Unconfirmed Reports

by Dan Ward

I absolutely love this line from Buffalo News TV Critic Alan Pergament, explaining why he took several days to write about the use of “unconfirmed reports” in recent news stories:

I tend to do something that is increasingly rare and practically impossible to do in media circles these days:  think before acting.

Pergament was speaking specifically of news reports the previous week about a potential gunman on the University of Buffalo campus, news reports that were spurred by text messages and Facebook/Twitter posts.

Though the university and police were unable to confirm rumors of a gunman (as the story points out, no gunman was found, and there were no reports of shots fired), local media ran with the story.  Act first, ask questions later.

My first instinct was to bash those outlets for airing unconfirmed rumors that could have started a panic.  But as Pergament points out, that ship has sailed.  “Local TV stations and newspapers practically have no choice now but to address rumors for fear that they will look foolish if what they ignore turns out to be true,” he writes.

So I’ve given up thinking that traditional media will stop trying to compete with 100 million Facebook news feeds and instead serve as a voice of reason.

Instead, I see it as more important than ever that we as professional communicators take on that role.  Like the news media, we must be prepared to respond at a moment’s notice to emerging social media reports, but we can’t lose sight of our responsibility to avoid speculation and report factual information.  We have a responsibility to our clients, our organizations and the public to follow Pergament’s example, and think before acting.

More from the Scary Front Lines

by Roger Pynn

I’m not sure what I’m more frightened by … the increasingly common use of unidentified sources by what I used to think of as respectable media outlets or the steady movement toward an online world where your most trusted source is totally anonymous.

Google’s acquisition of a company Mechanical Zoo Inc., operators of a social media search service known as Aardvark was reported by The Wall Street Journal’s Scott Morrison suggesting a price of the transaction by quoting a blog that it said cited an unnamed source.

“Terms weren’t disclosed, but tech blog TechCrunch, citing an unnamed source, pegged the price at about $50 million.”

But, having assumed that those standards are about as important today as teen virginity, I moved on to explore the story because Google has been up to some pretty intriguing stuff in the past week as it scrambles to capitalize on its cloud power to rain on Facebook’s parade with Buzz, and its ability to turn your contacts file into a personalized social network.

By gobbling up Aardvark, Google seems to have done away with the need for confirmed sources not just in the news business, but in our lives. I often refer back to my partner Dan Ward’s classic post back “In Anonymous We Trust,” but this takes our willingness to trust blind sources to a new level.

Listen to this faux conversation that Aardvark uses on its Web site to demonstrate the process it uses in its free question and answer system where Morrison says you ask question and it searches your network of social media contacts for the best person to answer:

Questioner: What’s a great bike path around Golden Gate Park? (Sent 11:16 a.m. PDT)
Responder: My favorite is a secret trail that takes you to the beach … (Sent 11:20 a.m. PDT)

Notice to Questioner: Did you ever stop to think Responder may be a predator? Why not just jump into a conversation with “it” and see if you can get directions to hook up? Maybe we’ll read about you in The Examiner when they find your remains next week “alongside a secret trail that leads to the beach in Golden Gate Park.”