Some thoughts on planted "scoops" and conventional wisdom

Speaking of the New York Times, Executive Editor Bill Keller offered some interesting comments in a Time magazine "10 Questions" feature. Of special note were his responses to the questions about the Times' behavior before the Iraq War and on the future of newspapers. Asked about why the Times' basically parroted the administration line on Iraq (that's my characterization, not his), he responded: "It was partly the insatiable desire for scoops people in the Administration were feeding about the potential threat in Iraq. But a lot of it was just that we floated along with the conventional wisdom, the worst enemy of journalism." Asked about the future of newspapers, he replied: "I think this talk about the death of newspapers is a little exaggerated. While online is clearly more and more the future, print has a lot of life left in it."

I was especially struck by the implications for journalists in his answer about the war. Given media's reliance on online publishing, I would think "scoops" would be even more important. As Keller said, scoops often rely on planted "tips" by sources including administrations, businesses, unions, etc. Seems to me that as media put more and more pressure on journalists to come up with instant scoops, they become even more vulnerable to planted stories. And relying on conventional wisdom is one of the many signs of poor (or missing journalism), which really shows up in so-called "citizen journalism," which far too often really means uninformed opinion.
Journalists are taught to be leery of planted stories. Far too often, they don't follow that teaching.

I subscribe to the idea of "journalism of verification," where journalists check out anything they're told. That becomes harder to do if you are being judged on how many tweets or blog items you post each day or how often you update your site's "news digest" as many media outlets do. It's like the No Child Left Behind law's unintended consequences where teachers teach to the test, not what students should be learning. Reporters will be rushing items into print rather than carefully verifying them.