About Jamilgate
Despite a lot of looking and a lot of people actually risking life and limb, nobody appears to be able to produce "captain Jamil Hussein" of the Iraqi police. The Associated Press has gone on the attack against bloggers and into the bunker on Jamil Hussein. A lot of people are wondering why. Some other people are apparently trying to fall back on the "fake but accurate" mantra. "Iraq is a mess, so the details don't matter," appears to be the mantra.
Here is why this matters. Read this from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The reporter recognized a fundamental compact between journalists and the public: We try to get things right, and when we goof up, we’ll let you know as quickly and as honestly as we can.
The public doesn’t see newspapers, or other media, living up to that compact.
In a 1998 national survey for the Journalism Credibility Project, Urban & Associates found that nearly half of the public sees factual errors in their newspapers at least a few times a month. More than half noticed mistakes in spelling or grammar at least a few times a month.
“Each misspelled word, bad apostrophe, garbled grammatical construction, weird cutline and mislabeled map erodes public confidence in a newspaper’s ability to get anything right,” the report said.2
People also draw broad conclusions from factual mistakes. They may even ascribe motives.
“Even seemingly small errors feed public skepticism about a newspaper’s credibility,” said Christine Urban, president of Urban & Associates.3
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism list verification as one of nine elements of journalism.
“The essence of journalism is a discipline of verification.
“In the end, the discipline of verification is what separates journalism from other forms of communication — from entertainment, propaganda, fiction or art. … Journalism alone is focused first on getting it right.”4
No wonder members of the public are likely be skeptical of a newspaper’s broad commitment to the discipline of verification if they regularly see grammatical or factual errors in print.
Of course, newspapers will always contain errors.
They inevitably happen when a new employee arrives or someone in the newsroom takes on a new assignment. Or when the newspaper undergoes design or content changes. Or when news breaks out all over the place. Or when developments require new expertise — a war in a faraway place, a technological or scientific advancement, a new fad or trend — which is all the time.
But inevitability doesn’t account for every mistake. Errors also happen when newsroom staff members don’t have the training and resources they need to get it right. Or when staff members do not fully understand their responsibilities. Or when the copy desk is too overloaded to catch it all. Or when top editors don’t stress accuracy as a priority and spell out expectations. Then a fundamental value of journalism may be run over by the pressure to produce.
What I do here is commentary, not reporting. Not a lot happens here where I live that anyone, including the people involved in whatever incident I reported on, would find to be of any interest. But if a major news source is either fabricating news or using fictional sources to report the news, there is a major, major credibility problem. And it will damage the organization that produces it. The AP does not get that, or thinks the public doesn't. Bad bet either way.
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Adirondack Base Camp — December 28, 2006 @ 3:44 pm
By TC@LeatherPenguin, December 21, 2006 @ 3:01 am
They lost me when they started calling themselves “journalists.”
The proper term to describe someone in their position is “reporter.” A Reporter gives me “the 5 Dubyas
: Who What When Where What.”
Anything else is blarney.