We discussed this morning a hypothetical scenario about a sports reporter persuading his newspaper to publish a story about rumors that a college boosters were bestowing expensive gifts on a big-time college quarterback. While we were touching on this hypothetical, a real scenario was lighting up blog comments and the campaign trail, a scenario eerily like our hypothetical. It makes the John McCain-lobbyist scandal the perfect followup to our discussion.
Here’s the skinny: The New York Times published a story this week using unnamed sources to call McCain’s ethics into question regarding a female lobbyist with whom McCain was quite chummy.
Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post provides a digest of the events of the Times’s approach, including a link to McCain defending himself on CBS, and a roundup of criticism of the coverage.
The Seattle Pilot-Intelligencer chose not to run the Times coverage because its editors were uncomfortable with the unnamed sources as the basis for the story, because the reporting was “seriously flawed.” The era of “trust me” journalism is over, wrote Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of The Elements of Journalism, which our Friend & Singer book quotes from quite a bit. (BTW, the Seattle paper’s story, “Why we didn’t run the McCain story,” is a good example of transparency, showing readers how the paper made its decision.)
Some questions for us:
- Does it in fact appear that the New York Times compromised or sacrificed its own “discipline of verification” in getting this story out, knowing The Washington Post and other competitors were working on similar stories?
- How much of a factor do you believe the Internet and the 24×7 news cycle was in pressuring the Times to run the story?
- How uncomfortable should we as readers be of coverage so dependent on unnamed sources?
- How significant is the Seattle paper’s decision not to run the coverage and then, subsequently, to pull the veil back for its readers in explaining exactly why? Is this a model for other news organizations?
And of course, as your own, as well.
Speaking of transparency, the Times’s writers and editors answered questions about the controversy over its McCain coverage, coverage that as of Saturday morning had generated 2,430 reader posts (wow!).
And some related links:
February 22, 2008 at 3:49 pm |
I do think the New York Times compromised itself by rushing to get this story out without fishing for a source willing to put its name on a quote. Like I said this morning, you need atrribution, you need a source willing to go on record to make stories like these work because otherwise it’s all hearsay and people covering their backsides by hiding behind a veil of anonymity. While it can be said that a good amount of journalism comes down to hearsay from sources, they’re sources willing to attach their name to the information they provide and the information can be back up using other sources. Here, it seems like they just wanted to stay one jump ahead of the competition, disregarding their own verification processes in the process. I think this is directly the result of the 24×7 news cycle because they have to publish now or runt he risk of losing the story, whereas, before the 24×7 nes cycle, they would have had a little more time to research and verify.
It’s great that the Seattle paper decided not to run the story, but still felt the need to explain why. It gives people who have read the NYT srticle can now see why running the story may have been a bad idea or at least see what information there is so that they can make their own decisions about whether or not the story merits publishing or if the facts are eventhere to make a judgement either way. It also protects the Seattle paper from allegations that they aren’t “keeping up with the Joneses” as it were by postig the story as well. They have explained why the story was not worth publishing and, if people want to read it, they can got to the New York Times to check it out.
I’m very glad to see that the Seattle paper decided not to runt he story because it shows that they were thinking critically and not just salivating over the prestige of breaking a big sotry early. They cared about the impact this story might have on the parties involved if it turned out to be false and put their verification guidelines and decency before their desire to be first to the story.
February 23, 2008 at 4:59 pm |
I think it’s tempting for any newspaper to want to be the first to print a juicy story, and I can understand the urgency that the New York Times must have been feeling knowing that many other papers would want to report about the same thing. However, I do believe that with this urgency does come a lack of verification on facts and detail that is essential for the reader to know. The readers have a right to know the truth, and I do think that the New York Times thought it secondary to approve all the facts when their primary goal was to release the news as fast as they could. Like someone said in our discussion yesterday (using the Heath Ledger story as an example), the public would much rather get the news a few hours later and be reading accurate material than to be lead astray with false facts just so that the publishers could get the news
out quicker. This is damaging to the public, especially if the information is crucial enough to be fact-checked.
Also, I believe that the 24/7 factor was a huge reason why the Times printed the story when they did. I think they take pride in knowing that they have the ability to get news out to the public quickly and I think sometimes they worry too much about keeping their reputation than working a little extra to make sure a story is valid.
