Three core values of quality journalism: speed, accuracy, and fairnesss
Peter Copeland has been a journalist and author for 40 years. He was the Washington bureau chief of the E.W. Scripps Company, the editor and general manager of Scripps Howard News Service, and a foreign correspondent based in Mexico City. He started as a night police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago and has covered wars, coups, and revolutions in 30 countries. Copeland has worked with newspapers, wire services, magazines, cable television networks, broadcast television, and digital platforms. He recently published his fifth book, Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter (LSU Press), a memoir about learning to be a journalist. Copeland graduated from Lawrence University with a major in Government. He studied Politics at the University of Exeter in England. Copeland and his wife, Maru Montero, have two grown children.
Throughout your career, you trained hundreds of young reporters and college interns. How can aspiring journalists set a solid foundation for a successful career? What are the principles they ought to follow?
After I wrote the first draft of my book about learning to be a reporter, I went back over the manuscript to make note of the specific lessons about journalism I had learned from each experience. I counted about 200 different lessons, which was far too many to list. So, I boiled that down to about 20 lessons, which still seemed like a lot. I finally decided on three principles or core values of quality journalism: speed, accuracy, and fairness.
Speed matters because news is a competitive business. Being first on a story means you are breaking news, not covering what everyone already knows. Scoops build your credibility with your sources and audience. And - this is not a small thing - being first helps protect your job. More competition in media means better coverage for the people who count on us for the news.
Accuracy is the fundamental measure of quality journalism. The details matter, including spelling a name correctly, so check and check again. A good editor is your best ally, even if they can be annoying. Speed and accuracy are in tension, but I’d always rather be right than first.
The third basic journalism value is the most difficult: fairness. Fairness is innate in humans, or certainly learned before we go to school. At some point, every toddler exclaims, “That’s not FAIR!” Even if kids cannot define fairness, they understand the concept, especially when they feel they are being treated unfairly. I chose “fairness” over “objectivity” because it comes closer to what we are trying to do, which is to show people the reality and allow them to make their own judgments. Try to imagine if your story were about you. Would you consider it fair? Speed and accuracy can be in tension with fairness, but I’d always rather be fair.
What mistakes have you made in your journalism career you would try to avoid if you had the chance to start over?
I wish I had trusted my own eyes. I was fortunate to have had the resources (and expectations) to be out of the office developing sources, be reporting on the ground, and to witness events for myself, even when it was difficult or dangerous. But sometimes when I drafted my story, I would follow the pack or assume that more experienced reporters knew better. My editors encouraged me to think for myself - if the information was solid - but occasionally I was too timid. Some of my best stories as a foreign correspondent were written with one person in mind: my mother, an interested reader back home, but not a politician or an expert.
Throughout your career, you reported from dozens of countries on five continents. In recalling your reporting experience in a foreign country, what was the most daunting and stressful experience you suffered through, and what were the lessons you learned from it?
I was a foreign correspondent living in Mexico City in 1985 when a major earthquake struck, followed by many days of aftershocks. On the morning of the earthquake, I was working on a story in rural El Salvador, which was a scary place at the time. But even covering the wars in Central America, I felt some level of protection being a U.S. citizen, a journalist, and a white male. I made it back to Mexico City that night and found my apartment building damaged. Many of my neighbors were killed or homeless. The woman I loved, Maru, was badly shaken and worried about her family. All my years of maintaining an emotionally safe “professional distance” from the story collapsed, and I felt afraid and vulnerable. Every time my building moved ever so slightly; a surge went through me like an electric shock. My journalism improved, however, because I felt real empathy with the people I covered. And I’m still married to Maru.
The way we consume the news and how journalists work has been transformed by technology. How do you think journalists and newsrooms need to prepare for a new wave of changes stemming from digital media, the spread of false information, and other technological developments that may impact journalism in the next decade?
I wasted a lot of time as a foreign correspondent on the physical requirements of filing: I needed a telephone and a way to transmit my words and images (no smartphone). I often had no way of knowing what was happening around me, or even my exact location (no social media, no live news, no GPS). Doing research meant tracking down experts or digging through old newspapers and magazines (no Google or digital archives). Interviewing government officials meant waiting for hours outside their offices (no text or email). So, for me, technology has made the job vastly easier and better.
The immediacy and connectivity of digital technology put a heavier burden on the individual reporter to be accurate and fair. Journalists used to know more than they published or reported on air. Editors viewed everything before the audience did. Today the temptation is to pass along things you see or hear, even if you’re not sure they are accurate. I cringe every time I hear a journalist preface a story with, “if true.” What do you mean, if true? Isn’t that what they are paying us for, to determine if something is true?
The technology also has weakened the role of traditional gatekeepers deciding and limiting what is “real” news. Today anyone can publish anything from anywhere. This can be informative and liberating, but it also can be misused and manipulated. Professional, quality journalism is more valuable than ever in a world of distortion and disinformation.
The lessons you learned from your experience as a war correspondent and as a journalist are discussed in your latest book, "Finding the News: Adventures of a Young Reporter," which was published in 2019. Why should young journalists who want to pursue a similar career read this book? What can they expect from it?
I tried to write the book from the perspective of the young me - a person just out of university with big dreams but little experience - rather than the old me, who became an editor and went into management. I hope the reader will share how excited I was as a young reporter but also how unsure. How I loved the adventure of covering wars, but I was so scared I couldn’t sleep. I never knew what my next story would be, or my next assignment, or even where I would wake up in the morning. In hindsight, my career looks like a straight line, but it never ever felt that way. A young woman, a Mexican American journalist who was an intern in my office, told me that when she was feeling insecure, she tried to imagine herself having the confidence of a “middle-aged white guy.” That strategy worked, she said, until she read my book and realized that half the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. What’s now called “imposter syndrome” has existed since the first cub reporter opened a notebook. If you don’t feel insecure at least occasionally, it means you aren’t chasing a big enough story.
What do foreign correspondents coming to the United States to work for media in their home countries need to know about American journalism standards?
While I worked in Mexico for five years, I tried to read four or five newspapers every day because each one reflected a different point of view or bias. Correspondents covering the United States need to consume a wide variety of news, from liberal to conservative, but also outside the mainstream media, from local news sources, and from original documents. If I’m reading a story about immigration, for example, I will go to the government source of the statistics to see for myself. Use media sparingly because the best stories are the ones you find for yourself by talking to real people. There’s no news in the office. In every country I’ve worked, I was helped by local journalists. We shared information, and they kept me safe. I’d love to return the favor, so please contact me if I can help.
What are your concerns and hopes for the future of journalism?
The digital revolution gives journalists the power to report from anywhere to everyone in the world. We can engage with our audience in real-time. The same technology, however, empowers other people to spread lies and misinformation. We need to tighten our standards and recommit to quality journalism, so we stand out as a trusted source. Right now, the traditional business model that has sustained journalism is broken and mostly out of our control. What we can control is the quality of our journalism, and that quality will be the foundation of successful business models in the future.
