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Good journalism relies on some key attributes: accuracy, transparency, fairness, trust, and accountability. I wanted to discuss these issues broadly, but specifically in relation to Jacques Pauw and the false claims he made regarding his arrest on 06 Feb.
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Let's understand first how these attributes work and intersect. ACCURACY is not about being 'right', it is about using good-quality, credible information, & using it in an appropriate context. i.e. not using inaccurate info, nor using accurate info in a way intended to mislead
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TRANSPARENCY shows the way journalism works. It shows method, describes sources. There should be no sleight of hand in journalism. If course, sometimes the nature of the work requires anonymous sources – which should still be described but require TRUST.
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FAIRNESS is perhaps harder to define, but it implies neither persecuting not exonerating subjects unfairly, it involves attempts at being impartial and objective (this is also a human practice, so it is imperfect). It involves acknowledging bias & working to address it.
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Journalism also relies on a huge amount of TRUST. And this is something that individual journalists, editors, and titles cultivate over time. Reasonably, you cannot explain every micro detail in a 1200-word story, so a level of reader trust is also essential in the system.
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This is not be blind, unquestioning trust. How trust works, within journalism, is for e.g. an editor allowing a reporter to follow a hunch, a lead, a tip, that is not yet proven, and seeing if there is proof. A lot of journalism is about investigating and proving unknowns
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Building trust in journalism & media is also what allows us to – when absolutely necessary and there is no other option – use anonymous sources, where a source has to be protected. Here, we can say: judge me by the credible work I have done before, know my work is credible now
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There is a flip side to this, which is called 'ERROR'. Journalists make mistakes. Sometimes it is because we were lazy, sometimes it is because we were misled by sources, sometimes by our biases. Making a mistake is ok, provided it is corrected – through transparency, for eg.
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In journalism, mistakes can have very serious consequences (see: ACCOUNTABILITY), but they are not the same as deliberate attempts at deception. It must be acceptable for a journalist to say : 'I was misled'. It must never be acceptable for a journalist to say 'I misled you'
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What Jacques Pauw did, was he broke all of these tenets when he published a false statement about the events that led to his arrest on 06 February. He must be accountable for the consequences of this, but the impact is much more than just his person.
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For many people on Twitter, Pauw is a figure you know of but do not know. For many of us in media it is different: we know or have worked with him, or interviewed him, or are acquainted with him, or are even friends with him. Journalism is a community & this is not unusual.
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Yesterday a handful of people trolled me because I had initially tweeted a supportive reply to Jacques when I read his (first, false) account about being arrested. What they failed maybe to understand was how directly & manipulatively Jacques abused his colleagues' trust.
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People on Twitter also need to understand that, however you think you 'know' a person based on their online or public persona, they are also a real person, who people know IRL. If you knew and worked with a person, in real life, you would probably trust them (more) too.
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I also saw posts saying 'of course it was untrue because we know white men don't get arrested'. This is not correct. Maybe I know dodgy people, but I know a large number of white men who have been arrested, and held in a cell over a weekend. This is often alcohol related
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Arresting people on a Fri or Sat & keeping them in a cell until they can go in front of a judge on Monday is fairly common, and it's often wielded in a punitive manner (our police are not supposed to be our judges). So part of Pauw's initial claim seemed at least plausible
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The thing is, Pauw – who has reported on crime and justice for decades – knew this too, and he also crafted a version of a story that, while wild, also had elements of plausibility. He exploited the tropes and memes of how the systems work. To what end, who knows.
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There is a large and justifiably angry collective of people demanding Pauw's personal accountability. And that must happen.
But the damage that he did to the institution of journalism is, for me, far worse than anything he did to his own reputation.
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But the damage that he did to the institution of journalism is, for me, far worse than anything he did to his own reputation.
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Pauw's actions undermine journalists' trust in each other. And this is such an essential part of a functioning newsroom, that this is bad news. It also massively undermines public trust in journalism & the media structures that are supposed to catch and stop shit like this.
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Maybe a way to explain it is... when I get in my car, I don't check the brakes each time because I assume they will work, because I service my car regularly etc. This is the kind of trust audiences need to be able to have in media, and in the mechanics (the journalists?).
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I want to finish by saying that, as journalists/editors, we are actually often pretty shit at calling out our colleagues – except in certain cases (SARS rogue unit, and so on?). What @Eusebius said about us needing to engage is spot on: https://twitter.com/Eusebius/status/1361902150918549504
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