Depending on what the actual story is, I do think that readers need to be extremely weary of unnamed sources. A story becomes appealing to a reader not only because of the content but because of how valid or trustworthy a source seems to be. In the McCain story for example, if someone who is known to be extremely trustworthy about the happenings of McCain’s life because he has access to much more information than other sources, he might seem more reliable to readers. His information might seem more appealing and trustworthy. However, if there was an unnamed source that was used in a story who had juicy information, (even as juicy as the information might be) a reader would have a harder time believing the reliability of the source, especially if the source chose to remain anonymous. I think we all need to be weary of that.
I agree more on what Seattle’s paper did in response to the story because (like other papers, they also know the readers enjoy juicy stories) but they waited until they had received the factual information about McCain before running the story. I do not think this is a very common response for most news papers, but I do think it should be a model for how the system should work. Papers such as the New York Times may have been some of the first papers to publish the information, but I believe that readers were probably thankful to receive a paper (even if it was a little later on) that was much more accurate about what they wanted to know. If papers are only concerned about when their papers are released and not so much on the readers, then they are not respecting their responsibilities to the public to provide them with accurate information. If it takes a little longer to do so, I think that is worth it to the readers, if only to show the pubic the respect they deserve as far as giving them information that effects their lives and decisions.
February 24, 2008 at 2:45 pm |
So both Caitie and Rebekah seem to agree with Rosenstiel’s statement that the era of “trust-me” journalism is over. Show us the money; show us the sourcing.
Two more thoughts. One of the reporters on the McCain story quit the Times over this story. No, not because the Times rushed it to print without getting better sources. She quite because the Times took far too long, in the reporter’s view, to vet the copy. To apply its discipline of verification. She returned to her previous employer, The Washington Post. I’m sure this is an oversimplification of what went down, but the point here is that there was/is a discipline of verification.
This leads me to the second thought: What would we make of this story if instead of appearing at the New York Times Web site it ran on a blog, where perhaps we wouldn’t expect strict adherence to the discipline of verification? How would our reactions to it vary? Would there be a controversy? What do these differences say about blogs and information from independent sites as opposed to mainstream news media sites? Should there be this kind of difference or gap? The book suggests that it is this difference that underlines the continuing importance of the craft of journalism in a digital age.
February 24, 2008 at 6:22 pm |
The NYT stopped thinking about its readers and put beating out other papers as its main prioriety. The topic seems like something that would appear in a gossip magazine or a celebrity tabloid. It’s even hard to keep up with who said what when attribution is nothing but “said a former aide,” “said a former campaign manager.” Ananomyous sources are risky: how do we know that these people don’t have reason to sabatoge McCain or want revenge on him for some reason. Maybe they’re sitting somewhere laughing at the fact that the NYT bought their lies.
February 24, 2008 at 6:55 pm |
Yes, the NYT compromised it’s “discipline of verification” by printing this story with few reliable sources; I also feel they were pressed by the emergence of 24/7 news cycle.
On another note (and this fact was pointed out by other sources linked), the story starts out with somewhat–read between the lines–of an allegation of a romantic relationship and then that fact does not come up again until much later in the article. It seems to me that the piece would have done justice without the speculations of a romantic relationship.
However, in the Times defense, there have been many stories published using anonymous stories that have benefited the public.
To Dr. Carroll’s other thoughts: I think if the story had appeared on a blog, we would not hold it to the same traditional print standards and our (or at least mine) reactions would not have been an attack on the NYT’s editor’s judgment.
February 24, 2008 at 7:13 pm |
I couldn’t believe this, so I read the story twice just to make sure that I didn’t miss something the first time. Why in the world is this “story” front page material? Where is the news value here? This, to me, is the biggest issue here, and I believe that the Times showed its hand by running this piece.
Reading the linked sources really clarified the argument. The story begins as a quite comprehensive narrative that could almost read like the beginning of a novel about a politiican. Not until para. 41 are we told that the sources were two former associates. That isn’t enough for me. Since this is the NYT they can’t speculate or hint at who these people are like a blog might be able to coyly do, so the reader is left to decide if this is enough. If there actually is material worth releasing in this story, then the sources should have been willing to go on the record. Nothing that was said in the piece compromised McCain. On the contrary, because the piece was so flimsy, it strengthens him and has gained him the support of past enemies like Rush Limbaugh.
