"Speed Reporting" piece from Jan. 22 Editor & Publisher
Another important real-world lesson for our students, yes? ELW
Heath Ledger Tragedy Reveals New World of 'Speed Reporting'
By
E&P Staff
NEW YORK Already the media have found at
least two dozen angles to approach the sudden death of actor Heath
Ledger in New York City today. The Los Angeles Times entertainment
blog, Web Scout, used the occasion to look at the way the news emerged,
almost in "real time."
The Times now reports on its site, pointing to the
danger, "that preliminary reports that pills were found scattered
around Ledger's body" were "inaccurate."
Here is part of the posting at www.latimes. com
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If you watched the story of Heath Ledger’s death
explode chaotically across the Internet, with facts, errors,
inconsistencies and confusions flying every which way, you may have
concluded that in the new digital media’s race to break stories in
minutes, accuracy has been left in the dust.
Chief among the media’s switchbacks was the early
non-fact that Ledger’s death had taken place at the New York apartment
of Mary-Kate Olsen. Celebrity news site TMZ.com and even the New York
Times' City Room blog reported this piece of misinformation before they
unreported it.
Importantly, however, neither the New York Times nor
TMZ got it wrong. It was the NYPD spokesman who had the story mixed up
— the media were simply parroting incorrect information.
When the spokesman later corrected himself, the sites rushed to update the story, but readers were critical of the changes.
“TMZ is in such a rush to break the news,” one commenter wrote, echoing dozens of others, “that they are usually wrong first.”
But here’s the problem: Stories have never arrived to
the world fully formed or vetted. Journalists have generally had hours
— not minutes or seconds — to craft a story from the blast wave of
facts and factoids that comes in the wake of a bombshell.
What people are seeing now is an old-fashioned process
— reporting — as it unfolds in real time. If the public wants its
information as raw and immediate as possible, it'll have to get used to
a few missteps along the way, and maybe even approach breaking stories
with a bit of skepticism, like a good reporter would.
www.editorandpublisher.com