Let’s make sure we put the blame where it belongs here: The nation’s media took an unconfirmed rumor of twelve survivors and made it into the Mining Miracle.
Some random person ran into a church and announced that twelve of the miners had survived. The bells rang. Cheering was heard. And the grapevine cranked into high gear.
Reportedly, a “stray cell phone communication” was overheard and taken by someone to be news that there were twelve survivors. Somehow that made it to the random and still-unidentified person who ran into the church.
And for three to four hours straight, without doing anything resembling journalism, the wires and newspapers and websites and television networks proclaimed the rumor as truth.
Now, the anchors on television ask how such a sudden reversal could have happened. “A stunning development,” said Anderson Cooper, “that I don’t think anyone could have possibly imagined.”
Well, I imagined it.
When the survival report first surfaced, you could tell that not one of these outlets had confirmation. No one did any reporting. No one had the balls to go on the air and say that they would not report the Mining Miracle because they had not heard any official and provable announcement.
It should never have been reported as fact. But they did it anyway.
And now, nowhere in the immediate aftermath of the truth coming out is anyone on the television news taking responsibility for their central role in the breakdown.
Update: The media is backpedalling as hard as they can to evade getting raked for this. To understand how, first we need this paragraph from an earlier CNN story.
A friend of one of the miners told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that a mine official had come out and said, “We got 12 alive!” The friend, who did not give his name, said rescue crews were then going into the mine.”
Just now on CNN, that same Anderson Cooper just retold that story — but with a telling twist. What the network previously relayed as being a “mining official” according to that family member now is being described as “someone from the mine or the mining area.”
Anderson, that’s the sort of distinction you shoujld have been chasing down four hours ago. You press the people who tell you things — yes, even if they are family members of miners in the midst of a trying experience — for clear identifcation of where they got their information.
And then, if you can’t confirm it. You don’t report it as fact. It’s called journalism, Anderson. Not to pick on you, of course. It’s the same everywhere on the news right now.
Backpedal. Cover your ass. But don’t by any means do some reporting. Or take responsibiity.
Update: Also over on CNN, suddenly one of their on-the-spot reporters is recalling all of these details of things that seemed off or not right in the period after she and everyone else parroted the news of survival.
Hey, lady, here’s some news: That’s the sort of shit you’re supposed to report at the time. If you’re going to be spreading unconfirmed rumors, at least also report the things that don’t seem to support the rumor.
What do you people train for? Apparently, for primping and preening for the cameras so you can look cool reporting live from the scene. You’re certainly not training to do your jobs.
Update: In terms newsies will understand: Why did you run — and run hard — with a story based on information from a single anonymous source?
That’s what this boils down to. Every outlet just committed an absolute cardinal journalistic sin.
Update: No escape for the media, after all? Theo’s public editor ends with the press: “But journalists also should be studying what broke down in their rush to report the news.”
I have been watching the reporting and I had the same thoughts as you about the reporting. The same reporters going on and on about how angry the victim’s family are that they were mislead “by everyone but us reporters, who are also victims” (my decription of their reporting).
Glad to see others picked up on the same sham reporting and their utterly clueless sense of responsibility.
And oh yeah, the story of the media responsibility in the added tragedy is already morphing while we speak.
A Bad Show all Around
I stayed up last night waiting for word of the trapped minors at the Sago Mine in W. VA. I’d been watching the whole saga unfold since it started Monday morning. Like everyone else I hoped for an outcome like we had in Quecreek nearly 4 years ago.
This is incredibly macabre news. There seems to have been quite a few underlying problems, with this mine and the industry as a whole that caused this incident.
The greater tragedy is that we still rely on an incredibly dirty fossil fuel to power our lives, when nuclear is both safer and renewable if used properly.
You can find all my reasons for preferring nuclear, as well as commentary about the Chinese coal situation (6500 deaths per year) at Earth Sentinel where you will also find peak oil, renewable energy, and climate change news.
Sure. Attributing the source is a practice that has become (yet another) downward spiral in media. “Some people feel…” “Many people believe…” — as opposed to referencing a poll; the abuse of the anonymous source; content out of context; — all of it, in 2006: Officially the Status Quo.
But this is to be expected. Standards take a second seat to a long list of Other American Priorities: sensationalism, bias, corporate manipulation (read: propaganda), etc. (that list is just too long to complete.)
And if we demand the equivalent of the hard-assed Editor in the newsrooms, whipping the journalists into shape – serving as the watchdog, the gatekeeper, or – Mere Man of Standards – then we shall be reduced to ‘romantics’.
Hell, maybe we are just being romantic, because today – right now — in virtually every newsroom across the country, the condensed sound bite in advertising (and certainly with any accompanying sensationalism!) is what sells, and runs as “news” these days – (read any headline). This happens as newspaper chains duke it out for clients and subscribers, while television news stations mimic and mime each other for higher ratings…and we romantics ask “why”?
Any properly jaded realist would respond that they have to. After all, they are competing amongst themselves for something no less lofty than the American Dream itself – well, that and an ever-larger piece of the American Pie.
The tragic part, really, is that with the exception of us romantics – (and this is really why Media continues on that downward spiral at all) —- is that Americans in general simply don’t care.
