Published: May 23, 2009 07:49 pm      

The most complete story possible

Elsewhere on this page, you’ll find a letter from a reader who was unhappy with our reporting on a deadly fire in Flora last weekend.

She accused us of going to print with the story before we had all the facts.

This is actually a somewhat common complaint from readers concerning breaking news stories. They see reports coming out that later turn out to have been incomplete or misleading, and they wonder why news outlets get in such a hurry to publish a story.

I understand that frustration. In fact, I share it.

I can remember many times wishing I had just a few more minutes to add that one detail or make just one more call.

The fact is, though, that readers expect newspapers to provide them with stories that are not just complete but timely.

Reporters and editors work hard to get as many details as they can on a breaking news event in the time they have available. They make phone calls. They go out to the scene when they can.

They sometimes become pests trying to gain the answers to the questions they know their readers, listeners and viewers will be asking. And they do it all while the clock ticks closer and closer to deadline.

Or at least they used to in the days before the 24-hour news cycle.

There was a time in the newspaper business when all reporters and editors had to worry about was the next print deadline. They had 24 hours between editions, and they used that time to get together as many facts as they could before going to press.

Even then, it seemed the deadline was always too close. Now, with the Internet, news breaks almost instantaneously.

Broadcast news, of course, has always been that way. Television and radio reporters go out to the scene and report what they can as soon as they can.

Sometimes, the details change with the passage of time. Sometimes, the early reports prove to be incorrect.

Regardless of the medium, the job of a journalist is to go after the facts and keep going after them until the full story is finally told. We work to separate the rumors from the reality, and we print only what we believe to be true.

In this case, we printed our first story more than 24 hours after the fire, but even so, that first report had some details remaining to be filled in. Days later, we tracked down the local fire chief and printed a story detailing his thoughts on what happened.

We’ll have more stories as the details become available.

In the interim, of course, readers are left to wonder what those remaining facts might be, and some of them will speculate. Perhaps even wildly.

As our letter writer points out, users of the Kokomo Tribune’s online forum drew their own conclusions concerning this tragedy. Some got carried away to the point that administrators of the forum wound up deleting the thread.

Today’s letter writer reaches the conclusion that if the news media would simply hold off on reporting anything until all of the facts were in, we would head off that sort of speculation.

I’m not sure that’s true.

The rumor mill has likely been around nearly as long as humans. The Internet didn’t bring about speculation and innuendo. It simply made that gossip more visible.

Regardless of the technology, the role of the journalist remains the same. To separate fact from fiction and to provide a reliable source of news and information.

We’ll continue to work at that.

And when you think we’ve come up short, I hope you’ll let me know.



Speaking of forums

As this reader pointed out, we did eliminate our own version of the online forum some time back, but as I’ve mentioned before in this space, we have replaced it with our community blogs.

In recent weeks, contributors to the blog have commented on a number of things, including the newspaper’s recent redesign and the proposal to impose a new standardized dress policy at Logansport’s two middle schools.

Last week, visitors to the blogs predicted incorrectly that Adam Lambert would be selected as the new “American Idol.” In the days since, they’ve been responding to a poll concerning whether Kris Allen was the right choice, and so far anyway, most seem to think he was.

If you haven’t already done so, I’d urge you to check it out today.

• Kelly Hawes is managing editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5155 or kelly.hawes@pharostribune.com