Kash Money: FBI Director Patel sues the Atlantic over claims he’s a drunk (and what journalism students should learn from this situation)

Although this isn’t a great look for a guy accused of drinking to excess, the author of the Atlantic article on Kash Patel stated that this is among the least worrisome moments of his time as FBI director.

THE LEAD: Kash Patel is looking for cash money to the tune of about $250 million, after the Atlantic ran an article accusing him of being too drunk too frequently to run the FBI :

The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, sued The Atlantic on Monday, accusing it of defamation over an article that claimed his excessive drinking and unexplained absences were putting his job in jeopardy.

The article, under the headline “The FBI Director Is MIA,” was published on Friday and detailed Mr. Patel’s behavior in his role leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation, citing more than two dozen anonymous sources. The author, Sarah Fitzpatrick, wrote that Mr. Patel’s conduct had “often alarmed officials at the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice.” The article said he “has also earned a reputation for acting impulsively during high-stakes investigations.”

Mr. Patel denied the claims in a statement to The Atlantic, which the article included.

THE BACKGROUND: Sarah Fitzpatrick’s article focuses on a string of incidents in which a long list of unnamed sources note that Patel was exhibiting all the textbook signs of an entitled frat boy. These allegations included:

He was drunk and missing a lot of work because of it.
He was drunk at his favorite local bar while hanging out with co-workers.
He frequently jetted off to Las Vegas, where he got plastered at another favorite hangout.
People had to rework his schedule to avoid early morning meetings because Patel was sleeping off the action from the night before.
He was too messed up to do his job when people tried to reach him, or they just couldn’t reach him at all.
He bragged about things that weren’t true, including misinforming the public about the capture of the Brown University shooter.

The White House issued a statement with a blanket denial of these allegations and Patel himself was quoted as saying, “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.”

IT’S ALREADY FIRST AMENDMENT 1, PATEL 0 IN DEFAMATION SUITS: A judge has already tossed out one of Patel’s attempts at cowing the media based on allegations of defamation:

A federal judge in Texas has tossed a defamation suit brought by FBI Director Kash Patel against former FBI assistant director-turned-MSNBC contributor Frank Figliuzzi.

Patel had sued Figliuzzi over comments he made on “Morning Joe” about the FBI director’s evening activities.

“Yeah, well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building,” Figliuzzi said on the show last year.

<SNIP>

U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. (wrote) “Figliuzzi’s statement, when taken in context, cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel.”

“A person of reasonable intelligence and learning would not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building,” the judge added.

I’m glad about the verdict, but given what we’re seeing these days in terms of “reasonable intelligence and learning” out there, I’m worried where that bar will be set in the future.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE AS A JOURNALISM STUDENT: This article and Patel’s suit provide a pretty interesting look at how defamation (or libel) tends to work or not work, as well as an opportunity to look into building stories like this. Here are some key issues:

UNNAMED SOURCES: This whole story is built on the backs of sources that Fitzpatrick did not name in the article. That is ALWAYS a huge risk in journalism for a variety of reasons. Source credibility comes into question, issues of people having axes to grind show up, sources who eventually get IDed might backtrack and leave you holding the bag… The list is pretty long and the dangers are pretty strong.

The things that make this a little more stable than many of the other stories that show up with an unnamed source along with a wing and a prayer are:

A) The volume of sources. Fitzpatrick is stacking people like cord wood in this thing, noting as many as a dozen people have corroborated the things she’s putting into her piece. If that is accurate, and I have no substantive reason to doubt it, that means this story has some stronger legs to stand on than most.

B) I go back to a conversation I had with my friend Allison, who covered the Chicagoland Catholic church molestation scandals of the early 2000s. I used to ask her how she knew for sure that the priests in her stories were serial pedophiles. The information she gathered came from the accusers, usually years or decades later, and was almost impossible to back up with documents or other “official source” content that I had gotten used to using in my own work.

Her answer was simple: She did a ton of digging, verified in every way she could and then she published the content and waited. In almost every case, if she published one or two accusations, she immediately heard from at least three or four other people who told her the same things had happened to them.

Cue the update from Fitzpatrick after her story ran:

“My response is that I stand by every single word of this report,” she said. “We were very diligent. We were very careful. It went through multiple levels of editing, review, care.

“And I think one of the things that has been most gratifying, after – immediately after the story published was, I have been inundated by additional sourcing going up to the highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work, providing additional corroborating information.”

The only way Fitzpatrick was going to get this story was by providing anonymity to her sources, so she took a risk. That said, it wasn’t a foolish risk, which is something to keep in mind when someone says, “Hey, I have a story for you, but you can’t use my name…”

A HIGH BAR TO CLEAR: As a public figure, Patel has to demonstrate that the Atlantic engaged in actual malice, as opposed to mere negligence, and that’s a pretty tough thing to do. As the folks at Poynter point out:

Can Patel actually be successful in his suit? Sure, anything is possible, but it’s unlikely.

During an appearance on CNN, Brian Stelter, CNN’s media reporter, said, “Actual malice is the very high legal standard that public figures have to prove in order to win a defamation suit. They have to prove that The Atlantic knew these claims were false or had a reckless disregard for the truth.”

This kind of goes back to the first point in a way: When you only have one anonymous/unnamed source, there’s a huge risk you are buying the Brooklyn Bridge and you should know better. When you have a dozen or more people telling you the exact same thing, it’s going to be hard to prove a vast conspiracy among those folks and the reporter, with them all knowingly trying to frame you for something.

It also merits pointing out that what makes for a public figure or not isn’t always easy, so it’s important to think about the stories you’re writing that might cast aspersions. Patel is obviously public, but if you’re writing a similar “too drunk to work” story about the school librarian or a local business owner, if things go south, this might be a concern.

GETTING SLAPP-ED AROUND: We have discussed the concept of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, suits here before. The John Oliver/Bob Murray Suit was one of my favorite versions of SLAPP suits, primarily because not only was it so blatantly obviously meant to silence criticism, but also because it allowed me to use the name “Mr. Nutterbutter” in my textbooks.

As fun as this was, not every SLAPP suit involves two giant bankrolls fighting it out in court. In one case in Georgia, a prominent family sued a grocery worker with what was clearly a case of SLAPP. In another case, an Iowa newspaper almost went bankrupt defending itself against a libel suit that smacked of SLAPP. In that situation, a police officer sued the paper for accurately reporting his inappropriate relationships with teenage girls.

This brings to bear an unfortunate point: Just because you’re right, it doesn’t mean some yahoo won’t sue you to make your life miserable. What’s important to know before you go after a story is to what degree your media outlet will support you, to what degree you can accurately defend your work and to what degree you think the juice is worth the squeeze. Then, you can decide how to move forward.

In Patel’s case, it was obvious he would be coming after the Atlantic, and it was obvious the Atlantic had a big enough war chest to fight back. That said, these kinds of suits can create a chilling effect on quality journalists who want to do important work. It’s not supposed to happen in a society in which the First Amendment provides us with some of the best support in the world, but we do have to deal with the reality of our surroundings.

Good Night, Dan Bice. You were truly an inspirational investigative journalist.

The headline from his home paper says it all.

THE LEAD: This one really stings if you spent any time at all in Milwaukee:

A veteran political reporter, (Dan) Bice could conjure a politician’s personal phone number in seconds and never feared knocking on the door of someone he was trying to reach.

Bice, who worked for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for 33 years, died from complications of esophageal cancer on April 21, his birthday.

He had just turned 62.

THE BACKSTORY: I know my mother absolutely loved reading Dan Bice’s stuff and I found his relentless digging to be the kind of reporting every newspaper desperately needed. His most recent iteration of his investigative impulses ran as a column titled, “No Quarter,” which I always took to mean that he didn’t play favorites when it came to his desire to dig. Republican, Democrat, Whig, Federalist, whatever… If you did some shady stuff and he found out, he was coming for you.

I still use him as an example of how a great journalist gets inside information and how the PR machines of various organizations and departments feared him. In one case, he was banned from attending certain police press conferences, as the chief feared Bice would ask about allegations of an affair the man later admitted to having.

I also was really grateful that he was willing to help out almost anyone who had questions or concerns about journalism, including me. One of my earliest posts looked at his battle with then-Sheriff David Clarke. Bice asked Clarke about a $226,000 taxpayer-funded bill related to Clarke’s request for security around his home. Clark responded in true Clarke fashion, noting Bice and “the horse he rode in on” should go do something to themselves that is anatomically impossible.

After the post had gotten around and Bice even “liked” it on Facebook, I took a shot and emailed him some questions about his experiences with these kinds of situations. He was recovering from pneumonia, but still was willing to email me some thoughts that I could share with up-and-coming journalism students.

Here is that post, and it’s just as relevant and helpful today as it was almost 10 years ago.

Bice had posted about his cancer situation a while back and it was one of those, “Man, I hope he beats it, not just for him, but for all of us” kind of deals.

Given what we are seeing these days that passes for journalism, as well as the way in which just screaming at each other seems to pay better, I doubt we’ll see many more people as dedicated and driven as Dan Bice.

