When the story is wrong
Robin Lindner, a reporter with WXII interviewed me about the story on our front page today headlined "12 miners alive after 41 hours." Like many papers east of the Rockies, the story on the front page was tragically, tragically wrong. We regret that.
It's an awful thing when we report news that changes on us between the time we go to press and the time you get the paper. When that story truly involves life and death, the effect is multipled.
Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher wrote: In one of the most disturbing and disgraceful media performances of this type in recent years, television and newspapers carried the tragically wrong news late Tuesday and early Wednesday that 12 of 13 trapped coal miners in West Virginia had been found alive and safe. Hours later they had to reverse course, often blaming the mix-up on "miscommunication."
Our final edition story, by a Knight Ridder reporter, starts this way: Jubilant relatives of 12 trapped men in a West Virginia coal mine said late Tuesday that they had been found alive, a miraculous turn of events more than 41 hours after a blast had killed one miner and left the others' fates unknown.
Bells at the Sago Baptist Church near the mine complex rang as people declared,"They're alive!" On relative said a mine foreman had told the families that their loved ones had been found.
The loss of life is tragic and the erroneous information is unfortunate, to say the least. But it is not "one of the most disturbing and disgraceful media performances." Mitchell says papers should have pursued "proper sources." In fact, the relatives did say the miners had been found alive and bells did ring out. The governor did say "They told us they have 12 alive." Oh, how I wish the governor and the relatives had been right.
When we went to press, a little after 1 a.m., the story was correct. Or, rather, it reported what people were saying. We weren't there, of course, but I would consider the relatives and the governor as proper sources. In retrospect, they weren't. By the time the truth about the miners' fate came out, our press run was complete.
Should reporters on the scene have done more reporting, trying to pin down someone who truly knew? Yes, of course, but that's easy to say from the comfort of an office. Had one of our reporters been there, I doubt that we would have demanded other sourcing at that time of the night. Should we have waited to publish, even as all of our wire services were reporting the same thing? No, although I wish we had. I don't know how we could have been so prescient.
But in the end, the story we published was wrong and we feel sick about that.
Comments (9)
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Your post is disappointing. Jubilant family members and church bells ringing are not primary sources -- even in retrospect. The Governor passing on hearsay is slightly more probative, but not enough. The press failed to use primary sources in precisesly the kind of high profile, chaotic situation where it is most necessary. You seemed not to have learned the lesson and I'm glad E&P did.
Posted on January 4, 2006 4:13 PM
I can't see how anyone could hold the N&R accountable in this instance as you simply ran the wire story. Now had it been a N&R story I might think different.
That said: I think news outlets everywhere need to keep this in mind when they send stories to their press room or to the wire services.
Posted on January 4, 2006 6:01 PM
Billy - Of course the N&R isn't accountable. John went miles beyond that in affirming the propriety of the incorrect sources, even in retrospect. His post reads to me like an invitation to watch CNN and forget about my newspaper. John doubts he would have demanded other sourcing, even in retrospect. Well shame on him. That is a reporter's time. Chaos on the ground. A million voices. Lack of clarity. High emotions. That's when a journalist conducts journalism. Of course I don't blame John or the News & Record for the error. I'm just disappointed his aim is so ground-level low.
Posted on January 4, 2006 6:21 PM
Whatever happened to the dictum that if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out? Apparently reporters did not ask the family members how they knew what they knew and then follow it back. The Governor's comment, given in jubilation, not at a press conference where follow-up questions could be asked, cannot be taken as verification. And no one bothered to ask the officials who were actually working on the rescue. The excuses don't pass the smell test.
Posted on January 5, 2006 1:40 PM
The sad part about this story about this miscomunication was in the wire story itself. It stated that the mine/rescue operators "did not" condfirm the story that they were alive, but most headlines jumped on the "good news" of what they were hearing and seeing. The event was not the worst thing to happen to newspapers, but it revealed bias as the media went with what it had hoped, instead of what it knew.
Posted on January 5, 2006 10:53 PM
What this is really all about is a misplaced faith in an anachronistic religion that is completely false, there is no God, folks, and even more, Jesus was not any Messiah, get over that too. But the people there believe in this make believe God so much, and even the media, that they could not see the truth. They never will. Religion has corrupted this country to a very deep sad level. Corrupted not in a sense of financial corruption, but in the sense of intellectual spirital corruption. This kind of story will happen again in places where people place their innocent child like faith in a fake god who does not even exist. Get over it already!
Posted on January 6, 2006 7:12 AM
I thought you were much more handsome with it.
Posted on January 6, 2006 2:26 PM
What strikes me about this is two things: 1) how utterly commonplace the issue is, and 2) how utterly rare the media's response has been.
The media have a supply chain problem. Like hundreds of thousands of businesses, they make a promise to their clients/customers which depends in part on circumstances outside their direct control. In this case, the promise is to readers that they will get the story right.
There was chaos at the scene. They got bad information. Forgive me if I say boo-hoo. Like thousands of Greensboro business people, I have to account to my clients a dozen times a day for problems not my own. I tell them I'm sorry and that it won't happen again. Then, I do my best to establish systems and safeguards to make sure it doesn't.
I am unimpressed by the N&R's and the larger media establishment's failure to do the same.
Posted on January 6, 2006 2:39 PM
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it best:
"The media are more interested in getting it first than getting it right."
Posted on January 6, 2006 11:39 PM