Friday, August 31, 2007
Can I get a retraction?
I could hear my name being said as I walked through the door of my office this morning."There she is," one of my coworkers said. "Talia, did you write this story?"
The story, was a throwaway brief I wrote after being in court for more than 2 hours the morning prior. The case I'd been there for had been rescheduled, but that info didn't come out until after I'd already waited around.
"Yeah, why," I mutter.
"Bob is on the phone," said the office assistant.
Expletive.
I walked to my desk as my coworker grabbed a copy of today's edition for me to read. I didn't bother to look at it before I picked up the phone.
Bob didn't mince words.
"Are you going to print a retraction," he asked. "Because that story is false. I was never supposed to be in court yesterday. That date had been rescheduled weeks ago."
I sighed and turned to the story.
"Well, sir, I was there yesterday," I began. "Your name was on the trial calendar and they called your name twice. Additionally, a lawyer who said he was speaking on your behalf told the court that you were supposed to meet him in the courtroom. That you would be there. After we waited a while, I saw the lawyer preparing to leave and asked him what was going on. That's when he told me the date was rescheduled for October."
He told me that was untrue. That there was no one there representing him.
"This article reads like I'm a criminal," he said. "Like I intentionally disobeyed the court. It's damning."
Maybe, I said. But it's also true.
"Bob, I was there," I said. "I wrote what I saw. I didn't write it to be mean or to be unfair. But the court apparently expected you to be there because they continued to ask for you a number of times. I apologize I didn't get the lawyer's name, but there was someone there who said he was waiting for you."
I denied another request for a retraction before he hung up. I picked up the paper and read the article. The copy desk had taken out my explainer about the unnamed lawyer speaking on Bob's behalf. But the story still read true.
But in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think that I should have done more reporting. I should have gotten that lawyers name. I should have asked him when and why they decided to continue the proceedings. I should have called Bob for a comment as to why he didn't show up (though he changed his phone number). I should have done more.
Next time, I will.
Labels: corrections, lazy reporting, lessons
continue...Tuesday, August 21, 2007
I've got the Wikipedia blues
I finally got on the phone with a high-level Major League Baseball team executive today, after days and days of trying him with no luck.The guy calls me out of nowhere and I was almost caught with my pants down.
Literally. I just got out of the bathroom.
I left a message with him two weeks ago about an "online published report" that I read about his team's interest in a particular player whose name you'll figure out when the story runs. I couldn't remember if it was a newspaper report, MLB.com, or ESPN -- all I knew was that it was published. And that it was a report. Online.
It was friggin' Wikipedia.
So right in the middle of the interview, I remembered that it I'd read this information on Wikipedia, and hit myself in the head for basing my entire set of questions based on what was likely bad information I read on that website.
So he's going into something about how he gets information on players outside of his region and drops the big one on me.
"Darren, where'd you read this report?" he says.
"You know, I was just thinking about that.."
I was stalling. I wasn't going to give up my sources. No matter how flimsy they may be.
"Because we don't usually comment on these type of speculation stories, but I was just curious. No problem. Hey Darren, take it easy."
"Zip it up, and zip it out."
OK, it would have been pretty cool if I added the the zippy part (Dave Chappelle for the clueless), but I didn't. I just hung up, and added wikipedia.org to the sites I'm not allowed to visit in Mozilla.
Labels: Chappelle stand up genius, lazy reporting, lessons
continue...Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Come correct
I've never had a correction.*Knocks on wood*
I've never had a correction, and that's probably because I haven't had to report a great deal of stories that require me to fetch multi-layered, complex information. I'll get back to that.
Because in high school, I didn't see what the big deal was about a correction. So, you got something wrong in a story. Big deal.
Michael Holley, then of the Boston Globe, pretty much told me that because I'm African-American and a male that I had to be extra careful. Check everything. Three times.
"Here's the deal about corrections," he told me, chomping a ketchup-drenched french-fry at T. Anthony's in Boston. "With each one, you lose your credibility as a journalist. And all you have as a journalist is your credibility."
I'm 23 and I have never, to my knowledge, so much as spelled a person's name wrong in a story. Does this mean I'm overdue? I was pondering that thought this afternoon while reporting a story about an East Quogue, NY resident who makes birdhouses and signs out of salvaged materials from demolished houses. He mentioned rackling some materials from a mansion that I can't say for sure has ever existed on Long Island, save for a few random allusions that come up when you do a Google search. I wasn't satisfied.
My paper's (you can guess what paper that is by now, no?) library told me to take a look at a book called The Mansions of Long Island's Gold Coast. I looked on the book's accompanying website and still didn't find it.
I had the perfect, or perhaps, imperfect formula: relying upon local histories and a bad Google search. I wasn't willing to chance it, especially when I know that there are niche experts hanging around who recite the names of these things at wine tastings in the Hamptons for fun. Show me a correction and I'll show you a shaky foundation, source or story idea.
In the past I would have taken the entire graf in question out before my editor ever saw it. That habit probably has something to do with why I have never had a correction run that I was responsible for. But I'm going to report this one out. Why?
I've come to think a correction can serve as a rite of passage, and whether you've had one or not, going around trying to avoid them isn't going to make you a better reporter. (Let the church say -- ) But, then I read this quote from Don Wycliff, formerly Public Editor of the Chicago Tribune. And I have second thoughts.
"We had some disagreement about how to treat corrections, about how to handle reporters that make [a] number of errors," he said in comment published on Poynter.org, in which he then did what is known as keeping it real: "If you make more than your share of corrections, no matter who you are, you're in deep shit."
Labels: corrections, deep doo-doo, lazy reporting
continue...Wednesday, June 06, 2007
So and so did not respond to messages left on Facebook.com.
So I was getting desperate to track down this college football player that had gotten into a little trouble with the cops. My editor said it was impossible to get him on the phone, but to try anyway. I would have been happy to get his brother on the phone. Or his cousin.Or his dog.
I had no luck with his HS coach, whom I presume was fielding calls all day and wasn't interested in talking.
So I went the Mark Zuckerberg way.
Sending messages to people you actually know on Facebook is, at best, an inexact science; it lies somewhere in between complimenting a girl as your first line when you approach her, and life being akin to a box of chocolates: you really never know what you're gonna get.
So the fact that I didn't know this cat from a hole in the wall didn't do me any good.
I wouldn't recommend this as a standard effective reporting practice, but I will say that it worked. I got a contact that will lead me to the player in question, and if we run something else about him, I will most definitely be using those digits.
Thanks, Mark.
P.S. -- Anybody mad about this?
Labels: Facebook, lazy reporting
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