"The toxicity of scoops"
"Some newspaper people seem to regard beating the competition as the opposable thumb of journalism, an essential characteristic that distinguishes winners from losers. I think it's more like a tailbone, a vestigial remnant from the era when reporters were still swinging from the trees -- that distant time when New York had eight daily papers, and newsboys in knickers prowled the streets shouting "Extra!" whenever their papers had something the other guys didn't."
That's Dan Okrent, the public editor of The New York Times. He's writing about the newspaper tradition of rushing to publish scoops (registration required). The peg is another Times embarrassment in which the paper had been given a one-day lead on a story as long as it agreed not to "seek reaction from other interested parties."
Oops.
Okrent doesn't much like the scoop culture, and who can blame him when the media does so many goofy things? My favorite was week before last when a FoxNews anchor announced the death of the pope a day early.
We at the News & Record are not only interested in scoops, but we're proud of them. So proud, in fact, that we announce them with labels that read "News & Record exclusive." We "borrowed" the idea from The Charlotte Observer.
As Okrent points out, the electronic media has taken over the breaking news beat. But local enterprise reporting pretty much remains with print and the occasional tenacious blogger. And that's why we label our exclusives. We think it's important to signal to readers that they won't find the story elsewhere. As we emphasize investigative reporting more, these scoops differentiate us from our competitors. (That glow of a scoop only lasts for a few hours before television anchors pick it up and read it into the camera with such authority you'd think they reported it themselves. But I'm not bitter.:))
We occasionally get information from news sources early, with the sole restriction being an embargoed publication date. We don't accept any hindrance on our reporting. We make this deal rarely because it isn't offered that often and because we know there is a decent chance we can get the story on our own terms.
We get scooped, too. With three competing weeklies, four local television stations and a cadre of bloggers, it's a tough news environment out there. On the other hand, it's a big tent. The more scoops produced by everyone, the better. That means that more information is getting out before the public, information that probably someone somewhere would just as soon remain under a rock.
Of course, the scoop has to be right.