December 28, 2010
“Show me the document!” should be the newsroom rule
On Dec. 20, the FCC passed its Open Internet Order—a high-profile rulemaking that tackles the highly controversial issue of net neutrality. The day before this vote, I began researching my mobile blog post for CNN.com about the rule. My very first thought was: “What’s really in the final version of the rule that’s about to be voted on?” Since almost every mainstream news outlet was already reporting on the rule’s contents, I assumed that the final rule must be available. But I soon learned that the rule was actually a secret…
By Amy Gahran
In fact, the FCC didn’t release the full text of the final Open Internet Order (which ran nearly 200 pages) until two days after the vote. Before, during, and immediately after the vote, only two and a half pages of FCC-selected “snippets” of the order were published, along with remarks by FCC officials and speculation by experts.
This didn’t stop many major news organizations from covering the order in a way which implied that it was already a matter of public record. (Examples: Los Angeles Times, Reuters, and Associated Press. UPDATE: This list originally named “MSNBC” among the examples; but that story was actually a syndicated story from Reuters.)
There were some exceptions, fortunately. For instance, Brian Stelter mentioned in his Dec. 20 New York Times article that some FCC officials spoke to him “only on the condition of anonymity because the FCC order has not been made public.”
So what? This isn’t the first government regulation that wasn’t published before a final vote. Also, the limited high-level information about this order which the FCC released before the vote turned out to be generally accurate—so stories based on this information were not off-target.
However, such stories did naturally focus on the aspects of the rule which the FCC chose to discuss. These points were hotly debated from many perspectives—but meanwhile, huge swaths of the rule remained largely unknown and unexamined.
What bothered me about this incident is that a basic tenet of journalism is to clarify what is demonstrably known, versus what people say. This is the dividing line between facts and spin.
The “what we know vs. what they say” distinction is especially crucial when covering government at any level—from federal to local, and from legislatures to agencies and public offices. Compromise is a basic and inevitable part of how government works, but government officials often prefer to keep tradeoffs quiet until after they’ve become “facts on the ground.” And the evidence of compromise often lies in the wording of documents.
The time to hold public officials accountable for their tradeoffs, compromises, and deals is before their decisions become final. This comes down to something as simple as clearly citing your sources—and telling people when a proposed public policy is being kept secret.
So I’d recommend this newsroom rule: The digital version of any coverage of legislation or regulations should link to the current version of the relevant full-text documents. This is especially important for new laws or rules up for vote or final approval, but it also can apply to laws and rules that play a significant role in any news coverage.
This practice doesn’t have to take any extra work beyond basic journalistic verification. Also, links can be added quickly, without interrupting the narrative flow of a story.
If the necessary document isn’t already posted online, request an electronic copy and post it to your site or via a service such as Scribd.com. Or at the very least, tell your audience that you’ve really seen the document in question, not merely heard it described or summarized.
If (as was the case with the FCC’s Open Internet Order) a key government document is being withheld from public scrutiny, especially at a key juncture such as before a final vote, be sure to mention this fact clearly to your audience. Don’t just say “the bill says” or “the rule would” when you actually are reporting on descriptions offered by insiders about unreleased information.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski lauded the Open Internet rulemaking process as “one of the most transparent in FCC history.” Several news organizations quoted his assertion; few challenged it.
Proving that a full source document exists and is not a secret can immensely bolster the transparency, credibility, and accountability of news organizations. It proves that journalists are actually keeping an eye on what government is doing—and it encourages citizens to do likewise. Also, routinely offering such proof in news coverage (or citing its absence) pushes government to be more accountable.
Perceptions matter: Even though most people won’t care to read the ugly, tortured language in which most laws and regulations are written, they like to know when rules or laws that might affect them are a secret.
When your wording implies that you’ve seen source documents that aren’t available, you imply that government is behaving more transparently and accountably than is the case. Journalists should not be complicit with concealing how the government’s sausage gets made.
Comments
It wouldn’t surprise me if this is standard operating procedure for a number of federal agencies
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission don’t releae the full text of proposed rules until after they are voted on.
And it can take days to get the approved text when the House or the Senate passes a bill
By Ted Knutson, 12/29/10 at 9:57 am
I am glad you are pointing this out Michele. Journalism is becoming more superficial every year and it’s very unfortunate.
As a journalist and news consumer, it angers me that all these respectable news organizations didn’t bother to inform the public that only a select part of the document was made public.
It’s skewed reporting and completely agree that “Journalists should not be complicit with concealing how the government’s sausage gets made.”
Jackie B Diaz
By jackiebdiaz, 12/29/10 at 2:09 pm
A good model for how newsrooms handle this might the evolution of attribution in recent years.
The plain old ‘unnamed sources” have given way to a far more nuanced hierarchy of attributions in the interest of transparency, where we not only describe the named source in greater detail (their organizational affiliation, their expertise, etc.), but often also why they want to remain less than fully identified.
That kind of transparency could hold as well with the “black letter” source material we use - whether it’s publicly available or not, or even how we obtained it (short of compromising a source), etc.
By A. Adam Glenn, 12/31/10 at 10:15 am
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