New Media Playing Field Opens Way to More Errors

Virtually every reporter who has ever picked up a pencil or a microphone, typed on a keyboard or looked into a camera would echo what Wolf Blitzer, senior White House correspondent for CNN, said recently about trying to be first, trying to get every story before the competition does:

“It’s in my journalistic blood.”

But in just the past year, the emergence of the Internet as a formidable force for breaking news, and--of even greater consequence--the emergence of MSNBC and Fox News Channel as rivals to CNN in the 24-hour news wars, have dramatically changed the journalistic playing field and exacerbated the battle to be first and the potential for error.

According to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an estimated 20% of American adults now turn to the Internet for news at least once a week--more than triple the number two years ago--and 40% regularly watch one of the major cable news networks.

Theoretically, being first should have less meaning in today’s 24-hour news climate than it did in earlier generations. Then a reporter and his news organization could bask in the glory of exclusivity for an entire news cycle--several hours, sometimes a full day--before the competition caught up. Now a hot story is instantly snapped up by everyone else, and it ricochets over the airwaves and through cyberspace so quickly that the very term “exclusive” borders on the anachronistic.

And yet, and yet . . .

Dan Rather, anchor for the “CBS Evening News,” says that there are now so many more players and so many more news outlets that the pressure to be first is “greater and stronger . . . and that increased pressure has increased not just the probability of inaccuracy but . . . the number of inaccuracies. I don’t even think that’s arguable. I think it’s a matter of record and fact.”

Many journalists agree.

Bob Murphy, ABC’s senior vice president for hard news, says that the explosion in the number of news outlets, combined with rapid advances in technologies used to deliver the news--everything from satellites to cable TV to the Internet to laptop computers with built-in telephone modems--have “made it possible for news to be transmitted immediately [and] . . . the period of reflection, editing, checking and double-checking has shortened.” The resultant responsibility to “make sure that the editorial process doesn’t suffer because of those changes is much, much greater and much, much harder to maintain.”

In 1957, when a history of the United Press wire service was published, it was titled “Deadline Every Minute”; now there’s a deadline every nanosecond, a continuous, unending deadline--or, as Murphy puts it, “There is no deadline any more.”

Before the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, a television reporter who got the first hint of an exclusive story early in the day could continue reporting through the day, fleshing it out, getting additional detail and confirmation, confident that the story would remain exclusive until he broke it on the network’s showcase for news--the 6:30 p.m. broadcast. Now network reporters worry that CNN, Fox or MSNBC will get the same story hint or tip or leak and broadcast it immediately. So they rush on to the air earlier in the day, too, trying to beat the all-news operations at their own high-stakes game.

But the 24-hour news stations inevitably broadcast bulletins far more often than do the networks--in part because that’s their franchise and in part because they don’t have to interrupt soap operas or other lucrative entertainment programming to do so.

Of course, many of the “scooplets” that the cable outlets report throughout the day are incremental or inconsequential, and most are soon formally announced by one government agency or another anyway. But reporters want to be first on every story. As Blitzer says, “It’s a great feeling when you get it first, even if it’s a silly story.”

A Case Study

Late last year, in the pre-holiday calm that preceded the first stories about President Clinton’s alleged sexual relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky, there was much speculation in Washington media circles about what name Clinton would give to his new, 4-month-old Labrador retriever. At 11:48 a.m. on Dec. 16, a little more than two hours before Clinton was scheduled to announce the name, Tim Russert, Washington bureau chief for NBC and host of “Meet the Press,” went on MSNBC--NBC’s cable and cyberspace affiliate--with a scoop: “I believe the name of the dog is ‘Luke.’ ”

Suddenly, Blitzer says, his bosses in Atlanta were “hot to get this.” Blitzer got on the phone to his White House sources, one of whom said, “I can’t tell you what the dog’s name is. The only thing I can tell you, it ain’t ‘Luke.’ Russert got burned.”

Blitzer relayed the message to his producers. They “went crazy,” he says. They wanted him to get the dog’s name before the president announced it so they could beat--and embarrass--MSNBC, which just happened to be CNN’s new rival in the 24-hour cable news wars.

Blitzer made another call--and reached a White House source who knew the name. But the source was coy and insisted on putting Blitzer through an agonizing guessing game before the newsman finally arrived at the right name: “Buddy.”

