I’m going to skip past the empty lead, the two-sentences-that-should-be-one structure and the lack of anything resembling news (if everyone is doing it and it’s not a secret, rarely is it news). I’m wondering what it means to be “excessed.” (A word so stupid, every time I type it, I get the squiggly red line under it.)
Using a partial quote, particularly to showcase an odd turn of phrase, can be valuable. (The mayor calls his opponent a “rump-runt” or a coach calls a compound fracture of a fibula a “teeny tiny break.”) It can also be valuable in calling out the use of a stupid term (“excessed” would likely fit), so the reporter can shed more light on the term in a clear and complete way later.
That didn’t happen here, despite continued use of “excessed,” in quotes and paraphrase. (If I took “excessed” in the “Read this Article Drinking Game,” I’d be hammered after about six paragraphs.
This term is like a number of euphemisms that do nothing to inform readers but instead try to soften the blow of something really bad. A few years back, corporate-speak had journalists using the term “rightsize” or “rightsizing” as a way to explain how a company was cutting jobs and laying off employees. The shift away from “downsize” (which sounds sad because it includes the word “down” in there) was meant to make the actions seem more reasonable.
When faced with something like this, here are a few helpful tips:
AVOID IF POSSIBLE: Just because someone uses a term in their world, it doesn’t follow the rest of us should in ours. It’s the same reason we shouldn’t say someone was “transported to a nearby medical facility” when they are taken to a hospital or say an officer “performed a de-escalation through kinetic application” when a cop smacks someone to get them to stop doing something. Parroting a source because we are a) lazy or b) uninformed is not doing the job. Telling people what happened is.
USE ONCE, DEFINE QUICKLY, MOVE ON: If you have to use a term that is likely unfamiliar to your readers, don’t rely on it constantly. Say it once early in the piece and make sure you define it then and there in a way your readers will understand. Then, use a more common term that relates to the concept throughout the piece, like “the bill” or “the group” or “the process.” That will explain what’s going on without numbing your readers through the repetitive use of something like “excessed.”
ASK THE SOURCE TO TRANSLATE: Sources will likely want to use their preferred terms because a) they are comfortable with those terms and b) those terms are likely advantageous to their position on an issue. “We rightsized the operation to improve productivity” sounds a lot better than “We fired a bunch of people to improve our profits.” Same deal when a law-enforcement agency “neutralized a threat” or “depopulated an area.” Those phrases sound a lot better than, “We shot a guy to death” or “We killed everyone in a two-block radius.”
Have the source put that into English for you and don’t let them use euphemisms to define other euphemisms. If reporters are going to be held to a “what happened?” standard of clarity and simplicity, we need to hold the sources to that standard as well. If they can’t define it for you in a relatively meaningful way, ask them to go through the process associated with that term and clarify it for you. (“So, these people were excessed… What’s the first step in that process? … Do people who get “excessed” lose their right to the job they had? … Can you show me in a contract the explanation and application of this term? …)
Don’t let the sources Jedi mind trick you into thinking that something is normal simply because they use a made-up term repeatedly. If necessary, ask them to explain it to you like you are a child. When they can’t or won’t, that says volumes more than what the term itself is trying to convey.
(And for the love of God, don’t write a lead like this one, no matter what else is going on. The first two or three sentences really should have been “excessed.”)
Ruth Shalit Barrett received more than $1 million after suing The Atlantic for defamation, based on its approach to retracting this story. For that kind of money, they must have said this is a photo of Barrett drowning a couple dozen kids in a pool laced with electrical lines.
The Atlantic quietly agreed to pay more than $1 million early this summer to settle a lawsuit by the writer Ruth Shalit Barrett, who had accused the magazine of defamation after it took the rare step of retracting an article she had written and replacing it with an editor’s note, according to a person with knowledge of the settlement.
Ms. Barrett, who wrote an article about youth sports in wealthy areas as a freelancer for The Atlantic in 2020, sued the publication and one of its editors in January 2022. She said the outlet had smeared her reputation and asked for $1 million in damages.
DOCTOR OF PAPER FLASHBACK: I was working on another post over the weekend when I noticed a post I wrote several years ago about Barrett’s article and subsequent lawsuit was getting heavy traffic for no apparent reason. A quick Google search of her name helped me figure it out.
At the time, I figured there was NO WAY this thing was going anywhere. The strength of my prediction powers is also why I suck at Fantasy Football.
THE DETAILS: Barrett wrote a story about niche sports that rich parents were pushing their kids to enter, in hopes of gaining an edge when the kids applied to Ivy League schools. The story had a number of problems, including an anonymous source that wasn’t that anonymous, the creation of a kid out of thin air, the exaggeration of an injury to a kid during a fencing match and more.
Eric Wemple of the Washington Post dug into this story and started finding more and more things that didn’t make sense, something the editors of The Atlantic also began to notice. At some point, they decided, “Screw it, we can’t save the patient” and retracted the story with a lengthy editor’s note about the story and Barrett’s history in media.
As a result, Barrett filed the suit, arguing that the note defamed her in several ways. She asked for it to be rewritten and that she be given the story’s publishing rights. The two sides went to arbitration, leading to some edits to the note and a lot of cash.
A FEW QUESTIONS: In reading this over and over again, I found myself asking several rhetorical questions, one of which was, “Can I sue Sage for no good reason with the hopes that they give me a squillion dollars to go away for a while?” While the answer to that one marinates in your mind, here are a couple others:
CAN YOU LIBEL A DISASTER?I’m not calling Barrett a disaster for obvious reasons, not the least of which is I don’t have a million bucks I want to throw away. I’m more or less wondering how we started with a story so bad that it required a full retraction and ended with a pay day of this nature.
The publication stated it was aware of her history of not quite exhibiting the best level of judgment in regard to journalistic integrity. Wemple dug a bit deeper into her life and found more than a few clinkers along the way, including problems with the story on these weird sports. The fact checkers were lied to in at least two cases, with one source being encouraged to lie. (The original note said “at least one” while the new note says “one,” a distinction without merit from a language position. Also, who told you it was “only” one? The person you initially found was involved in all the lying and encouraging others to lie, so… um…)
Courts have ruled on a number of occasions that certain people and situations are “libel-proof,” in that nothing further can be done to harm their reputation. In addition, courts have stated that libel doesn’t apply if only “incremental harm” can be demonstrated. In the former, the courts basically say that someone or something is so bad, any statement that might be libelous toward any other person or group won’t qualify as libel. In the latter, it’s like a person in prison for 10 counts of murder sues you for reporting that they have a dozen unpaid parking tickets.
