Make It Up!

This post isn’t going to make a few of you out there very happy.  But if it doesn’t, hopefully it’s because you have a guilty conscience and are going to do better in the future.  You see, today’s topic is making stuff up and while I’m a big fan of fiction, I don’t think it has a place when it’s labeled as fact.

We used to discuss, when I was at the NHL, the differences between bloggers and reporters which, I admit, is an increasingly blurry distinction.  One thing we felt separated the two was the reporters answered to a “higher authority” – an editor, a publisher, a review board – and, therefore, were more careful about what they posted in terms of calling it factual. I hasten to add that there is NOTHING wrong with posting a rumor if it’s called one. There’s nothing wrong with posting an opinion if it’s called one. But call either of those factual and you have, in my opinion, crossed a line.  Unfortunately, even the controls in the “legitimate” news entities are, today, lax.  The outlets that seek to be…um…”fair and balanced” are few and far between.  Frankly, I don’t care if anyone, mainstream or not, has a point of view that colors their reporting provided that when they label something as “fact’ it really is and isn’t taken out of context.

If you’ve seen or read All The President’s Men, the thing that’s so impressive about the Watergate investigation is the demand that every “fact” have two independent sources.  This insistence was so strong that it almost derailed the entire investigation.  There was no need to tell Woodward and Bernstein not to make things up – it was inconceivable – nor as there a need to tell them not to merely reprint the press releases of an interested party – that’s not reporting.

Today, all around us are examples of both these things.  What’s really disturbing is that supposedly “mainstream” media is just as guilty.  They reprint press releases without checking them.  They hear rumors and report them as fact.   Say what you want about the A-Rod story, but when the source was a reporter with a legitimate journalism background, I gave it more credibility than I would have had it been some wacky blogger.  Thankfully, my faith as rewarded.

This is not a put-down of blogs. Instead, it’s more of a call for everyone with a platform, and that’s ALL of us today – to do some fact-checking and not to blindly repeat what someone, whose motives may be unclear, has put out there.   One certainly expects it of the “journalists” and one can wish for it from the blogs, especially as the bloggers themselves want more access and credibility.

You wouldn’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater unless there was one.  Yet every day, many media outlets do exactly that without seeing smoke or checking out something that smells.