Most days I like my job. Tuesday I didn’t.
I watched a colleague’s professional reputation go up in smoke, as it was revealed he had made up the name and occupation of a person he quoted in a recent story.
But I didn’t just watch. As the person in the Tribune’s editorial department charged with investigating complaints of error, irregularity or ethical lapse in our journalism, I was a participant.
Former Tribune foreign correspondent Uli Schmetzer’s was the second case in which I’ve been involved as public editor that reached the point of separation–the first was columnist Bob Greene’s. That’s not much experience, but on the basis of it I would say that it never gets easier.
The Schmetzer case started with an e-mail sent at 9:50 p.m. Sunday by Tim Blair, a reader in Sydney. Blair, who operates a Web “blog” (“Welcome to the Australia of Tim Blair, journalist, commentator and oppressor”), seems to have set himself up as a kind of independent monitor of the press.
He wrote:
Dear Mr. Wycliff,
In a recent article … your journalist, Uli Schmetzer, quotes an Australian psychiatrist named Graham Thorn saying the following about Australian aborigines: “These people always complain. They want it both ways: their way and our way. They want to live in our society and be respected, yet they won’t work. They steal, they rob and they get drunk. And they don’t respect the laws.”
This quote is extraordinary, for two reasons: one, it’s a perfect summary (almost a parody) of the views believed held (but rarely expressed) by those Australians inclined towards racism, and two: it apparently came from a psychiatrist.
It doesn’t ring true. I’ve e-mailed Mr. Schmetzer asking for further details, but have had no response.
I’ve also had no luck locating a psychiatrist by the name of Graham Thorn.
My suspicion is that Thorn has either offered a quote in which he described the views held by others, and has had those views attributed to himself, or that the quote and the source were invented.
Please clarify.
We have a standard procedure in the Public Editor’s office for handling questions or complaints. We send it first to the reporter involved and his or her supervisor, with the request that they look into the matter and let me and my colleague Margaret Holt know if some sort of corrective action is called for. The feeling is that, as professionals, the reporters deserve the first chance to rectify errors.
Thanks to the culture that has been carefully nurtured in the Tribune newsroom through the administrations of the last three executive editors, this standard request usually produces either a correction or an explanation why one isn’t warranted. If neither is forthcoming in a reasonable period of time, Holt or I will follow up until we get a satisfactory response.
Crucially, in cases where there is ambiguity or reasonable disagreement, our standard for what is satisfactory is what best serves the reader. Our pride as an organization or a reporter’s professional pride are important, but providing clear, accurate information for readers is of utmost importance.
In the case of Tim Blair’s letter, I followed a variation on the standard procedure, sending it to Tim McNulty, the associate managing editor for foreign news, and Kerry Luft, the foreign editor, with this request: “Would you please query Uli on this and let me know the result so I can respond to this reader. Thanks.”
The last thing I expected was that we would learn what we did.
It took Schmetzer two tries, but he admitted his fabrication of the name, Graham Thorn, and the occupation, psychiatrist. And he did so fully aware that this would mean the end of his association with the Tribune, where he had worked, as a staff member or a freelancer, for two decades.
Part of the fallout from an event like this is to force a review of the reporter’s previous work, with a view to correcting the record if any other falsifications are found. We have begun that review, looking in detail at each of the more than 300 stories Schmetzer wrote over the last three years. Schmetzer has assured us there were no other incidents like the Graham Thorn fabrication and has promised his cooperation.
We already know of a different kind of ethical problem. In 1994 the Far Eastern Economic Review complained to the Tribune about similarities between portions of one of its stories on endangered exotic animals and portions of a Schmetzer story written a short time later. The top management of the newsroom at the time found the complaint sufficiently compelling that it issued a serious formal reprimand and warned him that any repetition would result in more severe consequences. This incident, however, played no role in the action taken because of the Feb. 24 fabrication.
So what is to be learned from this episode of journalistic misfeasance?
One lesson, surely, is that no news organization is immune to this sort of thing because none can operate without investing trust in its front-line troops, the reporters and photographers in the field. Everyone else–editors and readers alike–is at the mercy of the individual reporter and his or her sense of honor and commitment to truth. When the reporter works alone, far from the home office and out of regular touch with the community and readers that the organization serves, the degree of trust required is even greater.
A second lesson is that no system of checks and balances, no matter how sophisticated or deeply ingrained, can catch every error, distortion or lie. But this cannot be an excuse for not adopting every reasonable check and balance available.
Schmetzer’s Aborigine story, like every story that goes into the paper, got at least three readings by editors in the newsroom, but the made-up name and occupation attached to that quote still made it into print. Would an additional reading have made a difference? Perhaps–if it had been done through eyes with the unique life experience and perceptiveness of a Tim Blair.
One last lesson comes to mind: It could be that technology already is providing us a kind of ultimate check in the form of the Internet. In the past, national and foreign correspondents could roam the country or the world writing stories about people who would never see their work. In the Internet age, there are fewer and fewer places where the Chicago Tribune–or the Waxahachie Daily Light, for that matter–cannot be accessed and read critically by people about whom we write. And that is a very good thing.