The Joke’s on You: Three reasons why student media outlets should never, ever publish April Fools’ editions (or similar pranks)

I built this about 15 years ago for the cover of a student media helpers guide for a high school news conference. Other than a few language tweaks, I don’t think much has changed…

THE LEAD: Humor is a personal, acquired taste that is hard to tap into on a broad scale, something the students at UNC’s Daily Tarheel learned the hard way this month:

On April Fools’ Day, the paper published a series of satirical articles, including one with a subheadline that said the paper had rebranded as The Daily Woke Heel. Others read “UNC brings back DEI—for whites,” and “A new way forward for the Dean Dome: a two-stadium solution.” Another, published on the website, said “Satire: Trump orders ALE in Chapel Hill to be replaced with ICE agents.”

The jokes did not go over well with some students, and the paper’s editor in chief immediately issued an apology. She wrote that the paper heard students’ “critiques and outrage.” She added, the paper’s “insensitive decisions and oversights” were “made by a newsroom and leadership team that undoubtedly exist in positions of power and privilege on this campus.”

JOKE’S ON YOU: Every April Fools’ Day, I thank the Lord I’m no longer a student newspaper adviser. When I was one, I found myself begging, pleading, cajoling and griping in hopes of keeping the students from making a colossal error in judgement by thinking they were funny.

To be fair, it wasn’t always just the April Fools’ Edition that led to problems and UNC is not alone in the “Oh… So, THAT happened” moments of dumbassery that have advisers going gray and bald before our time and strongly reconsidering truck-driving school.

One year, we did a bracket for “Bar-ch Madness,” in which we listed off the top 16 best places to get hammered around campus. The chancellor wasn’t pleased at our idea of promoting problematic drinking, but he was even less enthusiastic about us including one of the freshman dorms as a “dark horse” candidate.

Year-end issues are also a major concern, as students are usually either burnt to a crisp or at that punch-drunk level of euphoria that comes with nearing the end of the year. In one case, the student newspaper at the University of Utah reminded us that using drop-caps in design isn’t always just an aesthetic choice:

If you noticed the “more” in the headline and wondered if the other staffers’ columns had a more dignified and direct approach… well… not quite…

I could spend days showcasing stuff like this but as the opening graphic seeks to demonstrate, but that would be hypocritical at best. It isn’t like we were so great back in “my day” and now “these damned kids” are somehow sullying the greatness that was present back when typewriters clicked in newsrooms and everyone wore their Sunday best to cover the news.

(One piece I cannot find from “my day” ran here at Oshkosh, in which the staff photoshopped the chancellor’s head onto the famous Demi Moore pregnancy photo. He was not amused, I’m told.)

Instead, here are three reasons that might help prevent the next disaster, which is already on the clock, if that graphic is right:

YOU ARE NOT THAT FUNNY: Humor is one of the greatest talents in the world, in that to make someone laugh can be among the most amazing feelings we have as humans. Someone once explained that if you can tap into something funny, you force people to have an involuntary response to it that creates true joy within them.

Taking that talent and honing it takes years, and even then, it requires a deft touch and a lot of failure. When Richard Pryor died, his family found thousands of reels of tape in his home that provided a timeline of his efforts work-shopping his act.

He’d be at one club one night, trying to see if this bit would land or if tweaking this accent would improve the audience reaction. It took him days, weeks, months and sometimes years to tweak and improve little things that led to those epic, uproarious moments on stage.

If a guy with that level of talent and skill had to work that hard for that long to make even half of his stuff work, what are the chances that a group of college students, trying this on the fly is going to pull it off on the first pass?

As much as I have laughed in newsrooms over the years for a variety of reasons, I can assure you, nobody I’ve met is good enough to pull off humor on a mass-media scale like this. Trying it publicly is going to lead to more harm than good.

HUMOR IS A PERSONAL TASTE: If you don’t believe me, listen to the following comedians:

Richard Pryor
Taylor Tomlinson
Sam Kinison
Ali Wong
Jeff Foxworthy
Nikki Glazer

At least one of them will probably make you laugh and at least one of them will likely offend the hell out of you. Some of them are throwing out bits that you can completely relate to while others are likely not landing a single joke for you. Some feel too tame while others are dropping more F-bombs and slurs than a drunk Boston sports fan after watching an ESPN Hot Take show that gives the Patriots no shot at the playoffs this year.

Newsroom humor, in particular, is a special kind of humor. It’s a mix of sarcasm, mortician’s humor, snark and insult comedy. It’s also full of inside jokes and other things that make people still laugh 20 years after they’ve graduated. I’ve seen newsrooms post weird things on the walls, engage in meme-battles and develop quote books as survival-level defense mechanisms.

(To this day, I’m still somewhat scarred by the humor fight that happened at Ball State between my features desk and my design desk. It started when someone in design left a presentation for a class open, and someone on features stuck some weird images into the design kid’s PowerPoint.

The design kid then stuck a photo of a morbidly obese female adult film actress on the side of the monitor at the features desk. The features kid then responded by essentially iron-gluing an inappropriate image to the side of the design computer, something nobody noticed until the head of the Indianapolis Star came down with my boss for a tour of the newsroom.

The guy paused while visiting the design pod and then asked no one in particular, “Hey… Is that monkey blowing itself?”)

The point is, humor is in the eye of the beholder and few people outside of newsrooms really are beholding what we behold in there. If you want to amuse yourself, turn the place into your own little den of wiener jokes, dank memes and memorable quotes. Just keep it out of the paper (and the public eye in general).

YOU NEED TO TREASURE YOUR CREDIBILITY: Student journalists take on all the risks associated with journalism at any level. They can be attacked, threatened or arrested, and many already have been subjected to these measures.

They can be sued for any one of a dozen reasons, including libel and invasion of privacy. They also suffer the same insults and mistreatment all journalists receive for merely doing their job.

The one thing that makes it suck so much more is that they are often treated as second-class citizens in the field, even by those folks who should know better. I’ve heard of numerous examples of student journalists being told by professors and even professional media operatives that they’re “just playing journalist.”

Like they broke out a “Fisher Price ‘My First Reporter'” kit and asked Nana for an interview about her chocolate-chip cookies or something.

As student journalists, you have to fight so much harder to be taken seriously. You have to defend your work more vigorously than “professional” journalists when you break stories that upset people.

You also have those same “professionals” trying to swipe your stories, bogart your sources or otherwise treat you like some sort of minor-league baseball affiliate that they can raid when the “big team” needs something.

You earn your credibility a grain of sand at a time, knowing that any mistake can wash the whole sandcastle away and force you to start over. It’s so damned important, as it truly is the coin of the realm.

Doing “humor” like the things we showcased here is like dousing your reputation with gasoline and lighting a match, just to watch it burn.

And you’re not just burning down your own house, you’re making it impossible for the next generation to live there or even build on the ashes. Sources (particularly professors) have long memories.

Don’t give them a reason to think poorly of you if you can help it.

How to write the best obituary possible (A Throwback Post)

My reporting class today took a look at obituary writing, and I knew I wanted them to write something about the experience. Rather than having them write either a mock obit on a fake person or (perhaps more awkwardly) writing their own obituary, I asked them to simply tell me what they learned that they felt would be most important to remember when they eventually had to write an obituary.

Here were some of the more interesting ones:

“You have to be able to balance fact-based reporting with some of the aspects of a feature. Being accurate to the public record while being respectful of the memories that are being shared by the deceased’s loved ones can be tricky to do, but it is essential to writing a proper obituary.”

“Being overly flowery with word choice is not going to improve a poorly researched story.”

“It’s not just about having the facts right and accurately describing someone’s life. It’s also about getting the right vibes and the human elements of why that person matters and the impact they had.”

“I learned that when writing you want to focus on the life of the individual more than the death. This is important because you are not writing obituaries like a true crime story, but rather as a way for people to potentially connect to the fact that they knew this person, and also as a way for people close to the deceased individual to grieve in a manner that allows them joy.”

“I think it is important to understand and recognize when writing obituaries because it serves as a reminder to the journalist each time they are tasked with writing one, and don’t forget their human side when honing into their journalist side.”

With that in mind, here’s a throwback post that talks about the bigger issues in writing obits that we covered in the class today. Hope it helps.

Obituary Writing: Telling truths, not tales, in a reverent recounting of a life

In a discussion among student media advisers, one person noted that obituaries are probably the second-hardest things journalists have to do frequently. (The hardest? Interviewing family members about dead kids.) When a person dies, media outlets often serve as both town criers and official record keepers. They tell us who this person was, what made him or her important and what kind of life this person led. This is a difficult proposition, especially given that people have many facets and the public face of an individual isn’t always how those who knew the person best see him or her. Couple these concerns with the shock and grief the person’s loved ones and friends have experienced in the wake of the death and this has all the makings of a rough journalistic experience.

The New York Times experienced this earlier in the week when it published an obituary on Thomas Monson, the president of the Mormon Church. The Times produced a news obituary that focused on multiple facets of Monson and his affect on the church. This included references to his work to expand the reach and the population of its missionary forces as well as his unwillingness to ordain women and acknowledge same-sex marriages. The obituary drew criticism from many inside the church, leading the obituary editor to defend the choices the paper made in how it covered Monson. (For a sense of comparison, here is the official obituary/notification of death that the church itself wrote for Monson.)

