From Mining Disaster to Media Disaster

In Chapter 6 of Blur, “Evidence and the Journalism of Verification,” Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel tell the story of the January 2, 2006, Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia to illustrate the journalist’s need to verify information by knowing it as opposed to merely relying on observation.

The tragedy of the mine’s explosion was compounded by the tragedy of the media’s misreporting of the number of survivors.  Thirteen miners were trapped in the mine.  Initial media reports went out saying twelve miners had survived (meaning one hadn’t), but the reality was horribly, ironically the opposite: twelve miners had perished and only one had survived.

Ariail, Robert.  Robert Ariail.  "The Miners Are Alive!"  Editorial Cartoon.  The State.  6 Jan. 
2006.

I remember this story well and have used it in Journalism I before in a discussion of ethics.

Like many newspapers across the country, Columbia’s newspaper, The State, published the story on January 4, 2006.

Once the truth of the number of survivors came out, the media’s thought and decision-making processes were evaluated in detail.

On January 5, 2006, The State ran two explanatory pieces about what went wrong from the media’s perspective.  Unfortunately, a quick search of the internet didn’t produce any links to these pieces.

The first was headlined “Late-hour revelation hamstrings media” with the deck “A Chronology of Confusion.” This was a sort of standalone that included a timeline attributed to Cox News Service and graphics of other newspapers’ front pages showing how they had published the same error.

The other explanatory piece, a story headlined “Erroneous reports lead to media soul-searching,” was datelined New York and attributed to wire reports.  The story details how the news of the real death toll wasn’t widely known until after most newspapers, particularly on the East Coast, had already printed and begun distribution, whereas newspapers on the West Coast were a bit more reliable because of the time difference: The Sacramento Bee published the story headlined “Joy to Despair,” and the Los Angeles Times was able to recall trucks of papers with incorrect stories.

      

In a rather quaint fashion (compared to today’s lightning-fast social media reporting), the story pointed out that most internet and television news outlets were able to correct the mistake before many news consumers woke up that morning.

The State localized the story in a sidebar by explaining its own publication timing and showing graphics of two different versions of the paper’s front page.  The first edition, printed to be sent to the far reaches of the state (Charleston, Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Spartanburg) ran a story headlined “One body recovered; ‘we need a miracle.’”  The Capital Final edition, which is the version most Columbia-area residents would have received, was redesigned and sent the presses in about thirty minutes with the headline “12 miners rescued; 1 dead.”

I see now that combined with The State’s former staff cartoonist, Robert Ariail, and his perspective (the cartoon above is so old, it’s not even in his online archives), along with the discussion of the events in Blur, these explanatory pieces can be used to teach other concepts aside from ethics: building relationships with the audience, gathering and use of evidence, independent confirmation, skepticism, sourcing, transparency, verification.

If only this gold mine of a lesson hadn’t come from a coal mine of disaster. 

Relevant Revelations

This past week, I had lunch with my friend John, thanks to some dead presidents.  No, not dead presidents as in money but dead presidents as in time—Presidents’ Day.

As I was bundling up to leave the restaurant and face the frigid winter temperatures that have descended upon us, I spied a reporter from WIS, Columbia’s NBC affiliate, at a nearby table.  Out in the parking lot, I asked John if he had seen her, and he informed me he didn’t even know who I was talking about because he hardly ever watches the local television news; in fact, he couldn’t even pinpoint his last memory of tuning in to the local news.

Skyline.  Columbia, South Carolina.  Photographed by Stephen Milligan (May 30, 
2010). 

This revelation may not amaze anyone, considering how America’s news-consumption habits are rapidly changing, but this is a response I would expect from, as Tina Fey so eloquently put it on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live’s fortieth anniversary special just the night before, “whatever you call the little dummies who are live-tweeting this right now instead of watching it.”

Now, John is no dummy, and at just a couple of years older than me, he is in his mid-thirties…well, okay—mid-forties (I suppose I must try to maintain a few shreds of credibility here as a journalism teacher), so he doesn’t fit Fey’s description.  To top it all off, John is a lawyer who works closely with county governments in South Carolina. 

So shouldn’t a lawyer associated with county governments keep abreast of local news?

I quizzed John about where he gets his news, and, of course, he responded that he gets it online because it’s available instantly.  He went on to say how he sees local news increasingly cluttered with meaningless fluff pieces presented by anchors who aren’t really engaging to him.  John’s scorn over the word anchor was even evident.

I later scanned my copy of The Elements of Journalism to see if John had received a ghostwriting credit!  It was as if Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel were right there with us.

In Chapter 8, “Engagement and Relevance,” the authors discuss the effects infotainment has had on the news industry and its wisdom (or lack thereof) as a business strategy.  They cite the research that says viewers are becoming apathetic in their choice of local news stations, if they even watch at all—and what a dramatic decline that figure has experienced.

