Lying reporters
Sometimes the story
just isn't true
Truth is something we should expect from reporters, but we don’t always get it.
We’re not talking bias here – that would be simply the insertion of a reporter’s point of view in a story. We’re talking lies. Sometimes total fabrication of a story.
Considering that the reputations and fortunes of large media companies are at stake it’s surprising, but it happens.
One of the most infamous involved reporter Janet Cooke who, at the time, worked at the Washington Post. She wrote a story called “Jimmy’s World” about an 8-year-old heroin addict. The work was so compelling that it won her a Pulitzer Prize.
The problem was, it wasn’t true.
The Post gave back the Pulitzer and admitted it had been duped.
The Post isn’t alone in being fooled. The New York Times had its own fraud in Jayson Blair, a reporter and rising star at the newspaper who won praise for articles that contained information he just made up.
Fortunately, such incidents are rare and as news consumers, we can’t know when good reporters decide to abandon their responsibility to be honest.
Our protections come from the standards of journalism that require reporters and editors to tell us the sources of their information. When we know the sources, we have the power to independently verify what we’ve been told and determine whether the facts have been reported accurately and in the proper context.
While few of us may take the time and effort to check the facts, it’s important that we have the ability to do so if the issue is sufficiently important to us.
We may disagree with a reporter’s point of view or how a story is written, but there should never be any question about the facts.
See also:
Pakistani reporter Salman Saddiqui writes about being offered a bribe.
Reporter orchestrates kaos to make a better story.
Activist finds words twisted to meet reporter's viewpoint
Chicago reporter finds his story on the Tribune has been killed