The fact that the Seattle P-I didn’t run the story is admirable and worth mention, but the action doesn’t immediately make its editors heroes. It was, however, encouraging to read a qualified, thoughtful journalist explaining the rationalization behind what he decided to do.
The biggest error by the NYT is that it unintentionally (I can only assume) made the piece less about McCain, and more about it. The point was made in one of the other sources that because the evidence was so flimsy that even if McCain did something wrong, he’s vindicated because of such inconclusive and even biased reporting.
February 24, 2008 at 7:32 pm |
The first thing I noticed about this story (I don’t know why) was the shared byline. For some reason, the fact that there were four people contributing to this story stuck with me as I read it. It stuck out more after I read it, because I thought how did it take four people to put this crappy story together?
With anonymous sources, it is hard enough to trust one writer. Here, the Times asks us to trust four writers, who collectively came up with 2 (right?) anonymous sources. These writers are asking the us, the readers, to put our trust in allegations, not facts, that took place eight years ago. To me, the holes in this story are too big.
Michael Gerson from the Washington Post said “raising the prominence of a news story with sexual innuendoes is irresponsible — unless there is more proof to come.” But, the proof never comes. There are no real allegations, even. Just implied allegations, which are denied by McCain and his lady lobbyist friend.
The Seattle paper pointed out another good point, “the Times points out two matters in which McCain took actions favorable to the lobbyist’s clients — that were also clearly consistent with his previously stated positions.”
So, the Times never formally accuses McCain of an affair and can’t prove he was inappropriately influenced by her. What can they prove?
It seems like the Times were pressed by the 24/7 news cylce. However, Thompson’s resignation from the Times and return to the Post makes it seem like they took their sweet time to check the story. Maybe they did fact check it, maybe it is all still correct, but it still doesn’t really say much. It still sounds like mudslinging to me.
If this first appeared on a blog, it probably would receive a lot more press. It would also, I feel like, either be put to rest or proved very quickly.
February 24, 2008 at 8:01 pm |
Laura Price wrote, “I think if the story had appeared on a blog, we would not hold it to the same traditional print standards.”
I agree with her. This disparity begs the question: Are we (a self-governing democracy) better off, therefore, with much more but largely unfiltered information online and, as a result, a diminished traditional news media presence? Or, does the abundance of largely free information (and, therefore, the death of traditional revenue models like broadcast and newspapering) actually impoverish us because of the slow decline of vetted, filtered, verified information? Or am I asking the wrong question?
February 24, 2008 at 8:38 pm |
I think it was a good move for the Seattle P-I to not run the story. Attribution is very important- and New York Times or not, I am going to be skeptical of a story with anonymous sources. I think that I’m more skeptical now than ever of news in general because it’s everywhere.
NYT is definitely trust-worthy but they feel the pressure to run a story more so than ever because news is everywhere. I think this really hurts the era of “trust-me” journalism. The NYT needs to be careful not to let the rush to report hurt their credibility.
I find it comforting that David McCumber explained his reasoning behind not running the story on McCain when it first came out. It shows that a lot of thought is still put into deciding what should and should not be reported. I think it is very respectable.
February 24, 2008 at 8:44 pm |
In response to Dr. Carroll, I do think that in many ways we are better off with filtering our own information from online sources; however, that is only the case if people are willing to take the time to do so. Since not everyone does have the time to examine all of the material, that is where bloggers play a critical role in covering their own area of expertise.
Maybe it is a blogger mentality that is seeping into traditional media outlets. I believe someone mentioned this during our discussion on Friday, that media outlets sometimes fall into the trap of just putting out what they have and assuming they can go back and correct it later.
I do agree with Amanda that if the story had appeared on a blog it would have either been more powerful, because additional proof would surface , or it would have been ignored. It seems to me like a slight lead on a story with anonymous sources would be the perfect thing to post on a blog and use the wisdom of crowd-sourcing to build a stronger article for a print edition.