Blitzer raced off to deliver a previously scheduled live report on the federal budget. At 12:10 p.m., as he concluded that report, standing on the White House lawn, he announced the name of the dog.

Five months later, recounting his moment of triumph, Blitzer broke into a broad smile as he described the “pandemonium in the White House press area.” Everyone, he said, “scrambled” to see if he was right.

He was.

Blitzer probably breaks more White House stories than any other reporter working today--most of them more important than the name of the president’s dog. Last week, he scooped everyone on the immunity deal between Lewinsky and independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

Generally, when Blitzer speaks, people listen (even on those occasions when he may not be 100% accurate). “When that CNN graphic ‘Breaking News’ comes across the screen, people at the White House--both in the pressroom and on the political side--stop and look,” says Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary.

With the exception of the rare epic scoop--Watergate, for example--few scoops have lasting, cosmic impact, though. They may be more important than the name of the president’s dog, but most of the time, if a given news organization didn’t break a particular story today, another news organization would probably break it tomorrow or next week, so if the story has significant impact, it comes from the content of the story, not from its exclusivity.

But McCurry says the 24-hour news cycle changes that dynamic, at least ephemerally. Other reporters see a “Breaking News” bulletin on CNN and say, “It’s been on CNN, and therefore it’s gotta be true,” and they insist that government spokesmen respond instantly.

Government officials are then confronted with a difficult choice. Either they make policy “on the fly,” or they fend off questions pending further examination and confirmation--in which case they risk looking as if they’re “covering up.”

While McCurry concedes that the news media are “entitled to feel stonewalled [by the White House] on the Monica Lewinsky story,” he says that is not the case on many other stories. But the “hyperventilation driven by the nonstop news cycle . . . too many reporters chasing too few stories” with too little time has led to a deterioration in relations between the White House press office and press corps.

A Lower Threshold

The 24-hour news cycle has also made news organizations more susceptible to hoaxes. People impersonating newsmakers and journalists have on several occasions called on-air broadcasters, claiming to have newsworthy information; broadcasters--eager to be first--have then unwittingly aired bogus stories.

Even worse, the opportunity to announce a news bulletin at any time of the day or night enables reporters for 24-hour television news networks, like their counterparts in all-news radio and on the Internet, to broadcast news fragments and vague, unconfirmed reports.

“They can begin with a much lower threshold and change their reporting as they learn more,” ABC’s Murphy says. “They can tell their audience, ‘You know those reports that we were getting of 40 people dead [in a plane crash]? Well, there aren’t really 40 dead; there are only 25 people dead.’ You kind of bring your audience along with you as you’re reporting the story, so the errors don’t appear to be as egregious as if the Los Angeles Times printed on its front page ’40 People Dead’ . . . and then it turned out that there were only” 25.

Thus, on Jan. 28, Larry King reported on his CNN program that the next morning’s New York Times would include a “sexy scoop” about a message that President Clinton had supposedly left on Lewinsky’s answering machine. When he was told during a commercial break that the New York Times would be publishing no such story, he offered a “clarification” and said:

“OK. Anyway, it came to us. We reported it. But this happens in a running story like this. Now we unreport it.”

This is a typical example of what Doyle McManus, Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, calls the dangers of the “cultural dominance of the broadcast media.”

“Announcing a rumor or unconfirmed story as what you might call ‘provisional news’ and reserving the right to take it back in an hour or a day if it turns out to be wrong seems to have diluted the shamefulness of being wrong,” McManus says. “I worry about circumstances in which reporters feel that it’s more shameful to be second, that it’s not so shameful to be wrong anymore. . . . The primal force that impelled reporters on that [Clinton/Lewinsky] story was not lust but fear”--the fear of being beaten.

Matt Drudge, the Internet columnist who broke several Clinton/Lewinsky stories--including the first one and the one about the allegedly semen-stained dress--has tried to deflect criticism of his incremental, gossipy approach to the news by saying that in this “whole new medium . . . things move fast and you’re not really able to fully, fully check out everything you’d like to check out.”

