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Topic: Letting the interviewee see the draft?!
| Author | Message |
| Rob66 | Posted – 1/30/2008 11:13:11 AM | show profile Hello, Is it ever, in any situation, ok to show an interviewee the draft of your (business news) article prior to publication? I thought it was one of the golden rules of journalism (along with never revealing your source, unless it's to the right editor) but recently I heard of someone who not only allowed the interviewee see the draft prior to publishing, but also let the interviewee make changes to the draft. Am I wrong to be shocked?? |
| snuffleupagus | Posted – 1/30/2008 11:37:55 AM | show profile Check out these views from Poynter: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=56336 http://www.poynter.org/dg.lts/id.53/aid.31355/column.htm |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 1/30/2008 1:00:40 PM | show profile The first Poynter story is the way this should be done in the ideal world. Take lots and lots of time. Do hours of interviews. Show the stuff to everyone and let them give more views in order to strength the piece. In the real world, of course, there are very few times you can take that much time or put that much work into a piece. I have sometimes worked with publications that show the piece to sources for fact-checking. I usually don't care, because these types of publications are the not the New Yorker, to put it kindly. And in 99.99% the sources do nothing but correct an error. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 1/30/2008 1:29:18 PM | show profile I know there's a journalistic ethics reasoning behind it, blah blah blah--but I always heard it's also a bad idea because a source who has a good friend who works at a competing magazine can show it to the competition. Not to mention, word could get out in advance what's in the piece and other sources could demand to see it as well, resulting in chaos at shipping. You can always check the facts within a story without actually showing it, even going so far as to paraphrase quotes. |
| Thabit | Posted – 1/30/2008 2:21:50 PM | show profile Have always avoided doing this (falling back on real/invented publication policy) -- if nothing else because you may accurately see someone, but they may not like they way you portray them. The only time I would do this is if dealing with something very personal or very controversial. I have heard that in certain places (like Europe) if you're profiling someone, even a non-controversial business article, you let them see it first for a question of courtesy. Still, for me it's a no-go zone... |
| HisGirlFriday | Posted – 1/30/2008 2:34:08 PM | show profile I think it depends on the pub - for stories in newspapers I just say no, absolutely not - it doesn't work that way. For one of my trade pub clients, it seems more commonplace. Just last week a source asked to see his quotes. Before sending it to the editor, I copied the quotes and paraphrases from the story, pasted them into an email and send them to him. He sent a "revised version" - some of which I adopted for accuracy ( I had misunderstood a key point,) some for clarity and others I disregarded because he was trying to fluff up an angle that was just to make him look good. On another occasion, when a fact checker did something similar, the source wanted something removed because he didnt' like the way it made him sound. I told the editor that the quotes and parphrases were totally accurate and were important to prove the point of the story and they remained in the story. Frequently if I am writing about something I am not too familiar with, or something that is *very* complicated I'll read back portions of my story to sources. This has been key in making sure I get it right and makes sources feel comfortable with me in the future. I was a little put off by the practice the first time but since it's no big deal to the editors, I'm not too worried about it. Like dribble drive says - it wasn't The New Yorker .... |
| PluckyPane | Posted – 1/30/2008 2:42:51 PM | show profile I have a friend who works for a b to b who is supposed to get the approval of every article from the interviewee and he hates it. His biggest gripe is that he doesn't feel the editor is backing him up on his investigative skills and that he has to kowtow to someone else's subjectivity. He's told me of some ridiculous changes where the editors basically threw him under a bus and published the interviewee's revised copy word for word. Maybe it works different at b to b's but I wouldn't want to have to get the approval of anyone other than my editors on a story that is being printed with my byline. Sounds like your editors are getting some kickbacks from this interviewee. |
| Metro Writer | Posted – 1/30/2008 3:59:24 PM | show profile I've only had to do it once. My assignment was to write about a new competing Jewish day school. The founder of the first school was still running it and he felt as if he was being personally attacked because some people in the community were supporting the new school. For some reason, he expected me to write a story lauding the new school and trashing his. He was very reluctant to talk to me. I was tough with him. I told him that I would write the story with or without his cooperation and that I had the information on what the new school was promising. Tell me what you've already accomplished, I said, so that every parent who reads my story can make a decision about which school they want as a first choice. I showed him what I wrote about both schools (because I had written about it before). Once he was convinced I was being fair to both sides, I had him eating out of my hand. The only other situation that might warrant showing an interview the draft of a story is if it's scientific. Then I would accept changes only for accuracy. That would be fair to all parties because I need to have credibility, the interviewee needs to come across as knowledgeable, and the public needs accurate information. |
| snuffleupagus | Posted – 1/30/2008 5:11:44 PM | show profile My strategy is never to agree to show a piece, but if I feel I need to for the last minute fact-checking I will. After two years in this business, yesterday was the first time I actually lost a source -- a Harvard doctor. We tussled for a while about what I would share with him and how, and eventually we agreed to review quotes -- but he wanted email and I just wanted to call him to read them back. No big deal, right? Although I frequently share quotes with sources over email, I have ended up in some sticky situations. Here, this doc didn't have exclusive information, I was in a bad mood, and I knew he was going to be a royal pain in the butt so I just let him go. The worst is when you're writing an exclusive profile and there's a real power dynamic. As a freelancer you don't want to lose the access, so you have to leverage yourself by mentioning all of the critics you've already spoken with. |
| Rob66 | Posted – 1/30/2008 8:13:17 PM | show profile yes, i see your points. maybe i should be a little more specific -- this took place at quite a big business news organisation which takes its reputation pretty seriously. there had previously been a little bad blood between the corporate interviewee and a reporter (who had broken some exclusive, and accurate news) on it. the interviewee company, peeved but trying to maintain good relations, then offered to release some news slightly ahead of time -- something they wanted played up -- to the journalist as another small "exclusive". bear in mind this interviewee was peeved only because they didn't like the TONE of the first article, not because it was inaccurate, or because the news company "owed" them anything. the journalist then agreed to go along with this fence-mending and wrote up the second exclusive. but in doing so, the journalist sent the entire unpublished draft of the article to the interviewed company, and even let them change parts of it, then ran it as was -- a second article which broke news but was slightly biased in favour of the company. as a result, fences were "mended", so to speak. but again, i stress that the original article was not inaccurate -- it was merely a case of a company not enjoying having exclusive news published about it and making a fuss in order to improve its image. i don't think this warrants having the news firm bend over backwards and throwing principles out the window. |
