The Need To Be First

Editor’s Note:  This past week marked the 1-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing tragedy.  This column was written in the wake of the tragedy and the pursuit of the perpetrators. 

Somewhere in the make-up of human nature there must be a gene that tells us we need to be first. 

We need to be the first in line to get our concert tickets.  We need to be the first to get the next tech gadget.  We need to be the first among our friends to see the latest summer movie.  And if you are a traditional news agency, apparently you need to be the first to disseminate information about a tragedy, whether the information reported is right or wrong.  This was perhaps never more on display than in the past week when two bombs rocked the typically cheery Boston Marathon, and many media outlets rushed to report every detail and rumor in the aftermath.

As for specifics, one of the first erroneous bits of information reported by traditional news agencies, including Fox News and CNN, was that there was a bomb that exploded at the JFK library in Boston.  The New York Post also inaccurately reported that twelve people were killed during the bombing.  But the error that sticks out the most to me was the report by CNN, Fox News, the Associated Press and the Boston Globe that a suspect was in custody when indeed no suspect had been taken in by law enforcement.  This was particularly troubling to me because it led to individuals being misidentified as suspects, and it also led to delayed identification of the actual perpetrators.  Indeed there were people who actually could have called law enforcement to positively identify the perpetrators, but did not because there were erroneous news reports as to whether (the correct) suspects had been identified or not.  This latter point is significant because had the correct individuals been identified earlier, it is possible that the MIT patrol officer, who was killed several days after the bombings by the bombing perpetrators, might not have been killed.  Thus news reporting errors are sometimes more egregious than just poor journalism, they can have real life or death consequences as these errors demonstrate.

In this age of instant music and on-demand movies, it seems the ego-driven human creature feels the need to be the first to know and then the first to tell.   Ironically, there is often little benefit in either.  No doubt there is tremendous primacy in being the first to accomplish a great feat or overcome a previously insurmountable barrier.  Matthew Henson, Jackie Robinson, Roger Bannister, Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride come to mind.  But is there really a major benefit in being the first to report an event that, moments later, all news agencies will be reporting about anyhow?  And if the information reported is inaccurate is there any benefit at all?

As a scientist, the value of being the first to report a discovery is certainly a concept I can appreciate.  However, the process of obtaining accurate, reproducible scientific data is one that takes time and much scrutiny before it is actually published.  News outlets used to have a similar standard for reporting information to the public, but with the advent of social media this standard is increasingly scarce, at least in the early stages of any major news event. 

Though we’ve come to expect and accept errors in reporting as long as the correct story is eventually told, early inaccuracies in reporting can be incredibly damaging.  Misidentifying suspects can hinder investigations, reporting that an arrest was made when it hasn’t been can prevent eyewitnesses from coming forward, and innocent individuals can have their reputations ruined by such media releases.  Yes, the public has the right to know, but does the public need inaccurate, often speculative and potentially damaging second-by-second play-by-plays? 

The fact is no matter how hard the traditional news agencies try, their attempts to be the first to report an occurrence will fail.  This is because it is impossible for journalists to be ubiquitously dispersed at ground zero of every event the moment something happens.  They will therefore always be second place to the individuals at the event who can tweet, text-edit Reddit and post updates to their Facebook pages via the various media devices in the palms of their hands.  The moments immediately following the bombings at the Boston Marathon made this reality ever more clear.

The sad truth is each time traditional news organizations report inaccurate information, the need to return to that news outlet diminishes.  This is because in conjunction with being “late” in reporting the news, traditional news agencies are increasingly reporting as many falsehoods as amateurs in the “Twitterverse.”  By consistently reporting misinformation, traditional news outlets lose their most important advantage in comparison to non-vetted news and social media sources:  reliability and accuracy. 

Prior to releasing any news on real-time events, I would recommend that reputable news agencies be patient, and vet not just your sources, but fully establish the facts.  If that means the report debuts forty seven minutes after the first thousand tweets hit the airwaves, that’s fine because many of those tweets will undoubtedly be erroneous, and at 140 characters they will certainly lack depth.  Furthermore, if your concern as a news agency is to beat Twitter to the scoop then you have a very misguided focus, which should be to report the news and to report it accurately.

Since it is virtually impossible to beat the “citizen journalist” to the story, my advice to traditional news outlets is to stick to what you can do better than anyone with a Twitter account:  get the story right the first time.  It behooves you to do so. 

-Maelstrom