I am getting tired of having to repeatedly repeat myself, so let's do
this by numbers.
1) The original suggestion was to allow "experts" to review ENTIRE stories.
2) Most journalists -- not just me -- find that suggestion anathema,
unethical, and legally unwise.
3) Most reputable journalists -- including myself -- have no problem
with fact-checking quotes or potentially difficult passages.
4) Item (3) is not the same as allowing the source to read the whole story.
Point of fact: magazines have fact-checking departments. They will
contact the source and ask if that is what the source said. (They won't
share the entire story with the source, however.) Newspapers generally
don't have the time, nor the support staff, to do the same.
As for me, I usually have what a scientist says in an e-mail or a
recording -- so there's no problem knowing what the source said.
Sometimes I've even suggested to sources edited versions of quotes so
that they can be on record as saying what the actually meant, not what
they originally said.
The problem for journalists isn't in checking facts, it is in giving a
source access to the full story prior to publication. Journalism is far
different from science, where peer review is routine. If we allow
source "review" in journalism, we give up an essential independence that
taints the quality of the work we do as journalists. Our job is to
report matters as we see them, not as you see them.
Dave
On 4/11/2011 3:20 PM, David L. McNeely wrote:
David, I am sure you are an ethical as well as a reputable journalist. Surely a journalist and a
"source" can work effectively together to make sure that a "story" is accurate.
If not, then one or both have hangups that go beyond normal concerns. Scientists don't publish
without others reviewing their work. Journalists (or at least you) seem to think that would be
unethical on their part.
Seems to me that a prior agreement that recognizes the "source's" greater expertise on the science, but the
journalist's greater competence in telling the story would be appropriate. The "source" does not want to
tell the journalist how to tell the story, and the journalist does not want to decide what the science is or says. It
really seems like you are trying to protect something beyond what you are claiming to want to protect. No one wants
you to give up your "ownersip" of a story, and no one wants to tell you not to publish what you believe to be
the "truth." But no one wants to be made to sound like (s)he is making claims that are not supportable, or
to sound like (s)he is reaching beyond available data. I have seen a colleague made to sound like a zealot and a
promoter of pseudoscience, when he gave no indications that should have led to such writing. In fact, he spoke against
overreaching with his results, specifically stating that they were preliminary and on!
ly!
of value for further study. The resulting story painted a picture of a person obsessed with selling a
"potion," stating that he claimed to have "proven" something he had labeled as "an
odd finding, in need of additional scrutiny."
Naturally, he was unhappy with the reporter, and with the administrator who had
brought him and the reporter together. And guess how many interviews he has
given since.
Again, I am sure you are both ethical and reputable, and I am sure that any reports you write have
been thoroughly fact checked. But only the "source" is able to say, "That is not
what I said, and my published reports do not lead to that conclusion. Please change it."
mcneely
--
------------------------------------------------------
David M. Lawrence | Home: (804) 559-9786
7471 Brook Way Court | Fax: (804) 559-9787
Mechanicsville, VA 23111 | Email: [email protected]
USA | http: http://fuzzo.com
------------------------------------------------------
"All drains lead to the ocean." -- Gill, Finding Nemo
"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
"No trespassing
4/17 of a haiku" -- Richard Brautigan
