A Fair Warning to Journalism

In what has now become a tradition, an online source has yet again taken the major media to task. The Smoking Gun, a Web site that promises, "exclusive documents" that are "cool, confidential, [and] quirky", recently claimed that the L.A. Times used fake documents in an interest story on deceased rapper, Tupac Shakur. Russ Stanton, the most recent top editor at the long-troubled Times, encouraged a full inquiry into the background of the documents which were found to be false.

While it is embarrassing for mainstream journalism to be called out and reprimanded by smaller, less prevalent news sources, Poynter Online's Bob Steele points out the real problem as quality control in the newsroom. In his article, he provides an outline for how to investigate such charges as those made by The Smoking Gun. These, in turn, give insight to journalists on how to gather valid information efficiently. Some of his suggestions are specific to the situation of the Times, but pose excellent questions as to the ethics of the changes being made in the media industry:

• Did the reporter on the story have enough substantive conversations with his editor as the story was developing? When did those conversations take place?
• What questions was the editor asking the reporter? Were those questions rigorous enough given the nature of the story, the scope of the assertions and the weight of the accusations?
• When and how were the questionable documents obtained by the reporter?
• What process was used by the reporter and editor to scrutinize the source of the documents as well as the source(s) for other key pieces of information in the story?
• What process of verification and cross-checking was applied to various pieces of information provided by sources, including the documents that now appear to have been a hoax?
• Were assumptions made at key points that needed greater challenging? If so, why didn’t that happen?
• At what point were other editors brought into the process to weigh in on the methods of reporting, writing and editing the story? What expertise and perspective did those editors bring to the process?
• What questions were those editors asking? What questions were not asked that should have been asked? Why weren’t those other questions asked?
• Were there contrarians among those involved in the reporting and editing on this story?
• How and why were decisions made about presenting this story first on the Web site and then in the newspaper two days later? Were those decisions driven by journalistic purpose or by other factors? Did those decisions affect the checks and balances process for vetting this story?
• Have recent cutbacks in staffing at the Los Angeles Times and the loss of some veteran editors affected the quality control process on stories like this one? If so, how?

To maintain quality in our major and minor newsrooms, we must look to the ethics that we abide by. To be ethical is to investigate -- not to take all sources and documents at face value. Consider this a wake-up call to the current and future news gathering community: Keep your staff and quality, or lose your credibility and your integrity.