Austin American Statesman story

It's not feasible to run a background check on every single subject of a feature story. Both from a time and money standpoint. The reporter got burned a bit when this popped up after the first story. It happens.
What was sloppy was the follow-up story. When you have a subject like that, for God's sake take the time and space to do it right if you're going to do it. Spend a couple days in Houston looking through old records if you have to. Try to dig up some of the people involved, or people who knew her back when. If the young reporter is having trouble finding stuff, the editors should guide her or assign someone with more experience.
And for God's sake, write more than 450 words on it. Maybe space is tight, but that's a story that deserves more space than your average sidebar for a Texas football game.

 

You can make that argument. It's not that cut and dry, though. If you make a mistake as a newspaper you owe it to your readers to fix it, if possible. I'd err on the side of giving more information than less, letting the readers decide if it's relevant. You can say that makes me less of a writer, but it makes me more of a reporter.

 

I don't think it would make you less of a writer or more of a reporter, but maybe less of a responsible journalist in terms of decision-making. [Not being critical, just working from your last sentence there.]

The only reason to do the second story at all is because of the first, and the first was generated entirely by the newspaper's pursuit of a feel-good feature. Since when does "outing" an octogenarian 36 years after the wheels of justice turned in her case -- and stopped turning, all parties officially served -- have anything to do with good reporting.

Maybe the AAS wants to start a running feature in which it dredges up skeletons from people's past, and sells it to a voyeuristic audience, each of whom is praying like hell that he or she isn't next in that uncomfortable lottery?

 

Throwing information out there because you don't want to be bothered to make a decision on what's relevant isn't reporting, it's an abdication of the basic responsibility of journalism.

 

It's not about being bothered to make a decision, it's about withholding information. The basic responsibility of journalism is to present things in an unbiased manner. Deciding to withhold what might be pertinent information is a form of bias.

 

I'd love to know how the reporter went back to interview her about these things.

"So, it turns out you murdered your stepson. Care to talk about it?"

I mean, Wow.

 

Just in that if he'd never run for the office, the reporter would never have looked into his background and found out about his past. I wasn't saying it was the same, just that something way back came out because of what probably started out as a routine story.

A big difference was that the reporter in the american justice thing actually found the information while researching her story.

 

I have another question for those who think this should have been followed up on when the information came to light...what are the standards for what should be pursued? Say, for instance, she had tax problems in the 1950's related to her personal assets and served a few months. Would this be important to the story of this woman's being a pilot at 81 years old? How about if the tax problems involved her flying business? I am not trying to relate killing a child to tax troubles, but is there a line where we, as reporters, say "hey, I should follow up on that." Is this an "if it bleeds, it leads" thing?

 

Agreed. The reporter should have:
1. Done an archive search of her own paper for a mention of this woman or her flight school.
2. Done a generalized Google search of the woman and her flight school.
3. Repeat 1. and 2. for any major sources in the story.
4. Check with an official source to verify the woman did have her pilot's license/business license/etc.
5. If any of the above popped with something strange, follow up accordingly.

There is no time and certainly no money to conduct full criminal/DMV/credit/etc. checks on every subject of a feature story. News story, maybe. Investigative story, absolutely. But feature story? That's insane.