Different Standards for Broadcast News?

NBC News (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Sunday, David Carr, of the New York Times published an article called, “TV News Corrects Itself, Just Not on the Air.”

The “Today” show for NBC decided last month to air an edited clip of the 911 call made by George Zimmerman.  Zimmerman as you know is currently facing a second-degree murder charge in the death of Trayvon Martin.  According to Carr’s article, the show edited the clip, which ended up making Zimmerman sound as though he was making racist comments.  Carr called the edited clip, “…misleading, incendiary and dead-bang wrong…”

Carr goes on to say that while NBC took swift action after realizing the terrible editing, albeit a week after it originally aired and re-aired, which included an investigation, the firing of the producer in charge and an apology.

Carr points out that what the network didn’t do, was make an on-air correction.  Not during any of the four hours of the show was there one second dedicated to a correction that would set the audience straight.

Carr states, “What is it with television news and corrections? When the rest of the journalism world gets something wrong, they generally correct themselves. But network news acts as if an on-air admission of error might cause a meteor to land on the noggin of one of its precious talking heads. NBC used all of the powers at its disposal to amend the mistake, except the high-visibility airtime where the bad clip ran in the first place.”

Carr reached out to Steve Capus, president of NBC News, and much to his disappointment, Capus agreed with Carr.

Capus stated in Carr’s article, “We did an awful lot of work after it happened. We did an exhaustive investigation, I did interviews with a lot of publications to get the message out, but we probably should have done it on our own air.”

Carr wraps up his article saying, “Give NBC credit for dealing with a big error that threatened to sow further mayhem on a very delicate story. It’s just too bad it failed to remember that the fix for bad journalism generally includes more journalism. The kind that goes on the air.”

I agree with Carr.  The network absolutely should have aired a correction, especially given the very nature in the evolution of this case and its national attention.

When Carr mentions that television news never corrects itself unless it is to make a lawsuit go away, I cringe at the comment.  Why is this the case?  Does broadcast journalism hold itself to a different journalistic standard than papers and other forms of the news media?  Shouldn’t this type of behavior, airing corrections on the same broadcast show that made the mistake, be included in a “best practices” standard?  I certainly think it should.  Considering the amount of people out there that still get their news from television broadcasts, I would think that keeping the public correctly informed would be a major characteristic and goal of any network.

I think it’s time that broadcast news, as it pertains to corrections, be held to the very same standards that the print media and online media follow.  Journalism is journalism, and accuracy should be equally required across the board.

Carr speaks with Aaron Brown, a professor of journalism and former anchor.  Brown states, “But given how high-profile that this screw-up was and the fact that it became a news story itself, I’m shocked that they didn’t correct it on the ‘Today’ show.”

Exactly Mr. Brown.  In my view, you and David Carr hit the nail on the head.

Related articles

• NBC apologizes for making Zimmerman sound racist in edited Trayvon clip (rt.com)
• Media Malpractice: Month after edited Zimmerman 911 call, no on-air correction by NBC (twitchy.com)
• @ NBC News president says 911 tape editing was “a mistake and not a deliberate act to misrepresent the phone call” (mediaite.com)
• Trayvon Martin call was “mistake, not deliberate” – NBC (vancouversun.com)
• NBC News ‘In Shock’ Over George Zimmerman Error (huffingtonpost.com)
• NBC fires ‘Today’ producer over Trayvon Martin 911 call edit (digitalspy.co.uk)
• NBC News President Steve Capus: Zimmerman’s edited call was a ‘mistake, not deliberate’ (nextlevelofnews.com)

Reporter Asks What Fellow Journalists Think of the Job

New York, New York. Newsroom of the New York Times newspaper. Reporters and rewrite men writing stories, and waiting to be sent out. Rewrite man in background gets the story on the phone from reporter outside. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In an article for the New York Times, David Carr makes an attempt to defend journalism.  His article is titled, “Fill in the Blank:  Being a Reporter Is the _____Job in the World.”

Carr basically sums up the past couple of weeks in the world of journalism, and how there seems to be a lot of talk of dissatisfaction with the job.  In his article he quotes a fellow writer Malcolm Gladwell from a speech he gave at Yale, “Newspapers are kind of dreary, depressed places. I would go the penniless Web route to get practice.”

Carr mentions the Fox Mole indirectly, and we all know how dissatisfied he was with his job.  He also mentions a young journalist who was hired and decided to write-up a press release about his new position and posted it to Tumblr, he was fired within twenty-four hours of being hired.

And then of course, Carr mentioned this, “CareerCast included hundreds of jobs in its annual ranking and decided that being a newspaper reporter was the fifth-worst job in the land. Being a dishwasher and a taxi driver rated as better occupations.”

Okay.  So it wasn’t a great month in the land of journalism, and I agree, albeit with very little experience, that newsrooms and newspapers are not what they used to be.

But.  There is still glory to be found in this old institution.  There are still aspiring young journalists like myself that are figuring out what our niche’s are.  There is a whole generation of journalists up and coming that want to restore the industry to the standards we are taught, and all, I promise is not lost.

Who does CareerCast think they are anyway?  The future of journalism is a bright one.  Thanks to Carr, journalists from all walks of life have commented on the state of the job, and in reading many of the responses to his article, I am convinced that CareerCast is completely off base.

To answer his question:  Being a reporter is the most amazing job in the world.

Related articles

• Advice for the Young Journalist (publicgoodreporting.wordpress.com)
• Matt Welch: Why legacy-newspaper media reporters get their own industry so wrong (nextlevelofnews.com)
• “Newspapers are kind of dreary, depressed places. I would go the penniless Web route to get practice….” (shortformblog.com)
• SXSW: David Carr and the Curator’s Code (theverge.com)