Drudge insists that he is more accurate than the traditional news media--including the Los Angeles Times--and he denies having a casual attitude toward inaccuracy. He notes that he apologized and issued a retraction the day after he wrote an erroneous story that had cited unidentified Republican sources as saying that Sidney Blumenthal, a White House aide, “has a spousal abuse past that has been effectively covered up.” But Drudge originally said the information on Blumenthal was based on court records, and no such records exist. Blumenthal has sued Drudge for libel, and many journalists have criticized both Drudge’s trafficking in unproven charges and what they see as his anti-Clinton bias.

‘Quasi-Journalistic’

The Internet and the 24-hour TV news operations have clearly broadened the definition of journalism and its practitioners, and this has increased the number of spurious news stories whirling around what Tom Brokaw, anchor for NBC’s “Nightly News” calls the “quasi-journalistic vortex.”

On the Web, anyone can call himself a “journalist” and be the first to publish anything he wants, without benefit of editors or other filters--as Drudge has done repeatedly on the Clinton/Lewinsky story, labeling his scoops variously as “exclusive,” “urgent,” “blockbuster report” and “code red.” At the same time, since there is seldom enough legitimate news to fill the 24-hour-a-day maw of the all-news TV stations, they, too, give air time to non-journalists, many of whom are delighted to pass along the latest rumor, speculation and gossip.

In this context, the rush to be first has taken on an added--and troubling--dimension. Journalists and non-journalists alike want to be first, not only with news but with instant analyses, glib opinions and provocative predictions. Weekend television chat shows feature traditional journalists who increasingly traffic in a gossipy rush to judgment--as was evidenced early this year in the speculation that President Clinton might quickly be forced from office over the Lewinsky case.

Within a week after the story broke, ABC’s Sam Donaldson was on the air saying Clinton would resign that very week “if he’s not telling the truth and the evidence shows that.” NBC’s Russert said, “I believe [impeachment] proceedings will begin on the Hill if there is not clarity given by the president over the next few weeks.” CNN’s Blitzer said “several” of Clinton’s “closest friends and advisors . . . are talking among themselves about the possibility of a resignation.”

Journalists in every medium seem so eager to be first these days, with facts and forecasts alike, that they take unprecedented risks--risks they may not recognize because they’ve convinced themselves they’re both first and right. To do that, they simply “lower the standard of what it takes to be right,” says Bill Kovach, the curator of Neiman Fellowships in Journalism at Harvard University and formerly an editor at the New York Times and the Atlanta Constitution.

“Competitive lust . . . drives the process too hard in the wrong direction, in the direction of being first at all costs,” Kovach says. “That leads to carelessness. That leads to stories that haven’t been checked out. . . . It’s forced every news organization that I’m aware of to lower its standards of what is acceptable in terms of what proof it needs” to put a story in the paper or on the air.

Tom Bettag, executive producer of “Nightline,” says journalists can sometimes get away with being careless in their zeal to be first because “the principles used to be a lot clearer, and the lines seemed to be a lot clearer. . . . We are all redefining ourselves in the face of changing technology and changing economic pressures, and as we redefine ourselves, the definitions are shifting . . . and the kind of ‘No, you don’t do that, period; I don’t care what the situation is’ doesn’t happen. There are a lot more ‘maybes’ than ‘noes.’ ”

The 24-hour news cycle is the primary explanation for this change, but the ever-expanding competition for an ever-diminishing news audience is also a significant factor. Despite recent, modest increases in circulation at many newspapers, newspaper readership and network news viewership have both been declining steadily for many years. Being first--and bragging about being first, in promotional ads and press releases and claims of “EXCLUSIVE!” emblazoned over a story--is a way to both attract an audience and differentiate yourself, and your news organization, from the pack.

This “signals to your readers that . . . when they want to know what is happening, and when and where, that they can count on you,” says Ann McDaniel, Washington bureau chief for Newsweek. “You want people to have a sense that when they read your publication, they will get the latest, the freshest, the most interesting.”

Newsmagazines’ Roles

Sending such signals is especially important to newsmagazines, whose weekly publication schedules generally prevent them from being as timely as other news media. Thus, Time and Newsweek send faxes to key news executives every Sunday, boasting of the stories in the forthcoming issue of their magazines, “increasingly trying to show that they’re not just rehashing the news but that they’re breaking it,” in the words of Evan Thomas, assistant managing editor of Newsweek, which is particularly aggressive in trumpeting its triumphs.

Equally important, newsmagazines want to beat the competition on trend and social issue stories, stories that first identify or put into perspective an emerging subject or problem.