February 24, 2008 at 11:32 pm |
I think that the NYT did do wrong in publishing this story because of the lack of source that they had. They would have been wise to have higher sources before running something like this about who could be ” a leader” in our country. I think that sense both McCain and the woman said they did not have a relationship going on that this should have been enough to back to papers up before writing anything else. I think that something like this would be ok on a blog because it is someones ideas but for a popular respected newspaper to do this, this is something different. If this turns out to not be true then who is going to look bad here?
February 25, 2008 at 12:12 am |
The NY Times was not able to prove what they have insinuated in their story. They weren’t able to prove Ms. Iseman’s possible romantic relationship with McCain. Nor were they able to prove that McCain showed favoritism to her and her clients.
It just seems like they need a stronger case. And in the midst of campaigning season, it seems as though there would be plenty of people willing to tarnish a candidates reputation if they could do it anonymously. I’m not saying that the NY Times didn’t do their fact checking- in fact, they probably did. But using anonymous sources just raises too many questions for implied accusations of this type. I think the NY Times should be able to use anonymous sources extremely sparingly and when the occasion rises. But for this occasion, I think there was just too much missing from the story.
In response to Dr. Carroll’s question, I think that both traditional news media and the land of free and unlimited information have their places in society. I really hate to think of traditional media dying out entirely, though, because we need it. I need to be able to see a news website from a trusted organization and know that a team of people labored over each word making sure that it is correct. Sometimes they fail us, but for the most part it’s a higher concentration of trustworthy information than alot of other places on the web. It’s hard to have a democracy if people are having a hard to distinguishing fact and fiction. So I think it does impoverish us if we don’t have people in our society dedicating their careers to helping guide their readers to true, verified information.
February 25, 2008 at 1:01 am |
When considering the two different acts taken by these news organizations, I come to the conclusion that both actions were, perhaps, the right one. In my opinion, the New York Times can afford to risk running an unsourced story. They have a huge readership (compared to Seattle’s paper anyway) and so even a small hit by releasing the story would not wreck the paper as a whole. The Seattle Pilot-Intelligencer, on the other hand, is a much smaller and less-read paper (I had never heard of it anyway) and therefore taking a risk has the potential of hurting the organization more.
When it comes to my personal decision of whether or not I would run the story, I like what someone earlier said about thinking of the story as if it were posted on a blog. I know that I would think less of it, even if it was posted exactly how it was in the paper, simply because of the source. If I came across it through the New York Times, however, I would assume that ethical decisions had been made because I trust (for the most part) that the information that they put out has been thought over.
February 25, 2008 at 1:02 am |
It seems to me in the world today that there is pressure on the media to take and publish any lead possible that can develop into the new hot headline. The newspapers are in the business of attracting and keeping an audience, so by printing the headline about McCain, if correct would hopefully attract new readership from other publications. So my point is that I agree with how the Times developed and portrayed the story, because they are a business and they need readership to stay in business. I also respect the decision of the Seattle, because the facts at the time had not been developed to a “trust worthy” level.
When the newspapers leave out names to help conceal identity of a source, if the newspaper has a respectable and trustworthy history of telling the truth then I will believe that newspaper and their sources.
February 25, 2008 at 1:14 am |
Let’s see if I can come up with something original…
I do not think the story has news value, this is one thing that I think the media screws up a lot of the time. If it gets people to read… then they want to print it. I just think it is odd the way this particular story was put together, if people are not willing to go on the record then it makes the story look like it is not credible at all, there is too much he said she said in this.
Sometimes I think it is easy for the media to go off on tangents and get so far away from the story you can’t even remember what the story was originally about. And the reason the media does that is because they want people to stay interested. In this case though I think it is terribly out of taste for the NY Times to bring up such a topic without 100% verification.
February 25, 2008 at 1:49 am |
The race to get a story out first has always been problematic for me considering the trade off of quality, but I don’t see that as the issue here. I also didn’t see the news value of this story. Why should I care? Then, the NY Times expects me to care even though they can’t get a source to name themselves? I just don’t see how this is considered a huge news story.
The concentration on personal lives of public figures and officials has been just as troubling for me as the need for speed, and I think both of these issues have an effect here. During campaign season I think the issues the candidates feel strongly about should be more important that a possible love connection a while back.
