Amanda Knox Is Guilty... Of Making Newspapers Jump The Gun On Guilty Headlines

from the dewey-beats-truman dept

Tue, Oct 4th 2011 12:07pm — Mike Masnick

Almost certainly the most famous case of incorrect headlines by a newspaper trying to rush to press early goes to the infamous Dewey Defeats Truman headline in the Chicago Tribune, published on November 3, 1948... which was, of course, actually the day that Truman defeated Dewey.

In our more "real time" news world, the quest to be "first" with a breaking news story can lead newspapers to do interesting things. It's no secret, of course, that many news organizations will pre-write certain stories, but it appears that a bunch of UK papers, in getting ready for the verdict over Amanda Knox, were so desperate to get the scoop out first, that they must have loaded up two versions of the story with their fingers poised right over the publish button as the verdict came out. Unfortunately for "the press," the court first noted that Knox was "guilty" of defamation, and then cleared her on the murder charges.

But it appears that the eager button pushers in various newsrooms simply heard "guilty" and hit "publish" on the "guilty" versions of the story. Malcolm Coles' blog presented a bunch of evidence of various newspapers going live with the "guilty version."

He notes that the Daily Mail version of the story had all sorts of totally falsified details:

Of course, that opening sentence didn't happen. The story also included other made up details:

As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.

A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.

Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'.

Following the verdict Knox and Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away.

The various newspapers that published the "wrong" story quickly updated to the "correct" one -- almost certainly also pre-written with similar details of "reactions" that hadn't actually happened at the time of writing. But that also resulted in some interesting juxtaposition while Google News had competing headlines from the same sources:

Nice to see that getting the story right is very much secondary to getting the story first. Nice work by Coles to catch all of this and highlight it on his blog.

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Filed Under: amanda knox, guilty, headlines, journalism

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BentFranklin (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:20pm

The press is no longer the Fourth Estate. They have abdicated all pretense at estate status. They are just another corrupt business.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 2:09pm
  
  Fourth Estate
  How about we create a manifesto for the Fourth Estate, and then make it a membership organization. Then we can confer Fourth Estate status to publications that conform to...
  
  We might also profit!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
lucidrenegade (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:22pm

Is the Daily Mail one of Rupert's papers?
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- The eejit (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:26pm
  
  Re:
  Sadly, no. It's worse. Imagine a Fox-clone in print form.
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  - blaktron (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:40pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Umm, wouldn't a Fox Clone be a Murdock paper? Seeing as, you know, Fox is?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - The eejit (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:49pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Not necessarily. It's the same level of truth-distortion is involved, was my point. The fables Village of Liars is more honest than the Daily (Hate)Mail.
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      - Boost (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:13am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        MSNBC is worse. Fox's news stories remain fairly free of bias. Now their opinion stories, that's another matter. But you woudln't know that since you never actually read fox news stories, do you? How about developing your own opinion.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        nasch (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 11:21am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        MSNBC is worse. Fox's news stories remain fairly free of bias.
        
        Got any evidence for that? I tried politifact, but they don't seem to have a way to look up claims by news organization.
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- PaulT (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:07pm
  
  Re:
  Nope, The Sun is, which happens to have reported similar results. The Fail is one of the other right-wing reactionary rags, and I note the presence of the newspaper nicknamed the Torygraph because of its right-wing views.
  
  Funnily enough, I'm not seeing The Independent or The Guardian in those results, among others.... I wonder if that's because they're more centrist/left-leaning papers who actually practice journalism rather than xenophobia and hatred? Not that I'm going to be partisan here, but it's interesting how the tabloid idiots who constantly get caught out in blatant lies are almost always right-leaning (Mirror excluded, of course).
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Richard (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:18pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I remember a few years ago a friend of mine was involved in a complicated court case. He was dismayed by the inaccuracy of most of the reporting in the media. He commented that if their reporting of the big stories of the day was as inaccurate as the reporting of his case then the public really has no idea what is going on. He made one exception to this conclusion - the Guardian.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Rocco, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:45pm
    
    Re: Re:
    At the end of the blog post it said.
    
    Embarrassing. (To be fair, Sky News and the Guardian also claimed she'd been found guilty - just not quite in so much detail ...!)
    
    So I guess the Guardian got it wrong too.
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Ima Fish (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:23pm

And "real" journalism is better than blogging, um... how?!
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:27pm
  
  Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
  Because news is supposed to be fact and blogging is opinion? Nice try though troll.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:32pm
    
    Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
    Me thinks you missed both the point.. and the /sarc tag.... FAIL!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Ima Fish (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:41pm
    
    Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
    Who says bloggers can't blog about facts?! And it's apparent from this story that "real" journalists aren't concerned with facts. Considering they simply made facts up.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:47pm
    
    Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
    news these days is opinion, the opinion of the ruling elite.
    
