A night when good news turned bad
Ted Vaden, Staff Writer
The News & Observer is incompetent or insensitive or irresponsible or just plain mean, depending on which of our readers you talked to about the paper's coverage of the West Virginia mine disaster.
By now it's old news that The N&O ran on its front page Wednesday the incorrect story reporting that 12 miners had been rescued. "'Miracles happen in W.Va.': 12 miners found alive," proclaimed the large-type headline above a picture of jubilant miners' families. The true sad story, of course, was that 12 had died and one survived.
The N&O received calls and e-mails throughout that day from readers upset by the tragedy and angry at the paper's handling of the story. A sampling:
"I am not blaming the paper for the obvious failure of communication between the entities involved in the rescue effort," said Terry Lennon of Raleigh. "What I do blame the paper for is the failure to verify the story before going to press."
"Do you not verify reports?" asked Eric Keravuori of Raleigh. "I don't care what the other newspapers did, that's simply not responsible reporting."
And on and on. One reader equated The N&O's publication of the story, without verification, with President Bush's decision to invade Iraq based on faulty intelligence.
Let's concede to begin with that it was an awful error. To publish bad information of this magnitude is an editor's worst nightmare, and you can imagine the dismay of The N&O's top editors when they awoke to the real story Wednesday morning.
Executive Editor Melanie Sill explained how the error occurred in a front-page editor's note on Thursday. We don't need to go through all that, except to say that the "miracle" story was transmitted by the Associated Press about midnight, as The N&O was going to press, and the sobering corrected version moved three hours later, as the press run was ending. Basically, the paper was caught in a time trap that required a last-minute editing decision and left no room to correct the error.
The N&O was hardly the only paper to be blind-sided by the evolving story. Most papers on the East Coast had the wrong story in their final editions, although a few caught the error in time to send out some papers with correct stories. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which had its own reporters on the scene (98 miles away), stopped its press run midway and was able to publish half its 256,000 papers with the correct story.
The issue that seemed to concern our readers most was their perception that The N&O published without verification. Two points here: First, The N&O was relying on its news services, which all were reporting the same story, along with television and Internet sites. Second, the stories did have verification. The version that ran in The N&O quoted by name West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and Joe Thornton, a high-ranking state public safety official, in saying they had been told the miners had been saved. This was not a story based on anonymous sources, or, as many readers seemed to believe, only on the second-hand word of miners' families. The story did note that the mine owners had not confirmed the rescue.
Could the paper have done a better job? Yes, in retrospect, there should have been more qualification in the story -- the lead paragraph flatly asserted that the miners were found alive, without attribution to anyone in authority. Likewise, the headline written by N&O editors offered no caution flags.
The Charlotte Observer's headline, by contrast, said "Miners' families cry: 'They're alive'." "In hindsight, it was just enough of a hedge," said Observer editor Rick Thames. "It was a tactfully written headline by a copy editor who didn't want to extend us all the way." But he acknowledged that The Observer still had the story wrong and that most readers didn't appreciate the nuanced headline.
I can't fault The N&O or the rest of the newspaper sorority for going with the incorrect story. It was the best information available and it was tied to credible, identified sources. The N&O did get onto its Web site, www.newsobserver.com, a correct version about 4 a.m. -- two hours before papers started arriving in driveways.
Sill, The N&O editor, said the paper will use this case as an opportunity internally to remind staffers of the "value and necessity of verification." But she told me in an e-mail that she didn't see the error as a lapse on the part of editors here. "I'm sure people in newsrooms everywhere will be asking 'Are they sure?' 'Who says?' more often, and this case reminds us of why. But this is not a case that calls for drastic corrective action, in my opinion."
UNC journalism professor Frank Fee is a former news editor who oversaw many a late call on big stories, such as the Oklahoma City bombing. Yes, news should be verified, information should be attributed, he said. "But it comes down to trying to get out to the reader the most credible, most factual information available even as you know the situation is changing out from under you. The imperative is to get the news you have in hand out to the reader."
I would note that The N&O corrected the error on the front page Thursday, under the headline "Yes, we were wrong" and included Sill's apology, "we're sorry for that." Those are words that newspapers are congenitally disinclined to use, and I can't remember the last time I saw an apology on this newspaper's front page. It's no shame to apologize for an error honestly made.
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