Friday, January 17, 2014

Fact Checking vs Prior Approval

"Send it to us for fact checking" is a ploy by subjects to get prior approval of a news story before publication.

Ignoring a reporter does not stop the story from going to press.

   Responsible journalists do not submit material in advance of publication for "fact checking" by the subject. Too often, subjects ask for a review under the guise of "fact checking," but what they really want is prior approval and the opportunity to reslant the story to be favorable to them.

   Some university officials protested that a CNN reporter didn't check her data about athletes who could not read college textbooks, and accused the reporter of not using good data. Reporter's response: She tried repeatedly to get comments from university officials, but none came.
    The story ran anyway, despite the school's attempt to ignore it, in the hope that refusing to comment meant the story would not appear.

   Similarly, Roger Ailes, the head of Fox Broadcasting, accused a biographer of not submitting his manuscript in advance for "fact checking." The exec had ignored repeated requests for interviews, so the biographer did his own research and hired his own independent "fact checkers."
   The book was indeed published, and included parts that were not flattering to the subject.

   Moral: To paraphrase the immortal words of Barry Fitzgerald in the movie The Quiet Man,  "They had their chance, and they muffed it."

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