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As we talk about journalistic ethics, let's talk about accuracy and fairness.
Without accuracy, there can be no trust, and credibility is shattered.
The first lesson most journalists learn,
is that they have to get their facts right.
This requires care, and double checking, and triple checking.
In some journalism schools, getting a fact wrong means failing the assignment,
no matter how much work went into it, or how well done it is otherwise.
Accuracy simply means getting things right.
But, there is nothing simple about doing that.
Accuracy is slippery.
As you read, watch, and listen to news reports,
you notice that the journalists are usually not the eyewitnesses to news.
We are usually interviewing others who have actually experienced what happened.
So, it is our job to take the messages that several people have, verify them,
sometimes by cross-checking, and then delivering an accurate summary of their
experiences to the audience community.
It's like the Indian parable of the elephant in the dark room.
People are asked to go into a darkened room where there's an animal, and
to come out with a description of the animal that is in there.
These are our sources.
The persons gathering the information from the people who go into the room
are the reporters.
The eyewitnesses go into the room, they feel the animal, and they come out, and
tell what it is like.
Depending on where they touch the animal, they believe it is like a pillar, a snake,
a wall, or a fan.
Which one do we believe?
Each person is telling the truth, but none has the full accurate picture.
It is your job, as a journalist, to assemble that accurate picture.
Everyone you talk to is convinced that they know the truth.
They're being honest, they're not lying, but
the truth they are telling you is incomplete.
If you could, you would go into that room and turn on the lights.
But, it is not always possible.
It is up to you to keep talking to people until you get the full picture.
So, after we gather information from our sources, we must check it.
One important way to verify information
is by comparing what we hear from different people or sources.
We can also use outside information.
If we heard the elephant call from inside that room, we can bring in some
independent sources or information to help us find the true picture.
So, accuracy means taking the time to get everything right.
It means checking with several sources, and
not just going with what the first person tells you.
It means comparing sources.
It means being very careful with how you get their information down.
And, it means checking your own work.
We want to be accurate in large ways as well as the small ways.
Because, just like with that elephant, it is possible to get every single fact
right, but to get the story wrong because you chose the wrong facts, or
an incomplete set of facts.
This leads us to fairness.
We cannot be accurate in the big sense if we do not choose our sources of
information fairly.
If we set out to prove a certain version of the truth that we prefer,
we cannot be accurate.
Remember that idea of being a truth seeker, as a journalist.
As journalists who want to earn trust and deserve credibility,
we have to be more interested in finding the truth than in showing that one side or
another is the right side.
Truth has to be the goal, and
that requires us to be fair, as well as accurate.
For journalists, fairness means recognizing that we have biases.
We have to know what our biases are, and put them aside, as best we can,
in search of the truth.
Fairness requires us to know our blind spots, and to go where we might not
naturally be inclined to go, so we can fill out the whole picture.
To create a fair report, we have to reflect the whole community.
This means we have to understand the community and all the people living in it.
And, when we do reports, especially the reports that most affect them,
we have to get into these various communities.
We have to go there, no matter how big, or how small, or how right, or how wrong, or
how important, or how unimportant we think they are.
We have to bust out of our comfort zones.
And, this is the only way we can tell the story of the whole community.
Thank you.
[MUSIC].
Joanne GerstnerSports Journalist in Residence
Eric FreedmanInstructor
Joe GrimmInstructor
David PoulsonInstructor
Jeremy SteeleSpecialist
Lucinda D. DavenportDirector & Professor
