dead.”
Newspapers are the first write of history. It’s 20/20 hindsight to second-guess the moment when the stars are sufficiently aligned to pull the trigger on a story. After all, the (erroneous) information did come from the Governor of the State and wasn’t denied by mining company executives. It seems to me that these are credible sources on whose information one typically can bank. Mr. Kurtz did commend The Times for citing its source: “family members,” and castigates The Post for not.
Most of the PR pundits in the blogosphere have added their voices to the PR debacle that led to yesterday’s heartbreaking see-saw ride. I will only say that in times of crisis, one cannot stress enough the importance of centralizing the flow of information. It appeared to me that this was not the case in West Virginia. Family members, mining company executives, state and federal officials, and others all had some interaction with the primary channel for information dissemination — the news media. This resulted in a very combustible and profoundly unfortunate situation.
Should we blame the messenger? I don’t think so.
January 5th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Peter: Your point about the importance of centralizing the flow of information is dead-on.
Unfortunately, that’s not always possible.
From the various stories I read, I read at least a couple different ways of how the misinformation about the survival of the miners spread.
Hindsight is best. However, in any breaking story like this, reporters should be aware going in that information can be sketchy and not always accurate.
Most of the blame can lie in the race of every media outlet to be the first. To scoop others.
The rush for ratings and readers has significantly damaged journalism. It has caused journalists (in print, TV anad radio) to be less prudent in verification.
– Mike
January 5th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
You’re right, Mike. The centralized dissemination of information during a crisis is an ideal to be strived for. It doesn’t always happen.
You’re also right in describing a media seemingly more concerned with being first than with the accuracy of the information they would report. (This is the issue with which The Post’s Howard Kurtz and others took issue.)
My point, however, is that the journalists reporting the initial story used reasonably credible sources before going to bed with it. Hence, they are not entirely to blame for the screw-up. Was there a rush to be first? It sounds like it.
Net net: it’s a good thing for the fourth estate to peridocially conduct post-mortems to ensure that the same mistakes are not made in the future. Think Dan Rather, Jayson Blair, etc.
January 7th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Excellent post. Great content throughout the site. I’m adding you to my blog roll. Thanks for adding me to yours. Look for me to visit often.