In looping back to this situation, I fail to see how the changes to the note or the statements regarding Barrett improved the situation to the point of avoiding libel. The distinctions in here feel to me like the quote in “Great Balls of Fire!” when someone yells at Jerry Lee Lewis that he married his 12 year old cousin, Myra, to which she retorts, “Second cousin, twice removed!” Oh. Well.
The question of how bad was the defamation in relation to what was already out there has me pondering what level of reputation she recouped as a result of the suit. In short, do people who thought poorly of her now think better of her after this? Or did people who thought better of her before the retraction think worse of her AFTER that retraction?
Or did the big check just make things better?
WHEN DID GP GO MIA? I seem to remember a time, not so long ago, when people did things on “GP” or “general principle.” In other words, it was standing up for the right side of something or holding someone to account for something, even if it would be easier to just throw in the towel.
Case in point, my parents told me when I first got my license that if I got a speeding ticket, I’d lose my right to drive for a protracted period of time. No muss, no fuss, no BS. Just put the keys on the table. Sure enough, when I was 17, I was ticketed for speeding along a stretch of road that was a notorious speed trap. I walked into the house, put the ticket on the table, dropped the keys on top of it and that was that for a while.
What my parents DIDN’T foresee was that I was involved in about 912 activities that required me to be at various locations at night and on weekends. It would have been far easier for them to just give me back the keys and let me drive myself. However, Mom and Dad dug in and ended up driving me to and from all those things until the predetermined punishment time had ended. It was inconvenient for them, but they decided the principle of the thing mattered. I learned a lot from that and have since avoided speeding tickets, although now that I’ve said that, I’m sure I’m getting nailed on the way home.
The larger point is: When did we stop fighting just because the fights were hard? We’ve recently had the “60 Minutes” lawsuit, the ABC lawsuit, and several other lawsuits that have the “Fourth Estate” folding like a cheap cardboard box in a rainstorm. It’s like, “It’s cheaper and easier to just pay people to go away.” Well, that’s like paying protection money to the mob, assuming it’s a one-time thing.
It’s not just the news business, but it seems like we fold up everywhere: A kid threatens us, we change a grade. A social media “influencer” pulls focus onto a post we made, we take it down and apologize. Don’t even get me started about what the kids are doing in the ice cream aisle at Walmart these days. What happened to standing on principle?
There are times where I go into a situation knowing full well I’m going to lose and there are other times, where the risks are pretty damned high that I will. Still, there’s something that says, “No. You aren’t folding. You’re gonna play this hand out, because you can’t live with yourself if you don’t.”
I feel this moment so deeply
I understand that money is a predominant factor in pretty much everything in the world today and I know that it’s easy to say what I would or wouldn’t do when it’s not my money to spend. That said, I think back to the people I admire the hell out of in this business, who would never have acquiesced as easily as it seems like so many people are so willing to do.
It’s hard to address homelessness — or any complex challenge — if we don’t even know where leaders stand.
Unfortunately, independent journalists are growing accustomed to being ignored. In a trend spanning multiple levels of government and political parties, public officials are increasingly avoiding answering inconvenient questions about matters of public concern. They’re sending generic statements instead of agreeing to interviews that are more likely to yield clarity. That’s if they respond at all.
<SNIP>
Such tactics are less harmful to journalists than they are to constituents. We ask questions on behalf of the public — not to satisfy our own curiosities. Ignoring us is ignoring the public.
THE “NO COMMENT” CULTURE: The popular quote (often attributed to everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Mark Twain) about keeping your mouth shut does have some merit: “It is better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” It’s also a lot more dangerous these to say anything that might be construed as… well… anything, thanks to the rage machine that is social media.
Off-the-cuff comments can lead to significant public shaming, as was the case when a press aide for the White House dismissed John McCain’s opposition to a nominee by saying, “It doesn’t matter. He’s dying anyway.”
When people make public comments as part of longer interviews, it turns out that a lot of the public will, gosh, hold them to those comments. When he was a candidate for governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker stated that he planned to create 250,000 new jobs in his first term. When people who can do math and understand money figured out this was impossible, Walker tried to back off by saying he was more generally talking about improving work opportunities and making Wisconsin a better place to be for employers. Still, that 250K number hung on him like a millstone.
Public relations practitioners, spokespeople and other “handlers” have done significant work to help people who actually need to say something offer blanket statements through press releases or social media accounts while not really answering any questions or opening them up to public scrutiny. All of this has created kind of a “no comment zone” even when people do offer comments.
DOCTOR OF PAPER FLASHBACK: Perhaps one of my favorite stories ever written here in Oshkosh was one a student of mine cobbled together using almost nothing but “no comment” comments. When a professor was escorted out of a classroom on the first day and then replaced by a long-term sub, students wondered why. Administrators and various other officials figured if they just pulled an “ostrich move” they could prevent the story from getting out. They were wrong.
PLEA TO PR PEOPLE: If you want the media to take your clients seriously, put some actual time into coming up with some sort of statement that doesn’t look like you downed four Monster Energy drinks and started typing buzzwords.
Think about what you can say (in short, what you know), what you can’t say (what you don’t know or are legally prohibited from saying) and what you want to say (things you can say that you prefer to have the public understand). Then, filter that through the concept of audience-centricity: What would the people this journalist is trying to serve want to know from us that we can tell them and that is (at least) mutually beneficial.
Make those statements less of the “we’re proud, happy and thrilled” variety, as people tend to think you’re hiding something. Make them more of a “here’s something of value that matters to you as best as we can tell it to you.”
PLEA TO NEWS PEOPLE: I’ve been out of the game for a while, but I seem to remember a time where we wrote stories based on talking to people with our mouths. I know that it’s easier to wait for everyone to “issue a statement” and then dig through some people’s social media posts for “reactions” and build something out of that.
The question I have, however, is: how does that actually help the audience?
In most cases those statements (see the PR thing above) are as boring as bug turds and as polished as a gem. They give you nothing other than to say you got a statement. (I’d also plead for journalists to not let political hacks pontificate as part of their quotes, taking shots across the aisle, but that’s another plea for another time.)
If these people aren’t talking to you, try listing off all of the stuff that literally tells the readers, “Smith’s statement did not answer X, Y and Z, or P, D and Q.” I understand shame is no longer a real concept these days, but let’s give it the college try.
PLEA TO OFFICIAL SOURCES: Don’t be wussies.
(Regular people who are thrust into the media realm through no fault of their own are exempt from this criticism, as they are inexperienced in working with the media and often dealing with something serious. Those folks deserve our respect and our patience.)
If you are in the public eye and serving the public trust, answering to the public you serve is part of the gig. Yes, using your own social media is part of that, but journalists are meant to serve as a conduit between you and the public that needs to know stuff.
