Fort Worth Star-Telegram reader advocate David House offered some insight on Sunday into what goes on “behind the scenes” at a newspaper to get any and all information and newsworthy items into the paper on any given day. In this case, the example is about readers who complained about the newspaper’s coverage of the Iraqi elections on January 30, specifically with the use of the word “trickled” when describing the voting public’s entrance to the polls. At the time the newspaper was being written up (think 10-11:30 p.m. in Forth Worth), it was still early morning in Iraq. The wire service stories, at that time, appear to be accurate. But because a reader gets his newspaper (typically) sometime around 6-9 a.m., this might not be the case anymore, as they could see plain as day on the morning news. Unfortunately, it’s been another 6-9 hours or so since the original stories were written. Newspapers aren’t written on speculation when reporting fact (okay, stop with the gnashing, you know what I mean) - so even though many of us knew that there would be a huge turnout to the elections, it hadn’t happened just yet, hence the “trickled.” I’d say the same could be said for many voting districts in the U.S., in the 6-7 a.m. timeframe, so this shouldn’t be seen as overly biased or, as one reader told the Star-Telegram, “worthy of al Jazeera.”
If you don’t agree, that’s fine, but keep in mind that just because you’re reading the newspaper with your coffee and donuts in the morning doesn’t mean it was created fifteen minutes ago. That’s not to say that it is “old news,” but in a way, things can change significantly from the point you see the paper and when it was printed. This is one of those cases.
Unfortunately, this is one of the things that bloggers need to be more careful of - indicting publications and the media on things that are uncontrollable, before checking their facts. It’s way too easy to start a storm these days, and if those citizen journalists want to keep any credibility, they need to do a little due diligence first, not jump the gun every single time. We’re about to end up in a place where people start tearing up every single line of every single news item just looking for any sense of something that that person doesn’t agree with or sees as biased, whether it is present or not - and it’s very frustrating to see everything boil down to. Bloggers who are surprised when “mainstream” media is quick to condemn should look at this as a reason why.
