Knowing Your Place

We’ve already been warned about “fake news” – false information and/or rumor that is deliberately circulated and somehow, sometimes, becomes believable. This may happen because news providers, eager to beat others to a supposed big story, quickly publish or post information before properly vetting it. While sketchy news outlets have been accused (many times rightly so) of being perpetrators of fake news, this week one of the largest TV news outlets in the country – CNN – found itself being accused of being a purveyor of fake news. The accusation came from President-elect Donald Trump who railed against CNN because of its reporting of alleged incriminating evidence that he said was unverified.

This is particularly scary because CNN is a recognized news source where millions of people turn to get information. If they are being accused then what news source do we turn to?

Maybe it is a temptation to be first, to be the one who brings information to others. You find this all the time on social media. People post things that are inaccurate at best and downright false at worst. Because there is power that comes from getting information out there – and a responsibility. It seems to me that people are much more attracted to the power without realizing the responsibility.

For example, a resident listening to a scanner on Sunday evening heard that apparently three armed people were robbing a local church. This person quickly put the information on social media gleaned from the scanner.

One of the problems is that the information heard on scanners is not a news source, but an initial reaction to a situation. It gives officers general – not specific – information as to what they might encounter when responding to a call. And typically law enforcement responds with an abundance of caution. In this particular case, it was three teens who were playing a game with soft air guns (see Mary O’Keefe’s story on page 6).

Apparently when one of the teens learned of the police response, he hightailed it home – carrying a gun and wearing a mask. How close he came to getting tackled or shot by a concerned citizen is something we’ll never know.

I’ve said it before: social media does have its uses but reporting supposed news as fact is a mistake – a dangerous one at that.

As a trusted news source, CV Weekly follows rules of journalism that I’m sure our readers have recognized: our use of the words “apparent” and “alleged” for example. This may be because information that we’re reporting has not been confirmed by reliable sources.

We also make sure that when a person has died in a public setting that the family has been notified. We won’t report the name of the person until we get confirmation from the coroner or the family.

Almost every time we have people missing from our area, we have had to deal with the families who are going through an emotional roller coaster and come to us, as a trusted news source, to find out if it’s their loved one when a crash has been discovered or a body found.

Amazingly there have been circumstances when we have become aware of something of a criminal nature that is buzzing on social media, but when our reporter has called the police or sheriff’s station law enforcement hasn’t heard anything about it. People want to “share” so badly that they forget to share with law enforcement. Don’t let social media become a substitute for 9-1-1.

To maintain our legitimacy CV Weekly must go through the proper channels – when gathering and reporting information – even if one of our reporters is standing near an incident. Without doing so makes the information we deliver not much more than gossip. While it is always a point of pride to be first in delivering news, it is not our purpose to be first but to be accurate.

Perhaps we are overly sensitive because we are a community newspaper that values its readers. We have had the privilege of sitting with those who have been victimized or who have lost loved ones. These aren’t just stories to us – these are people, our neighbors and friends. We never forget the pain that they are going through and wouldn’t relay information that could be not only incorrect but devastating.

We won’t always get it right no matter how hard we try. But we will continue to work at marrying the age-old value of integrity with today’s technology – not an easy task – but we feel we are up to it.

  robin goldsworthy