To what extent can we rely on newspaper reports?

[markmorey5]

I am more familiar with the Mary Kelly story than any other, and it seems probable that members of the public were interviewed by journalists and came up with all sorts of fantastic anecdotes, many of which were inaccurate or fanciful. I cannot imagine journalists fabricating such stories although it is possible, but I do believe that some, poor inhabitants of Whitechapel and Spitalfields did use interviews with journalists to bring some sort of excitement to their otherwise dull and dreary lives.

Wickerman quoted some of the other, known inaccuracies regarding this event such as the descriptions of Millers Court and also of Kelly's room. In these cases it is clearly sloppy journalism.

Anything associated purely with a newspaper report or multiple newspaper reports if they are quoting each other, must be regarded as being likely inaccurate. Only if there is corroboration from a known, reliable source can we have certainty. Unfortunately that is not always possible.

[HelenaWojtczak]

it seems probable that members of the public were interviewed by journalists and came up with all sorts of fantastic anecdotes, many of which were inaccurate or fanciful. I cannot imagine journalists fabricating such stories although it is possible, but I do believe that some, poor inhabitants of Whitechapel and Spitalfields did use interviews with journalists to bring some sort of excitement to their otherwise dull and dreary lives.

Haha that is almost word-for-word what I wrote in my biography of George Chapman, suggesting that great minds think alike.

If my book proves anything, it is "Don't believe what you read". This, of course, makes all studying and research extremely difficult, as everyone, from primary school kids to university professors, rely on printed books as authorities on any subject.

I think that we subconsciously believe that there is some kind of verification process in place before things go into print.

When I was a child in working class south London in the 1960s there was amongst my friends and classmates a sure-fire way of winning any argument. It did not matter what the subject was; science, maths or history, there was one phrase which, when uttered by any of the protagonists, would slay the opposition and end the discussion instantly. And the person who said it first would bathe in the glory of a very smug victory.

That phrase was: ‘I saw it in a book’.

Our blind trust in anything that was printed in a book was unshakeable. Without ever saying so, I think we must have all thought that there was some authority on high, a sort of Ministry of Truth, who thoroughly checked the veracity of every fact that was in a book, before it was allowed to go on public release.

It wasn’t until I was in the first year of my degree that I was trained to question, and even to challenge, published works.

And if there is no vetting process for books, who pass through a commissioning editor working for a publisher, and a copy-editor, then clearly there isn't any for newspaper reports.

Researching the Chapman book really drove it home to me how much judgment and discernment we need when evaluating newspaper reports. You get to learn what type of material is likely to be true - for example, what the accused was wearing in the dock - because it's not worth lying about. But the testimony of witnesses, for example, can easily be truncated, mangled, or misheard.

Helena

[GUT]

G'day Helena

So true, many people think that if it is n print it must be true.

But by the same token some people take anything on radio or TV as gospel.

[HelenaWojtczak]

So true, many people think that if it is n print it must be true.

But by the same token some people take anything on radio or TV as gospel.

Absolutely. I realised when I published my first book in 2002 that people just believed anything that I published. I am a scrupulously, fanatically honest researcher, but I can see the potential for someone less moralistic to publish any old nonsense.

Slight deviation, as the thread is about newspapers, but readers may find this interesting. I was recently hired by a large publishing company (I won't say who) to edit a factual history book written by a seemingly respectable man, a film producer in his 60s. By sheer accident (I was just checking a small point online) I found that most of the book had simply been copied and pasted from Wikipedia and two other websites. What is more, we don't know if the material on those sites is accurate! Had I not checked that one small point, I would simply have edited the book and nobody would have known it was mostly plagiarised from the Net -- until those who purchased it posted complaints on the book's Amazon page. This would have damaged the company's reputation and caused thousands of books to be pulped.

The ease of self-publishing, where anyone can just upload any old rubbish to Kindle, has made things even easier for people who want to invent, lie, suppress what does not suit them, or plagiarise from the Net, as the text does not even have to be read by an editor.

Helena