Media manipulation master Ryan Holiday recently admitted to using Help a Reporter Out, the popular source-finding website, to dupe reporters, resulting in a number of stories in major publications such as The New York Times that included inaccurate information if not outright lies.
Holiday claims it was an experiment to expose the flaws in today’s media business and specifically to take down what he called the “hypocrisy” of HARO, which is run by public relations pro Peter Shankman. The latter countered by calling Holiday an idiot and liar who was more interested in promoting his book than protecting journalists from ill-intended story sources. The two eventually mended fences long enough to appear together on a video chat about media manipulation, albeit from the safety of their respective offices.
In another incident that happened earlier this fall, a half dozen students at Cornell provided fake names to a New York Times writer who interviewed them while they were partying in a local bar, reportedly because none of them were legally old enough to drink.
Both cases raise questions of how writers should find and vet sources, especially at a time when news cycles are getting shorter and paychecks are getting smaller, pressuring writers to do more in less time, and also as crowdsourcing to find story subjects is becoming more popular.
Here are some ways to save yourself from less than scrupulous story sources:
1. When in doubt, check it out. If you have any concerns that someone isn’t who they’re telling you they are — and even if you don’t — investigate. It’s easy enough to do a Google search on someone’s name to verify that they’re who they say they are. Look them up on LinkedIn — these days everybody’s on LinkedIn. Or see if they have accounts on Facebook, Twitter or other social media. It’s not the end-all, be-all, but it’s a start.
2. Verify. If your source says they work for ABC Company, call the company and ask to verify that they work there. In the Cornell case, IvyGate, a blog that reports on eight Ivy League schools, used the Cornell student directory to verify that all of the names the students gave to the Times writer were bogus, a simple step the reporter and the newspaper failed to take.
3. Use public records. For some types of stories, you can use public records to vet a source. Public records could include everything from property taxes to voting records.
4. Use sources you’ve already checked out. If you’ve covered the same beat for a while, you probably have dozens, if not hundreds of sources you use on a regular basis, sources you know and trust. Use them. If you’re working on a beat that’s new to you, ask your established sources for recommendations of people they know who are familiar with the subject. Or ask fellow freelancers or colleagues if they have reliable sources they could share. Or ask your editor – especially if you’re writing for a b2b publication that covers a particular industry, they might have an Outlook file full of contacts.
5. Don’t wait until the last minute. The closer you are to deadline, the more willing you may be to take a flyer on a source without checking them out. Don’t put yourself into the position of having to hurry. If for a given story you know finding sources will be the No. 1 hurdle, it should be the first thing you start working on.
How do you vet sources? Let other writers know by leaving a comment.
Caroline Leopold says
Usually, I try to verify statistics through more than one independent source. When I read local health data, I usually look at state and CDC reports as well. Most of the time, the figures don’t line up exactly, but hopefully they are congruent. I’m pretty meticulous about fact checking things that are small, but important such as a person’s name, geography, occupation, etc.
Also, I want to note that people need to fact check photographs. I worked somewhere where they had a massive gaffe. They labeled a photo – Mr. Doe and his daughter. Turns out the woman was his wife. Ouch.
Peter D. Mallett says
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for posting this article. It is a important reminder that all information is not good information. I found your site while searching for information on Letters of Introduction. Thanks for the work you put into it to help others.
Peter