You will likely find yourself writing an obituary at some point in time if you go into a news-related field. Some of my favorite stories have been obituaries, including one I did on a professor who was stricken by polio shortly after he was married in the 1950s. I interviewed his wife, who was so generous with her recollections that I was really upset when we had to cut the hell out of the piece to make it fit the space we had for it. Still, she loved it and sent me a card thanking me for my time.

Some of my most painful stories have also been obituaries. The one that comes to mind is one I wrote about a 4-year-old boy who died of complications from AIDS. His mother, his father and one of his siblings also had AIDS at a time in which the illness brought you an almost immediate death sentence and status as a societal pariah. I spoke to the mother on the phone multiple times that night, including once around my deadline when she called me sobbing. Word about the 4-year-old’s death had become public knowledge and thus she was told that her older son, who did not have AIDS, would not be allowed to return to his daycare school. Other things, including some really bad choices by my editor, made for a truly horrific overall situation in which the woman called me up after the piece I co-wrote ran and told me what a miserable human being I was. She told me the boy’s father was so distraught by what we published that he would not leave the house to mourn his own son and that she held me responsible for that. Like I said, these things can be painful.

No matter the situation, there are some things you need to keep in mind when you are writing obituaries:

Don’t dodge the tough stuff: Your job as a journalist is to provide an objective, fair and balanced recounting of a person’s life. The Times’ editor makes a good point in noting that the paper’s job is to recount the person’s life, not to pay tribute or to serve as a eulogist. This means that you have to tell the story, however pleasant or unpleasant that might be. One of my favorite moments of honesty came from hockey legend Gordie Howe who was recalling the tight-fisted, cheap-as-heck former owner of the Detroit Red Wings:

“I was a pallbearer for Jack,” says Howe. “We were all in the limousine, on the way to the cemetery, and everyone was saying something nice, toasting him. Then finally one of the pallbearers said, `I played for him, and he was a miserable sonofabitch. Now he’s … a dead, miserable sonofabitch.’”

It’s not your fault if the person got arrested for something or treated people poorly. If these things are in the public record and they are a large part of how someone was known, you can’t just dodge them because you feel weird. Check out the Times’ obituary on Richard Nixon and you’ll notice that Watergate makes the headline and the lead. As much as that was likely unpleasant for the people who were closest to Nixon, it was a central point of his life and needed to be discussed. In short, don’t smooth off the rough edges because you are worried about how other people might feel. Tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

Avoid euphemisms: This goes back to the first point about being a journalist. You don’t want to soften the language or use euphemisms. People don’t “pass on” or “expire.” NFL quarterbacks pass and magazine subscriptions expire. People die. Also, unless you can prove it, don’t tell your readers that the person is “among the angels” or “resting in the arms of Jesus.” (Both of these euphemisms ended up in obituaries I edited at one point or another. They obviously didn’t make it to publication.) Say what you know for sure: The person died.

Double down on accuracy efforts: People who are reading obituaries about loved ones and friends are already on edge, so the last thing you want to do is tick them off by screwing up an obituary. I don’t know if this was just a matter of newspaper lore or if it was a real thing, but I was told more than once at a paper where I worked that there were only two things that would get us to “stop the presses:” 1) we printed the wrong lottery numbers and 2) we screwed up an obituary.
True or not, the point was clear to me: Don’t screw up an obituary.
Go back through your piece before you put it out for public consumption and check proper nouns for spelling and accuracy. Do the math yourself when it comes to the age (date of birth subtracted from date of death) and review each fact you possess to make sure you are sure about each one. If you need to make an extra call or something to verify information, do it. It’s better to be slightly annoying than wrong.

Accuracy cuts both ways: As much as you need to be accurate for the sake of the family, you also need to be accurate for the sake of the public record. This means verifying key information in the obituary before publishing it. The person who died might told family and friends about winning a medal during World War II or graduating at the top of her class at Harvard Law School. These could be accurate pieces of information or they could be tall tales meant to impress people. Before you publish things that could be factually inaccurate, you need to be sure you feel confident in your sourcing.
Common sense dictates that you shouldn’t be shaking the family down for evidence on certain things (“OK, you say she liked to knit. Now, how do we KNOW she REALLY liked knitting? Do you have some sort of support for that?”) but you should try to verify fact-based elements with as many people as possible or check the information against publicly available information. Don’t get snowed by legends and myths. Publish only what you know for sure.

Don’t take things personally: Calling family, friends and colleagues of someone who just died can be really awkward and difficult for you as a reporter. Interviews with these people can be hard on them as well as hard on you. I found that when I did obituaries, I got one of three responses from people that I contacted:
1. The source told me, “I’m sorry, but I really just can’t talk about this right now.” At that point, I apologized for intruding upon the person’s grief and left that person alone.
2. The source is a fount of information and wanted to tell me EVERYTHING about the dead person. I found that for some of them, it was cathartic to share and eulogize and commemorate. It was like I was a new person in their circle of grief and they wanted to make sure I knew exactly why the person who died was someone worth knowing.
3. The source was like a wounded animal and I made the mistake of sticking my hand where it didn’t belong. I have been called a vulture, a scumbag and other words I’ve been asked to avoid posting on this blog. One person even told me, “Your mother didn’t raise you right” because I had the audacity to make this phone call. I apologized profusely and once I hung up, I needed a couple minutes to shake it off. I knew it wasn’t my fault but it wasn’t easy either.

Your goal in an obituary is always to be respectful and decent while still retaining your journalistic sensibilities. It’s a fine line to walk, but if you do an obituary well, you will tell an interesting story about someone who had an impact on the world in some way. I like to think a story about this person who died should be good enough to make people wish they’d known that person while he or she was alive.

The Anchoring Bias, The Leak and The Scoop: Why First Is Often Considered Best

(I acknowledge that this phrase is trademarked to Ricky Bobby Inc.)

Since the beginning of competitive media, immediacy has been a core value for all practitioners. As much as it was about “leaking” information to a source to get your position out ahead of competitors or finding the “scoop” to make you and your outlet look great, bigger things are actually at stake in terms of credibility.

Anchoring bias is a psychological theory that states people will always compare all subsequent information they received to the first piece of information they see. In simplest terms, the first piece of information “anchors” one’s opinion of a topic to a point of view or a sense of reality, with everything else simply relating to that concept.

For example, Dad and I were doing a card show this weekend, where we sell sports stuff and generally enjoy just hanging out together. Like most weekends, people come to the table and offer to sell us some of their old cards or memorabilia. The problem we usually have is that the people have “done some research” (read: I checked eBay for the highest priced version of whatever it is I have) and then ask us to buy their stuff.

I can explain until I’m blue in the face that the price on eBay is an “asking” not a “someone paid this amount” price or that the 1951 Mickey Mantle online is in perfect condition while the one they have looks like it was run over by a lawn mower, but it never seems to matter. They are stuck on that price, which rarely leads to a fruitful negotiation. They then try the same thing with a dozen other dealers and are continually disappointed with the outcome.

Anchor bias has a strong hold on people’s minds, which is why being the first voice people hear is crucial in several fields. Let’s take a quick walk through them:

PUBLIC RELATIONS: Messaging is always crucial in public relations, and it’s usually vital to get that message out first. For starters, if news reporter are trying to tell a story and nobody is talking, they’ll listen to those folks who are. That gets you a foot in the door that waiting around won’t.

In crisis communication, good practitioners have adopted the 15-20-60-90 rule, which states that within 15 minutes of a crisis, the organization needs to acknowledge the situation and begin communicating. The faster you get out there, the more your voice will be considered the anchor.

KEY DANGER POINT: When you wait too long and someone else gets to set the agenda and establish the anchor position, you will end up not only playing from behind, but also look like you’re lying. If you are reacting to someone else’s statements, you’re caught in a crouch and you might not be able to convince people what really happened.

Here’s a great scene from the movie “School Ties,” in which one of the students at a prestigious boarding school has cheated, but the students are told they must determine who it was:

In stepping up to say that he saw David cheat, Dillon established the anchor point. After that, it becomes a debate. Had it gone the other way, the arguments that followed would have been much different. If you care to know how it all ends, you can watch it here.

Get out front so you can tell people your side of things while they’re still open to new ideas instead of being anchored to whatever they heard from someone more willing to step up and say their peace.

NEWS FOLKS: Being first has been the gold standard for news people since the concept of a scoop began. I can honestly tell you from experience, being first felt great (only when I was right, however, so accuracy remains a bellwether for what we do here.

Research has found that when people find a source of information that fulfills their informational needs, they’ll keep going back to that source as they build a habit of content consumption. If you can get to something important first, you can demonstrate your value to the readers and viewers. You can also outdo the competition by becoming their “go-to” source of information.

This is why you need to establish sources in the field that will trust you and seek you out as a vessel of content. If you can prove to enough people in enough places that what you do is good, fair and helpful, you’ll become that person who gets the text, email or phone call with the latest information. If you prove the opposite, you’ll be out in the cold.

