Developing a Nose for Honesty

Warning, there be moralizing here.

Earlier today, I wrote for BNET Media an article titled, Why Is the Press So Freakin' Credulous and Dumb? In it I mention a story about the magazine Paris Match being thoroughly hoaxed by two students who staged a photo essay on student poverty just to show how unquestioning the mainstream press is.

“We pushed the clichés to the limit. We thought the whole thing was so hackneyed that it could never win … We wanted to call into question the inner-workings of the attitude of the kind of media which portrays human distress with complacency and voyeurism,” they said.

I also relate a story debunking that I did last year. (Some regular readers may remember it - an article claiming that Thomas Edison had a rival murdered.)

My point was and is that too many writers and editors are so hungry for a "good" story that they're willing to buy into anything. And that is true. Those wanting to avoid being hoaxed might like to review my 16 tips on verifying information. But there is something even more serious at stake. No technique can help if you are essentially determined to get ahead no matter what the cost. Even when you know better, you will make the wrong choice. Look at Bernie Madoff. A friend said to me earlier today, "He could have invested in savings bonds and still done better." And he knew it, only he was too driven by his desire and by his fear of consequences.

Sometimes writers considering some course of action wonder if they are crossing an ethical bound. The most important rule of thumb, far above the 16 aforementioned tips, is that if you find yourself asking whether you're doing something questionable, chances are that the answer is yes. It could be slightly changing someone's sentence to claim as your own, making up something in a story, poaching another writer's ideas or sources, or even giving a glowing review to a book you've never read. Such actions eat away at the soul and are often eventually uncovered, much to the embarrassment of the perpetrator. The ethical path may sometimes not be as financially rewarding, but you do get the benefit of being able to sleep at night and confront your visage in the mirror the next morning. And, similarly, you have to begin trusting your own nose. When someone has the aroma of the ethically challenged, trust your own reaction. At worse you're unnecessarily on guard. At best, you avoid stepping into a mud bath.

16 Tips to Check Information and Avoid Egg on Your Face

I had written this on a whim for The Writer. Now that it's in print, I thought I'd also post it here.

In the 2008 July/August issue of Materials Today, an article discussed a graduate student’s claims of finding evidence that Thomas Edison was involved in a conspiracy to murder a rival. Explosive stuff, that, so why didn’t the author get the piece into a major publication? There was enough evidence in the story that the writer was completely duped, if not trying to pull a fast one herself.

According to the story, Edison wrote in an 1870 diary entry that he got a call from France telling him that the man who first created the moving image, Louis Le Prince, was no more. "Eric called me today from Dijon,” said the writer’s source, who claimed to have verified the handwriting with an expert at the University of New York. “It has been done. Prince is no more. This is good news, but I flinched when he told me. Murder is not my thing. I'm an inventor and my inventions for moving images can now move forward.”

The red flags jumped all over the page. I checked the Web: the first transatlantic call occurred in 1918. Edison would have written that he had been wired, cabled, or telegraphed. There is no “University of New York,” although there are the State University of New York system of schools and New York University. The expert mentioned didn’t seem to exist, nor did the source. And “murder is not my thing?” How 1960s can you get? (There's a full account on one of my blogs.)

Don’t laugh, because writers – and not just beginners – get duped all the time. Back in March, for example, the Los Angeles Times had to publicly apologize for a story it ran that claimed Sean "Diddy" Combs had attacked rapper Tupac Shakur in 1994. The reason was it learned that documents vital to the reporter's story turned out to be good forgeries. Enron duped business journalists for years into thinking that they were on solid financial footing. Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes lost their jobs at CBS over “Rathergate” and reliance on papers critical of George Bush’s military service that would later be challenged as possibly forged.

Most sources, thank heavens, don’t become anywhere nearly as problematic. Yet even in the absence of scandal, there is always the risk that someone will try using you to promote themselves as experts when they are not, pass on biased information because they have axes to grind, or simply pull a prank because they can. It's bad for the story, bad for the readers, bad for the publication, and bad for your professional reputation, because editors start to see you as an easy mark.

You don't have to be. By taking some basic precautions and learning a few techniques, you can weed out questionable material and build stronger reporting. The following 16 tips can help keep you out of hot water:

• Look for the appearance of authority. It's great that the local pizza store owner is an expert numismatist, but when seeking interviews for a freelance article, look for someone who makes a living in the coin collecting industry. The reason publications want sources qualified by third parties is the need to communicate trust to readers and to sift through all the people who will make claims with no basis. Of course experts can be wrong, but there is often a greater chance that they have some real knowledge of the topic.


