Accuracy and fairness
Background Situation:
Washington Post’s journalist Steven Rich gave a speech about ins and outs of investigative Journalism on Oct.2th in Kern Building. Steven Rich has worked on investigations across several beats at the Washington Post, which including some sensational stories like college athletics, national security agency and school shootings. As part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting projects, Steven emphasized the importance of accuracy when the reporters access to information and deal with investigations. The rule of investigative reporting is the truth and credibility for the audience.
As a graduated student from Virginia Tech, Steven found his passion to journalism after his college life. He joked about his experience about applying Penn State and failed. The internship with the Washington Post started his journalism career.
Analysis:
Steven Rich considered sometimes it is difficult for the Post to figure out whether the information they received is true. In this way, The Post has its own strict guidelines to test the credibility and provide the most accurate news for the audience. Rich said, ” the Post has a rule that we won’t single source a single story. Our rule is looking to independently verify across several different sources….” This guideline help the Post to organize the sources and significantly improve the credibility of the origin sources. For instance, if there is only one person became the witness of a story, the Post will try to find other witness to confirm the story. Speculation should not exist in the news reporting. Accuracy and fairness are the essence of source investigation. It is journalist’s responsibility to verify information before releasing it. This is related to our class discussion. Since the internet and social media could spread ideas quickly, journalists should be alert for hoaxes and present the truth to inform the audience. “We can try to explain ourselves the best we can and do the best journalism we can, but people will have to come to us to some extent…… When they do come to us, we have to give them journalism that’s fair, accurate, verified and trustworthy.”(Gutierrez, 2018)
Steven Rich also mentioned about the essence of leaving unknown parts of the stories. It is better to acknowledge the unknown holes instead of making up stories. “My job is to lay put the facts and let people come to their own conclusions. ” Rich said. As a “beat reporter” in the Washington Post, Rich covers some specialized category of news: the police, national security, college athletes and so forth. Beats gets to know the newsmakers far better than general newsroom reporters who assigned the news and make a cold call on deadline. However, Rich still met some troubles when he collected sources and communicated with the witness. Some witnesses and police officer may provide incomplete information, so the reporter should gather, update and access the sources repeatedly in order to confirm the truthfulness and fairness. Sometimes leave some unknown part to the audience is better than fabricating the missing part. ” When there are fabricated Statements, false statements and inaccurate statements made, transparency- in the sense of showing evidence, showing work and showing the lines of reasoning- is a great way to rebut charges of fake news.” (Gutierrez,2018)
Conclusion:
The process of finding sources may be tough for the reporter, but it is worth to insist. Checking with multiple sources and minimize fabrication is important for good journalism, and these two key terms ” accuracy and fairness” echoes with our class lecture. Overall, The most important purpose of journalism is to provide information to help readers and viewers make decisions in their daily lives. Journalists strive to produce accurate, useful information that affects health, safety, money, education family and community. (Alison, 2018)
Reference:
Gutierrez. A. (2018) Truth in Transparency: Openness might help journalists bridge the trust gap. Vol.106 Issue1, p28-33
Alison.B. (2018) Dealing With Fake News In the Journalism Classroom Communication: Journalism Education Today Vol.51.Issue3, p11-20