By Breana Staten, Opinion Editor
The Asbury Collegian, Asbury University’s student newspaper, is dedicated to accuracy before timeliness. This cannot be said of various other news sources who choose to forgo truth in attempts to break a story first.
Jack Shafer, a journalist and media critic, wrote, “In the age of Twitter, the public had better get used to a new fact of life: News stories, especially the early reports of breaking news events, are very likely to be inaccurate.”
Why? What productive purpose does inaccurate information have in anyone’s life? It’s unhelpful and confusing, the topics news outlets are talking about become negated and consumers become desensitized through overexposure. Instead of discussing current events, people are hashing out which facts to believe.
A prime example of this is the Covington Catholic video situation, where various news outlets vilified Nick Sandmann, a student wearing a MAGA hat who appeared to be confronting a Native American elder in a video recording. However, days later those same outlets had to retract their stories because more of the facts were revealed; Sandmann now appears to be innocent after further investigation into the video and sources coming forward.
This not only stirred up controversy among people who are still debating which facts they believe, but Sandmann is now suing The Washington Post. According to NPR, he is “seeking $250 million in damages. The lawsuit is seeking $50 million in compensation for the alleged damage done, while the remaining $200 million in punitive damages would be aimed at punishing the newspaper company.”
Another recent example of this would be the Jussie Smollett attack, which featured the actor from the show “Empire” who allegedly fabricated an attack in which he was doused with bleach, had homophobic slurs thrown at him and had a noose tied around his neck.
The story of the attack went viral as news outlets vied to have an interview with him, crying that the situation was a modern-day lynching. However, a couple days after the initial story broke, an Associated Press article stated, “Investigators say he planned the hoax, soliciting the help of a friend and the friend’s brother because he was unhappy with his salary and wanted to promote his career. … Smollett denies the allegations.”
The quick jump to conclusions by the media announcing a modern-day lynching has resulted in people questioning whom and what to believe. The problem is that news outlets are intended to inform, but all they seem to be doing nowadays is reporting and retracting things because they strive to publish things in a timely, but uninformed, manner.
“When there’s unlimited space to fill, and you’re getting paid by the page view, you’re pressured to publish more news, faster news, edgier news — even when that’s not in your readers’ best interest,” said Rob Howard, the author of Hiatus Media news briefings.
While I understand that no outlet or person is perfect or always going to have the balanced truth, there are ways to prevent situations of misinformation like this from occurring. Slowing down and taking more time to develop a story is one way to accomplish this.
The Collegian has taken this approach on numerous occasions. Four months ago, Collegian staff members began investigating the mold situation that some women living in the dorms were experiencing. The Collegian journalists conducted multiple interviews with those living in the dorms and various Asbury residence life administrators about the situation. This process, which lasted through two semesters, was vital in the development of the story. We wanted to make sure that we had all the facts straight; that administration, faculty and students were all fairly represented; and that our readers were receiving the full balanced truth.
I recognize that the Collegian has the opportunity to take more time developing content because we, unlike many public newspapers, are not competing with other media outlets; this gives us the ability to take our time and fully develop stories.
However, “the paradox of this false urgency is that we end up with far more words being written, far more time spent reading and far less clarity, context and understanding,” according to Quartz news outlet. “Perfection isn’t the goal — but a calmer, slower pace would certainly help.”
This process of slowing down may be an easy first step in creating news content that informs its readers about current events while providing information that doesn’t always need to be retracted and corrected. News media outlets, slow down — accuracy is significantly more impactful than timeliness with inaccurate information.
