by BARRY MALONE
When, as a young and green journalist, I started working for the Reuters news agency, the first thing I was told by my editor was this: “Above all else, accuracy.”
And speed? “Second,” he said.
Though Reuters’ bread and butter is to be first, the one to hurry breaking news onto the wire so it can be picked up by media organisations around the world, that speed would be nothing if what is reported is not pinpoint accurate.
So, what does that mean? What does it mean to be accurate in journalism? To boil it down to its very essence, it means this: tell the audience only what you know, be clear about how you know it and, if something is not known, make that plain, too.
How then, to explain the flurry of stories that have appeared in the last few weeks using vague terms such as “Iran-linked”, “Iran-backed” and “Iran-aligned”, without telling readers and viewers exactly what is meant by those fuzzy phrases?
BBC editorialising
There were three recent stories in which the terms were liberally applied. First, the arson attack on four ambulances owned by Hatzola, a Jewish community-run volunteer emergency response service in London. If Trump attacks Iran, western media will be cheering him on Barry Malone Read More »
Just a few days later, the personal email of FBI Director Kash Patel was hacked. And the following day, a man attempted to set off an improvised explosive device outside the Bank of America’s headquarters in Paris.
All three were deemed linked or aligned to Iran by some of the western world’s most venerable news organisations, including, as just one example, the BBC, which has not covered itself in glory with its reporting of Israel’s genocide in Gaza either.
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