How can we trust you to be operating in our best interest if you run and hide under the bed every time a media operative who is not predisposed to kissing your ass shows up to ask you to justify your actions? If you can’t handle the heat of an impertinent questions, how can we trust you to handle the budget, the school board, state law or federal actions? If you feel you aren’t good at working with the media, OK, but then go learn how to do it.
I’ll be much better for everyone involved if you participate in the process.
THE LEAD: A viral moment during the Marlins/Phillies game on Friday has turned the lives of several women upside down, as internet “sleuths” have tried to “out” an enraged and entitled fan.
THE BACKGROUND: When Harrison Bader’s home run reached the outfield stands, several fans grabbed for it, including Drew Feltwell who retrieved it for his son, Lincoln. The female fan who lost out on the chase confronted Feltwell and demanded the family give up “her ball.”
Feltwell appeared shaken by the confrontation, the video shows. After a brief interaction, he plucks the ball out of his son’s mitt and hands it to the woman in the Phillies jersey.
He said he made the decision because he did not want to do something he’d regret in front of his kids.
“There was kind of a fork in the road, like, I’m gonna go one direction and then probably regret,” Feltwell said. “Or go this direction and do something in front of my kids that, you know, like a teaching moment.”
In probably two of the best PR moves in recent memory, the Marlins organization dispatched a staffer with a swag bag for Logan, who was there to celebrate his birthday, while the Phillies arranged for Logan to meet Bader, who gave the boy an autographed bat.
THE FALL OUT: The woman in the video has yet to be identified, despite the fact more people recorded her than recorded the finale of “M*A*S*H*.” In addition, her photo has been shared around the internet, both as kind of digital “wanted” posters and some pretty amusing memes:
“Ok everyone,” Cheryl Richardson-Wagner posted on Facebook Saturday. “I’m NOT the crazy Philly Mom (but I sure would love to be as thin as she is and move as fast)… and I’m a Red Sox fan!”
Richardson-Wagner has been roasted online as the heartless Phillies fan caught on viral video throwing a stadium-sized tantrum at LoanDepot Park in Miami, bullying dad Drew Fellwell into turning over a home run ball he gave to his young son, Lincoln.
Also…
The other name suggested was Leslie-Ann Kravitz’s, with claims circulating that she was the woman in the clip and had been fired from her job at the Hammonton school district in New Jersey. Here’s the truth of what happened.
Is Leslie-Ann Kravitz the ‘Phillies Karen’?
The claim that Leslie-Ann Kravitz is the ‘Phillies Karen’ came from several anonymous social media handles. It was circulated on X without any substantiating proof. HT.com cannot verify these claims.
Accusing someone of doing something that the public hates a person for isn’t made any better when toss a vague, bold-type caveat in there. That said, it’s at least better than what these people did, flat out saying it actually was Kravitz.
DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: Not to be too curmudgeonly here, but today’s “citizen vigilantes” apparently aren’t as good at ruining the “right” person’s life as they once were. In 2003, it only took about 8 hours for Steve Bartman to be the most hated man in Chicago Cubs’ fandom.
Setting that aside, the question of when is it OK to name someone involved in a public act like this requires more than rushing to social media so you can yell, “FIRST!” Traditional media outlets would often debate the merits of naming someone in this situation, the confidence the journalists have in their reporting and the potential fallout of naming someone, even if the identification is accurate.
Not everyone receives that level of ethical training, as the dissemination of content no longer rests in the hands of the venerable “Fourth Estate.” That said, even legacy media have rushed out stories or identifications for fear of being late on the deal, even if the reporting is shaky or the impacts can devastate people. Of the interest elements we preach in the FOCII mnemonic, apparently “Immediacy” seems to be the dominant one.
Being first is one of those things that can kick the adrenaline into high gear for journalists, and I say that as a former “scoop junkie.” The idea of breaking a story and getting your info out to the public first can feel better than a first kiss.
However, I’ve also been on the back end of a few of situations where reporting missteps taken while running down glory road had me an inch away from being fired. Had I been more cautious and less interested in being first, I probably could have avoided more than a few of those situations.
In looking at a situation like this, I’d argue that we should remind ourselves of the most cautious journalist adage I’ve ever heard: “The duty to report is not the same as the duty to publish.”
In short, it’s better that 1,000 guilty Karens should go unshamed than one innocent Karen become an internet meme.
DISCUSSION STARTER: As a reporter, how far would you go to identify this person? When would you feel comfortable publishing a name? What benefit do you see in publicly naming this person, and what do you think would force you to reconsider naming her?
It might not be as cool as opening Marcellus Wallace’s case, but I hope this pile of exercises will still make you as happy as Vincent and Jules.
As many of you are starting back to school, I figured I’d break radio silence with some goods I promised to deliver by the end of the summer. Back in May, I asked what kinds of things you needed from me and you were all nice enough to hit me with some ideas. Some were really concrete (“These kids need stuff to learn how to write a #%^#ing lead.”) while others were more nuanced (“They need to play with AI, but in a way that helps them see what it can and can’t do. I have no idea how that would work, though…”)
I’ve put together a bin of stuff that tries to cover the gamut of needs, while offering you choices as to how to apply the exercises in your own schools and for your own needs. Think of each of the files as kind of a Swiss Army knife of opportunities that you can use as you see fit.
It should go without saying that the content is either made up or fictionalized versions of stuff that actually happened, so don’t freak out if you see something and think, “Oh my lord! What hath hell wrought!”
Here’s a brief overview:
Breaking News/Ongoing Situation Stuff: A couple files contain information that is divided into several stages of release. The idea is that, just like a breaking news story, or an ongoing event, information is important compared to other information you receive.
It’s meant to mirror the “King of the Mountain” exercise approach we blogged about some time ago, with newer information forcing students to reconsider what’s most important in updating their content and giving them the critical thinking skills needed to do so.
There is also a straight-up crime story with some quotable material for you to play with.
Raw Materials Folder: There is a collection of nothing but interviews on topics that seemed relatively universal (Fires, Campus Illnesses, thought on Gen Ed classes, TikTok etc.) that students did over the years. I stripped out all the names/identifying features for this and left you with some red text where you can insert names that reflect your student body, places your students would know and so forth.
There is also a couple city council stories that are god awful that I rebuilt from local newspapers with name changes, area changes and so forth. Those can be helpful if you want them to work on revising bad copy or with some of the AI stuff we’ll talk about later.
Standard Story Stuff: I’ve put together a list of standard stories that we all tend to write in various types of journalism (breaking news, meeting/speech/news conference, localization etc.) with some suggestions regarding length and source count.
If it’s more of a reporting class, obviously, you can send them out to do stuff, but I included these for the media-writing folk who might not have students ready to go the full “Lois Lane” out there. These can meld nicely with some of the stuff in the raw material folder.
