The Hungry Journalist

Sometimes I feel like I’m in another journalism world. Reporting on sports is far different than crime, courts or many of the other venues we usually think of as “hard news.”

But today I read a story on Poynter Online that deals with “pack” journalism as it related to the Gloucester pregnancies story. This interested me because pack journalism is exactly what I do when I cover any sports from college on up.

And Poynter’s pereception on pack journalism was perfect.

Pack journalism has always been a risky proposition. These days, when so much news gets repeated without any independent verification, the flaws of pack journalism grow exponentially.

Adding to that, I would say that journalists right now are in a “I’ve got to break a big story to keep my job” mode. Which means that they are looking out for themselves more than the ideals that journalism is supposed to represent and uphold.

That’s when stuff starts getting dangerous.

The Poynter story lays out two big problems in the reporting of the Gloucester story by the big-time news outlets who came in after the initial reporting by the local paper.

First on their list was taking a source on his/her word, rather than finding a second one to back the information up. Journalism 101, really. In this case, it was the notion that these girls had made a “pact” to all get pregnant in high school.

One source – who wasn’t one of the actual girls – said it one time. Then it became a CNN headline.

Sources stay stuff all the time. A reporter’s job is to ask, “How do you know that?” rather than take them at their word. If that didn’t happen on the first level of reporting, it certainly should have triggered a more thorough review when that word “pact” was elevated to headline status.

Exactly.

The second mistake, of course, was that EVERY other news outlet reported the so-called pact without backing it up. It got so badly, and falsely, – and falsely – reported that the mayor of Gloucester had to deny the existence of the pact in a press conference.

Circling back to sports reporting, this kind of echoing happens all the time. When you have a dozen media outlets covering the same 45 players and a dozen coaches, there’s no other way to report but in a pack. And as former jocks, most of us, we have a competitive streak and hate to be beaten. When that happens, I see other sportswriters get downright sneaky and hateful toward each other.

The point is that as soon as it pops up on the competition’s blog, it’s on ours. We write first, investigate second.

It sucks, but sometimes that’s just the nature of the beast.

And, though it’ll come back to bite me I’m sure, I’m glad people like Poynter are out there to call us on it.