Editor’s note: The Daily will run a media literacy column by Sarah Cavanah, interim executive director of Oklahoma Scholastic Media and former Daily staff writer, every Tuesday to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at The Daily and media coverage in general.
Friday’s edition of The Daily included a critique of The Daily’s coverage of the Norman water-rate vote by assistant professor David Vishanoff, who took The Daily to task for over reliance on government sources for its coverage.
I really don’t know much about Norman’s water supply, but I do know that Vishanoff’s letter speaks to a long-running debate in journalism about sourcing.
More than 30 years ago, sociologist Gaye Tuchman coined the term “facticity.” Simply put, facticity is involved in the tendency of journalists to give greater credence to official sources, like government officials, business executives and other professional communicators. The guy with the picket sign about water rates on the corner of Main Street and Flood Avenue? Not so much.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Official sources do tend to have a lot of knowledge within their fields.
Tuchman would point out that water board commissioners deal with water issues every day, and therefore compile a lot of information about water. We even teach students in journalism classes to make sure that they consult with official sources.
Students also are encouraged to find unofficial sources, but the reality is that we don’t quite push as hard for those sources to be included, and many times, if they are, they come in the form of relatively uninformed “man on the street” interviews.
The danger is that official sources can take over the news.
They often know exactly how to package the info for quick consumption and in formats that are journalist-friendly.
Picket-sign guy? He wants to talk for three hours in the hot sun about pipeline carrying capacity.
In an ideal situation, the reporter would do that. But when that reporter has to talk to three other sources for that story, plus six others for the other two stories he or she is doing that day? At that point, the official source with the condensed news release starts to look really good.
But anyone can beat the system. If you’re an unofficial source with a point of view, play the game like an official source: provide researched facts, try to condense your stance into one page that can be e-mailed to the reporter and call the newsroom.
You might get rejected, but you definitely will if you don’t try.
— Sarah Cavanah,
professional writing and journalism graduate
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Steven Zoeller 1 year, 8 months ago
"In an ideal situation, the reporter would do that. But when that reporter has to talk to three other sources for that story, plus six others for the other two stories he or she is doing that day? At that point, the official source with the condensed news release starts to look really good."
This disturbed me. In many ways, the Daily is avoiding coming out and just admitting the article was ill-advised. This is too contrived a method of doing that. It also suggests it's understaffed, as they are clearly willing (from the above paragraph) to compromise quality for quantity.
Who gave the guy three stories to do that day? If one story gets shafted in terms of sources, it'd be more respectable to put out two comprehensive stories rather than three with one relying only on official sources. Then you'd have one LESS article like this one giving excuses. Professional newspapers don't print until their bases are covered. And if you're going to refute that with "the Daily's not a professional paper", then it should be obvious why not.
It just doesn't make sense, and it shouldn't be justified. Very disappointing. I can only give them credit for posting the letter itself.