    I'll take my chances with bloggers, thank you.
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    - Boost (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:16am
      
      Re: Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
      What do you mean, these days? You think anything has changed in the last millenium? News becomes history when it is accepted by the masses. If anything, news is becoming better because of social media...although, it still requires a discerning ear.
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  - Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:15pm
    
    Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
    Way to mix media and messages. Let's break this down:
    
    JOURNALISM is a pursuit - it includes hard news reporting, research, analysis, editorial/opinion, audience interaction, entertainment coverage, light news, human interest - lots of stuff
    
    NEWS is, as you say, supposed to be about pure objective fact. It's just one component of journalism.
    
    A NEWSPAPER is a medium. It is just a way of printing stuff. The term carries associations with journalistic values, but a newspaper can in fact be anything from a drug store tabloid to a parody like the Onion to a serious news outlet.
    
    A BLOG is similarly, just a medium. And like newspaper, it can be used for anything from hard reporting to photos of cats. Because the bar to entry is lower, there is greater variety among blogs than among newspapers.
    
    so...
    
    NEWS is a part of JOURNALISM which can be communicated in a NEWSPAPER or in a BLOG. But the simple fact that something is a BLOG or a NEWSPAPER tells you nothing about what kind of JOURNALISM it contains (and how much of that journalism is hard NEWS), or even if it contains any at all.
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  - Rose M. Welch (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 3:01pm
    
    Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
    The point was that, in reality, it ends up being the other way around, with fact-happy blogs and opinionated papers.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 8:53pm
      
      Re: Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
      "with fact-happy blogs and opinionated papers."
      
      I must disagree. This wasn't fact vs opinion. This was fact vs lies.
      
      When they supposedly had reactions and quotes for something that didn't happen, there is no way around that they flat out lied.
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      - nasch (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 9:35pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
        When they supposedly had reactions and quotes for something that didn't happen, there is no way around that they flat out lied.
        
        Unless you like the distinction between lies and bullshit that H.G. Frankfurt makes in On Bullshit. I think this is more bullshitting than lying. The paper wasn't aiming specifically to deceieve anyone, it's just that the truth had no particular relevance to their objective. Which is kind of scary for a "news" organization.
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  - btr1701, 4 Oct 2011 @ 3:08pm
    
    Re: Response to: Ima Fish on Oct 4th, 2011 @ 12:23pm
    > Because news is supposed to be fact and
    > blogging is opinion? Nice try though troll.
    
    In which case it wasn't a troll at all, since here we have the news making up facts that didn't happen, hence no actual distinction between the news and blogging.
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me, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:25pm

stop it already
Who cares??? Why is US media giving such coverage to this when there are thousands protesting in our own country.... priorities people...
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- Nathan F (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:31pm
  
  Re: stop it already
  Young, attractive, white female. That is why the news media is all over this.
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  - MM_Dandy (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 2:54pm
    
    Re: Re: stop it already
    ...and the crime involved kinky sex.
    
    By the way, some advice for the next potential hook-up partner: wear protection - may I recommend a shark suit?
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- PaulT (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:15pm
  
  Re: stop it already
  US media? Where? Oh, the Globe And Mail had one post listed among the UK newspapers.... no, wait that's Canadian! What are you on about? Is Techdirt the US media now?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 2:16pm
    
    Re: Re: stop it already
    I am in Mexico on Cable and get the San Diego network feeds, as well as BBC. ALL of them went live to the court announcement. I had to change to an all re-run station to get away from it. I guess nothing much else was happening.
    
    Oh wait...
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- btr1701, 4 Oct 2011 @ 3:11pm
  
  Re: stop it already
  > Why is US media giving such coverage to this
  > when there are thousands protesting in our
  > own country.
  
  Because I'd rather see pictures of a cute American girl reunited with her family than a bunch of smelly malcontents laying around a public park, chanting 'Down with capitalism!", while at the same time texting on their iPhones, blogging on their laptops, and slurping down their Snapples.
  
  At the very least my irony meter won't keep red-lining.
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PrometheeFeu (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:33pm

I think this calls for a different kind of new content. If the vast majority of it can be pre-written (I mean the background, not the made-up sinking in your chair and sobbing) maybe instead of publishing a new article each time with repeat information we need something a bit more like a wiki which is updated when something new happens.
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- PrometheeFeu (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:33pm
  
  Re:
  I meant news content.
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Scooters (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:36pm

The UK...

... libel laws ...

... Uh oh.

