A recent article by iMediaEthics.com covered an ethical issue where Philadelphia Magazine posted an entirely fabricated story about a former Marine. Yet, the magazine did not do this on purpose - the source, John P. Boudreau, admitted that he "embellished or flat-out fabricated" the entire story that he told Philadelphia Magazine.
Although the magazine "unpublished" its story and apologized to its readers, there is still an ethical issue as far as fact checking goes. The magazine said that they only checked over the article with Boudreau before publishing it - mistakingly not checking the story with another source.
Writer Anthony Gargano said that he felt like "a fool" for letting a source feed him lies. Though, as I sit here putting myself in Gargano's shoes, I wonder if I would have done the same thing. We are always taught in journalism classes that double checking a source is key for accurate reporting, yet when we tell the story of a source's life, is it common to let "double checking" fall through the cracks? I feel that, even if I were to have double checked Boudreau's story with another source, I still may have believed some of Boudreau's word over somebody else's.
What do you think? What would you do if you were Gargano's editor or boss?
http://www.imediaethics.org/News/3859/we_blew_it_says_philadelphia_magazine__journalist_admits_duped_by_liar_in_fact_check_fail.php
I think this is a bigger issue than most journalists even want to think about. While I think we have to check the facts as much as possible, to some extent we're in the business of trust. To me, it's absolutely critical to confirm information, but, at minimum, if that information is attributed to the source, then it's not exactly false information. Basically, the source did say it, even if what was said ends up not being true.
ReplyDeleteBecause I don't necessarily consider it entirely Gargano's fault, I would give him a warning and remind him of the importance of confirming information with documents or multiple sources. I don't see this as a first offense warranting termination.
If I were Gargano's editor, I would look back to what exactly went wrong. And from the way I see it, I question how the fact-checker for the article felt that it was fine to let one source tell the whole story without checking it once. Checking this type of information should be relatively easy - find family, friends, even check with the military to make sure this guy was a marine. Philadelphia needs to look at its process and figure out how to make sure this doesn't happen again, whether that means having two fact-checker check every story or changing its fact-checking procedures completely.
ReplyDelete