KEY DANGER POINT (Part I): Being first is great, but even anchors can get pulled up when faced with a torrent of opposing forces. People are likely to believe you as the anchor, but you have to be RIGHT above all else. Otherwise, you might win the battle and lose the war, having them trust you until they literally can’t anymore on this one story and then deciding they need to find a better source going forward.

I’ve told people for years that I’d rather be slower and right than fast and wrong. Fast and right is obviously what we’re shooting for here, but in the end, if you don’t have the goods, don’t make a move.

KEY DANGER POINT (Part II): Keep an eye on how you approach your stories based on what information you got first or which source you interviewed first. If the anchor bias works for the audience in terms of the first piece of information being considered gospel, you are likely to find the same thing happening in your reporting.

For example, let’s say that a developer wants to build a set of apartments for lower-middle-class people in your town. A local environmental agency is opposed to it because the folks there say it will damage a fragile ecosystem in a nearby lake and will also contribute traffic and garbage to the area. A local politician is in favor of it because it will bring much needed homes to his district, along with a strong tax base to help keep the city coffers filled. A local activist is opposing the building, saying the politician and the builder are cutting backroom deals to make money for themselves, while screwing over renters and taxpayers.

When you reach out to contact these people, how much will you be relying on what the first person to respond has to say to you? If the activist gets back to you, will the story shift to one of public corruption? If the developer responds first, will it be about housing for people who usually get priced out of the market? What about the other two?

I can honestly say that there have been times when I contacted a couple sources for comment on a story and I trusted the person who got back to me last the least. In some cases, it even shifted my questions: “I just heard from Alderperson Smith that this is nothing but a financial scam meant to benefit you. What do you have to say in response?” (read: I think you’re a weasel, but I’ll let you try to weasel out of it if you think you can…)

Coming to a story with an open mind is always a good thing, but it can’t just stop at that starting point. It needs to continue throughout the reporting and writing process to give everyone a fair shake.

“It’s not a riot. It’s a large, prolonged disturbance.” Working through fact-checks and BS-checks (A Throwback Post)

When it comes to fact checking and BS detecting, I often tell students about a story I wrote involving the Mifflin Street Block Party about 30 years ago. The party got way out of hand late at night, with students setting bonfires in the middle of the street and even burning a car. When firefighters arrived to extinguish the blazes, the party participants repelled them with bottles, rocks, cans and anything else they could throw.

With the fire truck damaged and the firefighters outnumbered, the police eventually went in with riot gear and battled for control of the scene, as the party folks chanted, “F— THE PIGS!” at the top of their lungs.

The next day, I’m talking to the public information officer from Madison PD and I ask if, since it was the first time they donned riot gear since the Vietnam War, if they called out a 10-33, Riot In Progress.

“Don’t you dare call this a riot,” he told me.

I then explained I’d seen what had happened and the carnage that was left behind, so if it’s not a riot, what was it?

“It was a large, prolonged disturbance,” he told me before hanging up.

We are apparently entering another period of Jedi Mind Trick 101, in which people in power are telling the media, “Don’t call this a war. It’s not a war.” Therefore, I thought it might be a good time to pull this post the fact-checking exercise along with it out for another run.

Journalism 101: Facts matter, so don’t feel bad about forcing people to get them right

Screenshot

THE LEAD: In a blinding flash of the obvious, the Washington Post reported that politicians don’t like being told they’re wrong about things via a journalistic fact check. In other “water is wet” news, Donald Trump and his campaign seem particularly outraged by the temerity of journalists who actually researched topics and can prove he’s full of beans from time to time:

Trump nearly backed out of an August interview with a group of Black journalists after learning they planned to fact-check his claims. The following month, he and his allies repeatedly complained about the fact-checking that occurred during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, berating journalists and news executives in the middle of the televised debate.

And this month, Trump declined to sit down for an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” because he objected to the show’s practice of fact-checking, according to the show.

<SNIP>

The moves are the latest example of Trump’s long-held resistance to being called to account for his falsehoods, which have formed the bedrock of his political message for years. Just in recent weeks, for example, Trump has seized on fabricated tales of migrants eating pets and Venezuelan gangs overtaking cities in pushing his anti-immigration message as he seeks a second term in office.

THE BACKGROUND: The joke I always go back to is the familiar one of, “How can you tell when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.” The idea that politicians fabricate situations is not a new one. Nixon’s “I am not a crook,” Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations…” and Mark Sanford’s “hiking on the Appalachian trail” are some of the more infamous ones, as they intended to cover over embarrassing personal failings and limit political fall out.

Even more, politicians invent people they saw, they met and they heard, all in the service of some anecdote about salt-of-the-earth farmers getting the shaft, military leaders praising their brilliance or other similar moments of self-aggrandizing puffery. And of course there is the myth-making that surrounds some politicians, like George Washington’s cherry tree or Reagan’s trickle-down economics…

As far as this election is going, Tim Walz was fact-checked on his claims about his service, his presence in China during the Tiananmen Square protests and his family’s use of IVF services, each of which resulted in some disparities. Kamala Harris is also ringing up a few “false” ratings from Politifact on some of her claims regarding illegal drugs and her own previous political efforts.

Still, most of this is piddly stuff compared to what Trump does on a daily basis, both in terms of frequency and intensity. If Walz’s “carried weapons of war” statement is a leak in the truth boat, Trump is continually bashing the Titanic into the iceberg and flooding every compartment.

WHY DO WE CARE AS JOURNALISTS: Despite what the former president of the United States things, facts have a definition: things that are known or proved to be true. The job of a journalist is to get the facts and report them, so that people can make informed decisions on important things in their lives. If you strip away everything else from journalism, that’s the beating heart at its core.

Telling journalists you will only talk to them if they promise not to fact check you is like telling me, “You can come to our party, but only if you promise to not be a bald, middle-aged white guy.” It’s what I am, so that’s going to be a bit hard to square that circle.

People rely on facts to have a shared understanding of reality, so that society can function. It’s why when we bring a shirt to the check out kid and that shirt is priced $19.99 plus tax, we understand it’s probably going to cost about $21 or $22, give or take your part of the country. If the kid says, “That price is fake news. You owe me $150 and can’t leave until you do,” that breaks the whole “shared understanding of reality” thing.

For years, journalists have been telling people, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.” Somewhere along the way (I blame the internet), it actually became, “Pick your own facts and then be outraged when someone disagrees with you.”

EXERCISE TIME: Pick out a TikTok on any hot topic that’s going on today (politics, Diddy trial etc.) and write down whatever statements these people are declaring to be facts. Then, go fact check them against

The Junk Drawer: Hump Day Edition

Is the weekend maybe hiding in here somewhere?

In the middle of the week during the middle of the semester, it’s a bit of a drag for students and professors. With that in mind, here are a few things that might amuse you all, spark some discussions or generally make it feel like the weekend isn’t so far away:

FLORIDA’S VERSION OF “WHO WORE IT BETTER?”

You know you’re a journalist when the first question you have after reading this headline isn’t, “What the hell was wrong with this woman?” but rather “How did the manatee get into a bikini?”

In the world of misplaced modifiers, I think this one is the gold standard.

Speaking of “What the hell is wrong with people…

STOP, THINK, THEN POST: Dan O’Donnell, a conservative talk show host out here in Wisconsin used the occasion of the Iran attacks to call for the death of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz:

O’Donnell later apologized for his posts and took them down, but there are still copies of this floating all over the internet. It’s also not great optics, given Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman were killed in July, in an attack deemed politically motivated.

This serves as one more reminder that stupidity is bad, but amplifying it on social media is worse.

GLAD WE GOT THAT NAILED DOWN: Stories based on opinions, particularly those that can’t be supported or refuted, don’t usually do much for me, but I have to admit this one grabbed me:

The former star of “Growing Pains” and long-time evangelist for Christianity has done a lot for publicizing his faith and reaching out to others to help them find Jesus. That said, I’m wondering where he got the inside scoop on the existence of hell.

I’m also going to argue that if he doesn’t believe in “eternal conscious torment,” he never had a nun for a teacher like I did. Sr. Mary Kenneth still haunts me in my dreams some times…

Speaking of living rent-free in someone’s head…

EVERY TIME A STUDENT REMEMBERS SOMETHING YOU TEACH THEM, AN ANGEL GETS ITS WINGS: I teach a lot of 8 a.m. required classes for sophomores, so I’m never exactly sure how much the students learn from me or how much they think about what I’ve taught them.

That’s why when a student not only remembers what I taught them, but also reaches out to say that they found an example of it in the wild, it just warms my grinchy little heart:

Hi professor, I saw this on Facebook and just thought it was so coincidental that we worked on a draft lead about a case just like this I thought I’d share with you. I think they wrote this terribly:

I’d have to agree with the kid, given that we don’t find out about a dead body until halfway through the piece. I’m also somewhat disturbed by the phrase “a working fire.” As opposed to what? An unemployed fire?

And finally…

SUITABLE FOR FRAMING: Some students wait until week 12 of a 14-week term to start trying to act right in class. At that point, they realize they’re totally screwed, as the math won’t allow them to pass, so they beg for extra credit.

