Reliable sources and getting it right
The course that information takes twists and turns sometimes. Occasionally, truth gets bruised along the way. This is one of those times.
On Tuesday, we reported on the accident that claimed the lives of two students at Southeast High. Wednesday, we quoted a Highway Patrol spokeman as saying that alcohol was found in the wrecked SUV. That information surprised reporter Allison Perkins, and she asked him a couple different ways about it to make sure she had the story right. The spokesman said he did not know whether any of the teenagers in the car had consumed the alcohol, and we quoted that, too.
Throughout the day, we received e-mails and phone calls from people upset that we had mentioned the possibility of alcohol being involved in the accident. We heard from people who claimed to know "for a fact" that a bottle had been found in the car, but that no one was drinking, or that the bottle belonged to someone else. We heard from the father of the driver who quoted doctors as saying that his son's body showed no signs of alcohol. The Highway Patrol hasn't confirmed that finding, yet.
And then we heard from another Highway Patrol spokesman that, in fact, no alcohol was found in the SUV, and that the earlier statement was incorrect.
Should we have published the story on Wednesday saying that alcohol had been found in the car? A Highway Patrol spokesman said they were investigating whether alcohol played a role in the deadly accident. We knew it could be painful to friends and family. But given the intense interest in the story, we felt we couldn't ignore it. As we discuss whether to publish news that may be hurtful or cause discomfort, the question that starts and ends the discussion is this: "What is the public service value of this information?" If the answer is insufficient, we don't publish.
We thought there was value in the information. There are many questions surrounding this accident that readers can only guess at and speculate about. As a worrisome parent of teenage drivers, I thought of some. Readers called us to ask others. Some of them, granted, aren't any of our business. Others may never be answered. But two teenagers are dead, and a community mourns. Many people ask why? Perhaps presenting a complete picture of the accident would help prevent similar occurences.
Some readers told us that we should not report anything until we know everything for sure. With an apparently definitive statement from the Highway Patrol, which is normally as reliable as you can get, that alcohol had been found, we had no reason to believe otherwise.
Our challenge is tell the truth and minimize harm to innocents. In stories such as this, that's difficult to do. I regret the Highway Patrol gave us incorrect information. And had we taken a close look at the accident report, in which alcohol is not mentioned, we might have pushed back harder on the spokesman.
Most of us at the paper connected with the story are parents. Our hearts go out to the families of all the teenagers in the SUV. It's truly a parent's nightmare to lose a child so young and so full of life in such tragic circumstances.
Update: Greensboro city editor Mark Sutter reminds me that our long-standing policy on fatal accidents is always to include whether alcohol was involved and whether victims were wearing seatbelts. We include the answers without fail. "That is specifically for the public service value of it -- that people die needlessly because of those two factors, and we need to make people aware of it."
Comments (9)
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I struggled with this issue. I wondered whether to blog about it myself. I thought carefully about my feelings about the N&R's reporting the information. I worked through feeling critical of the paper, but I didn't feel that way. This issue hits home. I have a 17 year-old daughter. So, I tried to think about how I would feel if I'd read that about my daughter, knowing (or even NOT knowing) it was not true. I cannot BEGIN to be able to know how those parents must feel. I ache for them. I think the paper was responsible in its coverage. The mistake was not yours. Once the mistake was discovered, you made the correction. If the parents are angry at you, just accept it, because, I think you'd feel the same way. And you NEVER want to find that out.
Posted on March 3, 2005 9:01 PM
If newspapers would heed the advice of my grandfather there would be no need for corrections or people injured by assumptions.
His advice was: "Speak of what you KNOW, KNOW of what you speak, the rest of the time be quiet, you might learn something." (actually granddaddy was a little more blunt, he actually said SHUT UP you might learn something.)
Posted on March 4, 2005 10:28 AM
I think the paper handled it the right way. The trooper who made the statement knew he was talking to a reporter and knew what a reporter does and if he didn't feel 100 percent sure of his information and 100 percent sure it was something that should show up in the newspaper the next day, he should have held it close to his chest.
Posted on March 4, 2005 1:14 PM
I don't have any problem with the Wednesday story reporting what you were told by the Highway Patrol. As you say they are usually as reliable as you can get.
My problem is with the Thursday "correction" story.
Why didn't you headline that story with a headline of equal weight as the Wednesday story? Something like "No Alcohol Found in SUV" or "Highway Patrol was Wrong....".
It seemed to me the headline "Highway Patrol revises accident report" was a little slack as some people only scan the headlines to get their news. To them their pre-conceived notions were verified with the Wednesday headline that alcohol was involved.
With the "Highway Patrol revises report" headline, they probably still don't know that it was a correction and that alcohol was not found in the SUV.
Posted on March 4, 2005 4:49 PM
In an ideal world, you're exactly right. We would have put the second article in the exact same place with the same headline size and simply made the headline a contradiction of the first day.
In the real world, you point about the wording of the headline is well-taken. You're right.
For the record, from day to day, designs change, based on the photography and the weight of the other stories. And there are many ways to measure weight simply the words in the headline. The first day story took up two columns; second day took five. First day was higher on the page than second day. In the end, the point size of the headlines were pretty close.
It is true that some people simply read headlines. It's a shame, too.
Posted on March 4, 2005 4:58 PM
although i think it is good that you placed your comments on this internet site, you should also publish it in the paper. many of your readers do not have access to a computer to read your comments. In the southeast part of the county, we all grieve for the loss of these two fine young adults. We can only move on, and hope that a lesson is learned.
Posted on March 12, 2005 7:20 AM
You should as a matter of policy always print all corrections and retractions in the same space and type size as the first article. Concerning the teenagers, You were just plain wrong to publish this and it amazes me why you did. How did this serve the public interest?
Posted on March 12, 2005 8:11 AM
I am Lauren Marion's grandmother and I am very frustrated at all of the news reporting regarding this very tragic accident. I feel that you should respond in the newspaper, on the front page with Big Headlines regarding the wrong information you received from the Highway Patrol. Our granddaughter stated from the beginning that there was no alcohol involved, therefore we knew there was not, but it was very upsetting to read your incorrect headlines.
Posted on March 12, 2005 8:58 AM
Every day law enforcement officials, school principals, city and county managers and other public officials tell us things. Because of their positions of authority and knowledge, we accept and report what they say. Many times, we can't verify the information first-hand.
In this case, we had a state trooper telling us that alcohol was found in the car and that they were investigating whether it was involved in the accident. This wasn't an anonymous source; this was a spokesman with the investigating agency. We had no evidence that the trooper was mistaken. He certainly didn't indicate any uncertainty to us. Not reporting this information about an accident in which two teenagers were killed would have been irresponsible. The next day, as soon as the Highway Patrol rescinded the story, we ran a follow-up story saying that.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens more often than we'd like. For instance -- and I know this is a trivial incident compared with the accident -- Chris Paul hit Julius Hodge in the groin and tells the news media that he didn't do it; they just got tangled up. When replays showed what actually happened, he acknowledged that he hit Hodge and apologized.
Sometimes the information we print is hurtful. We know that and we don't publish lightly. But in this case, two members of the community had been killed and we thought information about the accident was important to communicate.
Posted on March 12, 2005 9:36 AM