That false “Police Pulling Over Good Drivers” offers lessons in journalism, democracy, and taking responsibility

Anybody who has ever been a newspaper reporter will know this feeling all too well. You come back from reporting a story, you ramble off the main points to your editor, and then, midway through, they interrupt.

What’s that last thing you said? Are you sure? Really sure? You’d better double-check.

Newspapers cover plenty of strange things (man bites dog, right?), but newspaper editors have a sixth sense for sniffing out things that just don’t sound right. Often when you’re reporting a story you make little assumptions in the middle of an interview that you forget to clarify before you leave. Then, when you’re looking back at your notes, you realize that, yeah, your editor was right — that needs to be double-checked.

I bring this up because yesterday morning the Twitterverse saw firsthand the consequences of not double-checking. For me, it started with a tweet from Brad Heath, an editor for USA Today. Here’s his tweet:

You’ll notice that, if you click on the link to the tweet he’s referencing, you get an error message. That’s because the tweet was deleted. Here, however is a screen shot:

As you can see, a Phoenix-area television station, KPNX, was reporting that Tempe “officers will be pulling people over” for good driving and rewarding them with a coupon for a free drink.

The moment I saw that tweet, I heard the voices of every editor I’ve ever had exclaiming in unison:

They’re going to flash their lights and pull over drivers who aren’t doing anything wrong just to give them a coupon?! Better double-check that.

I’m not blaming the reporter, Colleen Sikora, for incorrectly assuming that these coupons would be distributed via pulling over cars. However, she should have taken an extra moment to think about it, and if she didn’t her editor or news director should have caught the error. Full stop.

But, she didn’t catch the error, nor did the editor or news director or anchor or social media manager. The story went viral, the video was viewed by some 3 million people, and thousands of those peopleexpressed outrage online. The story was briefly trending on Twitter, forcing the Tempe Police Department to respond with a tweet of its own:

In other words, Sikora and her station, KPNX, got it wrong.

Mistakes happen in journalism. Every day they happen, even at the very best news outlets in the country. That’s not what the purpose of this column. Instead, I want to focus on how the station responded.

Here’s how the station responded. Most of the response came from one of KPNX’s morning anchors, Paul Gerke. Here’s his first tweet referencing the station’s error.

Notice the language: “After a clarification…”

Subsequently, he and Sikora did a Facebook Live video with a representative from the Tempe Police.

Again, notice the language: “Here’s exactly how the messaging…went awry.” That prompted me to chime in and criticize Gerke’s adoption of public relations terminology. “Messaging” is a PR term referring to framing information in a way that aligns with the goals of the organization releasing the information. News outlets are supposed to report information with relevant context, regardless of how it makes the organization releasing the information look.

[Full disclosure: I did not watch the Facebook Live video because I have a philosophical objection to a news outlet making me watch an entire video in order to explain away their erroneous reporting.]

Later, when Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir attempted to tamp down the outrage sparked by KPNX’s report, Gerke lashed out at her.

As the day wore on, the station appeared to continue its attempt to lay blame at the feet of the police department. Sikora tweeted a screenshot of the pertinent portion of the Tempe Police’s press release. Here’s that tweet:

The release states that “the Tempe Police Department is providing coupons for either a free cold drink or free hot beverage item for officers to distribute to community members who are safely adhering to traffic laws related to bicycle and pedestrian laws.”

Notice what the press release doesn’t say. It doesn’t say anything about cars. And it definitely doesn’t say they will be pulling over cars to hand out coupons. In fact, it only mentions cyclists and pedestrians.

It’s unclear whether Sikora spoke with the police prior to her report or whether she merely reported based on the press release. In any case, though, it’s incorrect to assert that the police department is responsible for KPNX’s report that police would be pulling over motorists to hand out coupons. The press release didn’t say that — KPNX did.

Eventually, Gerke posted a picture of a chipmunk eating a hamburger bun and declared that he was done responding to people regarding the error.

That evening, KPNX deleted the original tweet (to their credit, they kept a screenshot).

Again, though, notice the language. The police clarified. In other words: “We’re not deleting this because it was wrong. We’re deleting this because the police clarified. It was the police department’s job to ensure our reporting was correct.”