I usually post this on my door right about the time I get that first request:

Feel free to borrow that.

Have a great day.

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

Reuters editor Jaimi Dowdell talks about the data team’s recent look at AI failures in medical procedures, how to do deep-dive stories and the importance of growth through discomfort as a journalist

The front page of the Reuters story on AI and medical usage.

The debate over artificial intelligence has dotted the pages of the blog significantly over the past year, with posts discussing the benefits some of these tools provide media professionals, as well as those mocking a number of the errors.

A recent deep-dive article from Reuters, however, took a look at the application of AI to the medical field, with some concerning results:

In 2021, a unit of healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson announced “a leap forward”: It had added artificial intelligence to a medical device used to treat chronic sinusitis, an inflammation of the sinuses. Acclarent said the software for its TruDi Navigation System would now use a machine-learning algorithm to assist ear, nose and throat specialists in surgeries.

The device had already been on the market for about three years. Until then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had received unconfirmed reports of seven instances in which the device malfunctioned and another report of a patient injury. Since AI was added to the device, the FDA has received unconfirmed reports of at least 100 malfunctions and adverse events.

At least 10 people were injured between late 2021 and November 2025, according to the reports. Most allegedly involved errors in which the TruDi Navigation System misinformed surgeons about the location of their instruments while they were using them inside patients’ heads during operations.

Cerebrospinal fluid reportedly leaked from one patient’s nose. In another reported case, a surgeon mistakenly punctured the base of a patient’s skull. In two other cases, patients each allegedly suffered strokes after a major artery was accidentally injured.

Among the names listed in the byline of this story is Jaimi Dowdell, one of the pros from the “Dynamics” textbooks and a frequent friend of the blog.

Dowdell is a deputy editor of the data team at Reuters, a team she’s been part of for about eight years. In 2021, she received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the team’s look at qualified immunity. Prior to her time at Reuters, she worked for the St. Louis Dispatch and Investigative Reporters and Editors.

As this story was making the rounds, Dowdell was nice enough to share some insights about the story itself and her approach to investigative journalism. Below is a transcript of an email interview, edited for length and to make my questions sound less like they came from a goober:

We have talked over the years about how every story, big or small, has kind of an ideation point. What was it that had you all looking into the issue of AI and medical issues that led to this big story? (and how long did it take you to get it done?)

“I love this question because I think it’s fascinating how stories start. Rarely do we say, “I’m going to do a story about X” and it works out.

“This story began with a conversation with one of my colleagues. He had spent the past six months looking into issues surrounding artificial intelligence and he was interested in how patients were using AI chatbots to self diagnose. His idea of AI in the medical world got me thinking that AI must be impacting medicine in more ways.

“I had worked with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s database that tracks malfunctions and adverse events involving medical devices and knew that could be a resource. I then discovered the FDA had a list of AI-enabled medical devices. I started exploring the data and it wasn’t long before we felt like we had a story. We moved quickly from there. The entire process from reporting to editing and production took six months or less.”

What were some of the bigger “road blocks” you hit along the way and what made them problematic? How did you work around them or how did the inability to get past them impact the story?

We didn’t have many major roadblocks for this story. One of the challenges, though, was the technical aspect to the topic.

My colleagues and I spent a lot of time talking to people about the technology that goes into AI-enabled medical devices. I think we really had to understand that before we could write about it.

About ten years ago (damn, I got old fast…), when we were talking about your “Secrets in the Sky” series with the Boston Globe, you were telling me how there is a point where you have to figure out if the story is really there/worth it? You also mentioned that as a reporter you almost have to have a kind of “obsession” in getting the work done. Was that the case here for you and the team or was it something different this time?

“One of the best parts of my job is the time I’m given to explore topics. It’s a luxury that not many journalists have and I don’t take it for granted. During that exploration period, I often follow many leads and attempt to run down curiosities and questions. Then there’s that point we’ve talked about where you had to decide whether there is a story and it is worth it. For this story, that moment came quickly.

“Over the years I’ve learned that if you don’t have to work too hard to find examples that illustrate the trend or concept you’ve uncovered, there’s a good chance there is a story. There have been times when I’ve worked on ideas where it seems almost impossible to find more than one example. Does that mean it isn’t a story? Not necessarily, but it does indicate there may be a better use of your time.

“That wasn’t the case here. The growth we found in AI-enabled medical devices was the first indication there was a story. From there, it wasn’t too difficult to find examples of devices where potential issues had been flagged. Then, because all of this involves public health, it seemed an important and worthy topic in which to invest.

“And yes, there was an obsession. There’s almost always an obsession! I think that’s another indicator on whether the story is good or not. If I’m not ruminating about a story while exercising or waking up in the middle of the night with an idea, I might not have a great story. Is it healthy? Probably not. Each time I do a story like this, I think, ‘next time I won’t get so sucked in.’ But it always happens. I can’t speak for my colleagues on this story, but based on how often we spoke at all hours of the day, the obsession was there for them too.”

A lot of student journalists find a passion for doing bigger projects, but often find it to be frustrating because of a lack of resources or a lack of time. This might be especially true for those trying to meet work expectations of grinding out X number of pieces a month for student media or making class deadlines set by unreasonable professors. What kind of advice do you have for student or beginning journalists who want to try doing some of the deeper stories like the ones you do?

“The demands of unreasonable professors and the churn of student media is likely not that different from the professional world. There is a lot of news and there are a lot of demands on journalists these days. I didn’t start out getting to spend so much time on stories and neither did most of the journalists who do this type of work. But it can be done. I was able to dig deeper on stories even as a student and there are ways to get to do this type of work. Here are some suggestions:

Don’t wait for permission. Too often, I see student or beginning journalists look to professors or editors to give them an assignment to dig deeper. If you wait, it’ll never happen.
Be curious. Many of my stories started out because I just wanted to know something. Turn your own curiosities into a question or a hypothesis that reporting can help you answer and test. Do not think, “I’m going to do a story on this.” Instead, just work on being curious and looking for answers. The stories will reveal themselves to you in time.
Start small. Instead of trying to do a big story right off the bat, include investigative elements into your regular work. For example, look for data that can help enrich a daily story. Start looking for source documents as you report. These small victories can lead to big stories down the road.
Don’t be afraid of hard work. This type of journalism can be tedious and frustrating. If you’re feeling like it’s too hard, you might be doing it right.

If you could tell a student journalism kid anything about anything that you think would be helpful to them these days, what would it be? What would you like them to know?

“I’d say that none of us ever feels like we really have things figured out.

“I remember when I was in college, I looked forward to the days when I would know exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Guess what? It turns out we always feel a bit uncertain and we’re all basically kids.

“So get out there and embrace feeling uncomfortable. Whether you end up in journalism or something else, the growth, I’ve found, is often in the discomfort.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer honcho Chris Quinn writes off criticism of his AI passion project as “uninformed outrage,” while still being wrong about almost everything, including college journalism programs

An early photo of Chris Quinn reacting to criticism of his views on AI, journalism schools and journalism professors.

THE LEAD: Chris Quinn, the VP of content for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, must have a really tired arm from patting himself on the back, or whatever else he does for self-congratulations, as he’s back with another column about the awesomeness of his staff’s use of AI:

The first wave of responses was from regular readers, and most were positive. Several thanked me for showing how we use AI to expand our offerings while maintaining quality.

I suspect I receive little negative feedback about AI now because I’ve written about it so often. I know the anxieties it causes. That’s why I explain how we use it, assure you we are not replacing jobs and promise that humans stand behind everything we publish.

As for anything that might challenge his assumptions, well, Quinn doesn’t have time for that crap:

(A) cranky journalist in another state took offense and on Monday ranted on social media about my practices being the ruination of journalism. Much bombast by others followed.

Or, so I’m told. I didn’t read any of it. I have no time for uninformed outrage on social media channels.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: I was not the “cranky journalist” Quinn spoke of, clearly, because my “bombast” and “uniformed outrage” was published Thursday. Just want to clear that up.)

In the end, Quinn gave all of his supporters a good pat on the head before trying to shame anyone who wasn’t fully on his side:

For those who wrote to say they understand and admire what we’re doing, many thanks. To those who wrote to criticize it, I suggest you look to history to understand that the only path forward is adaptation.

Or, keep stomping your feet until you don’t have a leg to stand on.

CATCHING UP: Quinn wrote an extensive column last week, praising the use of AI as a tool that allowed his staffers to do more reporting and zero writing in some under-covered enclaves of the paper’s circulation area.

In doing so, he decided to take several potshots at colleges, college professors and college students, saying they were doing everyone on Earth a massive disservice by decrying the value of AI, or outright ignoring it.

This led to at least some of the backlash against him, including the piece I wrote here that made what I consider to be three clear, well-reasoned and well-supported arguments:

Quinn is wrong about journalism programs not teaching AI or telling students that AI is the devil.
AI is a tool that still has a lot of kinks to work out, and it has proven to need some extensive oversight in its current form.
The content the PD is producing from its “Report it all, let AI write it up” leaves something to be desired in terms of quality.