I also tossed in a “canned game story” for people who need to take a shot at sports writing before they cover a game. It includes stats, scores and post-game interview quotes that can be used to build a solid game recap on a pretty fun game.
AI Fun: I build several AI exercises that allow the students to see how AI can be really helpful and where it can fall short. It includes a trial run for them at something I did for the blog over the summer, involving interview questions. A couple of them also can be used on the raw material files to have AI build a story either before or after they do. This can show them how AI might or might not get the gist of what is important in a story.
HOW DO YOU GET THIS STUFF:
In normal times, I’d just post it here, but between AI and overly industrious students, I’m a little leery of just leaving a pile of stuff on the open web. So, to give you the goodies while protecting the pile a bit, here’s what you do:
It’s all freebie and you can do whatever you want with it for your class. If you run into a better way to use this stuff, or have an idea you want to share, I’d appreciate it. Also, I don’t care if you’re using any of my books or not, so this isn’t an exclusive party for adopters. I just like helping people.
Have a great start to the semester. We’ll be back full time next week after Labor Day.
The long-held adage of journalists saying, “If your mother says she loves you, go check it out,” needs a little more updating these days, as it seems like NOTHING is as real as it seems. Thanks in large part to corner-cutting, scam-baiting and general laziness, we’re finding a lot of cases in which it never hurts to make absolutely sure you are sure. Here are a couple examples:
A PR agency is selling an AI tool that automatically answers pitches from journalists on services such as ResponseSource, HARO and Qwoted.
The AI tool, called Synapse (not be confused with PR pitching platform Synapse Media), “reads” questions sent for for expert comment by journalists via the services, then analyses sources such as books, podcasts and reports per query and uses AI to draft email responses.
Journalist-request services such as HARO charge a fee for connecting PR agencies with journalists. PRs can send out story pitches to journalists and also get access to requests for expert comment.
<SNIP>
The makers of Synapse, Lithuania-based PR agency Wellstone PR, boast that it has a 7-8% acceptance rate, and that used by a human “editor”, it can answer around 20 pitches per hour with one human PR person able to do the work of five.T
The company brags in its pitch to potential clients that it will provide them with fictional content that sounds so much like the real thing, journalists won’t know the difference. I don’t know if it bothers me more that a) it would appear journalists are getting inept/lazy enough not to notice that they’re being fed total bullpucky or b) that the PR professionals are writing such average, generic stuff so often that journalists can’t distinguish it from whatever garbage an AI can produce.
The cost for this service is a one-time fee of $2,500. The only saving grace is that they apparently haven’t sold this to anyone. Yet.
The PR experts quoted in Waugh’s piece are clearly not thrilled by this breach of trust.
Andy Smith, founder of Sourcee, which aims to offer credible, video-checked experts, says that using AI tools in this way erodes trust.
Smith said: “When journalists post a journo request, there’s an implicit level of trust in the person replying. They’re hoping to hear from real people with genuine insights, experiences, and expertise that can bring their story to life.
“They certainly don’t want to receive an automated, AI-generated reply… if that’s what they were after, they could’ve just used ChatGPT themselves.
One thing that has me rethinking my “stop using these stupid “OK-Cupid-For-Quotes” sites” was a point that Smith made about how a good expert pool, like the one he says he’s built, is meant to broaden the reach of journalists. That can prevent them from only reaching out to familiar contacts and ending up with the “usual suspects” in every story. Still, if I had to pick between usual humans and a random lottery of AI word salad, I’ll stick with my boring peeps, thanks.
A story about development plans for a vacant downtown block that appeared on the front page of the Sunday, July 13, issue of the Wisconsin State Journal was removed Wednesday from the Madison daily newspaper’s website before being replaced by a “re-reported” story Thursday afternoon.
An editor’s note on the re-reported story states that the original “contained incorrect information and quotes that were created by an unauthorized use of AI, which does not adhere to the Wisconsin State Journal’s editorial or ethical standards.”
The story topic itself, both in what I can find of the original and the reboot, is a simple, boring tick-tock story about a development project, in which the material for the proposals are all easily accessible. This wasn’t like the reporter needed whatever the hell Tom Cruise is using in the latest “Mission Impossible” movie to create a miracle out of thin air.
It’s not quite clear what’s more terrifying: That a reporter decided to cut a corner on something this vanilla and didn’t bother to make sure on at least a few basic facts or that the editorial process didn’t catch something that was so wrong:
One section about “The Grove,” a proposal from Neutral, a Madison real estate development firm, outlined plans for a “food hall prioritizing minority-owned vendors” and a “community advisory board” that would shape the development’s public life. Neither of those features, nor the name “The Grove,” appear in Neutral’s proposal linked from a city press release listing the firms that responded to its RFP.
“It’s all wrong,” says Daniel Glaessl, Neutral’s chief product officer. No reporter had contacted the firm about the project before Isthmus reached out on Thursday afternoon, he says.
The Synapse people in the story above are like, “Hey, AI will write all your stuff, but don’t worry! The editor will be there to ‘create enough friction’ to prevent anything terrible from getting into the public sphere.” I’m having even bigger doubts about that concept now, especially since I know the folks involved at the WSJ and I have always respected and admired them. It always hurts a little more when it happens where you live.
And finally…
FOUL BALLS: It’s not a stretch to say that the sports memorabilia world is a multi-billion-dollar industry, in which athletes get paid exorbitant amounts of money for scrawling their names across all manner of items. What makes an athlete’s autograph worth the big bucks is a confluence of the awesomeness of the athlete and the rarity of their willingness to sign items. The more people want an athlete’s signature and the fewer of them exist, the more likely there will be fraud involved at some level.
In the 1990s, the FBI dug into the world of fraudulent autographs with “Operation Bullpen,” a multi-year investigation that took down a series of forgers who made a living faking the signatures of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Mark McGwire and others. In response, the major sports leagues and the preeminent autograph certification houses began using holograms, certificates, registration numbers and QR codes to assure buyers that the autographs they owned were, in fact, real.
Brett Lemieux, a 45-year-old resident of Westfield, Indiana, was the founder of sports memorabilia site Mister ManCave, which claimed to have sold millions of counterfeit items with net profits exceeding $350 million, and had “the largest framed jersey inventory on the web.”
Lemieux made the claims in a now-deleted Facebook post on the “Autographs 101” group Wednesday, saying the money was “too good” to pass up and that he wanted to stop the fraud, which had been going on for the better part of two decades.
Part of Lemieux’s post, bragging about his fraudulent creation of autographs and the holograms of multiple companies meant to prevent such fraud.
