Rushing to be wrong

[dooley_womack1]

I'd more than welcome CBS Sports to put out a story that I'd dead. Heck, those folks are certain to be right...eventually

 

[PCLoadLetter]

A few points...

-- This stuff isn't new. The medium may be semi-new, but this is journalism 101. You don't report as fact something that you don't know. Get two independent sources. At an absolute minimum you have to attribute the info to whoever is reporting it if you haven't confirmed it on your own. Jacobi did none of this. He didn't get caught in some brave-new-world grey area; he ****ed up on the most basic journalistic level.

-- If it turned out he was right no one cares, and Jacobi gets off lucky. He was wrong, people care, and he's out. That's how it works. No one ever gets punished for accidentally getting it right. (And it didn't turn out to be right a short time later; he reported someone was dead, and the guy wasn't dead. He doesn't get credit for only missing by 16 hours.)

-- This isn't an "editing" issue. The problem isn't a lack of oversight. The problem is a guy who reported something he didn't know to be true.

-- The "he's a blogger" defense doesn't wash. He worked for CBSSports.com. He didn't work for NittanyWanker.com. If you are representing CBS, you have an expectation to live up to. This instantly turned into "CBS says Paterno is dead." If he's not a journalist and doesn't know how to do this stuff properly he shouldn't be doing it for something linked with CBS.

 

[dooley_womack1]

-- He didn't work for NittanyWanker.com.

I get a Server Not Found :-\

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

-- This isn't an "editing" issue. The problem isn't a lack of oversight. The problem is a guy who reported something he didn't know to be true.

-- The "he's a blogger" defense doesn't wash. He worked for CBSSports.com. He didn't work for NittanyWanker.com. If you are representing CBS, you have an expectation to live up to. This instantly turned into "CBS says Paterno is dead." If he's not a journalist and doesn't know how to do this stuff properly he shouldn't be doing it for something linked with CBS.

We had a discussion here years ago, maybe more than one discussion, about editing blogs on mainstream sites and some people believed that defeats the purpose, that they are supposed to be informal and unfettered. I've always disagreed, but I think my point was simply that everyone needs editing.

Now I think that once a news organization (no matter the medium) reaches a certain size, you pretty much have to apply mainstream rules and have mainstream safety nets because it becomes increasingly difficult to manage -- and trust -- that many people. I've long believed that usually when ethical problems happen with staffers on big newspapers, it's usually a product of you can't have hundreds of people in a newsroom without having hired a few who are really screwed up in various ways. So you institute rules and layers of supervision to try to protect the organization from people making bad or irresponsible decisions. Internet folks seem to think they can be different than newspaper people, but they can only to a certain point and then they will need to become increasingly like us just to protect their investment. The Big Lead started out blatently stealing photos from other websites (it doesn't appear that they still do), but obviously Gannett cannot allow things like that. Bigger you get, the more rules you get.

 

[Versatile]

Frank, we agree on most things. But that post ... word for ****ing word.

 

[jr/shotglass]

-- This isn't an "editing" issue. The problem isn't a lack of oversight. The problem is a guy who reported something he didn't know to be true.

-- The "he's a blogger" defense doesn't wash. He worked for CBSSports.com. He didn't work for NittanyWanker.com. If you are representing CBS, you have an expectation to live up to. This instantly turned into "CBS says Paterno is dead." If he's not a journalist and doesn't know how to do this stuff properly he shouldn't be doing it for something linked with CBS.

We had a discussion here years ago, maybe more than one discussion, about editing blogs on mainstream sites and some people believed that defeats the purpose, that they are supposed to be informal and unfettered. I've always disagreed, but I think my point was simply that everyone needs editing.

