on December 13, 2016
Not a day goes by when we hear about the woes of
readers unable to distinguish between “fake news” and real news, as if
undependable news reporting is anything new. Readers and fact investigators
have always needed to know how to figure out for themselves what to believe and
what to question further.
I am proud to have been a
journalist for nearly 20 years (The Wall Street Journal, International Herald
Tribune, The Economist, NBC and others). Where I worked we always tried to get
it right so that nobody could accuse us of putting out something “fake.” But
that doesn’t mean we were always right.
As Charles Griffin
Intelligence uncovers facts about people we use the media (traditional,
electronic and social) as critical elements in building a picture of a person’s
life, connections and tendencies. The same goes for reporting on companies that
are the subject of our due diligence.
But if everything we needed
was in a newspaper, our clients wouldn’t need us. This is not because
newspapers try to get it wrong. For a few reasons, the news has always been a
“first draft of history”:
·
Newspapers must publish whether they have all the
facts nailed down or not. Except for their ads, print newspapers tend to be
around the same size every day. That’s not because we have the same amount of
interesting news each day but because newsprint costs money. Websites have
infinite space but finite budgets to hire writers and editors. Journalists
often go with what they know, leave out reporting about critical elements of a
story they haven’t nailed down, and hope to be able to fill in the holes in the
following days.
·
“Spinning” and outright lying aren’t new. They are as
old as time. Good journalists are expected to write stories that quote powerful
or knowledgeable people as saying X, when the journalists suspect that the
truth is not X. Journalists can’t call those they quote liars without proof,
but they still go with the stories. Sometimes they never get to prove that X is
wrong. Sometimes, if they believe the truth is X, they don’t try to see if it
isn’t.
·
Truth is harder to pin down than we would like. Lots
of well accepted scientific “facts” turn out to be incorrect, even without the
constraints of deadlines and having to depend on untrustworthy people. Samuel
Arbesman’s excellent book, The Half Life of Facts demonstrated how many “facts”
cited in scientific journals turn out to be contradicted a short time later.
·
Most importantly, a lot of “fake news” turns out to be
founded on impressions and rumors that the writers have not had time to verify
before “publishing,” which today can mean “Tweeting.” Some of the bad
information of today would have been spiked by good editors, but today the
writers and editors are often the same people, and first drafts get published
moments after they are written.
The solution? The same things
that good editors have done from time immemorial.
1.
Question the source of the story. Has anyone credible
verified it? If there are many injured somewhere, can you see whether a police,
fire or ambulance source confirms that? We used to need reporters to call the
fire department, but today the officials from the fire department often put out
statements on the web that anyone can check. Real news stories ought to have
confirmations from officials in them.
2.
Is the statement by the official accurately
reproduced? Sometimes those publishing items can put words into the mouths of
officials to make a statement saying X appear to say Y. if it’s big news, look
at the statement for yourself and decide if the reporter was being fair.
3.
If you see the story reported “all over the place,” is
the source the same for all the of hits on Google? 18 entries quoting the same
source is no more comforting than a single source. A one-source file at a wire
service once supposedly provoked the famous cable from the desk back to the
field: “You alarmingly alone on this.”
4.
If the story depends on public records, can you find
the public record to see for yourself? If “court documents” indicate something,
you should be able to see the court documents. If they are the basis of a story
on line, they should be reproduced so that readers can judge for themselves
whether the documents have been reported accurately.
All this verification is to
combat what I like to call “paint by numbers” investigation. When you see a
paint by numbers book, you have limited ability to question the “truth” of what
you are seeing. You can change the colors in the book, but the forms and
relationships in the picture are fixed.
Painting by numbers is for
children. Adults should look at the picture a news story paints, break it down
to its elements, and assess it all with as fresh an eye as possible.
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