LA Times, New York Times Gets Duped, More Black Eyes for Newspapers

Where's Ashton Kutcher when you need him?

At the end of every Punk'd ruse, he'd come wandering onto the scene, a move that would immediately alleviate the prankee's worries. No, you aren't being arrested. No, your music video isn't getting shut down. No, your $300,000 car wasn't destroyed in a freak accident. Viewers could see the anxiety melt away as shock set in. You mean this whole thing was all a stunt? their faces asked. Oh, Ashton, ya got me. I'm sure Chuck Philips would feel a lot better right now if Kutcher had come to the Los Angeles Times's newsroom before he wrote that massive story on March 17 implicating some of Sean "Diddy" Combs's associates in the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur.

As you probably know, Shakur didn't die in that incident, but he did swear up and down to anyone who would listen that Combs and Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace were trying to kill him. He was, in fact, murdered in Las Vegas less than two years later, six months before Wallace was gunned down in L.A. Both of these high-profile deaths remain unsolved, so a story further connecting the two and recapping the east coast-west coast rap wars that culminated with their untimely demises would have readers chomping at the bit, right? Wrong, apparently. Or more accurately, the "evidence" that was the linchpin of that connection is what was wrong.

After Combs (again) denied any involvement, the Web warriors at over The Smoking Gun came to the rescue (again), confirming that Philips's source, a two-bit hustler in prison on fraud charges, had forged FBI documents for the lawsuit he'd filed against Combs---information that Philips never checked out with the FBI itself. (This only several days after it was revealed that The New York Times and everyone else got played by "Margaret B. Jones" and her fake gang banger memoir.) Philips's Spidey sense should've been tingling from the very beginning. And maybe, just maybe, these documents did set off alarm bells and he chose to ignore them because the story was too good to let go. We'll never know if that's correct; it's not like he's going to tell us. But it is yet another teachable moment for everyone who writes stories.

On slate.com, writer Jack Shafer goes over how Philips and the L.A. Times could have "dodged the Tupac hoaxer":

Avoid confirmation bias. It's a universal human trait to seek evidence that confirms what you already believe, to interpret the evidence you've collected to bolster your existing view, and to avoid the evidence that would undermine your notions. "Philips said in an interview that he had believed the documents were legitimate because, in the reporting he had already done on the story, he had heard many of the same details," the Times reports today. Did Philips' willingness to believe what the documents said blind him to the typographic clues that the Smoking Gun says point to forgery? "[The documents] confirmed many of the things I'd learned on my own," Philips said in an interview before the debunking.

Know the provenance of your document. Sources who leak documents to reporters are often sketchy about how they obtained them. Until proved otherwise, every document should be assumed to be fake. In the Times case, Philips trusted the documents because they had been filed in court. That they were filed by Sabatino, currently doing time on fraud charges, should have raised red flags. That he filed them in a lawsuit against Sean Combs—long rumored to have some role in the feud between Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. that ended in the murders of both—should have raised red flagpoles. That the story names Sabatino as one of two individuals who set up an attack on Shakur should have sent the flagpoles into orbit. According to the Times, Philips did not ask the FBI about the documents that are so instrumental to his story. A former FBI man appears to have thought the documents genuine.

Don't trust documents, trust evidence. A document is only a piece of paper with writing on it. Even if authentic, a document is not necessarily true. The FBI, just to mention one organization, has produced hundreds of thousands of authentic documents whose combined truth content is less than zero. In the Times case, the discredited documents appear to have been prepared with a typewriter, not a computer, which should have revealed them as counterfeit.

Enlist outside experts. Many newspapers conduct their investigations inside a tiny, bias-confirming box because they fear an information leak will get them scooped. If the Times had brought in outside experts—even other experienced Times journalists—to "murder board" the story before publication, the paper might not have a tractortrailer-load of eggs on its face today. The less a stake an outside source has in a story, the better his critique will likely be. According to the Times, the only people to review the story prior to publication were the primary editor and two editors on the copy desk, which is low by Times standards.