In his most recent missive, Quinn didn’t deal with almost any of these criticisms, but then again, I really didn’t expect him to. In reading through his 14 previous letters on AI, I’ve found kind of a pattern in his views on AI. Two broader underlying premises really underscore why I’d love to play poker against this guy:

The Law of the Instrument: The concept has been around for generations, but it’s often attributed to Abraham Maslow, and it basically states that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like it’s a nail.

Quinn has so bought into the premise that everything can be done with a strong set of reporters and an AI grist mill, that it’s clear all stories are getting done this way on those beats. The underlying problem is that not all stories can be done well this way.

Quinn mentions things like people wanting to know the score of the Browns game or the outcome of a vote from some board in Lorain. These stories are great for AI to just crank out.

OK, fine, but what about that story of the teacher who donated bone marrow? Or obituaries? Or other stories in which details matter and storytelling can make a difference? These things get ground up and spit out in a bland way that really undermines the quality of the work the reporters have done.

Quinn isn’t alone in this, as I remember having an argument with a broadcast professor during the “convergence phase” of journalism. I noted that some stories were better done in print or online while other stories were better done in broadcast. He argued anything I could do for a newspaper, he could do just as easily for broadcast.

I mentioned things like budget stories that needed mathematical depth and lacked a lot of visuals for video. He told me how he would take video of people typing on keyboards or how he would throw a copy of the budget on the table and film that.

The underlying point in both cases is the same: Yes, you CAN do a story this way but it doesn’t follow it’s the BEST way to do that story.

Often Wrong, Never In Doubt: I heard this phrase in a documentary on financial investors, where a short-seller explained that certain people are very good to bet against because they lock in on an idea and refuse to be dissuaded, regardless of the reality surrounding them.

When they are wrong, but overly confident, they’ll pour vast sums of time and money into risky things that end up going wrong, thus benefiting the people who clearly saw the inherent flaws in those things. Quinn fits this to a T.

In reading through all of his letters to the public, never once did he demonstrate one iota of caution. It was, “This is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so you better get on board.” I seem to remember that same pitch being used to market Theranos, cryptocurrency and MLMs.

Even when I’m really certain on something, I’m always open to the option that I might not be right. If Chris Quinn brought me to the PD, showed me all the great stuff he’s doing, demonstrated how they’d backstopped AI to prevent any catastrophic failures and presented data on how great this was serving his readers, I’d be happy to give this whole experiment another look. I believe paranoia is my best friend, so I’m looking out for risks and willing to say I’m wrong.

Quinn’s most recent letter just drips with hubris, belittling anyone out there who hasn’t fallen in line while ignoring the issues a bunch of us have raised here (particularly those about how crappy J-school is). It’s telling that after a letter in which he basically said professors suck and J-schools suck, he added this tidbit to the end of his latest missive:

Note: I mentioned a student last week who withdrew from job consideration because of our use of AI. Some readers concluded the student attends Syracuse University. That’s not the case. Actually, Syracuse’s Newhouse School of journalism, a valued partner for us, teaches about AI in journalism. Leila Atassi, one of our editors, will be on the Syracuse campus in a few days to help coach students in how we use AI.

That’s exceptionally tone deaf for two key reasons:

You spent an entire column telling everyone that college journalism programs ignore or hate on AI and then without an ounce of irony, mention how great Syracuse is and that they’re doing some awesome AI stuff.
You crapped all over journalism degrees and how they’re worthless, yet you’re dispatching Leila Atassi to Syracuse to teach these kids. I wonder what her background is… Oh… Yeah…

And, I’d like to say I believe in Leila and her abilities, if for no other reason, than she went to a hell of a good journalism school for her master’s (and she was actually one of my students for a while.)

In any case, while Chris Quinn thinks I’ll be here stomping my feet until I don’t have a leg to stand on, I’ll actually be watching to see what happens as the PD’s Icarus keeps flying higher and higher on his AI wings.

Cleveland Plain Dealer honcho Chris Quinn took time out of his busy schedule to crap all over journalism schools about their views on AI, despite not actually knowing their views on AI

I hope the computer-based journalism helpers Chris Quinn is putting his faith in work better than the Cleveland Plain Dealer website. I tried to buy a subscription to view his diatribe about journalism schools and AI, only to have a spinning wheel of death show up for about a day or so…

THE LEAD: Chris Quinn, the VP of content for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, took a victory lap over the weekend, bragging about how he removed the writing requirements associated with journalism via “AI specialists,” while also telling journalism schools they suck:

Because we want reporters gathering information, these jobs are 100 percent reporting. We have an AI rewrite specialist who turns their material into drafts. We fact-check everything. Editors review it. Reporters get the final say. Humans — not AI — control every step.

By removing writing from reporters’ workloads, we’ve effectively freed up an extra workday for them each week. They’re spending it on the street — doing in-person interviews, meeting sources for coffee. That’s where real stories emerge, and they’re returning with more ideas than we can handle.

<SNIP>

Journalism programs are decades behind. Many graduating students have unrealistic expectations. They imagine themselves as long-form magazine storytellers, chasing a romanticized version of journalism that largely never existed.

That’s what they’re taught.

DISSECTION TIME, PART I: Let’s look at both Quinn’s arguments as well as take some time to disprove them, starting with his view of students and journalism programs:

The Strawman Student: Quinn’s piece begins with an exemplar of how students suck these days, especially because we teach them poorly at every journalism school in the country:

A college student withdrew from consideration for a reporting role in our newsroom this week because of how we use artificial intelligence.

It reminded me again how college journalism programs are failing to prepare students for the workforce.

I don’t have a reason to doubt Quinn that this kid exists, but I also have no reason to trust him. I’d like to see the withdrawal letter/email/voicemail the kid sent and I’d probably also like to talk to the kid.

See, Chris, sometimes people tell you stuff that isn’t true, like “I really wish I could make it to your party” or “The break up isn’t about you, it’s about me” or “It happens to a lot of guys and it’s not a big deal.”

Maybe this kid didn’t want to work for someone who saw their role in the newsroom as feeding grist into a mill for a robot overlord. Maybe they actually enjoyed writing, so giving up the part of the job they like wasn’t worth it to them. Maybe, and I say this as a huge fan of the sports teams, they didn’t want to move to Cleveland.

Could be a lot of things, but blaming it solely on your AI policy helps you nicely set up your argument that journalism schools suck.

The Incorrect Overgeneralizations: The bigger problem here is the leap from this one kid not liking something to all journalism programs failing all of the kids out there all of the time. Even if we pretend that this one alleged kid was so allegedly horrified at the Plain Dealer’s amazing-as-hell AI set up that they had to pull out immediately, it doesn’t follow that all kids in all schools are taught to hate AI. This is called negative social stereotyping.

Even if that feels like a bit of hyperbole, let’s at least agree that not every kid who comes out of a program is the exact same in terms of quality, maturity and expectations.

Also, I think we can agree that not every journalism program is created equal, so while the kids at University A might be using smudge pots to ward off the evil spirits used to power AI, kids at University B might be getting some good data journalism help, transcription services and other goodies, courtesy of AI.

Then again, maybe we can’t agree, given this generalization:

Like many students we’ve spoken with in the past year, this one had been told repeatedly by professors that AI is bad. We heard the same thing at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Cleveland in August. Student after student said it.

Chris, did you bother to dig a bit deeper on this, because there are a few nuances that merit consideration. First, who were these professors? Were they in journalism or were they in departments where they’ve gotten used to grading 500-word essays that AI can now crank out in 18 seconds, thus putting the fear of God into these people?

What kind of AI was under discussion? Traditional AI? Generative AI? Did the professors state that certain AI programs are less helpful than others, or that relying solely on whatever content AI puked up was dangerous from a fact-based standpoint?

Did the professors explain the “black box” and “hallucination” concerns about AI? Did the professors show them example after example after example of how AI completely screwed the pooch, thus trying to help them see that you can’t just turn it loose and hope for the best?

I’m also curious, given your disdain for journalism programs, where did the amazing Hannah Drown and Molly Walsh garner their educational pedigree that mixed the poli sci, business and non-profit knowledge you desperately want kids to have?

Oh… Yeah…

Given their background, I’m wondering how Hannah and Molly feel about this proud declaration you made:

Fortunately for those of us who know exactly what skills we need in applicants, AI has altered the landscape so dramatically that we don’t need journalism school grads.

We don’t need any damned JOURNALISM GRADUATES… Except, of course, the two we hired to do this work that we’re so proud of…

The Erroneous View of J-Schools: I’d like to know how many journalism programs Quinn visited in the past five years. A five-year span would cover the time frame where artificial intelligence would have become relevant enough for schools to start embracing a relatively stable set of AI tools.

I’d put the over/under at about three schools, and I’d advise people to take the under.

There are likely colleges that are shunning AI, but clearly many more are embracing specific aspects of these tools.

CUNY has an entire AI Journalism lab for professionals to come back and learn the ropes. Northeastern University is diving into the research and practical ends of AI with its AI Literacy Lab. The Medill School at Northwestern University has its Knight Lab to work on AI and media. Arizona State University has put a ton of resources into its work on AI and news innovation. University of Northern Colorado built a production course that teaches students how to meld AI and journalism effectively.

