Get Your Facts Right
Verification is one of the ways to success.
Last December, news organizations like Forbes, Fox News, NY Post among others, released a report about Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán - the infamous drug dealer and most wanted man by Mexican authorities. The story was about a supposed email in which El Chapo threatened ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. El Chapo has been in Mexican and International headlines after his two escapes from prison, becoming the perfect illustration of Mexican corrupted and inefficient government. Thousand miles away, responsible for thousands of deaths in the Middle East and Europe, ISIS often features in breaking news for their barbaric attacks. In a combination of satire and ridiculousness, a Mexican blogger first published this piece on Thug Life Videos which was picked up by CartelBlog.com a site for cartel news and later by bigger news organizations. Once they realized their mistake and with the tail between legs, they had to apologize for misinforming their audience.
It doesn’t matter how big a news organization is, these type of inaccuracies have happened to all. In last week’s Social Tools and Platforms class, our guest speaker was global news editor at Quartz, Heather Landy; who talked to us about the importance of verification in the news.
In the field of journalism, finding the facts and being the first ones to report on them is as important as finding the truth about the facts. Its true that is a discipline in which timeliness is key for success, but as Heather explained, in most situations taking extra time to confirm the facts with the right sources won’t hurt the performance of the written piece and can save you from defamation. Not only misinforming will damage the journalist or news organization’s reputation but it can also affect the subjects that are being reported on. Heather mentioned two things that should be considered when reporting: when it’s a life-or-death matter and when someone else’s reputation might be on the line. In the case of El Chapo threatening ISIS piece, no one was at risk, it was more of a distorted “wishful thinking”; the deadliest drug-lord becomes the hero by putting an end to one of today’s biggest human tragedies. If the idea was not absurd enough to make reporters contact the blogger behind the story, they should have questioned the fact that El Chapo was a fugitive and an email could have tracked him very easily.
In order to better serve our audiences, our job as journalists is to provide information while trying to be as impartial, transparent and accurate as possible. Social media has given journalists more opportunities to verify their stories as well as facilitated communication with their sources; making excuses to report on stories that are false obsolete. Mistakes happen but accessibility leaves little place for news organizations to get away with false facts. While a few years ago with traditional media it was harder to question whether facts were correct, today we can just “google search” and obtain answers within seconds.
Verification is one of the pillars of journalism and should be what we strive for. As social journalists we have to be careful; we are reporting on communities that are under represented and dealing with various social issues, so we should always make sure to verify our facts to avoid causing collateral damages. Even when the story is very well written by a blogger, and the facts seem to be accurate, we should keep a skeptic mind and contact the source; it can save us from a disastrous failure.
