Missing: Fatalspalooza '14

Every semester, we have a practice story of two where it seems like the whole class goes off the fatal rail and plunges straight into It Sucks To Be Us Canyon. For my summer class, it was the "robbery" exercise, where the summer class had eight fatals. Last fall's "murder" assignment had six. Our "missing" assignment had NINE fatals.

Gulp. That's a lot for just one exercise, even for JRN 200. Not the most ever in one assignment, but more than usual. And not a rate I'm comfortable with.

Sadly but typically, many of the fataled exercised were well-written and organized, and many would have scored very well if not for the fatals.

But in journalism, it's not about writing; it's about getting it right. I'm afraid it's a lesson many of us are being reminded of the hard way today.  

Let's look at what happened and why, and how we can avoid such fatals going forward: 


PROBLEM: Four of us -- including some people who are doing very well sofar this semester -- said there were 9,000 missing people when in fact there were nearly 9,000 missing people. (Italics mine.)

Plus, another one of us said 6,500 juveniles were still missing, when in fact there were nearly 6,500. (Italics mine.)

SOLUTION: Make sure we are precise in our fact use, and don't round things off with using nearly or more than or approximately and such. We must be precise, or indicate we are using a ballpark number.

Saying 9,000 and 6,500 is not the same as saying nearly 9,000 and nearly 6,500, like if a cop catches you with a case of beer it's not the same to be 21 years old or almost 21.

That's the difference between an MIP and an F-U, coppers.

***** 

PROBLEM: We wrote that Sabrina didn't want her identity withheld, when in fact she wanted her identity withheld. (Italics mine.)

SOLUTION: We need to go through our work and make sure we wrote what we intended to write. In this case, it was clear we intended the latter because in our handling of the story, we withheld her last name. 

*****


PROBLEM: We said 85 missing people reappeared, when we meant to say 85 percent of missing people reappeared. (Italics mine.)

SOLUTION: Same as the above. Let's keep an eye out for dropped words or transposed numbers, too.

*****

PROBLEM: We said Sabrina would prefer having her last time remain unknown. In fact, she wanted her last name unknown (italics mine). Any spelling/word error that changes the meaning of a segment is a fatal. In this case, Sabrina told us nothing about wanting her last time (doing what? Running away?) known or unknown or whatever.

SOLUTION: Same as the above. Plus, spell check wouldn't have helped us in this instance, because we correctly spelled time. Problem was, that wasn't the word we needed to use; it was name. Spell check didn't know what word you intended; just that the one you used wasn't misspelled.

So we need to be sure to go through our stories fact-by-fact, to make sure what we wrote is correct. Spell check is a complement to, but not a substitute for, checking your infos via your eyeballs. 

*****

PROBLEM: We spelled the deadbeat dad's ex-wife's name as Ann, when (a.) in the text we were given both Ann and Anne as spellings, but (b.) in the assignment instructions I put up on the white board I indicated Anne was the correct spelling.

SOLUTION: First, make sure you thoroughly copy all the info you need. Second, if you don't get all the info you need in the first round of interviews, call back your source. And in this case, you did try to contact me, but your attempt was very late, after I had headed home.

So your best next step would be to simply omit the information you couldn't confirm, and in this case that would have been easy: you could have just referred to the ex-wife as such -- his ex-wife -- and left out the name altogether.

But guessing is NEVER an acceptable solution in journalism. Either we know it, or we don't.

****** 

ALMOST A PROBLEM: We had an almost-fatal, timewise: someone submitted their story just 59 seconds before deadline.

SOLUTION: Don't cut deadlines so close! Set an artificial deadline well before the actual one, not only to give yourself enough time to fact-check your work, but also to have extra time to deal with technical problems that could crop up out of the blue.

I promise you, the first time you miss a deadline because your computer fritzes out on you, your boss won't give a shit, blaming you for trying to send it in so late.

*****

PROBLEM: The person who almost time-fataled could have used more time to fact-check, because they said 42,284 people went missing, when in fact it was 42,384.

SOLUTION: This is a deadline business, so we're already dealing with time constriction. Don't make things worse by doing tings so close to deadline. And if we're writing on deadline, we still need to make sure we devote enough time to fact-checking our work. We CANNOT simply skip fact-checking time. I'd rather have to write short than wrong.

*****

Learning to write isn't journalism. Learning to organize information isn't all of journalism. Putting in a system of checking facts before, during and after writing and organizing information is what makes this kind of writing and organizing known as journalism.

The good news is, many of my previous classes had fatals binges, especially early in the semester when we're still reconciling balancing speed and accuracy. The fact is, most people in previous classes get two or three or four fatals in practice stories over the course of the semester, and still end up with a solid grade.

The bad news is, some of us have already used up our three or so fatals. We have to buckle up and start avoiding 'em here and there.

Still, while this is discouraging, let's not get discouraged. The whole point of these exercises -- and getting fatals, too -- is to learn by doing, reviewing what was done, learning what could be done better, and then applying those lessons the next time.

And that's what we're going to do here, by redoubling our efforts to carefully fact-check everything we write.

In a previous blog post, I offered a number of cut-and-pasted handouts on good fact-checking habits. I'm not in the business of handing things out just to be busy; those handouts included many tips we should be integrating into our routines, so we can become relatively fatal-free. You can link directly to those handouts right here.

Let's not let these bad times go to waste. Rather, let's use these mistakes as an opportunity to identify where we tend to trip up and how we can do better the next time, and as motivation to follow through with rigorous fact-checking from here on out. 

FYI, for those of you keeping score at home, 14 of 18 people have at least one fatal (and most have more than that). Again, that's pretty typical. It's been rare that anyone has made it through a semester without at least a couple of fatals.

For the four of you who have yet to fatal, that means I'm coming for you.