Thread by @kurteichenwald

1. I found a letter this weekend that reminded me of an interesting event from 1991 that did not reveal until now. It might seem like nothing, but to me it is a demonstration of what is wrong with journalism - reporters don't know what they dont know, and dont try to find out....

2...the reason I use this as an example is because it involves good reporters acting in real life without ever thinking they might not know the whole story.

So, in 1991, the publisher at the @nytimes announced the company was starting a clothing drive that was very complex...

@nytimes 3...this wasn't just "bring in clothes" - it was an entire system where clothes arrived packaged and sorted and were at the loading dock, piled into a shipping truck, within an hour, then off to a delivery location by that same afternoon. Drop off points were on every floor....

@nytimes 4...in movable bins right next to the elevator. The bins disappeared everyday within an hour. This was a hassle-free system where a small number of people did tons of work. Over the course of the first year, it collected 2 tons of clothing.

The theme, as expressed by the....

@nytimes 5...publisher, was that everyone had clothes in their closets they never wore, that this was like the old story of stone soup, where everyone could contribute a little and make something great.

There were multiple people who were responsible throughout the newsroom for....

@nytimes 6...reminding people to bring in clothes. The person in my area kept reminding me, aware that I had never brought in anything. I replied my wife and I truly had no spare clothes we could bring in. I was chastised by two reporters for not trying, for not thinking of others, etc...

@nytimes 7...they never asked WHY I didn't have any clothes to spare. The reason was simple:

I had conceived of and put together the entire project. I pitched it to the publisher, but asked him never to reveal it was my idea - I thought people would be more likely to do it if they....

@nytimes 8...though the program was his, not mine. He appointed a woman in the employee relations program to help me.

We ran multiple tests to see if the whole thing worked, because - again - it was complicated. We needed clothes for these tests. The clothes we used were mine....

@nytimes 9...so the reason we had none to give is because we had already given them all away to the very program that the other reporter/s were lecturing me about. I stayed silent - although I would have explained if someone had asked - because I did not want it to be undermined as...

@nytimes 10...not being a program from the publisher.

Sometime after I was balled out by other reporters for not giving, the employee relations person and I received this letter from the publisher. He gave us both a secret $500 publishers award for working so hard on this..

@nytimes 11...now, publisher awards are always publicly announced, with the recipients on posters in the newsroom. Not this time - secrecy, we knew was important.

So, the lesson for journalism: With ONE additional fact, I went from selfish to not. I went from not caring to caring a lot..

@nytimes 12...and this is what is wrong with journalism. There is ALWAYS one fact. Sometimes, even the formation of the question shows the journalist has not thought through the story. Except for daily stories where reaction was to an event, I NEVER asked an interview subject....

@nytimes 13.."how do you respond to this allegation against you from someone else" because I am automatically adopting that allegation as the perspective of the story. I always asked tons of general question, then more specific, to gather multiple sides of a story and then pick through..

@nytimes 14...the facts to figure out what is the most accurate and fair representation of the story.

I have had a lot written about me over the years. Easily 90% of it has been wrong. Easily 95% of the time, it was written without the reporter contacting me. And every time....

@nytimes 15...reporters presented it as truth. When I give speeches, I often ask "how many of you have read or seen a story that you have personal knowledge about the underlying facts." Bunches of hands go up. Then I ask, "How many think the story was wrong?" And most of the hands stay...

@nytimes 16...up. This is usually NOT about bias. It is about laziness. It is why, in the buildup to the election, "her emails her emails her emails" were endless stories - even though the "rule" cited went unread by people writing. I know this because the rule authorized what she did....

@nytimes 17...this would have been fine except, everyone also agreed that Trump had no chance of winning, and so - based on that unreported agreement - everyone pretty much ignored him except the Washington Post and Newsweek.

So, the lesson from my simple tale to reporters: When you...

@nytimes 18...dont ask questions, when you don't start from a perspective of "any side could be telling the truth, or all of them could be wrong", when you dont think "what possible errors am i making" you will make errors.

Every single time.

@nytimes 19...and if the reporters who bawled me out remember this and see this - dont worry about it. I was more amused than mad.