Over the past week, I’ve seen a ton of people submitting their Shohei Otani, Mike Trout, Derek Jeter and other autographs to online authentication groups, only to find that the balls, bats and photos are fakes. Many of these items have one, if not more, authentic-looking holograms, to boot.
I know this seems far afield for journalists, but it really emphasizes an important point about how and why fraud persists in our space as much as it does everywhere else: If there’s money to be made in an easy way, people without scruples are going to take advantage of the situation.
That means we have to all be extra cautious about what we are willing to accept at face value and what we are willing to walk away from if the situation doesn’t feel right. It’s especially true when we really want something to work out, like getting that crucial source or making that tight deadline.
This interview, which literally and figuratively did absolutely nothing to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, was at the core of a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit President Donald Trump filed against “60 Minutes.”
Many lawyers had dismissed Mr. Trump’s lawsuit as baseless and believed that CBS would have ultimately prevailed in court, in part because the network did not report anything factually inaccurate, and the First Amendment gives publishers wide leeway to determine how to present information.
But Shari Redstone, the chair and controlling shareholder of Paramount, told her board that she favored exploring a settlement with Mr. Trump. Some executives at the company viewed the president’s lawsuit as a potential hurdle to completing a multibillion-dollar sale of the company to the Hollywood studio Skydance, which requires the Trump administration’s approval.
After weeks of negotiations with a mediator, lawyers for Paramount and Mr. Trump worked through the weekend to reach a deal ahead of a court deadline that would have required both sides to begin producing internal documents for discovery, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.
FRAMING THE OUTCOME:We talked about Framing Theory a few months back, but for a brief recap, the idea is that how the media chooses to focus on an issue can shape how people in general will look at that issue. In this case, here are three I’ve seen pop up:
The Mob Shakedown: In most good gangster movies and TV shows, a scene emerges that showcases how to threaten someone without actually threatening them. It’s a pure demonstration of the power the “Don,” the “boss” or the “enforcer” has: Force someone to do something they don’t want to do out of pure fear of what otherwise might happen.
The shakedown scene usually starts with the gangster offering “friendship” or “protection” for a business owner, explaining that the world is a dangerous place and that a lot of bad things can happen. So, for a small percentage of the owner’s finances, this gangster will keep those bad things at bay.
If the owner protests, the gangster tends to get a little more specific while still being vague, offering “God forbid” scenarios like how a mysterious fire could burn the business to the ground or how a random act of violence could lead to the owner being hospitalized for serious injuries. However, fortunately, a payment to this “ambassador of goodwill” can pretty much eliminate those possibilities:
(This was the best “shakedown” scene I could find from any TV show or movie that a) didn’t use enough F-bombs to destroy an underground nuclear bunker, b) use other pejorative language regarding someone’s race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or pet preference and c) didn’t actually use the violence that was suggested earlier in the clip. Still, it’s not pure enough for totally virgin ears, so watch at your discretion.)
In the Paramount case, the company had a multi-billion-dollar deal waiting in the wings, but it needed “the Don’s” blessing to go through and a lot of terrible things can happen to a deal if, God forbid, the FCC decided to look reeeeeeealllly closely at it. I mean, who knows what might happen to all that money? If Paramount lost that deal just because of a little misunderstanding it could make right with this “60 Minutes” thing? Hey… I’m just saying…
Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has said the president’s lawsuit against Paramount was not linked to the F.C.C.’s review of the company’s merger with Skydance. Paramount has also said the two issues were unrelated.
Right. And the business owner got that black eye and broken arm after “accidentally” falling down a flight of stairs before coming to the conclusion that protection money is a small price to pay for proper piece of mind.
Chump Change: If you look at some of the more successful campaigns to get money out of people, they tend to be the ones that appear to be the least taxing or consequential. Case in point, each year, my alma mater (or maters) send me a pledge card, asking for a “gift” of between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars. Those always go right in the trash without a second thought.
That said, I have a hard time recalling the last time I refused to “round up” at the grocery store, the hardware store or anywhere else for whatever charity the business was repping at the time. It’s like, “Hell, I’m already $132.47 into the Kroeger Family at this point. What’s another 53 cents for a good cause?”
In addition, I’ve seen people drop a few coins in a parking lot and refuse to pick them up, folks at rummage sales drop the “and XX cents” on a customer’s total and other similar maneuvers that basically just round off a relatively insignificant amount of cash.
Thus, the concept of “chump change.”
I personally have a hard time thinking about $16 million as “chump change,” but everything in life is relative, as noted in this clip from “The Social Network:”
I suppose if I’m looking at it from the perspective of a multi-billion-dollar company that wants to make several billion dollars on a deal, giving up $16 million isn’t a lot to make things happen. I also suppose that if a collections company told me I owed $1,000 to a creditor, but I could pay it off today for $1.60, I’d probably avoid the argument and fork over the cash. (Trust me on this one: The comparative math is solid.)
To Paramount, this is the cost of doing business. It’s rounding up at the register to move things along. It’s chump change.
An Affront to The Foundations of The Country: After the news broke about the Paramount capitulation, it might have felt like time stood still for a few minutes. That’s probably because when Edward R. Murrow, Katherine Graham, Walter Cronkite, Ben Bradlee and David Brinkley (among other journalists) started simultaneously started spinning in their graves, the Earth found itself dealing with that “Superman The Movie” trick:
It’s something Graham and Bradlee did before when a president came at them. It’s something Murrow did in a time in which a demagogue rattled this country to its core. It’s something so many other journalists and journalism operations have done in big and small ways to reassure us all that our rights are not a “when it’s convenient to people in power” thing.
But a funny thing happened on the way to our current predicament. News outlets are now part of larger conglomerates with larger concerns. TV news always lost money, relative to other programming, but it was seen as part of the deal: You give us quality news, we let you use the public airwaves. Newspapers use to make money and hold sway over larger groups of people. Furthermore, they weren’t part of a collective that also did entertainment programming, sold time shares, controlled real estate and answered to shareholders. Their concern was doing the news well and defending their right to do it.
For Paramount, “60 Minutes” is a “property” of the company, just like all the other stuff they put on TV. If an episode of “School Spirits” pissed off enough people to prevent a multi-billion-dollar deal from happening, they’d kill it or edit it or pay off someone, too. Cost of doing business. That’s the company’s view. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.
However, when one company lets the powerful dictate the news based on threats like this suit, it undermines the strength of those First Amendment rights for everyone else.
That changed a bit when a former student told me people in her orbit were using ChatGPT to create interview questions for everything from press releases to profiles. My concerns ranged from students becoming lazy to ChatGPT asking some pretty offensive questions that ill-prepared or inexperienced writers would use to their own detriment.