• Who published that book? A growing number of public speakers and consultants, who want to strengthen their business credentials, become authors. That would be fine if they actually were writing or collaborating on books, but many of them are now going to publication mills that commission ghost writers create the manuscripts and then print copies, sometimes under their own publishing imprints. There's nothing necessarily wrong with what are essentially self-published books; the growing ease of desktop publishing and print on demand is making it easier than ever before. But if a book is self-published, the author had better be a widely acknowledged expert on the subject. A book from a major publisher, known small press, or university still offers some degree of vetting.


• Beware outlandish claims. Although you'd expect writers to understand the power and danger of the written word, many are looking so hard for something that will wow an editor that they aren't sufficiently skeptical. For years there have been some pranksters who dupe the media with often elaborately-constructed hoaxes to make a point of social commentary. But there often you can find one or more clues to something being a prank. For example, is there something that sounds too good to be believed? That should be a red flag. If you get something from an organization or business, check with directory information to see if it has a listed phone number.


• Check that web page. Putting up a web page is a trivial activity, these days. If someone offers a URL as proof of existence, use a tool like whois.net. Look up the domain (for instance, the example.org part of www.example.org). You can see when the domain was first created and last updated as well as the owner of the site. If the site was created or modified very recently or either someone other than the organization owns it (or the owner is concealed through an anonymous service), then you may be the target of a hoax.


• Ask an analyst. So many companies claim to be the top in their industry, it's a wonder that anyone is left to be second, let alone forty-second. But every industry has its market analyst firms, so search the web for one and ask about the business in question. If the expert has never heard of it, find another.


• Ask someone who's been there. Remember how Margaret B. Jones wrote a fake memoir about her life in foster care and running with gangs? How much pain the publisher Penguin Group would have avoided by talking to people who knew the gang scene in LA and asking if what she was turning in sounded plausible. No one exists in isolation, which means there are always people who should know any given person or organization, or at least will know if someone’s experience or background sounds legit. Pick up a phone and ask some of them.


• Do a web search. Go to a web search engine and look for a person's name along with any of a number of key words that could bring up red flags, such as radical or extremist; prosecuted or convicted; bankrupt or bankruptcy; and sued or lawsuit.


• Run a background check. When the topic is particularly important, you could invest as little as $10 to run a background check on someone, looking for criminal records, lawsuits, previous addresses, and property deed transfers that might back-up or refute a claim, or that could throw light on a hidden agenda or potential lack of veracity. Some major names in this are Intellius.com and Knowx.com.


• Check the corporation. Any corporation must have been incorporated somewhere, and that state will have information on its home, officers, and owners. If the person claiming to be CEO of some firm doesn’t appear anywhere in official records, there might be a problem.


• Check the non-profit. With a free basic registration on www.guidestar.com, you can look at an organization's recent IRS non-profit tax forms and learn about an organization's programs and finances. You might find something out about its objectives and intentions, as well.


• Do claims stand up? Be a little cynical. Corporations, organizations, people, and their press representatives make claims about awards, status, or standing. Do a quick check to see how they stand up. I remember having a PR firm pitch a supposed Fortune 500 company as a source for a story I was writing. I had never heard of the company before, although it was in an industry I knew. Curious, I went to Fortune Magazine's list of the Fortune 500. The company didn't appear. When confronted, the sputtering PR rep explained how his client was a "Fortune500-type" company.


• Look for the bad press. A growing number of firms and individuals try to look good by using search engine optimization techniques to create self-serving sites and stories about themselves, pushing more negative information farther down a search list. Look up the company or person, skip the first couple of pages of results, and see what a little more digging turns up. You could also search for the company name and "sucks", "sux", "I hate", and other terms of non-endearment.


• Fire up the Wayback Machine. Remember the cartoon about a dog named Peabody, his boy, Sherman (no relation), and a time travel device called the Wayback Machine? WaybackMachine.org, which keeps archives of web pages all the way back to 1996. If a company has removed potentially embarrassing information from its web site, you might find it there.


• Don’t trust email. I remember reading an article by a Providence, RI music journalist who told the story of thinking he had an email interview with a famous musician, only to find, after it was in print, that the person was a hoaxer.


• Ask a university. Many people claim degrees and school affiliations that simply never existed. If someone says she graduated from Harvard Law School in 1993, call the school and ask, being sure to ask the source for a maiden name if appropriate.


• Is the person really a veteran? There have been a number of cases where people claimed a military background or certain awards or metals although they had no connection. But you can check. It can be a bit complex, but the authors of the book Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History have instructions at their web site, www.stolenvalor.com.
  
  And then there is the most important tool: common sense. When something in a story sounds too good to be true, take the extra few minutes to see if it is.