For newsmagazines, being first counts heavily on Madison Avenue, where their advertising salesmen can tell potential advertisers, “We broke this story and this story and this story. We’re the ‘hot book’; you want to be associated with the ‘hot book,’ don’t you?” says Priscilla Painton, an assistant managing editor at Time magazine.

In television, the connection between exclusivity and profitability is even more direct. Often, ABC’s Bettag says, networks promote a story as an exclusive not because it’s “genuinely new” but because the network is trying to drive people to watch the broadcast.

Being first on a story attracts viewers, and those viewers often stay with the network that grabs them--an important consideration in a society where, according to the Pew study, more than half the people who watch television have their remote controls in hand, ready to click to another channel the instant their attention lags. The more viewers a network lures and retains, the higher its ratings; high ratings mean higher advertising rates, which mean more advertising revenue, which means more profits.

In a recent Newsweek poll, 77% of the respondents said journalists are more likely to be influenced by pressure from media owners and news executives for higher ratings or profits than they were in the past.

No wonder.

One television newscast may beat another on a given story by only seconds, “but you can parlay those seconds into hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of the week or the end of the month,” says Marvin Kalb, a veteran network newsman who is now executive director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. “You can turn to somebody who’s selling toothpaste and say, ‘Here are 15 illustrations of where we have been first, and therefore we’re asking for more money [for your commercials].’ ”

That’s a major reason television promotes its “exclusive” stories so vigorously--and defends that exclusivity tenaciously. ABC executives complained privately for more than two months, for example, that CBS often touted “exclusives” on the Clinton/Lewinsky story that actually originated, in whole or in large part, on ABC. Early this summer, in an unusual but telling display of network pugnacity, ABC complained directly to CBS about this.

Although CBS officially denied the charges, Dan Rather had earlier conceded in an interview that it was “fair criticism.” Rather, however, says some CBS claims of exclusivity resulted from “honest mistakes,” and he insists that other networks are even more egregious than CBS in making false or exaggerated claims.

Until relatively recently, CBS had been mired in third place in the evening news wars, though, and that no doubt contributed to an increased sense of urgency at the network. As James Warren, Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, says, when a news organization is running behind, there is “increasing pressure” not only to be first but to appear to be first. That, Warren says, can lead to “hucksterism and the touting of rather thin gruel.”

Rather and others in television news complain that TV critics who write for newspapers are partially responsible for the networks’ rush to break “exclusive” stories--and for the resultant promotional wars over exclusivity.

Critics praise reporters and networks that break stories, Rather says, and “we have learned the hard way that if you’re even a few seconds behind your competition, you get hammered by the people who write about television.” Rather cites as proof the criticism directed at CBS when the network was “nine seconds later . . . or maybe 20 seconds” behind a rival network on the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and again last fall, when CBS trailed badly in the early reporting on the death of Princess Diana.

Financial Consequences

In newspapers, being first does not translate into increased audience or advertising rates as directly as it does in television. But a newspaper that is repeatedly beaten by its rivals certainly loses both currency and credibility with its readers, and over time, that is likely to erode both the readership and the advertising intended to reach that readership.

As Kenneth Bunting, managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, says: “If every day, the front page of the Post-Intelligencer looked like yesterday’s [Seattle] Times, I’d be in trouble.”

Over the last 30 or 35 years, newspapers have grudgingly surrendered to television in the battle to be the first provider of news on most major events. That’s why newspapers have increasingly focused on big-picture stories, trying to provide perspective and to explain to readers how and why events happen and what makes them important and relevant to their lives.

But that has not stopped newspapers from trying to be first--and often succeeding--especially on complex stories that require an investment of time and personnel and don’t necessarily yield the immediate, dramatic pictures that are the inevitable staple of most TV coverage. In recent years, newspapers have broken stories on issues ranging from fraudulent election practices in Pennsylvania to toxic waste and pollution in Louisiana and from law enforcement abuses in Texas, Missouri and Florida to health care problems and irregularities in California, Arkansas, Ohio and New York.

Newspaper reporters--and their editors--continue to feel that they must be “out front” or their readers won’t regard them as a vital news force.

“Being first is part of our responsibility to our readers . . . an important part of our relationship with our readers,” says Leonard Downie, executive editor of the Washington Post.

