What’s More Important – Get It First But Get It Right, Or Get It First And If It’s Wrong Apologize Afterwards?

Philip Stone October 29, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Former editorial hands at Reuters are reacting with some dismay at the new editorial objectives the news agency recently announced because lacking within those principles is the word “accuracy”. And in recent weeks Reuters has been caught out on more than one occasion for getting it wrong and having to apologize very publicly.

The Reuters news leadership team (basically the company’s top editors) announced with great fanfare a week ago that the broad objectives for Reuters journalists are: “Own the big stories, emphasize higher-value content; be first, handle news quickly, understand customer needs, teamwork, innovate, lead, communicate, be a face for Reuters/Thomson Reuters, and stay within budget targets.”

When this writer was a senior Reuters news marketing executive the editorial objective was far more simple, “Get it first, but get it right.” There’s nothing in these new objectives about getting it right and several former Reuters journalists have taken to the Internet pages of The Baron – For Reuters people past and present, run by Barry May, a former Reuters deputy managing editor, to question why accuracy is not there. And they have also shown their displeasure, too, at a public event the news agency hosted.  

It’s an important debate, because within past weeks Reuters has been caught out on at least three major mistakes. Could they have been averted if more time had been spent checking the initial information rather than being the speeding bullet?

There used to be a firm newsroom rule – when a PR release hits, check back with the supposed sender to make sure it is authentic. Many times in the past Reuters caught out hoaxes by doing this, but has the pressure of receiving so many news releases and wanting to be first ended that practice? Just last week Reuters ran with an item supposedly from the US Chamber of Commerce that it was supporting climate change legislation being debated in the US Congress. In fact, it was a hoax put out by a group called Yes Men. Reuters said it “issued a correction to its report as soon as it confirmed the hoax and subsequently withdrew the story and sent an advisory to readers.”

But that begs the question of why a call wasn’t put into the US Chamber of Commerce in the first place just to check the PR release was correct? They would have done that “in the good old days”. Just because a policy is old doesn’t mean it is outdated.

And Reuters has been caught out wrong on a couple of items picked off TV. Again in the US there was a CNN report of a gun battle on the Potomac River. In fact it was a US Coast Guard training exercise. But did Reuters check with the Coast Guard before issuing its story? No, it ran with the CNN report, but the AP actually did call the Coast Guard first and it got it right.

And in the UK Sky News ran with the story that the released Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi had died and Reuters picked up on that. al-Megrahi’s lawyer denied his client was dead – why didn’t Reuters check that before the pick-up?  It used to be TV was a “tip” something may or may not have happened (just as Twitter and citizen journalism on the Internet is today) and the professional journalist then goes and checks out the supposed facts before committing to the wire.

A recent seminar Reuters hosted at its London editorial headquarters on “What Price The News” turned into a bit of a free-for-all with former Reuters journalists and others taking the current editorial management to task for lowering standards. Paul Iredale, a 30-year Reuters veteran, came from one extreme – “In Reuters it seems to have gone to speed rather than accuracy,” he said. “What we used to say about Reuters was we got it last, but we got it right. I don’t think that is the case now” Well, no one is really asking now that Reuters should get it last, but it should get it right.

Sean Maguire, Reuters global editor, political and general news, defended as best he could. He said when the news agency knows it gets something wrong, it issues corrections and withdraws the story. He admitted, “There is a premium on speed… The business model has changed … we don’t recklessly report what we think is wrong…” and he pointed to the al-Megrahi story as a prime example of how things are done right – the story was wrong so it got corrected and withdrawn.

That’s the right way? Former correspondent Colin Bickler would have none of that. “I worked for Reuters for 28 years and if I had pulled that excuse (go with it, but if we later see it was wrong we own up to it) I would have been shot …I’m in shock.”

It’s very difficult in today’s Internet world to always be first. Citizen journalists are everywhere, Twittering away their beats. Are they accurate? Are they checked? 24-hour cable news channels can show what looks like a battle on the Potomac River, but is it really so? More important to go with the initial break and correct it later if necessary, or get it right first? There’s a reason why more and more people say they don’t trust their news sources, and events like these don’t help.

Reuters recently launched a new website to showcase how well it does editorially, listing its firsts, exclusives and the like.  Among its amazing statistics is that it moves some 2.5 million news stories a year, 1,700 news pictures daily, and some 52,000 video stories annually. But life is such that for all of those millions of news items it gets right, it’s the ones it gets wrong that people remember.

It reminds one of the story of a Reuters employee who complained to a senior executive that the company never sent out “Atta Boy” notes congratulating staff on doing a good job. The senior executive thought about that for a moment and answered,  “At Reuters we expect you to do a good job. It’s when you do a bad job that you’ll hear from us.” Management cultures hopefully have changed some since then, but it shows the heritage.

The list of editorial executives on the News Leadership team is a Who’s Who of current Reuters editorial chieftains. But perhaps because they are so close to their subject they can’t see all the trees for the forest (yes, an editorial cliché if ever there was one). One or two old timers, no doubt, with fresh eyes would have seen right away that within all of the new objectives the word “accuracy” was nowhere to be seen. Maybe the committee needs a couple of outside advisers.

Leaving out “accuracy” was a glaring error, and it came from the very top, so how can you blame those below when things go wrong?

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