Just the Facts Ma'am

O.k. so today it's one of those days where I feel like stating my opinion even if it's controversial and not widely embraced. Then again, amongst my peer group, we all seem to be in agreement.

I work for a newspaper, thus, news and the reporting of it is our business. We are taxed with the responsibility to tell the story, and to get it right. In a Newspaper if you put it in print , it better be right or you open yourself up to libel and slander suits.  Details must be vetted and speculation is not encouraged.

So what happens in the translation between reporting the news in print and delivering it on TV.  It would seem that all accountability to get it right BEFORE inciting panic and dread, has flown out the window with bad sheets and yesterdays dirty underwear. (I'm visualizing and people throwing dirty underwear out of brownstone windows in Brooklyn and it isn't pretty).

I shake my head every time a new major news story hits.  Because I know that every news station on television is going to have a different rendition and accounting of the details.  Whats wrong with simply taking a moment to pause and saying "We don't have all the details yet, but we will report them when we do".  Is there such a rush to get the story out first, before the competition, that its worth bastardizing the facts and muddying the waters?  It seems that the race to be out front, has resulted in sensationalism and news that becomes fodder for fiction.

I am willing to wait for the news in order to receive accurate and honest facts.  I don't need a Geraldo Rivera, Jerry Springer esque version of current events. Take me back to the days of the 1960's drama "Dragnet" and give me "just the facts ma'am".

Can we somehow hold these "News" stations and reporters to some level of decency and truth?  When News becomes so squishy that they fill in the details with their own version and interpretation of events, it is no longer journalism but instead the working of a novelist. Imagination is a WONDERFUL thing,  and I encourage it wholeheartedly, just not in my news.

Get the facts straight and true before you tell story. Its o.k. to report the event in general, but leave the details for later when you can really them with some measure of accuracy and truth.