You are not entitled to your facts

For journalists, it's crucial not only to admit our mistakes, but to resist the temptation to discard facts when they don’t line up with our preconceived notions.

Let’s start with the obvious: Everyone makes mistakes.

That includes journalists.

Among my most memorable gaffes was one about 25 years ago, when I referred to a high school student as “Dustin Hoffman.” He shared only a first name with the famous actor and my mind drifted into auto-celebrity actor mode as I tapped out my story.

The teen’s last name? I don’t remember, but I do recall his parents being peeved that I had interviewed the 17-year-old without their consent. (The story was about a teacher who had been accused of sexually assaulting another student during an overseas trip.)

To make my mistaken-attribution saga even stranger, those same parents’ upset was assuaged by what they saw as my intentional decision to shield his identity by concocting a false (and famous) last name.

Apparently, they thought I was exercising some journalistic ethic in doing so. Nope, it was just a brain-cramp blunder.

In that case, the newspaper didn’t make a correction because the parents said they didn’t want to draw any more attention to the story.

But correcting mistakes is a fundamental tenet of good journalistic practice. Another is minimizing our blind spots of bias so that we don’t make a mistake—whether in fact, judgment or fairness—in the first place.

One way to check ourselves is to distinguish fact from opinion; another is to resist the temptation to discard or discount facts when they don’t line up with our preconceived notions.

Credibility is our currency

Credibility is a journalist’s currency, so we must own up to our flubs. If we don’t, then we shouldn’t be surprised when that credibility erodes.

A model of doing it right when getting things wrong is Charlie Meyerson, a longtime journalist who is publisher of Chicago Public Square, an e-newsletter roundup of news of the day geared toward those in, or interested in, the Windy City region.

Yesterday, Meyerson led with this item:

“Correction. Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square misstated a report about the Biden campaign joining Donald Trump’s Truth Social network: The Biden campaign has more followers on Truth than the Trump campaign.”

Meyerson had previously stated that Biden’s campaign had more followers than Trump himself. So that anyone going to the page can see the original version as well as the corrected one, here’s how he has corrected it on his website:

“■ The Biden campaign has joined Trump’s Twitter X wannabe, Truth Social—and already has more followers than the Trump himself campaign.”

That’s humbly and transparently going the extra mile—not just fixing it but leaving in the original miscue. An excerpt from Meyerson’s page explaining his approach to correcting mistakes:

“We hate making mistakes at Chicago Public Square, but we love having readers who pay close attention and who take the time to help set things straight.

We welcome all manner of corrections—errors of fact, spelling goofs, punctuation mistakes, bad links, technical issues.”

On the other hand…

On the other end of the spectrum those in the media who see acknowledgment of their mistakes as a weakness. Or, worse still, compound their error by repeating it time and again.

An egregious example is from two years ago, when the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest, on the western border of Chicago, devoted extensive coverage to what police properly characterized as a “possible hate crime” incident. The story involved a brick that had been used to strike the glass of a shop owned by a Black woman. Attached to the brick was a racist and deeply offensive note.

However, without knowing who was behind it, there was no way to assign a motive—and no way to conclude this was a hate crime. (Hence, the “possible” in “possible hate crime.”)

The scene was reminiscent of an incident a little over a year earlier, when graffiti was discovered on the grounds of the local high school. It included racist remarks about a Black teacher/community activist.

In both instances, nobody was ever arrested. There was no known perpetrator. So, it was impossible to know if either was the work of a racist seeking to intimidate or a variation on actor Jussie Smollett’s infamous hoax.

In the case of the mysterious brick, even without a police finding, the Wednesday Journal came up with its own finding: It dropped “possible” from what began as “possible hate crime” reporting.

The newspaper saw what it wanted to see—not what the facts had established.

As we have seen on a national scale, there is a disconcerting rise in public officials and others spewing no-doubt-about-it inaccuracies as “truth.”

But as late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan stated: “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your facts.”

In its year-end review of the possible hate crime incident, the Wednesday Journal stuck to its “hate crime” narrative. This, even as its own recap stated:

“A police investigation into the incident was determined to be inconclusive a month later.”

The section of the story that is capped by the passively voiced, muddled phrasing.

Pretty muddled phrasing, huh? Notice, with “was determined,” the tell-tale deployment of passive voice?¹

In much plainer, clearer English (and the active voice): Police could not confirm whether the incident was actually a hate crime. Writing with such clarity, however, would have undermined the interpretation of events that the paper had so wholeheartedly embraced.

A photo caption in which the Wednesday Journal transforms the “insident” (sic) from a “possible hate crime” to a “hate crime,” while also misspelling “business” and getting the date wrong (by a full year—the actual date was Jan. 7, 2021.)

When a publication allows opinions to stand in as facts, it not only erodes the outlet’s credibility but adds fuel to what are often unfair, broad-brush attacks on media’s trustworthiness as a whole.

The bedrock of reliable, trustworthy journalism is distinguishing between opinions and facts—then leaving your biases behind in energetic pursuit of wherever those facts lead. That truth applies to any kind of investigation.

Let’s close with an insight from Chris Voss, former lead FBI hostage negotiator. In Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It, he writes:

“Don’t look to verify what you expect. If you do, that’s what you’ll find. Instead, you must open yourself up to the factual reality that is in front of you.”

1. Quick grammar lesson:

Here’s active voice: “I made a mistake.”

And passive voice: “Mistakes were made.”

Whenever you see passive voice, be on guard. Is the storyteller trying to pass the buck or duck responsibility?