A few thoughts:

1. Everybody makes mistakes. Although I see no reason to fault the police in this case, sometimes spokespeople goof up. So do reporters. So do social media managers. It happens. That’s not the point of this post. I also want to point out that this was a systemic failure on the part of KPNX. You can’t merely blame the reporter — news outlets are supposed to have safeguards in place to prevent things like this.
2. This is *not* the correct way to respond to an error. When a news outlet makes an error, they should issue a correction. Right away. If the error causes a firestorm, they should take efforts to make sure the correction is distributed as widely as possible. The web version of the story should include a prominent correction, and in the case of TV, the anchors should issue a correction from the anchor desk. Using euphemisms like “clarification” and “messaging went awry” isn’t taking responsiblity, it’s making excuses. Sometimes journalists report erroneous information because the spokespeople gave them erroneous information. That doesn’t change how you respond. If you reported something that was incorrect, you take responsibility for it.
3. This is more of a side note, but it is not good journalism to blame your sources when you get it wrong. If you think the spokesperson was unclear you should explain why you got confused. If you think the spokesperson was intentionally misleading you or covering something up, you get the evidence to prove it and then you confront and expose them. But if you mis-report something based on a mis-interpretation or a illogical leap, you don’t emphatically insist that it’s really the source’s fault and not yours.
4. This stuff matters. Sometimes we as a society give television reporters a pass. We don’t hold them to the same high standards, and we sort of laugh it off when they make mistakes like this. We shouldn’t. If KPNX wants to be treated as a credible news source, they need to uphold the highest standards and they need to fall on their swords when they mess up. We, the viewers, ought to demand this. We ought to tune out or change the channel when stations consistently fall short. I realize that this is the cable news era, the era of infotainment. And if you want to watch a hybrid news-opinion show because you find it entertaining, that’s fine by me. But don’t call it journalism. Don’t pretend it’s journalism. If you think of it as journalism and want to treat it like journalism, if you want to share the show’s reports on social media in order to make a point or to inform your friends, then you need to hold that show or that network to a high standard. That brings me to my last, and most important point.
5. Don’t be a lazy news consumer. It’s bad for democracy. The president famously throws around the term “fake news.” Occasionally, he’s upset because certain reporting is legitimately flawed or biased, but mostly he uses the term because he doesn’t like the facts being reported. The president is a politician and declaring unflattering news to be “fake” is part of his messaging strategy. We, however — you and I — we’re citizens in a democracy. We have a responsibility as citizens to inform ourselves. When we adopt a strategy of dismissing anything we don’t like as “fake news,” we are being lazy; we’re failing to inform ourselves. Likewise, when we dismiss journalism as a whole, or say we don’t trust the “mainstream media,” we’re abrogating our responsibility as members of a democratic society. It’s ridiculous on its face to assert that all journalism is un-trustworthy. The fact that KPNX made a silly error and then refused to take responsibility for it is not proof that all journalists are unreliable — it’s proof that KPNX is unreliable. Here’s the thing, though: the vast majority of what they report is reliable. The only reason they don’t feel the need to take responsibility for their actions when they get it wrong is that they don’t think you the viewer care all that much. What’s worse is that they’re probably right. Yep, you thought this whole essay was going to be an indictment of KPNX. Actually, though, it’s an indictment of us. Hundreds of thousands of journalists work long, hard, grueling hours every day trying to get the story exactly right, trying to make sure that the citizens of our democracy have the information they need to participate in the civic life of this country. So what if hundreds of thousands of pseudo-journalists spend very little time “reporting” half-true, biased, or un-verified information? It’s not that hard to tell the difference if you, the news consumer, take responsibility for evaluating your news sources. If a news outlet isn’t trying to give you good information, don’t watch or read it. If a news outlet is doing a good job of giving you good information, find a way to financially support it. And if they’re well-meaning but they screw up, hold them to account. Write a letter to the editor, tweet at them, or write a post on Medium. If democracy matters, then journalism matters. If you want to be an informed and active member of our democracy, you need to be an informed and active news consumer.