WBA NewsroomI remember watching a local news telecast on a morning several months ago and seeing a story about the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. I knew the story was wrong, because the rumor of Hefner’s death had been de-bunked the day before, but not until the story had been “out there” for several hours. After a commercial break, the TV news anchor apologized for the story on Hef’s death, saying it was apparently an internet rumor. I can only imagine how embarrassed the young anchor must have felt, after learning from a producer or somebody fielding the scores of viewer calls that must have poured in during the 3-minute commercial break, saying “Hef’s alive and well – you guys fell for a rumor!”
In this fascinating column from former TV News Director Forrest Carr, he puts the year that TV news started reporting rumors – or, worse still, rumors of rumors – as 1998, when Grudge reported a rumor of a rumor that the President of the United States had a sexual relationship with a White House intern. The story got tremendous pickup, and was on “mainstream” broadcast news outlets a short time later.
Do you go with a story because “it’s out there?” Should you? After all, it was TMZ that actually broke the story of Michael Jackson’s death. But it seems for every story like that, there’s another from some website that’s totally untrue, like the story of Hugh Hefner’s death.
At what point does your newsroom decide a story is “real”?
Tom Bier, who is station manager at WISC-TV in Madison, and has had a distinguished career in TV news, used to give a seminar to various civic groups about the process of deciding when a story becomes news. When he talked about reporting on crimes, he’d ask the attendees when it was appropriate to begin reporting on alleged criminal activity. Often times, with some subtle pushing from Tom, the attendees would come to a consensus that because a person’s reputation is at stake, the news should not report on alleged crimes until the person charged was actually found guilty by a jury.
Tom would then say something along the lines of “in other words, we should never have reported a single word about O. J. Simpson, when he was charged with the murder of his ex-wife.” It must have been fun to watch the reaction of the seminar attendees at that point.
The point is this: do old-school Journalism standards still apply – or, do you go with a story “because it’s out there”. It’s a debate which should be held in every broadcast newsroom.
(This post written by Tim Morrissey)