Stanford, UCLA, Atlantic International University, Florida and Columbia are just a few of the other schools that have Journalism-based AI courses on the books, and those are just the ones I found on through a cursory search. That’s not even counting all the programs (ours here included) that have infused AI into the current courses we have, so we can demonstrate the value of the tools while we teach caution as well.

(NOTE: If your school or your class does some AI stuff, feel free to pipe up in the comments section. I bet we could really make a run at the record for most comments on the blog.)

I not only teach about artificial intelligence in my classrooms, but I also include chapters on it in my books and provide basic exercises to educators that showcase its strengths and weaknesses.

What we have here is a collection of facts, supported by links to additional information. I’d like to think that’s a bit stronger case than Chris Quinn’s “Old Man Yells at Cloud” approach to generalizing about what’s wrong with journalism schools today.

The “Road Less Traveled” Advice: Quinn’s ignorant view on J-school is problematically compounded by his educational suggestions for kids who want to enter his glorious newsroom:

If you’re a student considering journalism, I’d skip that degree. Study political science. Learn technology. Understand how government, businesses and nonprofits work. Take communications law and ethics as electives. Skip much of the rest.

Got it. Just like you did back in the day! Right, Chris? Oh… Wait…

I don’t know if he’s going to be on College of Media and Communication Dean David Boardman’s Christmas card list this year, but I’d love to see Boardman’s reaction to this column…

Aside from the “do as I say, not as I did” thing, if I wanted to tank a kid’s future, I’d pretty much tell that kid to do exactly what Quinn is saying here.

Technology changes so rapidly that whatever the kid learned in freshman year would likely be obsolete by graduation. You can learn tools, but it’s important to know the broader ways in which they should be applied to further your skills and connect with your audience. For example, in my day, we didn’t major in Quark XPress. We majored in design, used the tool in conjunction with our broader understanding of the field and then adapted to technology changes.

In addition, there’s a reason the phrase “Why try? Go Poli Sci” is still heard in the halls of many academic institutions. It’s also much more likely to be in the “paper law” as opposed to the “trial law” end of the spectrum. I’m not saying a certificate, minor or even double major in this is field is bad, particularly if you want to take your media skills into the political realm. However, you’re not making it to a newsroom solely on a steady diet of Politics and Genocide or Western European Politics courses.

I’d also like to know where Quinn thinks students are getting their interviewing skills, their social media experience or their general reporting knowledge in this newly formed major he’s promoting here.

Being forced to meet people takes effort, particularly based on how today’s generation of students has grown up in a digital-first, post-pandemic, borderline-anthropophobic world. Research suggests that nearly 45 percent of Gen Z men have never asked someone out on a date in person, so if Quinn is assuming this fresh crop of potential folks can do this without some reporting courses (still a thing) or other forced socialization, I’ve got some unfortunate news for him.

Also, com law might not matter much any more, if what’s happening in the real world is any indication…

DISSECTION TIME, PART II: With that out of the way, let’s pick apart Quinn’s views on artificial intelligence and the glorious way in which it has drastically improved his newsroom:

AI! It’s FANTASTIC! (Usually): Quinn has gone all-in on AI, which is always dangerous when it comes to a new technology. Actually, it’s usually dangerous in any situation, given that most new ideas suffer a lot of growing pains before they eventually become valuable, but so much less so than what was expected.

Still, he’s a fan:

Artificial intelligence is not bad for newsrooms. It’s the future of them. It already allows us to be faster, more thorough and more comprehensible. It frees time for what matters most: gathering facts and developing stories to serve you.

Anyone entering this field should be immersing themselves in AI.

I’ll buy faster, but I’m not entirely sold on the other descriptors here, given what we’ve seen AI mess up already. Dare I say Quinn is “chasing a romanticized version” of this technological marvel.

AI has fouled up a ton of content in some pretty awkward ways, including calling a guy “useless” in his own obituary, misnaming the city in which an NFL team resides, cliche-festing local sports stories and screwing up an entire development plan in a local news story. That’s not counting the number of times people got tricked by AI sources or generally misled by AI-generated content.

Words, Words, Words…: Quinn seems to take an almost perverse level of pride in how much content his staff members can grab and how none of them has to do any actual writing any more:

By removing writing from reporters’ workloads, we’ve effectively freed up an extra workday for them each week. They’re spending it on the street — doing in-person interviews, meeting sources for coffee. That’s where real stories emerge, and they’re returning with more ideas than we can handle.

I get that it’s important to do deeper reporting, spend more time with sources and connect with the communities journalists cover. However, the question becomes, “How much of all that good will and strong effort is wasted if you just toss everything in an AI blender and then watch the content move along like you’re “Laverne and Shirley” at the Shotz Brewery?”

Plus, and maybe Quinn doesn’t give a damn, but I’ve found that when I invest a lot in the reporting, I tend to care about the story I want to tell. That usually leads to some stronger, more engaging pieces based on well-crafted writing.

Being a writer isn’t a negative, particularly if you want to write for the benefit of an audience that is interested in what you have to say. I think I’m qualified to say that, given everything I sit down to write has me thinking, “Who would want to read this and what would they want to know?”

I’m not sure if AI has gotten to that point yet, but I know good writers have.

Quantity over Quality: I forget what movie it was in, but there was a scene in which prisoners were told, “We’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that all we have for your dinner tonight is horse manure.” When someone asks, “So what’s the good news?” the official replied, “There’s plenty of it.”

Which brings us back to the Plain Dealer’s Bin of AI Content…

A quick look at the list of stories Hannah Drown put together recently provides some sense of the quantity. Each day she appears to be on the job, a handful or more stories with her byline show up. She’s got coverage of events at the Lorain County Junior Vocational School, a UAW strike in the area, a pop-up shop at the Lorain Community College, a school lockout in Elyria and more. The volume is there.

The quality, however, leaves something to be desired.

These are mostly stories that could have easily come from a press release rewrite, featuring a “Hey, come check out this new thing” approach. These lack depth and nuance, not to mention any level of critical thought. The stories have overly long sentences, generally lack flow and are as dry as a popcorn fart.

For all the bragging Quinn does about reporters getting a chance to sit with sources, meet for coffee and chat these people up, most of the content comes straight from documents, not people. A look through more than a dozen of these pieces revealed virtually no direct quotes or specific references to interviews with these salt-of-the-earth individuals.

For example, a story about a school teacher who donated bone marrow to a complete stranger half a world away would seem to be exactly the kind of piece that would engage readers through amazing storytelling. Instead, we get this lead:

LORAIN, Ohio — Valentine’s Day usually arrives with candy hearts and roses, but this year, one of the clearest acts of love connected to the holiday came without flowers at all.

We get no direct information from the teacher about the experience, nothing from the folks at the National Marrow Donor Program talking about the value of the program and nothing from people who have had their lives saved through some of these selfless acts.

The story has zero quotes in it and reads like a “how-to manual” for getting on the bone marrow registry and donating it to someone. Boring doesn’t begin to cover it.

I’m not entirely sure I can blame Drown for this, as it is her job to just shovel content into the front end of the pipeline. It’s also not stated to what degree AI did any work on this (or any other) piece in her clip file, which I’d consider a bit of an ethical concern.

What I can say is that if my name were on these things, I’d want the writing to be a lot better than it is. As we’ve noted before, AI essentially creates an average of EVERYTHING it takes in, regardless of quality, and this definitely feels like “C” writing.

What goes unsaid in Quinn’s magnum opus is that people now have an abundance of media outlets at their disposal that provide vast sums of content. Journalists have to grab people by the eyeballs and hang onto them in a way that distinguishes their work from the noise.

This is where quality writing and keen storytelling come into play and where the generic “held a meeting” leads that AI can churn out will fail.

(FINAL NOTE: I’m sure Quinn would be horrified at the amount of time I spent writing this piece, given his “crank ‘er out” philosophy. I’m fine with it, though, because I believe dedication to one’s craft matters a lot, even if the point is just to tell someone they’re full of crap.)

You can call ‘This is How a Child Dies of Measles’ an act of ‘creative non-fiction,’ but where I’m from, we call it ‘lying’

The opening of the story about “your children” and “your” experience watching one of them die from the measles.

DISCUSSION STARTER: This is a good opportunity to have students read the story, “This is How a Child Dies of Measles,” before digging into this post to see how they feel about the approach, particularly if they are unaware of the truth of the story.

(The story is behind a paywall, so you might need to get creative to gain full access to it. Some school libraries have it on file, while some of you might have your own subscription. Maybe it’s even worth it to pay the $1 for six months thing and then cancel after the class. Just a head’s up in case you hadn’t planned for this.)

We did this a couple times over the years in my features classes, where they read the standard “almost journalism” stories of “Hack Heaven,” “Jimmy’s World” and “A Rape on Campus.”

Once they read through it and you make the reveal, a discussion about their thoughts, their concerns and maybe their willingness to do or not do something like this could be good. Then, if they want to pick through the blog post and argue with me, that could be fun, too.

THE LEAD: The story, “This is How a Child Dies of Measles,” by The Atlantic’s Elizabeth Bruenig has gained significant attention for the way in which it walks the readers through a child contracting the measles and eventually dying of it.