But hey, they cry on cue.
When you get down to it, journalism is basically all about verification. And what’s what all good reporters are supposed to do. When we hear something, we double-check the facts, and we scrutinize the source.
You say that there was no “official and provable announcement” about the miners’ fate that night. What more did you expect? You had the miners’ families telling reporters, “They’re alive!” You had the governor giving everyone a thumbs up. Surely those two groups are credible sources. After all, what do they have to gain by lying?
Back to my statement on verification…I believe many news outlets did the correct thing at the time, by noting that the mine company had not confirmed anything. But again, you’ve got the miners’ families and the governor telling you there’s 12 miners alive. If you were in a reporter’s shoes that night, what would you have done?
By reporting what the governor and the families had said, nobody committed an “absolute cardinal journalistic sin” that night. There’s a difference between getting bad information from credible sources and getting bad information from bad sources. When the truth was revealed, corrections were made on the spot.
What more did you expect?
You say that there was no “official and provable announcement” about the miners’ fate that night. What more did you expect? You had the miners’ families telling reporters, “They’re alive!” You had the governor giving everyone a thumbs up. Surely those two groups are credible sources. After all, what do they have to gain by lying?
It wasn’t about lying. It was about where they got there information — and on one in the press knew, but simply assumed they must have gotten their information from a credible source.
The question isn’t, “What do they have to gain from lying?” The question is, “Why did the press assume the information was valid?”
There’s a bunch of stuff about this, as it turns out over at Editor and Publisher, the editor of whom was on Countdown earlier offering similar criticisms.
There is no question that the press screwed up in this story: specifically, in dropping their attribution, they presented an “unconfirmed report” as truth. There’s no defending that error under normal circumstances.
This story, however, wasn’t a normal circumstance.
It’s one thing to go with the mysterious source who rushed into the church to tell the family that all twelve miners were rescued.
But they had two things working against them in the field:
First, they were doing their reports as church bells started ringing and family members came rushing by celebrating the good news they’d just received inside the church. There’s no way that you ignore that if it’s happening all around you.
Second, they got their “confirmation” from the governor — who unfortunately heard from the same source the family heard from (if not the families themselves). Who are you supposed to trust for official word at that point if you can’t trust the highest official in the state?
It would have been common sense that the families would be notified of the rescue first. It would be common sense that the governor, who would have had access inside the church AND at the command center, would have fairly reliable information from the scene itself. In this particular story, common sense was out the window.
But when you have the governor driving by your cameras saying something to the effect that “We got our miracles,” what, exactly, are you supposed to do? Ignore this completely, or report what you’re being told — now from an OFFICIAL source?
(And speaking of that “official source,” it was the governor himself who, earlier in the day, had stated that in West Virginia, they still believe in “miracles” and that they were hoping for another one. I think he had a hand in creating the “Miracle” through his earlier and subsequent soundbites.)
The media certainly should have waited until it got word from the mining company’s rescue team. But we all know what they say about hindsight. Given the circumstances, I can certainly understand how and why they trusted the governor’s “confirmation.”
And I frankly have to wonder why so few are criticizing with equal enthusiasm the mining company which has ACKNOWLEDGED that it allowed the families to erroneously believe for longer than it should have that all twelve men were safe.
Is the media trying to cover it’s butt? You bet. But with all due respect, I don’t think it’s fair to place ALL of the blame on them.
First, the media’s job is to ask the governor where he got his information. The governor wasn’t running in and out of the mine with firsthand knowledge of anything, and so job one of the press was to ask him why he was saying what he was, and make sure the answer was sound.
They didn’t do this.
Second, I don’t place all of the blame on the media. But the media is doing a very good job at reporting everyone else’s blame. So other people have to focus on reporting on theirs.
It was about where they got there information — and on one in the press knew, but simply assumed they must have gotten their information from a credible source.
Are you saying that the miners’ families and the state’s governor are not credible sources?
First, the media’s job is to ask the governor where he got his information. The governor wasn’t running in and out of the mine with firsthand knowledge of anything, and so job one of the press was to ask him why he was saying what he was, and make sure the answer was sound.
They didn’t do this.
Yes they did. A lot of reporters immediately went to the mining company to confirm what the families and governor had said. But the company did not immediately quash the rumors, or at least say, “Look, we can’t confirm this, so let’s hold on.” Hell, they admitted that they sat on the information for too long.
In the meantime, you’ve got church bells ringing and families talking about miracles because the governor told them the miners survived. Do you expect a reporter to ignore that?
Patrick states:
“And speaking of that ‘official source,’ it was the governor himself who, earlier in the day, had stated that in West Virginia, they still believe in “miracles” and that they were hoping for another one.”
According to the Society of Professional Journalists, the role of the journalist is to “Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.”
namenotneeded states:
”In the meantime, you’ve got church bells ringing and families talking about miracles because the governor told them the miners survived. Do you expect a reporter to ignore that?”
No. I don’t expect a reporter to ignore that information – I expect a reporter to be professional and test the accuracy of the ‘information’.
But alas, they opted for the soundbite. (big surprise.)