Best hope those rags have a few penny pouches on the standby, love. I've a feeling they're going to need them once those "emotions" run their course.
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- Nathan F (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:41pm
  
  Re:
  As much as I would love to see the circus of a libel case, can they still be brought to court if they 'printed a retraction', acknowledged their mistake and apologized? Granted so far it just seems they pulled the incorrect article and put up the correct one, but the Internet never forgets.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - The Devil's Coachman (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:44pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Maybe the internet never forgets, but gimme an individual, and a baseball bat, and I can make them forget. Remember, it's now how many you can make forget, but who.
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- blaktron (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:42pm
  
  Re:
  I was thinking that too, publishing that someone is convicted of murder when they have been acquitted is pretty clearly libel.
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  - Rose M. Welch (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 3:03pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I wouldn't think she'd be able to claim much in damages, since she was already convicted of murder once. There's not much more you can do to her reputation at this point.
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- PaulT (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:18pm
  
  Re:
  The Fail tends to get away from these frequent mistakes on UK related stories by hiding an apology away in the US section of its website. I wish I was kidding, and the complaints commission seem to be worse than useless....
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Lord Binky, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:37pm

Made up statements?
What happens when the person who is �quoted� reads the story and points out that they never said that.
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- Lord Binky, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:39pm
  
  Re: Made up statements?
  Is it a non-issue for the news to make up what a specific person said? It is not like they left it in the realm of possibility by leaving it generic with an Area Man makeing his comment.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:38pm

Sadly, with the online competition from all over the world, papers are often forced to write both possible outcomes and then release one as soon as they have the answer. If someone got the wrong signal (and it appears more than one did) then all of a sudden you have a flood.

Find it here first... with global competition, it only gets worse.
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- nasch (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:05pm
  
  Re:
  Sorry, no, they are not forced to pre-write stories with completely made up claims in them. They choose to do that.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:10pm
    
    Re: Re:
    No, they pretty much have to in order to stay competitive, because if they don't, they won't be "first", and will lose advantage.
    
    Quite simply, if they don't do it, the competition will. It sucks, but that's life.
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    - Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:20pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Another pretty serious way to lose advantage over the competition is to fuck up like this, lying to all your readers and exposing your questionable methods.
      
      So it's not quite as simple a decision as you make it sound. Being first is important - perhaps moreso than it should be - but it's not the ONLY thing newspapers have to worry about.
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      - Chosen Reject (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:41pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        This is absolutely true. I might or might not have gone to The Sun or Daily Mail for this story first, but now that they've shown that they are willing to make up stuff just to be first, I won't go to them for any other story, whether they are first or not. Their attempt at being first for one story, has shown that they aren't trustworthy for any story.
        
        Being first might gain you viewers now, but being wrong loses you viewers for a long time. In this case, showing that you lie loses you viewers for ever.
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      - Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 2:22pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I think being first may be overblown. If it an investigative piece that you are working on undercover, then yes, first is important.
        
        But THIS was a public event, broadcast worldwide by several hundred 'news' organizations. These 'print' (Internet) organizations have no hope of beating live. So, the can get second at best, and at what cost?
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        Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 3:53pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        That's a very good and really important point. If an alien with no context was monitoring the earth during a major event, they would be baffled: hundreds if not thousands of people working at top speed to deliver fifty different versions of the exact same facts to everyone else, all within seconds of each other. The news industry wastes so much manpower competing at things that don't need to be a competition anymore, and so much space printing wire copy to ensure they don't miss leave anything out even if they have nothing new to say about it. I feel like there's a lofty word along the lines of "Kafkaesque" (but not that) that describes it perfectly - but I can't think of it so I'll just call it hilarious.
        
        There is absolutely no need to replicate basic facts ad nauseum. First-hand reporting benefits from some variety, sure (I'm not suggesting we send one guy to cover every major story) but you just have to laugh at a press circus, with fifty reporters thrusting their mics upwards as though there were only so many sound waves to go around.
        
        So it's not just that they have to give up trying to be first - they have to give up trying to be everywhere, too.
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    - PaulT (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:21pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      However, theoretically at least, frequent mistakes in this area will make people go elsewhere for their "exclusives", since who cares if it's exclusive if it's completely wrong?
      
      Of course, that relies on the brain power of the average Mail/Sun reader, which only primates tend to envy. At least we're reading something other than how fat/thin/pregnant/not pregnant a "star" of a minor soap is.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - nasch (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 4:50pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Of course, that relies on the brain power of the average Mail/Sun reader, which only primates tend to envy.
        
        Which primates, humans?
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        PaulT (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 10:45pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Good point :) I was thinking the lower orders, maybe howler monkeys...
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    - Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:21pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      id rather wait to read a story from a someone I can trust to actually be reporting the news instead of the first guy to make up a nice story vaguely resembling(or in this case not at all resembling) the facts.
      
      If I had been a reader of any of these "news" sites that printed a bunch of made up fluff and passed it of as fact I wouldn't be anymore.
      