The problem? It’s fiction.

When I initially read Bruenig’s story, I was stunned: An Atlantic staff writer’s unvaccinated child had died of measles in the 2020s, and now she was writing about it? At the end of Bruenig’s piece, though, there’s an editor’s note: “This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.” That was the point when I sent a gift link to my mom group: “as far as I can tell this piece is fiction. What do we think about this choice? I am very conflicted!!!” My conflict stemmed from my concern that, though the piece was heavily researched, it was not a true story.

THE BACKGROUND: The story is written in second person and provides excruciatingly detailed information about everything from the way in which the illness can be passed among children, to the scene-setting elements of propping a kid up on a couch to watch “Bluey.”

Each paragraph provides the reader with a more and more desperate sense of inevitability in terms of “your” children suffering from to something we thought we had eradicated.

Given your son’s fever, runny nose, and evident discomfort, you feel a grim sense of resignation when his measles test comes back positive. You are, however, alarmed when you discover there’s nothing his doctors can do about it. Had he been seen by a doctor within 72 hours of his first exposure, they could have given him a prophylactic dose of the MMR vaccine to protect him from infection. But it’s too late for that now.

(SIDE NOTE: Few writing approaches are more jarring and risky than the use of second person. That’s true when it comes to simple things like, “UWO is hosting a blood drive and you should donate,” but even more so with big, complicated stories.

I love Jay McInerney’s work from soup to nuts, but his novel “Bright Lights, Big City” is a massively painful read for me because “you” are the main character and “you” are doing stuff that, quite frankly, I can’t really imagine “me” doing, not the least of which is referring to a woman as “the sexual equivalent of fast food.”)

The finality of the piece is like one of those “Friday the 13th” movies: Just when you think this is all over, the terrifying specter rises again to finish off its victim:

For roughly eight years, you will believe that your family made it through this crisis without suffering a tragedy…

As the neurologist examines the results, she will note the presence of Radermecker complexes: periodic spikes in electrical activity that correlate with the muscle spasms that have become disruptive. She will order a test of his cerebrospinal fluid to confirm what she suspects: The measles never really left your son. Instead, the virus mutated and spread through the synapses between his brain cells, steadily damaging brain tissue long after he seemed to recover.

You will be sitting down in an exam room when the neurologist delivers the diagnosis of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, a rare measles complication that leads to irreversible degeneration of the brain. There are treatments but no cure, the neurologist will tell you. She tells you that your son will continue to lose brain function as time passes, resulting in seizures, severe dementia, and, in a matter of two or three years, death.

After all that, you get kind of a semi-disclaimer that doesn’t exactly disabuse of you of the notion that this is real:

This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.

THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS: In a Q and A with the folks from the Nieman Lab, Bruenig walks through her approach to the topic and her decisions that led to the piece. She then makes kind of a sweeping statement about the greater good she feels she is doing with this fact-based fiction:

Owen: Where do you expect this piece to be shared and who do you expect to read it? Do you think people who choose not to vaccinate their kids will read it, and if so, how will they come across it? Have you heard any reactions from readers so far?

Bruenig: I have heard from several readers, one of whom had a heartbreaking experience with measles involving a family friend who died of the virus. People have been generally very encouraging! I have no doubt that there are a lot of people out there who are unhappy with the story or reject its premises, and they are entitled to their interpretations. I get it.

But my job is to report the truth about the world — and I use all kinds of literary, and narrative devices to do that. I do it because telling the truth is important in its own right, whether or not anyone finds it persuasive.

A FEW OF THE 932 REASONS THIS APPROACH WAS A BAD IDEA: First, let me say, I’m a huge fan of vaccines. Got all of mine, my kid got all of hers, my wife is a nurse who gets shot up like a dart board every year… This isn’t about the ethics or efficacy of vaccines, but rather the ethics and efficacy of this kind of journalism.

First Problem – Deception: Journalism is about fact-based reporting, which this piece has, but it’s also about providing information to the audience in an honest and trustworthy fashion. When we deceive the public, even if it’s for a good cause, we destroy the credibility we need to survive.

Bruenig says she’s reporting “the truth about the world,” which to me sounds both self-aggrandizing and disingenuous. She did rely on the facts as they related to the illness and she did draw from experts to understand how the illness works. However, and it bears repeating, WHAT SHE WROTE ABSOLUTELY DID NOT HAPPEN TO A KID IN THIS WAY.

This reminds me of when politicians would tell stories about “regular folk” who brought up dire concerns or who were traumatized by something specific. When journalists couldn’t find that “regular Joe Farmer” who lost everything thanks to a terrible government plan or that “regular Jane Business Owner” who had to give up her life savings to keep her staff paid, the politicians would always backtrack it and say it was an “amalgamation” of the stories they’d heard over the years.

In other words, they were lying, but hey… it’s the bigger picture that counts!

Then there’s this weird thing Chuck Schumer did, creating a fictional family based on the types of people he felt he represented:

I mean, yes, those kinds of people exist, and yes, those kinds of concerns are real, but again, you can’t just Frankenstein a bunch of pieces of people together and call it good.

Also, the supposed “disclaimer” doesn’t come right out and say, “This didn’t happen to one kid, but rather is a collection of all of the terrible stuff that can happen to an unvaccinated kid.” It’s almost like the author is trying to avoid accusations of writing fiction while doing as little as possible to make it clear that this literally did not happen.

When we are deceptive, we end up doing more harm than good. As I made the point in an earlier post, when my students read stories like “Jimmy’s World” and “A Rape on Campus,” they were angry, hurt, scared and otherwise emotionally wrought. When it came to light that Jimmy didn’t happen and that the attack on Jackie did not happen, they were really, really ticked off. They also felt less likely to trust the pieces they would read in the future.

As much as I prefer “non-denominational skepticism,” I definitely don’t want to prod it along with some borderline fraud.

Second Problem – Hyperbole: This comes back to the whole amalgamation of potential impacts issue, and how piling it all on to this one hypothetical kid is really overkill.

A number of the things she lists as symptoms of measles happen in many cases, ranging from the spots and fever to the cough and pain. However, when we get to the areas of pneumonia, we’re down to about 6 percent of all cases that end up here. Even more, the degenerative brain disorder that flares up years later happens to about 1 in 1,000 measles victims. In justifying the conclusion where “this is how your kid eventually dies,” Bruenig said:

I wanted to highlight this complication specifically because I sense that there’s widespread belief among anti-vax parents that since most healthy children will survive a measles infection, there are no important long-term consequences. But that’s simply not the case. Measles can seriously damage the body, and in rare and tragic cases, can result in death many years after the symptoms pass.

OK, but that’s a massive outlier for this disease and, again, that’s on top of the 83 other things that could or couldn’t happen that you saddled “your child” with in this story.

It would be like me stating, “I laid in the hospital, facing the grim specter of death. As the pain shot from my gallbladder, time ticked away in the day, each moment a chance I might die. Surgery, hours away, I pondered what would happen when my light was extinguished by an organ I’d long forgotten I had.”

Well, yes, I was in the hospital and yes, that gallbladder hurt like hellfire. And yes, if a person’s gallbladder ruptures, there is a chance the person goes septic and dies. However, that’s somewhere between 2 and 11 percent of all cases. I could make the argument that it was for the larger good that I painted this hyperbolic picture, hoping people will take gallbladder attacks seriously. However, I think most people would just say I was being a drama queen.

Third Problem – Laziness: I wholeheartedly believe in telling stories in journalism for the greater good of society. I also know there are an unfortunate number of children who have died after contracting measles. Telling a story about these deaths might inspire people to vaccinate, to change their minds about the severity of the illness or otherwise impact a broader discussion on the topic.

So, don’t be lazy. Go find an ACTUAL story of a measles death that happened to a REAL kid and tell that story.

Here’s one that even involves that rare illness that killed Bruenig’s hypothetical child:

That’s not to say you need to tell the story in this kind of staid news format. You can do more of the narrative work, using the parental recall, photos, medical records and expert interviews to paint a more vivid picture.

Strong interviews with the parents of a child can give you that emotional angst of anxiety, fear and despair. Spending time looking at photos can give you the “favorite blanket” and “watching Bluey” details that paint a picture in the readers’ minds. The experts can walk you through the files so you can describe in detail how each cough wracked the child with pain or how the fever created a mix of burning and chills that couldn’t be sated.

This takes a ton of work. You have to find a case where a kid died, you have to find parents willing to talk, you have to find experts who understand what happened to the kid and you have to spend time gathering granular-level elements through observation. Doing this also puts the reporter at risk of some significant emotional trauma, as they relive the death of a child in such a gut-wrenching way.

So, I can kind of see how it’s more appealing to just go to a handful of experts who can give you the clinical stuff and then just whip together a “Hypothetical ‘You’ Mom” character to tug at the emotional heartstrings of the readers, without fully acknowledging that’s what you did.

However, if you want the reward of the tough story, you really have to take the risks associated with the tough story. Doing it this way only codifies the certainty of people who don’t already believe you and undercuts your standing with people who do.

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