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Originally Posted by jAZ
I understand your point and don't disagree with it in a broad sense, but the media could have and in this case should have reported "rumors are swirilling that 12 people are alive".
The live TV media could have and should have reported it as such. But they also face a smaller burder of accuracy in a sense as they are able to report what they are learning as they learn it. But they are responsible for reporting what they learned accurately. They need to qualify their reports appropriately.
The print media has an even higher burden, IMO because their printing schedule doesn't allow for getting it right once it goes to print. In that case, it is even more important to report the story accurately. And an accurate report would be (again) "unconfirmed reports suggest 12 found alive" or some such.
That doesn't make for a good news-paper selling headline though, so they punch it up a little in exchange for actual accuracy.
I am only holding the media accountable to the same standard that they are alway accountable for, IMO. Nothing additional.
I'm certainly not holding them responsible for the source information being false.
To give you a familiar parallel that might make some sense for you... IMO it's like the Dan Rather, Bush, Draft story.
I hold CBS and Dan Rather accountable for a failure in editorial judgement. They rushed a story and should have held themselve to a higher journalistic standard. Similarly I am not saying that Rather is responsible for any mis-information. His failure was in editorial control.
JMO.
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IIRC from my old journalism classes, the minimal standard of confirmation of a story was two independent sources giving the same information. In this instance, you have the Gov.'s office and their contacts with the mine and the family members who received phone calls from the mine officials. Each would count as a different source. By journalistic standards, especially those evolving due to the nature of live TV, they seemed to meet the criteria for reporting a confirmed story.
Ideally, they would have had immediate confirmation or denial from the mine officials regarding the story. Instead, they were allowed to believe, along with the families, that medical attendants were headed into the mine to retrieve the survivors and reunite them with their families. They were allowed to believe this for three hours...at least in front of the camera. Behind the scenes there was probably corrections going on OTR but they were not going to report THIS news until they were indeed sure of it given the misinformation already coming from the mine officials.
The print press I think could shoulder a different standard here as you rightly point out. They have the luxury of waiting for details that live TV news media do not. As such, and in retrospect, they chose the 'feel good' story immediately upon hearing it vs. actually waiting for the miners, dead or alive, to surface. I suppose you could fault them for their haste in getting a story to print before deadline. But you can't fault them for believing false sources when everyone but the rescuers and mine officials knew the truth for three hours after the story of the miners surviving initially broke.
I don't think Rathergate is a similiar parallel at all. Dan Rather and his staff had infinite moments to investigate, reinvestigate, confirm, reconfirm, and source and resource. They, apparently, chose to use minimal sourcing and did not follow basic accepted standards of journalism in their reporting. Example, not finding two different handwriting experts to confirm their findings. The problem with the Rathergate is the incompetence in the reporting detracts from the possible true facts within the actual story. No coincidence, I'm sure.