Journalists must figure out what the real story is from clues, some of which conflict, that come from people and documents. They have to know when people are lying, which will be frequently, and they have to remember that if something sounds fishy or just doesn't seem right, it's probably not. Trust that instinct and hold off publishing until you do more reporting.
The frightening thing, however, is that if someone really wants to fool a reporter, they have a good chance at succeeding.
Two recent stories reminded me of why it is that I never gloated when a competitor got caught in a hoax. It could have been me, I knew.
Spirit magazine, the on-flight publication of Southwest Airlines, ran a funny-if-it-were-not-so-scary article about Greg Packer, a loony guy whose hobby is getting quoted in newspapers and other publications. To achieve this end he's stayed overnight in lines in order to buy the first ticket to events -- or the first IPhone sold. He also attends sports events and celebrity book signings and he hones in on reporters looking for "color," descriptions and quotes that bring a news event alive. He's perfected the colorful, pithy quote. The AP has warned its reporters about him and directed he not be included in future stories, but he's still become for some critics, the embodiment of shoddy journalism, as the magazine put it. The full story is at http://www.spiritmag.com/2008_03/features/ft4.php.
It's not only inexperienced or small-time journalists who get snookered. The Los Angeles Times just issued an embarrassing apology for a story that wrongly cast blame for the murder of Tupac Shakur on rap superstar Sean "Diddy" Combs. The mistake resulted from the paper's reliance on fake FBI files and responsible were several excellent investigative journalists. The newspaper wrote a detailed story examining what went wrong, but to paraphrase one lawyer quoted in that story: the newspaper had better just take out a checkbook.
Read more at http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-tupac27mar27,1,1401838.story
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