In the race to be the first to break a major news story, both CNN and Fox News blew one of the biggest stories of the year.
According to the Huffington Post, “CNN and Fox News were left with egg on their faces on Thursday, as they got the Supreme Court’s ruling on President Obama’s health care law wrong.”
CNN’s congressional correspondent Kate Boulduan read out part of the Court’s ruling, which said that the individual mandate could not be upheld using the Commerce Clause.
Disastrously, though, it failed to pick up the other part of the ruling, which said that it could be upheld as a tax.
“Wow, that’s a dramatic moment,” Wolf Blitzer said, as a chyron saying “SUPREME CT. KILLS INDIVIDUAL MANDATE” flashed on the screen.
And news organizations complain about citizen journalists getting facts wrong? Sad day for journalism.
“I think these flubs are a good reminder to all journalists that getting it wrong in the rush to be first is an error many orders of magnitude worse than getting your story up after the competition,” noted Kansas City Star Public Editor Derek Donovan. “And realistically, today “later” often means a matter of minutes, if not seconds.”
Maybe there is a reason why it was recently announced CNN’s prime time ratings were the worst in 21 years…
UPDATE (6/29): Veteran CNN staffers really are venting over their network’s embarrassing reporting (LINK).
The faster news is provided the less likely it is accurate…. this is not a new maxim.
Back in 1998, I had a pal who covered entertainment stories like I did, but she was based in Los Angeles. She had been dealing with other reporters in the wake of comic actor Phil Hartman’s death. Before the news went live, Leonard Maltin (who did the obituary updates of Entertainment Tonight) and others waited to make his death public (his mentally-ill, drug addicted wife murdered him and killed herself). They all had solid stories but waited to make sure all the facts were straight before trees were killed or data was posted online. Hartman was adored by his peers, and the senselessness of his murder meant that the story required delicate handling. You don’t want to print a retraction on something like that.
That judicious restraint might not happen today. The pressure to beat out competitors is great, and current logic seems to be go with the story and then correct it later. As the CNN and Fox example illustrates, this isn’t the way it should be.
In some ways, we’re going backward. Back in 1936, a 20 year old KCMO radio announcer named Walter Wilcox was told to go live with a story that there was a massive fire at City Hall and that people were jumping out of windows to their deaths. His boss had taken a call from his wife. Wilcox, unlike his boss, had worked in newspapers wanted another source before going on the air and insisted on double checking the story. His older, but less savvy supervisor, took to the microphone based on what his spouse had told him.
While his boss was wailing about the fire, Wilcox learned that the fire was actually minor and that there were no fatalities. Apparently, he was a better reporter than the supervisor’s wife. Because he did his job properly, he was immediately fired by his vindictive superior.
Don’t shed any tears for Mr. Wilcox.
He went back to using his real name Walter Cronkite (the folks at KCMO thought his Dutch surname sounded too German), and I think we know what happened to him.
I’ve made more than my share of mistakes, but as technology changes, ethics standards change as well. When I interviewed Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite’s biographer, he told me that radio used to be a journalistic Wild West when the newsman was young. As the technology got more established, eventually standards improved. While online news is established, it’s still new, and standards by media consumers and providers need to grow up with it.
I love the story about Walter Cronkite supplied by Dan, and it is an excellent reminder of the importance of accuracy in the news business. Sadly, the desire to be the first to break a story has largely replaced the commitment to accuracy up and down the chain of command. Ratings are everything anymore, and to hell with the truth. Will these sort of errors be repeated in the future by TV, radio and the likes of the “Sludge Report”? More than likely, my friend, more than likely.
I have subsequently learned that CNN has owned up to its error but that Fox News is apparently unwilling to do so, still looking, I suppose, to put some sort of spin on the whole event. And it will be the Fox network that is in KC next week to cover the all-star game. My cousin is of the feeling that the motto at Fox should be, “We distort, you comply,” as opposed to “We report, you decide.” He probably has something there.