Fairness would increase if journalists were the subject

Dennis RYERSON, the editor of the Indianapolis Star, wrote a column in his newspaper a few weeks ago suggesting that all journalists “should have stories done about them” because it would make them more sensitive to matters of accuracy, sourcing and “any predisposed personal thoughts we may have had about a story before we began our reporting.”

I agree. In fact, I hope that one positive effect of the growing celebrityhood of media figures will be a growing sensitivity in the media to unfair and inaccurate stories. Edward R. Murrow once said, “Journalists don’t have thin skin -- they have no skin,” and I keep hoping that if all these media stars find themselves, like Ryerson has occasionally found himself, the victim of “inaccuracies and a lack of perspective and context,” they and those who work for them will be encouraged to become more aware of the need for accuracy and fairness.

Partisan critics of the media are convinced that we have an ideological agenda, that we’re determined to write some stories (and ignore others) because we want our coverage to have a specific effect on readers and the body politic. But the truth is that journalists -- and I mean reporters and editors here, not opinion columnists -- are trained not only to set aside their opinions but to ignore the potential impact of their stories as well. They’re supposed to gather facts, report them and let others worry about the consequences.

Oh, sure, we do consider possible consequences in some stories. That’s why we withhold the names of juveniles and rape victims and why we don’t publish offensive language or gruesome photos, among other things. And yes, when we expose corruption or other wrongdoing, we expect corrective, even punitive action to be taken. But for the most part, reporters don’t fashion their stories with one eye on their potential impact -- and for the most part, that’s good.

The determination to ignore the consequences of one’s stories does have a drawback, though. As Ryerson argued in his column, it can make us less sensitive than we should be to the impact our stories can have on the individuals we write about -- and I don’t mean politicians, celebrities, captains of industry or, for that matter, media moguls and their on-screen, in-print progeny. Anyone who enters the public arena gains certain benefits -- fame, fortune, power, ego-gratification -- and part of the price for those benefits is public scrutiny, criticism, even harsh criticism.

The average Joes

Every day, though, we write about average people, people who didn’t willingly enter the public arena, and it’s to them that I think we should be more sensitive, more careful with our facts and our interpretations.

Several weeks ago, in a column about the media’s overreaction to Howard Dean’s saying he wanted to be “the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” I wrote, “Confederate flags are as much a symbol of racism as the swastika is of anti-Semitism.”

Well, I got buried under an avalanche of e-mail from angry Southerners. I could have avoided that if I’d been just a bit more careful -- a bit more sensitive -- and said instead something like, “Rightly or wrongly, invocation of the Confederate flag is now seen by many as an appeal to racism.”

I winced when I realized how easily -- and how unnecessarily -- I’d offended a large number of readers, and it reminded me of my very first journalistic gaffe, as a 20-year-old cub reporter.

I wrote a sad story about a family evicted from its home by a man I described as a Realtor. What I didn’t realize then is that to be a Realtor, one must be a member of a local Realty Board. This particular real estate agent -- which is what I should have called him -- was not a member of the local Realty Board, as the enraged president of said board informed my editor minutes after our newspaper (and my story) hit his front porch.

I had besmirched the president’s reputation and the reputation of every member of his board, he said. My editor then lectured me on the importance of accuracy and double-checking my facts. I apologized and wrote a correction. He lectured me some more. I apologized again. He lectured again. I apologized again. This time I also said, “I get it, Tom, but come on -- it wasn’t that big a mistake.”

Uh-oh.

Tom -- a large, angry bear of a man -- grabbed me by my left ear, dragged me into his office, flung me into a chair, slammed the door and started his lecture anew.

“Any mistake is a big mistake -- especially to the person you’re writing about,” he said. “You never know when a story you write will be the only time that person’s name or his organization’s name or his family’s name ever appears in any newspaper. You have to make sure it’s an accurate story in every way possible.”

He said more, but that’s the essence of it. And I’ve never forgotten it.

Several years later, another editor taught me a similarly unforgettable lesson:

“Whenever you write something about someone and you think it could be construed as negative or critical, go back through the story, and every place where you used his name, cross it out and put in your own. Then reread the entire story and see if you still think it’s accurate and fair.”

I’ve done exactly that more times than I can count. On several occasions, I’ve modified my language, removed or toned down a phrase, made an extra call or two because when I read my story with my name in it, I realized it didn’t seem quite as fair as I originally thought.

The subject was ... me

Still, this is just an exercise, however valuable. That’s why I agree with Ryerson that a journalist is most likely to learn the importance of fairness and accuracy when he is the subject of a story. I know the benefits of this from firsthand experience too.

A number of years ago, a local magazine published a long, critical profile on me. I’ve certainly said, written and done enough controversial things over the years that one could write a completely accurate, very critical story about me.

But this story was not accurate. Not one of the many direct quotes attributed to me was a verbatim quote of what I said. The anecdote used to open the story so twisted what I actually told the reporter that it made exactly the opposite point I had made in telling the anecdote. The reporter ignored, omitted and distorted so many other facts and pieces of information that the story could have served as a case study in dishonest journalism. But it did teach me, however painfully, what it feels like to be the subject of a story rather than its author, and I think the long-term lesson was worth the short-term pain.

Over the years, I’ve spoken with many journalists who have had similar experiences. In fact, I remember chatting with several editors from various newspapers one afternoon, and the subject quickly became what I characterized as “the other-foot syndrome.” Every one of them had a complaint about how they’d been treated by other journalists.

Too often, they said, the reporters who’d interviewed them -- reporters from publications large and small, respected and otherwise -- had been lazy, careless, cynical, superficial and sensationalistic. Even more often, they said, the reporters seemed to have their minds made up about what their stories should say before they’d even started their interviews and other research.

Several editors said what ordinary citizens have been saying for years -- “Every time I read a story that I personally know something about, I find that it’s filled with errors.”

Most of these editors said their experiences on the receiving end of bad journalism had made them more careful about their own journalism -- and had sensitized them to readers’ complaints about that journalism.

That’s a good start -- especially since the growing power of the media means there will, inevitably, be more stories about media figures; I can only hope that these stories will make these media figures more sensitive to the importance of making sure that the stories produced by their own news organizations are fair and accurate.

David Shaw can be reached at [email protected]. To read his previous “Media Matters” columns, please go to latimes.com/shaw-media.