Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]We > at Rural > Missouri -- the bastion of good journalism that it is -- > routinely fax a copy > of our stories to subjects before they appear as an accuracy > check. I can't > tell you how many times this has saved us from some really stupidly > embarrassing mistake. What in the hallowed halls of > journalism is wrong with > ensuring accuracy? At the two papers at which I worked for 23 years- The Washington Post and Newsday, the above would have, had an editor wished to make an issue of it, been a firing offense: You never offer to show the subject of a story a copy of your story; you never offer to show a government official of any kind a copy of a story before it has run; you never offer to show ANYONE your notes or photo out-takes. To do otherwise invites attempts at censorship and lawsuits attempting to block publication. Yes, as Eric has noted, one may on rare occasion and for a specific reason, read a quote back to someone being quoted - to insure accuracy in a science or medical story, for instance. But NEVER - NEVER - NEVER - should one send a subject or source a story for "review." Will mistakes be made? Of course. Will someone regret having said something they are quoted as saying? Of course. A newspaper is, to coin a phrase, a "first rough draft of history." It is not the Encyclopedia Britannica. Mistakes made today can, and should, be corrected tomorrow. Will a story subject occasionally be hurt by such a policy? Yes. But the potential damage to a subject caused by an unintentional error is FAR outweighed by the potential damage that can be done to the First Amendment by faxing stories to sources or subjects before the story run. THAT damage can ultimately have a devesating impact on the lives and freedom of 250 million Americans, not simply harm a single person. B. D.