Responsibility in reporting

Announcer: “Again, this is pure speculation” (during the sports portion of the local newscast on 40/29 tonight).

“We’ll be monitoring the message boards to let you know how the fans are reacting, but it’s going to be a long night.”

Since when are fan message boards the source for news? The 40/29 piece was about the possibility that Dana Altman, who accepted the Razorbacks basketball head coach position yesterday, was backing out.

Where does this fit into the need for responsibility in reporting?

The only source they cited in the story was a news report in Creighton‘s Omaha, Nebraska that a team meeting was scheduled for later tonight, at 9 p.m.

It’s irrelevant that less than an hour later the newscasters broke into programming to air a news conference in which Altman did announce he’s returning to Creighton.

The point of focus, for me, is that first quote. The “reporter” is not relieved of his duty by “reminding” the public that this is speculation. How is this different than gossip?

I put “reporter” in quotes for a couple reasons:

1) It’s TV and television news is just a poor vehicle for true, responsible reporting, and
2) This is a particularly heinous example of irresponsibility in the field.

I read a column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today about this very subject, written by Frank Fellone.

Through the filter of Good Night and Good Luck, he discusses three themes, or tensions, that remain constant in the field of journalism. The third: “the tension between the need to inform and the responsibility to do it, um, responsibly.”

The 40/29 sports department seems to have been pulled to the wrong side by this tension tonight.