Now I think that once a news organization (no matter the medium) reaches a certain size, you pretty much have to apply mainstream rules and have mainstream safety nets because it becomes increasingly difficult to manage -- and trust -- that many people. I've long believed that usually when ethical problems happen with staffers on big newspapers, it's usually a product of you can't have hundreds of people in a newsroom without having hired a few who are really screwed up in various ways. So you institute rules and layers of supervision to try to protect the organization from people making bad or irresponsible decisions. Internet folks seem to think they can be different than newspaper people, but they can only to a certain point and then they will need to become increasingly like us just to protect their investment. The Big Lead started out blatently stealing photos from other websites (it doesn't appear that they still do), but obviously Gannett cannot allow things like that. Bigger you get, the more rules you get.

What he said.

 

[1HPGrad]

Reporters screw up regularly, even at the biggest papers and sites. That's why we have editors. This absolutely is an editing issue because any good editor would have asked for sources. When he couldn't produce one good enough, the story never runs. It's pretty simple, pretty standard stuff. No need to complicate it.
I find a lot more fault with the system than the reporter. Their system would allow this type of error to repeat itself, and that's downright scary.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Reporters screw up regularly, even at the biggest papers and sites. That's why we have editors. This absolutely is an editing issue because any good editor would have asked for sources. When he couldn't produce one good enough, the story never runs. It's pretty simple, pretty standard stuff. No need to complicate it.
I find a lot more fault with the system than the reporter. Their system would allow this type of error to repeat itself, and that's downright scary.

See, I just don't understand this line of thinking at all. Any good editor would ask for sources? Any good reporter would have the sources.

I would have a much easier time defending the ME at OnwardState.com, and he resigned immediately.

 

[SockPuppet]

NittanyWanker.com.

I believe this is Jerry Sandusky's personal web site.

 

[tacheles]

In this case it was apparently Jacobi's call and it was Jacobi who ****ed it up.

So let me see if I'm getting this straight. The bloggers working for CBS are not trained or experienced journalists. (And from the looks of it, seem like classic early-aughts bloggers -- i.e., they rather despise, thus eschew the ways of traditional journalism, thinking themselves infinitely smarter and not so stuck-in-the-mud as to write about the "trivialities" the Lamestream Media get so hung up on. Say, like, providing readers with injury updates on high-profile athletes.)

But while being untrained, inexperienced and likely somewhat contrarian, these bloggers for the most part are in charge of what they write for CBS? There's no assignment editor for each beat they write for who's vetting both planned and spot news?

From what's been posted and heard, are we also to understand that these non-journalist blogtrarians, who receive neither direction nor oversight, are in theory and rather haphazard practice seen as central conduits through which CBS can both engage in the irreverent, snarky and all too often counter-factual gut instinct of the blogosphere and at the same time gain escape velocity from the corporation's traditional dependence on news wires? How's that going to work? Oh, right, it's not working. Because a blogtrarian is the antithesis of an AP reporter.

Given the circumstances, was it really Jacobi and not a systemic failure?

Then how does CBS explain a process in which breaking news, much of which isn't original content but rather agg'ed by their bloggers, is first released via company tweets and Facebook alerts by those same bloggers before the site's editors even know it's out there? Also, aren't the posts themselves already written and posted live before staff editors are made aware of their existence in the respective beat's landing pages?

Such an editorial approach seems like a shoot-first-and-edit-later strategy that others far beyond Adam Jacobi are accountable for foisting on both their staff and an unsuspecting public.

Jacobi does have to take some measure of responsibility, but when all is said and done, he's just a foot soldier in what is obviously an officers army.

 

[lone star scribe]

1) Jacobi is at fault. Be he reporter, blogger or aggregater, he filed a major story lacking sources and attribution. Had he done nothing more than cited OnwardState.com, he would have been protected. That he didn't indicates to me that he wanted the credit. So he gets the blame, too.

2) The blogging system is at fault. Whether it's CBS, or ESPN, or a daily newspaper, or a TV station, if you try to break news online without some oversight in place, this is the risk you run. One editor asking, "Where did you get this?" would have saved CBS much embarrassment. But, hey, editors aren't content producers, so their ranks get cut the quickest in our bottom-line journalistic world. Not to get all biblical on this, but you reap what you sow.