Over the past year or two, the Internet has made it possible for newspapers to try to fulfill that responsibility and maintain that relationship better than they have since television became the dominant news medium in this country. More than 500 papers now have Web sites, most of which can be updated continuously throughout the day, either by the paper’s print staff or a separate online staff or--more often--by using Associated Press and other wire services.

In a sense, the Internet re-creates the newspaper wars of earlier generations, when every big city had several daily newspapers, each publishing several editions a day, and “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” was a common street corner cry.

Increasingly in recent months, some newspapers have put stories on their Web sites in the middle of the night, knowing that few of their readers will see them until several hours later--perhaps not until the same story is published in the next morning’s newspaper--but knowing, too, that they will impress the opinion-making elite.

Newspapers have turned to the Internet primarily to avoid the erosion of their lucrative classified advertising base but also to reuse the vast amount of material they gather every day and to remain competitive with other online journalistic ventures. While the Internet gives newspapers--and newsmagazines--greater immediacy and a strong competitive toehold in cyberspace, it also drags them into the battles of the 24-hour news cycle, where fragmentary and erroneous reports are far more common than in their traditional venues.

Maintaining Standards

In an effort to maintain standards and credibility and to avoid the greatest pitfalls of the instant news syndrome, several major newspapers--the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post among them--continue to save their truly important stories for the next day’s paper, rather than publish them on their Web sites the afternoon or evening before. These policies are under constant review, though, in the rapidly evolving world of digital news.

“I can imagine a time when the balance of readership, of viewership . . . changes somewhat and we would put exclusives out on the Web,” says Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the New York Times, “but I think . . . in a period that’s anarchic, and where everything is happening instantaneously . . . the greatest service we can provide . . . and I don’t mean just the New York Times but all newspapers, is the daily effort to take stock of what’s happening and say what’s true and put it in some orderly fashion, with some sense of proportion, rather than with the breathlessness of a [TV] stand-upper in front of the courthouse.”

Many newspapers have already joined the rush to the Web, though, publishing stories on their Web sites as soon as they get them, and it’s probably no coincidence that the two major Clinton/Lewinsky stories so far that have resulted in corrections or retractions both ran on the Web sites of newspapers--the Wall Street Journal and the Dallas Morning News--that decided they couldn’t wait until the next day’s paper to publish.

The Internet, the 24-hour news cycle and the financial pressure to distinguish oneself in an increasingly crowded, increasingly competitive marketplace have all made the rush to be first--and the risk of being wrong--greater than ever.

As John Wollman, Washington bureau chief for Associated Press, says: “It’s been a harder chore” to maintain standards now than at any time in his 25-year journalistic career.

Jacci Cenacveira of The Times’ editorial library assisted with the research for these stories.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The 24-Hour News Cycle

All-news cable TV stations have greatly accelerated the rush to be first--and the potential for fragmentary and erroneous reports.

“When that CNN graphic ‘Breaking News’ comes across the screen, people at the White House--both in the pressroom and on the political side--stop and look.”

--Mike McCurry, White House press secretary

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Past and Present

Percentage of survey respondents who answered “more likely” when asked: Compared with the past, is journalists’ reporting today more likely, less likely or about as likely to be influenced by . . .

Pressure from media owners and news executives for higher ratings and profits: 77%

Competitive pressures from other journalists for a story: 71%

A desire to become a celebrity or make money from personal fame: 70%

A desire to report the news fairly and accurately: 33%

Source: Newsweek poll taken July 9-10.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Media Trust

Are recent cases of media inaccuracy isolated incidents, or do they make you less likely to trust the media’s reporting?

Isolated incidents: 30%

Less likely to trust media: 62%

*

Do news organizations get the facts straight or are they often inaccurate?

Get facts straight: 39%

Often inaccurate: 53%

Source: Newsweek poll taken July 9-10.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Can a Story Be Too Early?

In trying to be first, newsmagazines sometimes publish a story too early, before readers know enough about the subject to care. Newsweek ran a cover story on new treatments for male impotence featuring the then little-known pill Viagra last November. Five months later, when the rest of the media caught up, Newsweek boasted of its exclusive in full-page newspaper ads. But sales for Newsweek’s impotence issue were poor. Only seven of the magazine’s 51 issues last year sold fewer copies on the newsstand.