So where does John get his news?  His top choice is—another shocking disclosure—Google News (and I almost passed out when he used the word aggregator—many commoners outside of journalism probably would have thought he’d mispronounced the word alligator), followed by local news alerts sent to his phone from news outlets in Columbia and Greenville, about two hours away.

As Bill and Tom and John departed the chilly parking lot, I thought back on the most fascinating revelation of the day—during a discussion over lunch of the snow predicted for Columbia this past week (which never materialized) and memories of past snowfalls, John revealed he had been a school bus driver when he was in high school.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around that news alert. 

You Can’t Please Everyone…

Since this week’s topic for the Social Role of the Mass Media class is a continuation of last week’s topic, handling sensitive issues, I thought I would make this blog post sort of a continuation of my topic last week, the shooting on the University of South Carolina campus.

I realized I hadn’t looked at any of the coverage done by the university’s student newspaper.  When I was a student there, The Gamecock came out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and may have been at most eight pages each predominately black-and-white issue.  Now The Daily Gamecock publishes daily and, of course, has an online presence, which put last week’s coverage at my fingertips.

Capstone House.  University of South Carolina.  Columbia, South Carolina.  1967.  
Modern style.  Photographed by Stephen Milligan (May 30, 2010). 

A special memorial edition of the newspaper was published last Friday, the day after the murder-suicide.  Also that morning, the Editor-in-Chief, Hannah Jeffrey, posted an editorial headlined “Letter from the Editor: Why you won't find individuals' names in Friday's paper.”

In the piece, Jeffrey explains the thought process behind the newspaper’s decision to not publish the names of the victim and the assailant that Friday morning since official word had not yet come from the Richland County Coroner (long after the paper’s press run). 

Exactly what we’ve been immersed in the past couple of weeks: Sensitivity.  Verification.  Transparency.  Maintaining credibility.  Time being the enemy of accuracy.  Informing the reader of editorial choices.

How professional of Jeffrey to explain the decision to the reader when so many rumors surely would have been traveling all over campus and Columbia.  Some of the posted comments agreed with her, applauding the decision for its good journalism and ethical standards.

Interestingly, though, a few of the comments harkened to this week’s other newsworthy topic: Brian Williams.  Some of the readers accused The Daily Gamecock staff of tooting its own horn and making the news about the staff instead of the murdered professor.

“You see, you can’t please everyone,” as Rick Nelson sang in “Garden Party.”

But Jeffrey did what she thought was right for her readers.

“So you’ve got to please yourself.”

Close to Home

Well, I wish this one hadn’t fallen into my lap.

Today at approximately 12:56 P.M., a shooting, an apparent murder-suicide, occurred at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina, my alma mater and less than five miles from my house.

Detail.  McKissick Museum.  University of South Carolina.  
Columbia, South Carolina.  1939.  Works Progress Administration 
Romanesque style.  Photographed by Stephen Milligan (August 
15, 2009). 

Coincidentally, at about the same time, a car accident occurred just outside the building at the corner of Assembly and College streets (USC is an open, downtown campus), so among all of the confusion, the misinformation began to fly on social media.  According to WIS, Columbia’s NBC affiliate, rumors of the shooting’s nature and location were spread on social media: It was an active shooter situation.  It took place on the Horseshoe, the original part of campus.  At Russell House, the university union.  Even at the South Carolina State House, just blocks away.

WIS devoted all of its 5:00 and 5:30 news broadcasts to the event (with only a two-minute look at the weather) and much of its 6:00 broadcast.  The reporter on the scene, after discussing the inaccurate social media reports with the evening anchor, who had joined her there, then exhorted the audience to verify any information before sharing it on social media.

Details are still emerging as I listen to WIS’s 7:00 news report, most of which is devoted to the shooting, but I’ve already noticed a little time is being devoted to sports, weather, and traffic, but no other news has been reported.

Not only is this story close to home geographically, but it’s also close to home as far as the Social Role of Mass Media class goes.  Verification.  Erroneous Twitter reports.  Accuracy.  Completeness.  Sensitive issues.  All of these were topics of this week’s class readings.  And all of these issues are embodied in this story:

Verification?  The reporter chose the responsible route by asking the public to verify information before sharing on social media to minimize the spread of mistaken reports. 

Erroneous Twitter reports?  The rumors in those initial reports have been dispelled…but will probably be replaced by others. 

Completeness?  Obviously the story is incomplete at the moment, so much of the 7:00 news involved reiterating and discussing—no information about the two who died can be released until the Richland County coroner gives approval. 

Accuracy?  WIS is, for many, the best source of television news in the Midlands, so I’m sure accuracy is something each reporting team is striving for.

Sensitive issue?  Definitely.