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Reporter confesses to quoting nun from memory & other journalistic sins

avatar by Published June 27, 2012 3:44 pm Updated June 27, 2012 3:47 pm

MonroeNews.com
Jeff Meade’s column is ostensibly a warning to journalism students, but it sure reads like he’s boasting about some of the things he’s gotten away with:

• Getting two sets of quotes from a coach so he could write a story quickly and get to a party.

I interviewed him before the game and he gave me two sets of quotes — one if they lost and the other if they won.

He used all the cliches coaches use: they/we wanted it more, they/we were more focused, they/we played with more heart.

I was able to write the story in 15 minutes and got to the party with time to spare.

• Dating a source (who happened to be a beauty queen)

I was the new reporter in town interviewing the newly crowned Miss Belding.

When she found out I had just started at the paper, she offered to show me around the city, kind of as a goodwill ambassador. So I asked her out to dinner.

• Making up quotes.

Who needs notes?: I had interviewed a nun who played shortstop for one of the local women’s softball teams.

All of my interview was written down in my reporter’s notebook that I lost in Kalamazoo while covering the state tennis finals.

There was no way I was ever going to find these notes.

I should have called the nun back and confessed, but instead wrote the story from memory complete with quotations.

She liked the story, didn’t complain and no one was ever the wiser.

Also he burns a source, but that hardly seems worth mentioning by the time you get to that part of the story. In an email, Local News Editor Doug Donnely writes, “Jeff definitely has his own style and unique way of talking about himself in columns — to me, it’s what makes his columns so interesting.” He continues:

I have not had any reaction from the public to this point. I suspect since most of the items he was writing about were harmless enough that readers got a kick out of them rather than being offended by them.

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  • Anonymous

    I agree with the “sinfulness” of all but the final transgression. How many times have you had a conversation with someone only to have them tell you “by the way, that’s off the record” at the end? I have multiple times and it’s not like I ever covered anything more than community scuttlebutt. 

    At that point, I feel as though you have a judgment call to make. Off the record or “don’t put [this] in the newspaper]” is an up-front, to be agreed upon by both parties, decision. It’s not retroactive. When it happens, I think you have to weigh the value of upsetting a source – potentially burning bridges – with the relevance of the information.

    Unless off-the-record does apply retroactively, I guess. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=656715835 Andrew Beaujon

    Thanks, I just posted something about that: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/179450/reporters-confession-no-longer-online/

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Lange/100000489723304 Mike Lange

    He must have really irritated someone. The link to the page with the original story is a dead end.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Ollier-Weber/1226898860 David Ollier Weber

    The M.O. was good enough for Truman Capote.

  • Anonymous

    This reminds me of when the HBO series “The Wire” focused on the media, specifically the Baltimore Sun. The tactics of the ambitious reporter and his enabling managment were part of the show’s larger context of institutional corruption. 
    This so-called reporter, Mr. Meade, is essentially bragging about getting away with something. His editor lets it slide, even covers for Meade by saying the content/stories he’s covering aren’t important enough, no public complaints, etc.  Is that the standard Donnely uses overall? If nobody complains, no big deal?
    So if Meade gets an “important” assignment, loses his notes or simply continues to be a lazy, self-serving careerist, will he take the same action and Donnely follow the same “standard”? No wonder the public’s trust and opinion of journalism is moving downward. Can’t attribute it all to Fox.

  • http://profiles.google.com/wenalway Robert Knilands

    “particularly among copy editors and headline writers” — seriously? More than the zillion times a writer — especially a sportswriter — simply assumed a detail and went with it, without looking it up?

    I guarantee those occasions are far more frequent than the ones you mention. In addition, some of the things you mention are the result of poorly written stories that someone had to decipher just to try to get a headline.

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  • Anonymous

    well, shrug. it was his first job. people in upper eschelons of tv probably do worse every day (staging video, lifting info from all maner of sources without attributon etc. etc). the one thing he notes that is of real significance to young reporters is: don’t EVER trust your memory – unless you are absolutely, 100 percent, bet-your-life-on-it sure that what your are remembering is true and accurate. your memory can sort of play tricks on you, sometimes to disasterous consequences.

    another one (not mentioned here) is: do not presume anything. not anything. i have seen violations of this rule of mine create more errors in newspapers, particularly among copy editors and headline writers, than anything else i can think of.

    so, be careful out there, you young whippersnappers.