Being Careful with Sources

In a digital age, it's easier than ever for someone to pretend to be something that he or she is not. This can be a serious issue for a journalist. (In fact, I've got an article coming up in the October issue of The Writer on how to help detect such problems before they happen.) I came across an example of someone pretending on the social networking site Twitter to be from ExxonMobile. A market analyst from Forrester wrote about the "person," assuming that her defense of such things as the Exxon Valdez was real. He never checked out the person, and so looked like a fool in print. It's a danger to take people at electronic face value. Before using comments that someone makes, be sure you know who exactly is making them.

Greatly Improved Profnet Interface

If Profnet's interface has driven you off in search of other tools for finding sources, you might consider giving it another try. I needed to find this morning a type of legal source that Profnet has been helpful in reaching (and I'm guessing that the HARO mailing had already gone out). Happily, they have made some important changes in the interface that makes it more manageable. For example, to set the date, you no longer have to wait for the calendar to come up and then click on the date. Instead, drop down boxes let you quickly pick month, day, and time. Choosing geographic areas all happens with check boxes, and by clicking on one of the associated plus signs, you can immediately expand a given area into its constituent parts. It reminds me of how the service used to work, and is certainly a change for the better.

Scientific Journal Gets Hoaxed

I actually ran this on my photography blog yesterday, but thought that readers of this blog might find it interesting: a scientific journal ran a piece about Thomas Edison supposedly being involved in the murder of a rival, even though there are enough red flags in the text to put you in the running of the bulls in Pamplona. The object lesson is that if a story smells funny, maybe you should take a deeper look before becoming the likely victim of a prank.

Using Blogs to Find People

Ever try to find a high-profile person? One technique that often works is to search on Google for the person's name in quotes along with the word blog. With some luck, the person will have a blog that will, in turn, have a way of contacting him or her. If not a blog, see if the person has a web site with a contact form. Over the years, I've directly reach people ranging from Scott Adams to Susan Orlean using similar techniques.

Using Profnet Effectively

I've seen many writers complaining about Profnet as of late. The dislike of the interface I can't do much about. But on problems with getting responses, there are a few pointers I can offer after using the service since its early days and having a fair amount of success in getting what I need from it:

• Strong Headline - I don't mean overly clever, but something that gets across the essence of what you're seeking. Be as clear and specific as you can, so when PR people glance through the headlines, they will notice your query and whether they have something applicable.


• Don't Cloak - There are times when you might absolutely have to, but in general, don't cloak your queries. This is an example of having to outguess the mental processes of the PR people. They're trying to get the most high profile press for their clients. If they know the name - and it's rare they're knowing is a significant problem - then they can either approach their clients or not without having to ask you for the name first, which they'll probably want, and reasonably so. What I do, however, is to make sure that in the recipient categories I do not check media. That keeps me from sending the query to potential competitors.


• Be Descriptive - I've found that writing an effective query has a lot in common with writing a good piece of marketing. I put in the material I'm looking for, but try to phrase it in such a way that I get someone's interest. Let them see their clients in the piece so they'll respond. Some clients will say no after hearing about it, but that's an occupational hazard and leads to the next point.


• Don't Sweat Small Stuff - There will be PR people who send you something off-target, or who talk about their clients and then say a day or two later that the client isn't interested. Just let it roll off your back. After all, you've lost, what, maybe 30 to 60 seconds of reading an email and replying? It hasn't been that big a burden. If someone is completely off base, just reply, "Thanks, but not a fit."


• Try, Try Again - This is something I've learned only recently. There was a time that you'd get a strong response any time you used Profnet. But now I've seen times when I sent a query and got nothing. But I've started trying to resend them on other days and, presto, I get some targeted sources. I don't know why everyone who catches it on a later date doesn't the first time, but it's easy enough to send a second time. Sometimes I'll even reword the head or body of the query if I think it will help improve response.


• Avoid Conflict - Here's another point where you have to put yourself in the PR person's shoes. They may not want their clients getting into a story that could prove embarrassing. So try toning down your word choices, using less inflammatory terms, and put a "happy spin" that still leaves you with the essence of what you're seeking. You can ask the tougher questions when the person is on the phone, but get them on the phone without using false pretenses. For example, I had to do a story on marketing people becoming obsolete for lack of continued training. Put that way, I got nothing. So I asked about where some extra learning or training meant the difference between success and failure, and suddenly I had some takers. No one wanted to say, "I am professionally obsolete." No wonder.


• Don't Say Pitch Thanks to a freelancer who took a full-time PR job and suggested not to say that you're working on a pitch for a publication. That's a red flag of a non-existent article that could have a source spinning wheels for no reason. If you can truthfully say so, instead say that you're preparing a proposal at an editor's request.

This won't cure all of your problems with Profnet, but it might help you get sources more frequently and with less hassle.

Finding Sources

Finding people can be time-consuming and frustrating. I've just added something called Finding Sources to the Resource section to the left with information on some tools and techniques for both online and real world looking.