Always ask, "Why now?" When new and startling evidence surfaces to help solve an ancient mystery, as happened in the Times story, a journalist must always ask, "Why now? Why hasn't this evidence appeared before?" Is it because the source of the evidence stands to gain financially by its publication? Because the evidence will spring them from jail? Because they're a notorious liar who loves to lie? Cui bono, baby, cui bono.

Never trust a flimflam man. Sabatino possesses a long rap sheet. From the Smoking Gun: "The Times appears to have been hoaxed by an imprisoned con man and accomplished document forger, an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries, conducted business with Combs, Shakur, Busta Rhymes, and The Notorious B.I.G., and even served as Combs's trusted emissary to Death Row Records boss Marion 'Suge' Knight." Also, "[From jail], Sabatino worked with a raggedy group of accomplices—most of whom he never met—and defrauded firms of upwards of $1 million."

Beware, ye writers and future writers: this could easily happen to you if you don't do your due diligence.

Aiesha D. Little
NABJ Adviser
UCABJ

Bob Woodruff telecast on April 1

ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff will speak about his experience as a journalist embedded with the troops in Iraq as part of Drake Hospital's traumatic brain injury symposium. In January 2006, Woodruff, then co-anchor of World News Tonight, and his camerman were severely injured an IED attack north of Baghdad. He and his wife Lee--author, freelance writer, and contributing editor at ABC's Good Morning America--chronicled their family’s journey to recovery in the best-selling memoir In An Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing. The Woodruffs have since dedicated themselves to putting a face on the serious issue of TBI, especially among America’s injured military personnel. This Web-based telecast of the speech was arranged by the UC chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Cincinnati chapter of NABJ.

When: Tuesday, April 1, 8 pm

Where: UC campus, 450 Lindner Center

Green For All

I usually enjoy Tavis Smiley's PBS program, but I haven't been able to watch it much lately. Last night I managed to see a thought provoking interview that touched on issues I thought might be of interest to other frequenters of the blog (especially journalists that specialize in environmental issues like Elissa does).

One of Smiley's guest was an activist and writer named Van Jones. Jones is championing a group he helped create called Green For All, which combines environmentalism with advocacy for the poor and urban social justice movements. Their goal is to encourage the development of a "green" economy that lifts people - especially people from disadvantaged urban communities - out of poverty.

Here are a few comments from Jones that I found the most engaging:

"Part of the thing is the whole way the environmental movement has been framed has been wrong for our community. We're supposed to cry about polar bears and stuff like that, and if Pooky don't have a job, then Pooky might get shot today. I can't cry about a polar bear dying when Pooky is dying."

"If we teach our young people to put up solar panels, they're on their way to becoming electrical engineers, electricians, they can join unions. Those are green pathways out of poverty."

"We don't want eco-apartheid, and that is the big danger as we begin to respond to global warming and these issues. We could wind up in a situation where we get hit first and worst on everything negative, and then benefit last and least on everything positive. Dr. King would have stood against that."

We begin to say..."We can fight poverty and pollution at the same time; you can save the polar bears and Pooky."

"Dr. King was for civil rights. He was also anti-poverty. He was also anti-war, and for peace. He bridged those issues. Now we have these issues, the environment's supposed to be over here, anti-poverty over here, justice over here.

Dr. King would say no. He would link those issues and he would say, "No, this is one agenda to lift America up, to lift up our most vulnerable, and also to make sure that we never have to fight another war for oil or resources ever again."

I was surprised that I was surprised by this guy. When you think about it, all of these things do relate closely to one another and could easily be components of a single, coherent movement. But in the press each of these movements seem to be discussed separately.

I fear that coverage of any of these movements is sometimes limited by the stereotypical roles in which activists are cast. Like relegating environmentalism to "hippie tree huggers," or relegating poverty issues to "naive" and "bleeding heart" rich white people with too much time on their hands, or relegating social and racial justice to senselessly angry black folk, or relegating the anti-war movement to unruly and holier-than-thou college potheads with Che Gueverra posters on their walls, or relegating gay rights activism to drag queens in San Francisco. And of course there isn't enough room here to even begin to lay out all of the stereotypes that hang over the heads of feminists.