To see what would happen, I relied on a situation a friend found herself in last week while teaching at Missouri Boys and Girls State. One of the guest speakers was Barbara P. Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H. W. Bush. She has also been a significant figure as an author and global health care activist.
My friend noted that one of her students had an exceptionally good interview moment with Barbara P. Bush, which we’ll get to in a moment. Before that happens, I decided to let ChatGPT take the wheel and build me a set of interview questions for the former First Daughter:
Here are five thoughtful and engaging questions an interviewer could ask Barbara Pierce Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush:
Your work with Global Health Corps has been widely recognized—what inspired you to focus on global health, and how has that mission evolved over the years? (This connects her personal passion to her professional work.)
Growing up in one of America’s most prominent political families, how did you navigate forming your own identity outside of politics? (This explores the personal challenge of living in the public eye.)
You and your twin sister Jenna have often shared stories of your childhood—how has your bond influenced your adult life and careers? (This taps into her well-known relationship with her sister and could elicit warm, relatable stories.)
What lessons did you learn from your mother, Laura Bush, that have shaped how you approach leadership and service? (This allows reflection on legacy and values from a female role model.)
In today’s divisive political climate, how do you think members of prominent political families can help encourage civility and understanding? (This invites her to speak thoughtfully about public discourse without diving into partisanship.)
It’s a solid list, but here are a couple key problems I noticed:
Bush has been asked and has answered most of these questions at length before. This means she probably has a pretty standard answer for them, so you’re not getting anything new.
Not one of them directly attaches itself to the idea of your dad being the “most powerful man in the world.” (I always believed my dad to be the “most powerful man in the world” back when I was a kid, as I’m sure a lot of kids my age did back in the day. That said, my dad didn’t have Seal Team 6 or the 82nd Airborne to deploy when my room got too messy for him to tolerate.)
The question my friend’s student asked perfectly dealt with those two problems:
“How did your dad change after Sept. 11?”
Bush teared up immediately, not expecting a question like that, nor one phrased exactly that way. She gave a great answer about how he changed but he would always be her dad. She also thanked the student for asking that question and really tapping into something different.
Even in that scenario, it’s hard to pick on ChatGPT’s effort. These are good questions, and the bot does a good job of rationalizing what each question should provide the interviewer. I could clearly imagine being flustered if I were to interview someone famous like a former First Daughter, who has carved out an impressive career of her own. ChatGPT’s questions would put me on some better ground than, “So what’s it like to be a twin?” or “Was it weird having your high school dates pick you up at the governor’s mansion?”
That said, ChatGPT struggles a bit more when it comes to people who aren’t internationally famous. I picked a Facebook friend at random and tried the same thing, ending up with one of my favorite high school teachers, Greg Frederick, as the guinea pig for this situation (Sorry in advance, Mr. Frederick…):
Here are five thoughtful and respectful questions an interviewer could ask Greg Frederick, former teacher at Pius XI High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
What initially inspired you to pursue a career in education, and what led you to Pius XI High School specifically?
How did your teaching philosophy evolve during your time at Pius XI, and what impact did that have on your students?
Can you share a memorable moment or experience from your teaching career that still resonates with you today?
How did you approach balancing academic rigor with the values and mission of a Catholic high school like Pius XI?
What advice would you give to new educators entering the profession, especially those teaching in faith-based schools?
A couple of these are solid “opener” questions that could get the ball rolling for a decent interview. Why you wanted to be a teacher and why you ended up teaching at Pius for as long as you did could establish report. The third question is always a good one, in allowing the person to open up about something important and not forcing the interview subject to feel pigeonholed.
A couple of these feel problematic: The second question is a bit iffy in that we assume he changed over time (not always a guarantee) and that it impacted his students (again, not a guarantee). The fourth question could be taken poorly, as someone might read it as the values and mission of the faith are at odds with educational rigor.
The bigger thing, again, is that they’re generic. These could be asked of any biped who spent an appreciable length of time teaching any subject at any religious-based high school. In short, there’s less out there on Mr. Frederick because he’s not a president, a pope or a Kardashian.
I don’t know him as well as a lot of other people, I’m sure, in that I was a student at the school for four years during a specific time period, and I haven’t kept up with his life like a stalker in a made-for-TV movie. That said, I do know certain things that might have led to different questions:
He taught English at the school, including upper-level courses like honors English and a course in science fiction and fantasy literature. Sci fi seems to predict the future in a lot of ways, so I’d love to ask a question relating his work in that area with what we are seeing now (social media, phones glued to our souls etc.). I’d also like to know what thoughts he would have on how best to inspire his best writing kids to do good work these days, given AI’s rampant use in generating essays.
His wife was also a teacher at the school for a time, although not in the same department. A question about what it’s like working in the same place as a spouse, including benefits and drawbacks, would be interesting to me and probably a lot of people who face similar issues. I know how weird it was when Amy was working for the MU police department and I was running the crime beat for the local newspaper. I wonder how people who actually work closer than that find themselves coping with it.
His kids went to that school, including his son, Chris, who was in my grade. This opens up a ton of real estate for questions, particularly for me as I was also a teacher’s kid. After kindergarten, my mom and I were not at the same school ever. I’d be interested in finding out what discussions led to the Frederick kids going to school where mom and dad worked. I wonder if they’d do it the same way again, based on how it all worked out for the kids and the parents.
(SIDE NOTE: Chris and I participated in a number of musicals together, which speaks more to the desperation the directors felt in getting males into the productions than it did to our musical acumen. In preparing for one such musical, the choral director actually told both of us to just “mouth the words” during the songs as we were not only godawful at singing, but we were screwing up everyone else who could carry a tune. Good memories…)
I’d be interested on his take on things like homeschooling, which really beefed up its presence over the past few decades, in terms of teaching your own kids or being able to have other people teach them. I’m sure I could blather on forever here, but let’s move on…
It never hurts to ask the “So what are you doing now that you retired?” question, in that it opens the door to something people who learned from Mr. Frederick or taught with him probably want to know.
Again, this is just based on some basic stuff that I know that ChatGPT doesn’t. If I were to end up doing a profile on Mr. Frederick, I’d take my normal “build the donut around the hole” approach and interview his family, some people I know who taught with him, some of his students who have gone on to work in specific fields and so forth. The goal would be to figure out what kinds of questions to ask that are more on point about him specifically as opposed to Generic Catholic High School Teacher X.
This is why it’s important to use ChatGPT as a tool in your toolbox and not view it as a panacea for completing your work. If you don’t go beyond the basics that ChatGPT can offer, you will never create anything better than a basic piece.
So, so pretty… And no, I was not inspired by “Wicked” when I approved this. Unless you would adopt it because of that, in which case, I’ll have you know I always sing “Defying Gravity” before I come to work.
