Center for Health Communication
Problems for readers
“Engaging with the Press: A Guide for Perplexed Readers and Sources” was written by Dick Tofel for the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health Communication. It was inspired and informed by Dick’s Center for Health Communication class “Engaging with the Press: A Practical Look at Health Communication.”
Most of the above has been directed to sources and potential sources of news, although I hope all of it is also relevant to readers who want to be alert to material they are consuming. Before concluding, it seems worthwhile to take up a few remaining issues, first of special interest to readers, then, finally, some last thoughts for sources.
Accuracy
Everyone makes mistakes; humans are fallible, and journalists are human. So it’s not reasonable to expect that reporting will be flawless, and the more you know about something which is the subject of journalism, the more likely you are to spot errors in the news. This shouldn’t make you cynical about journalism. The phenomenon is no different from how experienced chefs will find more flaws in meals they eat, or how athletes see details at sporting events that most who haven’t played at a high level will miss.
That said, it is almost certainly the case that the rate of errors in journalism is increasing. Traditionally, newspaper reporters generally did their own fact-checking, while better magazines employed separate fact-checking staffs. But most jobs dedicated to fact-checking and copy-editing have been eliminated, and shorter deadlines and an increased pace of publishing create smaller margins for error—and thus more errors.
Beyond simple fallibility, my friend and former Wall Street Journal colleague Steve Adler, who served at various times as the top editor at the American Lawyer, BusinessWeek and Reuters and now teaches journalistic ethics, identifies five other relatively common sources of mistake: a wish to believe, or the failure to shake a preconception; a desire to “improve” a story by exaggerating it; haste in reporting; being led into error by sources, particularly when two or more offer similar but inaccurate accounts, often when the reporter incorrectly believes the sources are independent of one another; and intentional deception by a source.
Clearly, therefore, not all mistakes are created equal, and how newsrooms respond to making them can tell you a great deal about how you should approach their work.
In this sense, I see published corrections as reassuring, and am more inclined to trust reporting from an outfit that both readily corrects its work and makes the correction easily accessible. Best practice is to correct any error of fact, no matter how trivial, upon request, even if it’s misspelling a name or transposing a number. Online, stories that have been corrected should be revised to reflect the correct information but also to note that they were previously inaccurate.
In the most egregious cases, a corrective story may be in order. I think it serves no one, and is Orwellian, for stories to be un-published once they have been posted. Leaving a record of errors, even while clearly signaling new readers to beware, is good discipline for journalists. I am therefore not a fan of “retracting” stories—or demanding the same—as I think the term is so imprecise as to be largely meaningless.
Clearly, therefore, not all mistakes are created equal, and how newsrooms respond to making them can tell you a great deal about how you should approach their work.
Organizations that make a practice of not correcting errors—something that unfortunately long ago became more or less standard in broadcast television and radio news and has more recently become common practice for some ideologically oriented sites—deserve to have their offerings discounted somewhat. Do you think, for instance, that the evening network television news shows never err? Of course not; they just very rarely correct their errors. Try to “hear” the “dog that didn’t bark,” the missing mechanisms for correcting journalism.
Having said all of that, whether to seek a correction if you notice an error is a complex question. Most reporters, not surprisingly, don’t enjoy the process that correction requests at better news organizations tend to trigger. Such processes can be time-consuming, and any unusual number of mistakes can hurt a reporter professionally.
Importantly, requests to “correct” what a reader or source regards as a faulty interpretation, or material that has been omitted from a story is likely to receive an even colder reception. Correction sections are for mistakes of fact, not a place to vindicate alternative approaches that might have been taken to an article—no matter how strongly felt, or even how widely held.
Understanding the possible cost to the reporter, if a factual mistake has been made on an important point, or even just one that is likely to be the subject of continuing coverage, it’s worth pointing out and seeking to have it corrected. Do so promptly, as the willingness to make corrections tends to diminish once a good bit of time has passed. Stories published months, no less years, ago are almost never corrected. Journalists see that as a role for history.
Be prepared to demonstrate support for what you are asserting. If a name has been misspelled, do say so—in a world of Google and now generative AI it makes more difference than it might have before that. If a story is riddled with factual mistakes (this is rare), that may be worth raising directly with editors, who should want to know.
If you think you have been misquoted, that may also be worth raising, but unless you were taping the conversation, I would recommend doing this with some modesty in tone—reporters are unlikely to correct quotes reflected in the notes most take on conversations, and very few people (including reporters) can take good notes on what they themselves are saying. If you feel strongly that the words attributed to you need clarification or amplification, letters to the editor or online comments, where available, are far less confrontational.
Fairness
If you don’t work in journalism, you probably have never read much about most of the things covered here. Fairness in journalism is the exception—it’s discussed constantly, at great length, and often in heated tones, both in public life generally and inside journalism itself. This doesn’t seem like a place to get dragged into those debates.
Having said that, readers should insist on fairness from their news sources. If you find an outlet consistently unfair, unless you’re consuming it for meta purposes (“I wonder what XYZ is saying about this?”), it’s probably not worth your time. That’s because if a news article isn’t fairly reported and edited, you can’t know what’s being left out, and your objective of informing yourself is defeated.
How can you tell if something is fair? It’s complicated, of course, but here are a few basics: First, the people whose activities are being described should be given a chance to comment. The most basic reason for this is one we all see in our own lives: things are not always as they initially appear. Asking for comment is the simplest and surest way to enhance accuracy. Failing to ask, or asking in a pro forma way but not allowing a reasonable time to respond, is sloppy as well as unfair.
Fairness is not neutrality precisely because facts are not neutral.
On the other hand, fairness does not dictate always setting forth two or more sides with respect to every assertion. The world is round, rather than flat. Fairness does NOT dictate giving equal time, or indeed any time, to flat-Earthers. Nor are such matters susceptible to public opinion polls. If flat-Earthism suddenly experienced a popular revival, and became the belief of 30% or even 51% of the people, that would still be no reason to accompany each description of the Earth being round with a response. Fairness is not neutrality precisely because facts are not neutral.
Sophistication
The levels of complexity and insight at which stories are written vary, not only by publication, but sometimes within a publication. You shouldn’t be surprised by this but will want to take it into account in evaluating an article (or a publication as a whole). Some stories will be more comprehensive than others, some will focus on a particular incident or instance. Some will place events or trends in a larger context, some will fail to note this (or actually be crafted in ignorance of it).
Mostly, this will reflect editorial choices and a given publication’s style. Particularly with a running story over days or weeks, some publications will tend to rehearse the story’s evolution for new readers, others will assume this knowledge and limit themselves to what is truly new. Some reporters—especially specialists with substantial experience—will look to link seemingly disparate events, to draw connections in the ways that only those with deep understanding can. Others will lack the space or time or knowledge to do so.
In a perfect world, what you are reading would be tailored to what you already know, the depth of your interest and the amount of time you can devote to a story. We do not—at least not yet—live in such a world. You should be aware of this, and try to choose your news sources with an awareness of how each meets your own needs along these dimensions.