Once again, the race to be first with “breaking” news on a major event has led to errors, speculation and just plain poor journalism.
USA Today erroneously initially reported 14 were killed in the Colorado theater shootings (instead of 12). Now Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart has really taken ABC’s Brian Ross to task for reporting that the shooter may or may not have ties with the Tea Party. He didn’t.
And some journalists complain that bloggers get stories wrong…
The speculation is disturbing – “may or may not have ties with the Tea Party” – and was incorrectly phrased at that. Why couldn’t Ross have just said, “The shooter may have ties with the Tea Party.”
Or he might have tried to verify it one way or another before even speculating on it. It seems to show a journalistic bias on his part to have even checked to determine if the killer was a member of the Tea Party.
John, YOU’RE speculating about a Ross motive as well. See what a slippery slope that is?
Otherwise, you’re right about the unacceptable zeal reporters have during breaking news to jump to conclusions on unverified tidbits.
True. The fact that Ross even checked a Tea Party site to see if Holmes was a member shows a bias.
What if there was a Jim Holmes from Aurora who was a member of a Comic-Con club? Would Brian Ross have reported that?
I’m sure the major news networks would never proclaim to advance a journalistic ideal of getting the story first at the expense of getting the story right. However, we occasionally see that, presumably out of a desire to feed their competitive egos, this is not always the case.
Who among us cares which network gets the story first? Outside of television journalism pundits, I doubt many of us are franticly switching channels among all the news outlets for the sole purpose of comparing the reporting mechanics, style, and culture to determine which network won the “I reported it first!” game. The truth is all the news networks will likely be reporting the same significant – and factual – events of a given news story within a matter of minutes of each other.
Networks, save yourselves from the humiliating task of apologizing for such unnecessary and preventable errors. Or, as is the case in this example with Brian Ross of ABC News, having people talk about your lack of apology for your reporting failure.