With the fourth edition of “Dynamics of Media Writing” set to debut in August, and with the third edition of “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing” having just published, it seemed like a good time to add some extra value to the books.
The biggest need people tend to express in reviewing textbooks is the need for more exercises. A friend hit me with an email about that just the other week:
Really hoping to find a text that offers enough exercises so we don’t have to require an exercise book.
I get it and that’s one of the reasons why we shifted from the exercise books that accompanied the texts to the blog approach. Kids pay a lot of money for school, so if we can give them everything they need for less, hey, I’m a big fan.
That said, asking for more exercises is a lot like when Amy says, “What are you thinking about for dinner?” I usually have no idea, as she often asks this right after we eat a huge breakfast, and I’m more of a “eat whatever is near me when I’m hungry” type of guy.
So, to better guide the focus of my summer work that will include both learning how to weld sheet metal and creating some more exercises for you all, I need some help. I also figure it’s a good time to ask this now, as most of you have just finished a semester, so the “Holy hell, do these kids need more practice doing XYZ” angst is likely fresh in your minds.
1) What topics are most in need of exercises for your kids? Look at the chapters in either or both books and see what things I’ve written about that your students struggle with the most. That could be broader topics like grammar or interviewing, or it could be more specific things like how to write an obituary or a press release.
2) What format of exercise is most likely going to help you meet those needs? I tend to categorize these things into a few basic areas:
Memory Exercises: Think multiple choice, true false, pick the right word, matching game etc. This is when you want them to know what FOCII stands for or which ethical paradigm is reflected in the phrase “justice is blind.”
Explainer Exercises: Think short answer or mini-essays where they have to tell you what they were thinking about and why. That could be something like, “Explain the difference between AI and generative AI” or “List five things that are wrong with this lead.”
Just Do It Exercises: Think about things where the rubber meets the road and the kid actually has to create something that demonstrates competency at the task. It could be building a press release out of a collection of facts, rewriting a meeting story to better fit the inverted-pyramid format or using press releases to write leads.
Hit me up with this and I’ll add your needs to the pile. Once I get the pile built, I’ll share with the class.
(Rare footage of Wisconsin Badger Hockey fans either taunting an opposing goalie for failing to make a save or mocking Pam Bondi for not running a tighter ship when it comes to stopping sources from leaking information to the media… )
[T]he Bondi memo appears to have rescinded a specific provision protecting journalists from Justice Department subpoenas, court orders and search warrants based on the “receipt, possession, or publication” of classified information.
This change would make it easier for Justice Department attorneys to pursue journalists to identify confidential sources in reporting that involves leaks — like the Pentagon Papers or Watergate. And that could chill news reporting in the public interest.
THE MEMO: Bondi’s four-page explanation for her rollback of the protections put in place more than a decade ago under Merrick Garland offers both shot across the bow at journalists who receive and use leaked material as well as a general disdain for journalists generally:
Without question, it is a bedrock principle that a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy. The Department of Justice will defend that principle, despite the lack of independence of certain members of the legacy news media.
My takeaway is bloggers, as non-legacy news media, are safe to be completely dependent upon whomever they want for cash and prizes while taking leaked documents. So… Send your cryptocurrency bribes and emails about TrumpCoin to the email address linked on the blog’s About Us page…
Also, this feels more like an angry wedding party host giving a toast more than a serious memo at this point: “I’d like to say congratulations to Jill, the bride, my sister and my best friend. I will always be there for you, even though you slept with my prom date while I was throwing up in the bathroom at after prom. Still, love you, Jill! Jack, welcome to our family, and you might want to get a blood test… ”
And then there’s this…
This Justice Department will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people. “Where a Government employee improperly discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness—all ultimately designed to sow chaos and distrust in Government—this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous.”8
A lot of suppositions there, not the least of which is that stuff “could” be treasonous or that all disclosures they want to attack are also definitely meant to undermine policies, victimize agencies and hurt people. By the way, the quote is from one of Trump’s executive orders, as are several other footnoted passages. Just one more reason to read the footnotes before assuming the content is valid.
The memo demonstrated why she probably should have hired one of those journalists she is now targeting to do some proofreading and copy editing:
The Attorney General must also approve efforts to question or arrest members of thew news media.
(Emphasis mine)
SO HOW FREAKED OUT SHOULD YOU BE? I wanted to run this past a couple of my “legal eagle” friends to basically get two questions answered before I posted about this:
What is essentially going on here?
How freaked out should journalism folks be about this and why?
Starting with the answer to number one, the legal folks explained that we do not have a nationwide press-shield law, nor an unfettered reporter’s privilege to legally keep the government at bay indefinitely. The case of Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) established that reporters can be compelled to break confidentiality agreements with sources if the government feels it is important that they do so.
As one of the legal folks noted, this isn’t just Trump being Trump about stuff he doesn’t like. Other administrations have also poked the media in a similar fashion when the situation benefited them:
“Many admins have used their federal investigative powers to harass journalists — Nixon famously, but definitely GW Bush and even Obama and certainly the Trump 1 admin. Merrick Garland as AG issued a memo saying his justice department wouldn’t do that, but that’s just guidance, it’s not binding. Congress had a chance to pass the PRESS Act in December provide more protection by law, but Trump told the GOP to kill it, and they did.”
As for number two, the answer basically comes down to, “Be as freaked out as you normally would be about dealing with leaks, because you never really had a lot of protection to begin with.” As one of those legal eagles put it:
“Congress has never passed a shield law, or Free Flow of Information Act, so our legal protection has always been in that weird middle space left by Powell’s concurring opinion in Branzburg.
“We still have a little bit of protection if there’s evidence the government is acting in bad faith or retaliation or harassment against journalists instead of having a bona fide need to get information they can’t get otherwise.
“I think this is more about undoing anything the Biden admin did than anything practically different. We all knew Trump and his admin would go after journalists — he’s been clear about that since before he was elected the first time.”
Essentially, the law itself hasn’t really changed, nor has anyone really stood up for journalists on the federal level (states have passed shield laws here and there, but that doesn’t apply when the fed comes calling). That said, it’s the enforcement that’s likely to be more of a concern.
“Trump and anyone serving in his administration see journalists who report things they don’t like as the enemy. They will target them for retaliation and force their newsrooms (if they work for one) to invest resources to fight in court. Bondi just gave the green light for that. Nixon would be proud.”
(SNIP)
“If anything, I think it’s aimed at trying to scare journalists from publishing leaks — or to scare leakers that journalists may not be able to protect them.”
“I’m not sure that’s gonna work, but it’s definitely the message Trump wants to send.”
DISCUSSION STARTER: What are your thoughts on the Bondi memo as well as the history of the government not solidifying a national media-protection act of some kind? Would that make you more or less worried about what to do if you received important information via a leak?
