Journalists love to blame Twitter.
Check out a memo from my former Allbritton Communications colleagues, John Harris and Jim VandeHei, top bosses at Politico, reported yesterday by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple. Erik had reported earlier on the stupid tweets by Politico’s Dave Catanese, trying to defend Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, whose remark about rape was universally viewed as idiotic.
The subject line of Harris’ and VandeHei’s memo to the Politico staff was “Twitter.” Here’s what they said:
We have had newsroom conversations about the importance of good judgment on social platforms like Twitter and the perils of letting that slip.
Unfortunately, today offered a good example. David Catanese crossed a line a reporter shouldn’t cross on Twitter when he seemed to weigh in on the merits of Todd Akin’s comments — especially in a way many people, including many POLITICO colleagues, understandably found offensive.
Dave’s tweets on Akin created a distraction to his own work, and to the newsroom as a whole. They also made himself part of the story, requiring us for now to remove him from Akin coverage.
Today’s episode is a reminder that we need to be paying more attention to the ongoing issue of the right way for POLITICO journalists to be using social media. We have raised this issue before, and if you have questions about how this applies to your own work please speak with your direct editor.
Here’s the thing: Catanese’s offense wasn’t about Twitter. It was about stupidity. Here’s what Catanese tweeted:
Ok, I’m gonna (ask for it) & defend
@toddakin for argument’s sake.We all know what he was trying to say . . .— davecatanese (@davecatanese) August 20, 2012
Poor phrasing, but if you watch the intv
@toddakin meant to convey that there’s less chance of getting pregnant if raped.— davecatanese (@davecatanese) August 20, 2012
So perhaps some can agree that all rapes that are reported are not actually rapes? Or are we gonna really deny that for PC sake?
— davecatanese (@davecatanese) August 20, 2012
So looks like he meant to say — “If a woman was REALLY raped, it’s statistically less likely for her to get pregnant.”What’s the science?
— davecatanese (@davecatanese) August 20, 2012
So maybe. Just maybe,
@toddakin didn’t really mean ‘legitimate.’Perhaps he meant if ‘someone IS really raped’ or ‘a rape really occurs’— davecatanese (@davecatanese) August 20, 2012
Do you think if Catanese had said things that idiotic on TV, the subject line of a “VandeHarris” memo would have been “TV”? (Politico aggressively courts TV time for its reporters.) Or if he had said it in an interview with the Washington Post, would the subject line have been “newspaper interviews”? (I will email Harris, VandeHei and Catanese, inviting them to respond to this post and will update with any responses I receive.)
Here’s what the problem was: Catanese tried to defend someone he was writing about. That’s not a reporter’s role in any format. He tried to read someone’s mind, again a questionably move anywhere (and he was wrong; given Akin’s history of attempting to minimize rape in congressional legislation and the context within the interview, it’s clear he said exactly what he meant). Catanese asked “what’s the science?” instead of finding out. (I saw varying statistics yesterday, but thousands of rapes each year result in pregnancies, so whatever Akin meant by “legitimate,” his statement that “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” was bullshit. Any competent gynecologist could have answered the science question and no journalist should defend a statement that’s so easily disproved, especially not one covering the story as news.)
Catanese’s comments were stupid. They would have been stupid if he had written them for Politico (though editors probably would have caught them before they were published). It was no more stupid on Twitter than it would have been on Facebook, TV, a newspaper interview or in a speech on a college campus.
The TV comparison especially isn’t hypothetical. As Wemple pointed out, some people on Twitter are drawing comparisons to Joe Williams, another Politico reporter, who was disciplined and eventually left Politico, for saying stupid things on social media and on television.
Update: Jeff Sonderman of Poynter (a former colleague at TBD) has blogged about the three mistakes Catanese made: siding with a politician, asking questions he should have been answering and missing the bigger point. Each of those problems would be just as serious in any other context as on Twitter.
Newspapers have traditionally had multiple layers of editors to filter out most of the stupid things that reporters said. But reporters now operate without the editor filter on many levels: social media, TV interviews, public speaking, emails that don’t always stay private and conversations in bars that could be recorded on cell phones.
John Robinson had good advice for Catanese (and all journalists) that covers all those situations, not just social media:
@mattderienzo@jayrosen_nyu@jonathanstray I like my social media rules better: “Don’t be stupid.”— John Robinson (@johnrobinson) April 30, 2011
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