A Press for the People

Abby Kongos | ak136116@ohio.edu

The value of America’s free press is something that goes beyond the bounds of ink and paper. It’s a certain type of power that, when utilized, can pressure local governments to take action or own up to discrepancies. I think that it's become easy to buy into the warning of “fake news” as called out by government officials that dislike the facts being spread. So, the public turns on news organizations instead of holding officials responsible. When in fact, the news is made up of the public. It's by the people, for the people. Many journalists focus on the ethical aspect more heavily than most because they’re thinking of the repercussions to the public. 

Mike Luckovich, Mike Luckovich's Editorial Cartoons

The Editorial Board at the New York Times believes that “insisting that truths you don’t like are, “fake news” is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the “enemy of the people” is dangerous, period.” Which makes complete sense. Such thinking puts all the cards in the hands of our leaders when it's important that they are checked for what they say and do. But then again, journalists need to be treated in the same respect; we deserve criticism and to own up to mistakes made.

Fact-checking hard news stories will always be extraordinarily important to the transparency and credibility of a newspaper. The public will unsubscribe to outlets even after an apology is issued because they’ve now realized that there was a mistake when perhaps they didn’t in the first place. It is the job of a journalist to always seek the truth and tell the truth. Unfortunately, there are times where news is reported before all the facts are collected and causes a lot of concern for the public. 

An article by Poynter recalls a media error made by NPR in which they reported that the wife of the astronaut, Mark Kelly, had died after being shot in the head at a town hall meeting. Kelly felt shocked and upset, until learning from her chief of staff that she was in surgery still alive.

The two sources that NPR ran the story based off of were inaccurate and should have been backed up by an insider source. NPR is also larger and more well-known so the news spread quickly before it was retracted and apologized for. But the damage had been done and Kelly, his family, and the public were rightfully hurt.

This example shows a more extenuating example of how a false report can do harm. Then there are those where an error with a name swap occurs and does no harm, but still manages to chip away at the public’s trust. 

I think that Mark Memmott, NPR’s supervising senior editor for standards and practices said it best, “To me, a mistake by a credible news organization is going to happen,” he said. “Mistakes will happen. We are human beings. A credible news organization sets out to tell the truth. Occasionally it will make mistakes. Those who are spreading the fake news aren’t worried about the truth.”