What are the limits of the 24-hour breaking news cycle?
Media outlets must ensure that their reporting is accurate and factual instead of chasing scoops.
Alan Hung | Daily Trojan
This highlights a glaring problem of the 24-hour news cycle: The media has abandoned its fundamental responsibility to report accurately. But what’s so mystifying about this abdication of duty is that it is pointlessly self-destructive.
People turn to news sources for information. They are looking for facts and they are looking for the truth, particularly during times of crisis. In the eyes of many, the media fails when it disseminates inexact information.
Journalist David Grann said on Twitter, “History does not remember if you reported something first by two minutes. It does remember if you got it wrong.” As an institution that is based on reporting the facts, news media shouldn’t need to be reminded of this.
Yet, for some reason, it’s still a problem.
Part of this has to do with the financial pressures that news media face — particularly in the hyper-competitive atmosphere of 24/7 reporting. Newspapers and news networks are businesses and therefore face constant pressures to remain profitable. And these profits relate directly to the size of their audiences. So the guiding idea seems to have become that if an outlet is always first to break a story, then that outlet will generate the greatest profit and attention.
In theory, this seems logical enough, but in practice this has not proven to be the case.
Instead, it is a mindset that has failed repeatedly and weakened journalism as an institution. A report published by the Pew Research Center in 2009 reveals a steady decline in peoples’ belief that news media “gets the facts straight.” As of 2009, this number was at a staggeringly low 29 percent.
Counterarguments hold that in times of crisis, it’s inevitable that a story will change as new information becomes available. During such emergencies, it is not necessary that every little detail be accurate, but that people at least understand what immediate dangers still exist.
But the erroneous arrest reports from last Wednesday failed at even this basic level.
Within an hour of CNN “breaking” the story, the FBI issued a press release reprimanding the media for these false reports. It concluded the press release with the following request: “Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.”
By falsely telling the public that an arrest had been made, the media put the public in danger. It told them that the threat that had been hanging over the country’s head for two days had been removed when really, it hadn’t.
Besides that, the media has failed at reporting even in non-crisis situations. During the Supreme Court’s 2012 review of Obamacare, CNN and Fox News mistakenly reported that a key portion of the bill had been overturned. In the rush to be first, they reported the exact opposite of what had happened.
Following the false arrest reports on Wednesday, Jon Stewart delivered a scathing criticism of CNN, concluding the opening segment of that night’s Daily Show by describing it as “the human centipede of news.”
In the age of 24/7 news and the race to grab scoops, this is what the news media has been reduced to, and everybody — including the media themselves — is suffering for it.
Sonali Chanchani is a sophomore majoring in English and narrative studies.
Journalists have a responsibility to spread news as quickly as possible to educate the public on important events.
Alan Hung | Daily Trojan
Several news outlets, including CNN, the Associated Press, The Boston Globe and Fox News reported that a suspect was in custody last Wednesday before police captured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and charged him on Monday.
Journalists should and usually are accurate, but timeliness is a vital part of news stories, both in order to be competitive and as a practical matter.
Of course, the value of a news agency is to give people good information in a timely manner. Judging the quality of information can be difficult, but most of the time, journalists at these organizations get it right. News organizations, after all, gain positive reputations only through accurate and relevant reporting.
But breaking the news, giving audiences information as quickly as possible, is what gives news value.
When law enforcement issues a press release, journalists can generally assume that the information is sound. At the same time, press releases during times of crisis often do not come out very quickly and often do not answer the most critical questions, especially compared to the unique information a reliable source can offer.
Journalists use their judgement to determine if sources in or familiar with organizations and investigations can give good information. And, if they get it wrong, they need to re-evaluate what happened.
It’s also important to spread information quickly in times of turmoil. People around the U.S. and world knew within minutes that a bombing had occurred in Boston and were able to contact people they care about to find out if they were safe. In 1815, the Battle of New Orleans was fought several weeks after the U.S. and England had signed a treaty ending the War of 1812. Of course, that was nearly 200 years ago and this would never happen today, but it shows that the quick spread of information is useful.
News organizations also work to quickly put out information in order to prevent the spreading of rumors. When bad information is put out, this utility is countered. But, this isn’t what happens most of the time.
And news organizations should compete with each other. Though news aims to be objective, one outlet by itself cannot be purely objective, and having multiple news outlets mitigates the bias of individual reporters or news organizations within society.
A society that only allows for news to come from official agencies will not be able to hold those agencies accountable when they mess up. The Los Angeles Times would never have found corruption in the city of Bell if they only reported on the government’s press releases.
Sure, history will not remember who broke the story first, but the people who are currently consuming news do.
Newspapers get money by breaking news and getting scoops on important issues. People turn on their TVs and read articles online to find out what is happening, and new information (or the reputation of getting new information) increases an audience, which increases the revenue news organizations get from advertisers.
Journalists should and must do their due diligence to report accurate information. At the same time, mistakes can happen in journalism just as they can happen anywhere else.
CNN’s John King, one of the reporters involved in the spread of inaccurate information, is aware of this. He told a local radio station, “I was involved in that. It’s not walking back, it’s correcting it. You have to do that, and it’s embarrassing.” He also said that, “In this case we had two reputable sources — one of mine, one of a colleague of mine — who have been reliable in the past, who simply had bad information. We had two — you never do that with one — and we went with it, and we had to correct it.”
Sometimes, facts are going to be wrong. News organizations must do everything in their power to prevent this, but sometimes reliable sources turn out to be not so reliable. What’s important is how these news organizations look at their errors and work to ensure they don’t happen again.
Rachel Bracker is a junior majoring in linguistics. She is also a managing editor of the Daily Trojan.