The Brothers Tsarnaev and Digital Age Journalism

By definition, a journal is an account of day to day events. It is also, more elegantly, a record of experiences, ideas and reflections. One of journalism's most elegant early practitioners, of course, was James Boswell (1740-1795), author of a book I didn't discover until long after I had left journalism myself: The Life of Samuel Johnson.

“It matters not how a man dies," Boswell wrote then, "but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.” 

Journalism documents our life and our passing, our trials and triumphs. It's certainly an account of day to events, a record of our shared experience. Journalism is not history--although we often want it to be--but it is a source for historians. Journalism is not literature, although it is sometimes literary in nature. Journalism sometimes fails, but often transcends. Increasingly, in this terrible age, journalism is the means by which we learn, grieve and understand.

Not yet two weeks after the attack in Boston, the criticism and second-guessing is underway. "There were real victims," writes Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, "in the Boston bombings last week — the dead, the wounded, the grieving families, the terrorized communities — but there was substantial collateral damage done to news media credibility."

Mistakes were made, we all know that. Reporter error. Competitive pressure. Combine the terror that we all experienced with the pressures of live television and digital journalism, and perhaps mistakes were inevitable.

That doesn't excuse the mistakes, but it does highlight what can go wrong when the entire world is watching expectantly for not just information, but answers. The pressure for journalists to make a definitive statement--to tell us what we want to know--is immeasurable.

As news practitioners or news consumers, perhaps we can take from this experience this simple knowledge: standing in front of a camera on live television isn't journalism in its grandest sense. It's reportage. True journalism results from investigation and reflection. True journalism is written, not ad-libbed. Perhaps there were many among us who realized the difference last Wednesday evening when Scott Pelley opened the CBS Evening News with the simple statement, "They lost him." As events would quickly demonstrate, "they" found him. But for those of us with a background in news, it was obvious that after an entire day of off-the-cuff reportage, journalists and editors at one of the world's most trusted sources had begun to write about the events we all witnessed. And we all know that it's much easier to make mistakes while ad-libbing instead of writing.

About the author: Ed Lynch, President and Managing Partner of Emergent Communications, is a former reporter for WKYT, Lexington KY.

Make the Most of Every PR Opportunity

It's a fact of life that you can't control every public relations opportunity. Perhaps it's not your event; perhaps you're a guest without even a minor speaking opportunity. So, you can forget about any news coverage, right?

Speaking from experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, there are many events where opportunities simply do not exist, where you or the person you represent are tangential at best to the proceedings. These are the events where you build goodwill merely by your attendance, receiving gratitude simply by showing up and expressing your support and goodwill.

But over your career, you will attend many events where your very presence will add to the news value of the proceedings. For example, I'll always remember serving as Director of Communications for Kentucky Attorney General Chris Gorman during the time we were active against child sexual abuse. I especially remember the day when we were invited to attend an exhibit of children's art in the Capitol Rotunda; it was an informal event, but I was convinced that we could win some news coverage from the event.

So, on the short walk to the Rotunda, I advised the Attorney General to walk into the event as if he belonged, locate someone he knew well, and closely examine one of the works of art. He did, and was soon surrounded by television cameras. Needless to say, the video that evening was mostly of the Attorney General.

No, this sort of tactic doesn't work every time. But it's an effective example of making an informal event your own, which of course is made much easier when you have standing on the event. So, always remember that even though you or your client might not be on the official agenda, it doesn't mean that news coverage is beyond the realm of possibility. Be creative, make yourself available, and you might be surprised at the result.