Meet Elizabeth Hubbell, a 25-year-old skin-care expert who is willing to be a great source for your next story on anything makeup or skin-care related. She’s actually completely fabricated. Her picture came from an AI generation site and her name is a combination of my car (Betsy) and a baseball player whose card I had laying around (Carl Hubbell). Careful. It’s dangerous out there…
When it comes to doing interviews, I always tell students they need to do them in person. In response, they often look at me like I’m asking them to use a teletype machine or some semaphore flags. It’s easier, faster and more convenient for both parties if they can do a text, a chat or an email interview, the students say.
I argue that the face-to-face interview allows for a deeper connection for profile and feature pieces. This approach also can prevent sources in news stories from weaseling out of answers they could otherwise work through via several drafts of an email. Plus, if I spend some time in the source’s environment, I can probably find a personal effect that could give us something to talk about, like a family photo, a kid’s drawing or a sports item. At the very least, it’ll help with scene setting.
Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, anyone can generate comment, on any subject, in an instant.
It is a technology that appears to have fuelled a rise in expert commentators who have appeared widely in national newspapers but who are either not real, not what they seem to be or at the very least have CVs which do not justify their wide exposure in major newsbrands.
The rise in dubious commentators has been fuelled by companies that charge the PR industry in order to share quotes via email with journalists who have submitted requests for comment.
Journalist Rob Waugh found that in a number of cases, digital outlets were mass-generating content from these supposed experts, giving everyone from news journalists to PR practitioners the exact the quote or information they needed on a wide array of topics. However, when challenged to engage more deeply regarding who they are or what they have done in life, the “sources” suddenly had difficulty:
When challenged via email to do something that would be difficult to do with AI image-generating software (send an image of herself with her hand in front of her face) or prove that she was an environment expert, Rebecca stopped communicating.
One AI source, “Barbara Santini,” was particularly prolific in the volume and array of topics she could cover for journalists. Waugh found this roster of publications that had included Santini quotes:
Despite her ability to be all knowing and wise, Santini apparently couldn’t receive phone calls, a relatively easy giveaway that the “person” on the other end is AI. Waugh also found other examples of journalists who were getting taken for a ride by an AI source, including one case where the non-human pitched a sob story about breast cancer survival:
“Seeing my scarred chest in the mirror was a constant reminder of what I had lost,” Kimberly Shaw, 30, told me in an emotional email.
She had contacted me through Help a Reporter Out, a service used by journalists to find sources. I cover skincare and had been using the site to find people for a story about concealing acne scars with tattoos.
<SNIP>
Shaw’s experience may not have been relevant to my acne story, but it tapped into the same feelings of empowerment and control I wanted to explore. Thinking she could inspire a powerful new piece, I emailed her back.
But after days of back-and-forth conversations, something in Shaw’s emails began to feel a little off. After idly wondering to my boyfriend whether she could be a fake, he suggested that I run the emails through a text checker for artificial intelligence.
The result was unequivocal: Shaw’s emails had been machine-generated. I’d been interviewing an AI the entire time.
As a result of Waugh’s story, a number of these information clearinghouses have tried to cull their ranks of AI “experts” while the deceived publications have retooled or removed the stories with fake people in them. Although the founder of one of these “expert mills” blamed much of the situation on “lazy journalists,” he kind of gave up the game a bit when it came to explaining why these platforms don’t prevent the frauds from gaining access in the first place:
Darryl Willcox, who founded ResponseSource in 1997 and sold it in 2018, says that the simplicity and speed of platforms like ResponseSource is key to their appeal and that attempts to add authentication risk slowing down the system.
Willcox said: “The other factor which complicates things a little bit is that these platforms are quite an open system. Once a journalist makes a request they can be forwarded around organisations, and sometimes between them, and often PR agencies are acting for multiple parties, and they will be forwarded onto their many clients.”
In other words, “If we slowed down to make sure things were accurate, we wouldn’t be as appealing as we want to be.” Eeesh.
So what can you to to avoid quoting a fake person? The overarching theme is basically, “Don’t be a lazy journalist,” but here are a few more specific tips:
TRUST, BUT VERIFY: The old Russian proverb really comes into play here and for good reason. I often say that paranoia is my best friend and has kept me out of a ton of problems. To that larger point, not only did I click on every link I could find in Waugh’s story, I also Googled the hell out of Waugh himself. Why? I imagined that it would be the most epic “Punk’d” moment on Earth if the media world was flocking to this story about AI screwing with journalists, only to find out that Rob Waugh was also an AI fake. I found LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, media staff pages and at least a dozen photos. I wouldn’t bet the house on the fact he’s real, but I’d probably bet the lawn tractor.
This can be harder in situations like the one involving the cancer scammer, as regular people tend not to have as big of a social media presence or digital footprint. That said, even regular people under the age of retirement should have left a few breadcrumbs out there for you to find.
KICK THE TIRES: If you can’t find the person clearly through a digital search, feel free to play a little game of 20 Questions to see if you can get some things ironed out. Experts who have kicked the tires on a few bots can offer you specific ways to ask questions that will tend to ferret out fakers. The author in the cancer-scam story revealed that asking for specific photos based on prior conversations can be helpful as well.
I learned about this kind of thing in trying to defeat scams when it came to buying sports memorabilia. When unknown sellers offered either exactly what I wanted when I couldn’t find it anywhere else or provided me with a ridiculously low price for something I knew should cost more, the pros who had been around the block a few times suggested I ask the seller to “coin the image.”
What this meant was that I wanted the person to take a picture of the item with a coin (usually asking for either heads or tails, or maybe even a specific coin) so I could tell they had the item and weren’t messing with me. Turned out, that advice helped me dodge a bullet or two. As weird as it might seem, asking someone to take a picture with their left hand raised or holding a quarter with “heads” showing might help you avoid a problem.
If that can’t happen for legitimate reasons (the person lives too far away etc.), look for other ways to get some human connection with the source. That could be a Zoom/Teams/Whatever video chat or an actual phone call at an actual phone number. In the cases where the frauds proliferated, it was pretty clear that the only connection between the source and the journalist was through a keyboard. That’s especially dangerous when you don’t have a prior relationship with a source.
WHEN IN DOUBT, DO WITHOUT: At the end of the day, there is no journalistic rule that says you have to use a source, a quote or a “fact” just because you have it. If you don’t feel comfortable with how a source is providing you with information or you aren’t 100% sure this person is a person, it’s better to leave that source out of your story than it is to run the risk of getting bamboozled.
If you say, “Well, the whole story will fall apart without this one source and I can’t get anyone else to provide me with this information,” maybe that’s more revealing than anything else we’ve said here.