 

[SF_Express]

In this case it was apparently Jacobi's call and it was Jacobi who ****ed it up.

So let me see if I'm getting this straight. The bloggers working for CBS are not trained or experienced journalists. (And from the looks of it, seem like classic early-aughts bloggers -- i.e., they rather despise, thus eschew the ways of traditional journalism, thinking themselves infinitely smarter and not so stuck-in-the-mud as to write about the "trivialities" the Lamestream Media get so hung up on. Say, like, providing readers with injury updates on high-profile athletes.)

But while being untrained, inexperienced and likely somewhat contrarian, these bloggers for the most part are in charge of what they write for CBS? There's no assignment editor for each beat they write for who's vetting both planned and spot news?

From what's been posted and heard, are we also to understand that these non-journalist blogtrarians, who receive neither direction nor oversight, are in theory and rather haphazard practice seen as central conduits through which CBS can both engage in the irreverent, snarky and all too often counter-factual gut instinct of the blogosphere and at the same time gain escape velocity from the corporation's traditional dependence on news wires? How's that going to work? Oh, right, it's not working. Because a blogtrarian is the antithesis of an AP reporter.

Given the circumstances, was it really Jacobi and not a systemic failure?

Then how does CBS explain a process in which breaking news, much of which isn't original content but rather agg'ed by their bloggers, is first released via company tweets and Facebook alerts by those same bloggers before the site's editors even know it's out there? Also, aren't the posts themselves already written and posted live before staff editors are made aware of their existence in the respective beat's landing pages?

Such an editorial approach seems like a shoot-first-and-edit-later strategy that others far beyond Adam Jacobi are accountable for foisting on both their staff and an unsuspecting public.

Jacobi does have to take some measure of responsibility, but when all is said and done, he's just a foot soldier in what is obviously an officers army.

I have held and am holding my tongue on this for obvious reasons. But there is so much wrong is this post -- from the nature, personality and approach of the bloggers themselves to the way they are managed and about a dozen things in between -- that I have to say: As I read the various media and message board commentaries on this episode -- which is at its core all about accuracy -- it is astounding to me how many people have gotten so many things wrong -- while writing about accuracy. Simply astounding.

This was a very bad thing that happened and prompted a lot of soul-searching, and system reevaluation. But the only differences between the Joe Paterno situation and some of the things I have read are A) one was a grave error involving the death of an icon, and the other is not and B) the entire sorry Paterno episode came and went in a period of about 12 to 15 frenetic minutes; the people screwing up the post-mortems are having hours and days to think about it and STILL getting much of it wrong.

 

[jr/shotglass]

I thought that sitting there like a big ol' softball.

Go get 'em, SF.

 

[SF_Express]

Eh, I take no joy in talking about this and am tired of thinking about it, but tacheles apparently signed up specifically to do one post, and in 341 words, he mischaracterized or flat got things wrong with about 240 of them.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Eh, I take no joy in talking about this and am tired of thinking about it, but tacheles apparently signed up specifically to do one post, and in 341 words, he mischaracterized or flat got things wrong with about 240 of them.

Yes, I'm doubting he'll show up with a second post.

 

[HanSenSE]

Eh, I take no joy in talking about this and am tired of thinking about it, but tacheles apparently signed up specifically to do one post, and in 341 words, he mischaracterized or flat got things wrong with about 240 of them.

Yes, I'm doubting he'll show up with a second post.

And he didn't even buy any beers (sigh).

 

[Cosmo]

And, well, there's this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/hokies-journal/post/national-signing-day-2012-conversation-between-virginia-tech-and-recruit-jawand-blue-is-aired-publicly-on-twitter/2012/02/01/gIQAT8czhQ_blog.html