by Tom Pantera
Columnist

My friend Charles did his master’s thesis on how social media like Twitter and Facebook are affecting the way newsrooms operate. For those of us in the news business, as well as those of us in academia, it’s a really interesting subject. And Charles – who, as an intern at the Denver Post last summer was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize — knows the subject backwards and forwards.

Charles spent two weeks hanging out at a major Midwestern newspaper and watching how they used social media. He also talked to editors and reporters. And what he found – this surprised me a little, although it shouldn’t have – is that when it comes to using social media, that particular newsroom is something of a cluster (and if you don’t know what that means, keep in mind it’s only half a word). They really don’t know what they’re doing and whatever steps they’re taking to remedy that are being taken slowly and rather haphazardly.

Now, that might seem like the kind of thing only academics and newspaper people would be interested in, but it actually has implications for those of you out there who are consumers of news.

When the Boston bombings happened, I was glued to the television like everybody else. But I also watched it with a critical, professional eye. I was not thrilled with what I saw. The coverage was pretty crappy in a lot of ways.

Editors have a sort of two-headed commandment for reporters: Get it first and get it right. What’s made coverage of breaking news go downhill in recent years, though, is that one head has taken on greater prominence. Now, it seems, getting it first is more important.

That’s a problem. There are virtues to being both first and right, but if a reporter gets it first but gets it wrong he’s screwed up. Bad information is worse than no information at all, both because it doesn’t serve the reader or viewer and it creates rumors.

But a lot of people who run newsrooms only see the getting it fast part, because they can use it to market the brand. They can trumpet in their ads how their reporters were on the scene and got the news out first.

The thing is, I’ve always wondered if that really matters to news consumers. I’ve had a scoop or two in my career, some of them fairly significant. The last time I covered a murder in Fargo, I had it before anybody (and I even had the name of the victim on the first day, which is extremely unusual for a newspaper). As the editor of this paper, I even once or twice scooped everybody in town on a story and that’s almost unheard of for a weekly newspaper. And a scoop is the thing every reporter craves; when you get one, you want to climb up on top of the building, pound your chest and bellow like King Kong.

But I never, in more than three decades in the news biz, got an attaboy from a reader for getting the story before anybody else. People in Fargo-Moorhead were often very kind to me and I got more than my share of compliments on stories, but nobody ever patted me on the back for that particular accomplishment.

I’m not surprised by that. People are busy. Anybody who has the time to keep score on which local news outlet got a story first really needs more to do.

But because news is a highly competitive business – arguably more competitive than any other – inside the newsroom getting it first is a Big Deal. I suppose that’s true in other realms, where work output is judged on criteria that the customer really doesn’t know or care about.

The difference is that in the news business, our work product is entirely public. There’s an old, rueful saying: Doctors bury their mistakes, lawyers visit theirs in jail and reporters publish theirs for the whole world to see. And it’s true. I’ve made some big, honkin’ mistakes in my career and the worst part is that there’s no way I could have ever covered them up. Hell, I had to publicly correct them. If you’ve never had to do that, I can tell you it’s deeply humbling.

So when reporters and editors choose speed over accuracy, it’s painfully obvious. And because profit margins in the news business are getting thinner than they used to be, the people that run it will grasp at any straw that will make their outfit look better. Thus, you get quick reports of nonexistent arrests and you get innocent people identified as criminals.

I’m not excusing that. On the contrary, it sickens me as a professional. It’s not only stupid and shortsighted. It’s morally wrong. It violates the very reason most of us become journalists. It’s one of those cases where we worry about our wallets at the expense of things we ought to be worrying about.

As news consumers, you out there have a role to play in solving the problem. Feel free to complain. Every time a news organization gets away with such shoddy work, it becomes a little easier to do a bad job. But if you people out there hold their feet to the fire, it’ll serve as a good and needed reality check for those who deliver the news to you.

But even if you do that, it will be up to editors and news directors and their bosses to listen. If they don’t, they’ll take the first steps on the road to being irrelevant. That’s not good for anybody.