February 25, 2008 at 2:29 am |
Like many of you, I found the story to be lacking in a lot of areas; more specifically the fact that the questions raised didn’t really amount to anything in the end. Furthermore, using anonymous sources only weakened the pieces as a whole since they weren’t backed up by any concrete evidence/attribution of what was implied. I do think that if this story was a blog post rather than a Times story the reaction wouldn’t be as big and (like someone else said) be put to rest as either fact or not.
Personally, the most interesting part of this whole situation is not the story itself but rather the actions taken by the NY Times after the outburst. It seems to me as if they have a small crisis on their hands dealing with all of the “negative” criticism stirred up by the story, evident in the “questions answered” follow-up. With their response, the message I got was that they attempted to tell a story they believed to be news worthy, that was misinterpreted by some (the term some used very loosely) of their readership.
On that side of things, I admire the editorial staff of the Times that answered some of those questions brought up by readers. It was/is an attempt to bring their reasoning for running the story to the public eye and save face. Overall, I think it was the right thing for them to do.
February 25, 2008 at 8:59 am |
So, I did not see where this article appeared in the printed version of NYT… front page, I assume, based on what everyone else has said? This is perhaps one of the only things I can find wrong with running this article. In the online version, on the left hand side, there’s a small box which states that this article is part of a profile series on all the presidential candidates. This, in my mind, translates into “softer” news- that things will be reported that happened in the past, even in the distant past, in order to provide readers with a better conception of who these candidates are. After reading the article twice, I will admit that the organization was a bit sloppy. However, other than that, I feel that it raised some important issues. While comparing this to Watergate would be a bit drastic, I think a similar principle applies: Not always being able to name a source does not mean that the information isnt important enough to run. I feel that the article focused mainly on the question of whether McCain is likely to be influence by any lobbyist- not just this woman. I found that the focus was not, to the contrary of many opinions, on the “scandalous” relationship between the woman lobbyist and mccain. It was briefly mentioned (it should/could have been left out), but not harped on, showing that NYT was going for a different angle. NYT cannot be responsible for other news outlets taking only this part of the story and running with it. No, the NYT should not have run this on the front page. No, they shouldnt have insinuated that there was an inappropriate relationship. But all of the other information in this article is valid- important for anyone voting in this election.
When I read the linked articles by other sites, I was a little amused by some false statements of their own. The Washington Post stated that the NYT held the story “long enough to fatally fracture the newspaper’s relationship with Thompson. She left today to go back to work for The Washington Post.” However, in her released statement, she makes it clear that she left NOT for this one story. In this case, their aking an assumption that is, seemingly, false. The evidence of that being here:
Marilyn Thompson, one of the four members of the Times’ reporting team, resigned recently and will rejoin The Washington Post, where she was a longtime investigative editor and reporter. Thompson said yesterday that her departure was “not directly related to the story” but that she had received “a very good offer to return to editing at a point where I realized that was a job I would find more agreeable. . . . I’ve been in the business long enough not to leave a job over a single piece of journalism.” kurtz
ore thoughts later- still processing this. but i stand behind the NYT decision and am just sad that they’re taking the fall for something that is misunderstood. Their facts, in my mind, are solid enough, considering that other news outlets were going to run the same stry after talking to the same people. And this story, by all accounts from NYT reporters, was the opposite of rushed. I do believe that more credit, and more trust, should be given the NYT in this aspect.
Yay for a public, however, that is at least willing to question.
February 25, 2008 at 3:44 pm |
I love the different view, Hannah, so thank you for that. In balance, I agree with your media criticism. As you point out, it is important that this is a series of profiles, so it should be read in that context. Doing so reveals two things: First, why a mostly soft news story like this ran and got good play. Secondly, why it really didn’t need unsubstantiated claims about an illicit love relationship. It stood on its own without all of that smoke and distraction.
The story, therefore, is not a tangent as someone posted earlier. In fact, I’m not sure I understand how someone determines when news coverage has become tangential, particularly in election and campaign coverage. I’m open-minded about this, so examples are welcome. Clearly, a profile of the Republican front-runner is not tangential by any definition.
And Hannah reinforces something I tried to point out, that this story was not rushed into print, rushed online to beat the competitors. The story was fact-checked, vetted and heavily edited. That should change our perceptions of the Times’s motives in publishing.