Ohio State U Press Office: On the hazards of the un-checked press release
Here at the tracker a recurring theme is the common but not commendable habit of some in media to write a story mainly by rewriting press releases. It happens, sometimes in desperation, sometimes in laziness, sometimes because editors demand so much copy a reporter has not time to reach original sources to find out what they really believe, found, or said.
Another angle is reported on a blog post by longtime Ohio State University science writer and public affairs man Earle Holland. His chosen lesson is a little bit different. He writes of a spot of news that went awry because the principal investigator of the work being reported, a bioarcheologist (and not at OSU), did not carefully check the press release from her institution before it went out. The topic was Donner Party cannibalism. The result was a snafu, with a corrected press release dispatched after the damage was done, the public misled, and a researcher left chary of media.
One can draw lessons beyond what Holland does. At least researchers at most institutions are shown a release before it goes out. And of course they’d better read it carefully. They won’t have a chance, with rare exception, to check what reporters write before it’s on line or on paper.
But the other lesson is, first, that the press office in this case not only slightly flubbed the release, with big consequences, but that so many reporters took the press release as a surrogate for, here we go again, doing some actual reporting and fact-checking. Press releases can be reliably expected to give one the proper spelling of an institution’s employees, job titles, and the general notion of a story’s substance. It is a tip sheet. To use its quotes unchecked (if you quote somebody, you better have heard it with your own ears – or say where you got it second-hand), its angles unchecked, its assertions and interpretations unchecked, is second-rate or even third-rate journalism. Second-rate does not mean sure-fire dreadful. It often holds up. A lot of press releases are quite well done by ethical, serious pros. But it’s not the best idea to assume as much. It is a gamble. It’s not what reporters go into the journalism trade to do. Make the call. Get your own quotes and try for opinions from outsiders. Think the story through afresh before – as may happen – settling on a story that may in the end hit the same points as the handout did.
- Charlie Petit
May 13th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Using information from a university news release without checking may be second- or third-rate journalism, but interviewing sources directly is no guarantee that a reporter will get a story right. I remember a case when I was working for The Christian Science Monitor based in Denver. Our Chicago correspondent did an farm trend story that did not jive with the information I was getting about the state of agriculture in the West. When I complained to the national news editor, he explained to me that my colleague would come up with an idea and go with it if he could find a couple of supportive sources. Whenever a reporter is more interested in getting a reaction or flogging a personal viewpoint than understanding a situation and explaining it to readers, then the truth will suffer.