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Justin Yang 14093800 Journalism and Democracy

Verifications role in the future of Journalism

My view and understanding of journalism has greatly changed over the course of the last four years. Before attending the University of Missouris School of Journalism, my thoughts about journalism were simplistic and romantic. As a high school senior and a photo editor of my high schools yearbook, my understanding of what journalism is was very shallow. For me, journalism was only and simply a way to tell stories. Although that notion is still true today, journalism plays a much bigger role in todays society. The Missouri School of Journalism, through its curriculum, quickly taught me and over time reinforced the fact that journalism is a fundamental part to a successful democracy. That said, journalism is changing because of new innovations that keep appearing. However, after having read Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovachs essential piece of journalism literature and revisiting it recently, The Elements of Journalism, it is undeniable that journalisms role in society is moving towards mastery of the practice of verification in the everevolving world of the media where there is an oversaturation of information. From what I have learned in my starting years of journalism, it is that every decision, whether it is a hard hitting story or a fascinating feature made in journalism revolves around one question: is it verifiable. Without verification, journalisms core goal of giving citizens truthful information would be impossible. Through my experience in the last few years,

working at internships and the Columbia Missourian, I have seen the importance of verification at a personal level. Before delving too deep into why verification is the most crucial aspect of journalism, there are five disciplines that good verification follows, as Kovach and Rosenstiel write. Do not add anything to a story that did not happen. Do not deceive the audience. Be transparent. Rely on original reporting. Be humble. By following these steps, one can ensure their stories are verified to be true. There is a reason there is such a high emphasis placed on accuracy checks at the Missourian, not only is verification the most important part of good journalism, but it makes the Missourian stand out integrity-wise compared to other media outlets. At times, the importance of verification has been completely forgotten by major media outlets like ESPN and Sports Illustrated. Early in this semester we talked about Notre Dames Manti Teo case and how with a simple act of verification, online sports outlet Deadspin proved almost every other major outlet wrong. While everyone else was fascinated Teos story, nobody bothered to do simple checks. Journalists who did, like Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated and found holes in Teos story, simply wrote around it. The entire incident was a failure of verification by the media. Last year, I had a fantastic story ready to go about an athlete and his mother. His mother put all sorts of positive influences around him to ensure he would be successful whether it was academics, art or athletics. However, his father left his life because of a prison sentence when he was five. The athlete claimed he did not know why his father was serving time and his mother would not tell me. I told my editor this and my editor said I could not run the story for several reasons. One, how do I know that in fact the athletes father was in prison based on just his words? The athletes fathers name was

too common to look up in public record databases. By not having any proof of his fathers sentence, there was no way I could release a 100 percent accurate story because I had no way of verifying anything. It was a pity I could not run the story, I had spent so much time and gathered so much good information. Telling and explaining the situation to a subject is probably one of the more difficult conversations I have had in my life. I also anticipate that it may not be the last time in my career I have that conversation. That said, the fallout if the story turned out to be false would be so much worse. On the bright side, I was able to use the information from those interviews in other stories. Mastering the art of verification journalism is more important than ever before. Before the advent of the Internet, the newspaper was the nexus of information. However ever since the widespread expansion of the Internet, there was a flood of information. The information marketplace more saturated as than ever in history. The Internet and cable television as well, have worked to extend the news cycle from a daily one, to an around-theclock, 24-hour news cycle. Facts have become a commodity, easily acquired, repackaged, and repurposed, Kovach and Rosenstiel write (p. 77). The question is raised in this information-saturated era, what information is true and what is not? As one of the Missourians Missouri mens basketball reporters, I have a realized that a journalists job has become more of a verifier in some instances. Take the entire Frank Haith allegation story that has come about in the last year and a half about allegedly violating NCAA rules during his time in Miami. Much of the work being done on that story is verifying. In February of 2013, there was a lot of speculation coming in about Haith and what his allegations would be. As I helped my beat partner gather information about the story, the approach became to take information out on the Internet, like CBS Sports report that Haith

would receive an unethical conduct charge, and run it by the Missouri athletics department to see if they could confirm it. It turned out that specific report was wrong when the final notice of allegations was given out to the coaches. On the surface it looks like Kovach and Rosenstiels rules for verfication were broken in this situation, however, I strongly disagree. Immediately, it looks like Kovach and Rosenstiels rule on relying on ones own reporting (p. 78) were violated. But in this day and age, I believe it is very important to use this vast information marketplace to your advantage. We did, we took the information available to us and used our access and locality to create an original report. We took the information from the report and directly asked the athletics department for its perspective on what was out there, something the original report did not offer. In a scenario like this one, fishing for information to verify is crucial in todays journalism. Verification is where journalism is heading in the future. Many say journalism is dying and I disagree. I went to Seattle for a school trip in mid-February and visited Microsoft to hear it talk about MSN News. MSN News had a start-up mentality and wanted to do things differently. One thing that really fascinated me during my time there was its rumor sections, in which MSN would post all sorts of rumors normal publications did not post, and then go out and verify them. This is an excellent example of established journalistic outlets, surveying the wealth of information in front of them and then using their access and credibility to verify the information out there. The world of journalism is changing and I have had a chance to see that first hand during my hands-on journalistic education here at MU. I have had the chance to deal with

the ethics of verification on my stories, allowing me to understand why it is not only the most essential part of journalism, but will play an even bigger role in the future.

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