But what if a single, plausible and hopeful movement brought all of these together? That (at least on the face of it) seems to be what Green For All is. Whether you agree with their politics or not, it still seems like a pretty cool story to me. Nice catch, Tavis.

~Geoffrey Dobbins
UCABJ, vice president

NABJ Webinar - March 27

Dear NABJ Member:

You have been invited to a Webinar Town Hall meeting for the membership of The National Association of Black Journalists to discuss the
organization's financial outlook for 2008. Featured speakers will be NABJ President Barbara Ciara and NABJ Treasurer Gregory Lee.

NABJ "State of Our Finances" Town Hall

Thursday, March 27, 2008

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT

Please click here to register:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/189693199

**Please note that you will need your NABJ membership number to register
for this Town Hall.  In addition, to participate in the Webinar, you
will need phone AND computer access.

Many Thanks,

NABJ Board of Directors

UCABJ Member Wins Big in SPJ's Region 4 Mark of Excellence Awards

UCABJ member Keith Jenkins, editor of The News-Record, won first place in the sports writing category of SPJ's Region 4 Mark of Excellence Awards. Read his winning entry, "Yoooouk!"

Congrats, Keith!

A Nine-Paragraph Correction You Gotta See to Believe

Somebody's getting fired over this...

http://tinyurl.com/2ld6lo

See you on April 3!

Kick butt on your finals and have a great spring break!

We'll see you on Thursday, April 3 for the first meeting of the spring quarter, where Cincinnati Magazine associate editor Aiesha D. Little and UC prof (and freelancer) Jenny Wohlfarth will discuss the ins and outs of magazine publishing. Be there!

Peace and blessings,

UCABJ Executive Board
Make your voice heard!

Internships: Paid....Or Not

Ah, it's that time of year again. Hordes of college students will start eagerly sending out resumes and cover letters hoping to secure summer internships. In the field of journalism, landing an internship(s) is a crucial step in deciding on a career path. It's the way that students take what they're learning in theory and apply it to the "real world." For some, it's their first experience in a professional environment. And for most, these experiences will be unpaid.

Think of it as the business approach to Descartes' famous saying "I think, therefore, I am": "I work for free, therefore, I must love my job." Not necessarily so. But that's the price (or lack thereof) at which experience comes these days. Unfortunately, it's too much a part of the industry's business model to turn back now. For most publications, it's not a matter of not wanting to pay students; with the changing market and the economic fluctuations it's causing, they simply can't afford to do so.

In "Take This Internship and Shove It," New York Times op-ed writer Anya Kamenetz posits: "What if the growth of unpaid internships is bad for the labor market and for individual careers?" In some cases, that's probably true, but it also means that students must do more research to find internship opportunities that will benefit them most in the long run. It doesn't make sense to work for a magazine--where you'll only get a couple of very short clips for three of four months of work--when you really want to be a newspaper reporter. It's a waste of time to spend an entire summer at a TV station and the only thing you get to do is pick up dry cleaning and make coffee. During searches and interviews, be sure to ask very detailed questions about interns duties: What's a typical day like for an intern? To whom do interns report? Are there any non-monetary perks that come with the job (at the very least, some employers will pay for parking)? Remember: Employers aren't promising to provide the "ultimate intern experience." They're just giving students a shot at seeing how the sausage gets made, so to speak. It's up to the student to make the most of his/her experience.

adl

Aiesha D. Little
NABJ Adviser
University of Cincinnati Association of Black Journalists

Broadcast Writing Workshop March 6

Attention budding TV reporters!

FOX19 weekend anchor Regina Russo will talk about broadcast writing on Thursday, March 6. A Purdue University graduate, Russo joined the FOX19 crew in 1996 and has anchored First Look and 19 in the Morning. She currently does the weekend nightly newscasts and hosts What's Hot With Regina and Making the Grade with Regina Russo. She als explores current events through the station's half-hour public affairs program, Cincinnati Matters.

Bring your questions about the business and have them answered by this TV veteran!

DATE: March 6

Time: 7 p.m.

PLACE: 423 TUC