      You can stay competitive by writing the truth and writing it well, investigating and shedding new light on things rather than parroting other stories helps too. Maybe being fast will get you some instant action but a good reputation will get you repeat customersBut its sad that these reporters would rather have the breaking news page views instead of the slightest bit of journalistic integrity.
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    - E. Zachary Knight (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:24pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Or they could write a well researched and well written story a day or two late and have people actually read facts rather than fiction.
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      - Chosen Reject (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:44pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        A day or two late seems a bit long even. Either one of these papers could have waited 10 minutes and saved a lot of face. I'm glad they didn't though. Otherwise I might have trusted their other stories. Now I have no reason to trust them for anything. Neither of these papers can be trusted for even weather reports.
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        Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:47pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Bad example. Nobody can be trusted for weather reports :)
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        Rose M. Welch (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 3:04pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        ^^
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        Chosen Reject (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 4:20pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        You got me there, but in the interest of trying to save face, I will now claim that meteorologists get the forecasts wrong, newspapers should just report those forecasts, and now I will no longer trust them to do that properly.
        
        If that doesn't work, can I derail the conversation by calling you names and of being a supporter of Mazburglar?
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        Marcus Carab (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 8:46pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I will now claim that meteorologists get the forecasts wrong, newspapers should just report those forecasts, and now I will no longer trust them to do that properly
        
        Unless, of course, the two errors cancel each other out! I once spent weeks with my weather widget accidentally set to Toronto, Ohio instead of Toronto, Ontario, and found the results to be slightly less accurate after I fixed it...
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FM HIlton, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:38pm

The news isn't news anymore
It's actually entertainment, and as such, the media loves to make up stories (true, false or completely baseless) to entice readers.

It doesn't mean they're accurate. They're making stuff up just to fill the holes. They get caught out on this stuff a lot more than just a few times.

They're creating news for the most part, and then advertising that some of the media are "fair and balanced".

That is: Fair to their advertising and balanced on their profit sheets.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:40pm

Really? Mr. I-don't-stand-behind-my-own-articles is passing judgment on others who write articles? Classic.
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John Doe, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:43pm

Who said journalism is dead?
Journalism isn't dead, it is just busy writing two of everything.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 12:44pm

How do you post links in text?
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DV Henkel-Wallace (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:00pm

Like old sports reporting
This is how Ronald Reagan got his start: he would read the ticker tape reporting of faraway baseball games and then describe the game over the radio to listeners. The ticker tape just had raw data (hits, outs etc) so he would make up the background detail.

(Not to mention that many people follow cases like this as they follow sport)
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ComputerAddict (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:01pm

Defamation
Knox was found GUILTY of Defamation,

This is how it played out in my imagination:
the reporters heard the judge say "The Defendant is found GUILTY".. Now to the word "guilty" is like a track race's starting gun, at this point all of the reporters turned and ran out of the courtroom to print their articles, now back to the story, "of Defamation, on the second count of Murder in the first degree the defendant is found NOT GUILTY"
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:19pm
  
  Re: Defamation
  In an ironic turn of events, several newspapers were found guilty of libel and defamation for their false articles.
  
  /s
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - The eejit (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:51pm
    
    Re: Re: Defamation
    "But...but...IT WAS THE TRUTH AS WE KNEW IT!!!"
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:19pm

So...
Which version is considered "Hot News"?
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- DogBreath, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:42pm
  
  Re: So...
  The one in which it is reported that General�ssimo Francisco Franco is still dead
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Overcast (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:41pm

And "real" journalism is better than blogging, um... how?!

It's not, that's just what people who make money being somehow the 'official news' would have us believe.

What makes them 'official' and a site like this one 'not' official?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 2:45pm

It's just current events mad libs...
Have fun with it! After all, if you're relying on the media to actually report valid facts and share what's really going on in the world you're already completely self deluded.
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Almost Anonymous (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 3:44pm

I present, my impression of the Daily mail:
"Frist!"

then

"Oh crap..."
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WysiWyg (profile), 5 Oct 2011 @ 2:15am

Why first?
I don't get it. What's the point in being "first" on something like this? You will at best beat the competition by a couple of minutes!

If it was a brand new story that no one else knew about, that would be one thing, but "breaking" a ruling in a case like this is worthless. Especially if you add the possibility of screwing it up like this.

Even if they hadn't pushed the "wrong button", there would still be the risk of being called out on the fact that you made pretty much everything up. Is that risk REALLY worth those extra minutes?
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- nasch (profile), 5 Oct 2011 @ 6:11am
  
  Re: Why first?
  You will at best beat the competition by a couple of minutes!
  
  Not even minutes. Seconds.
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Pete Simpson, 5 Oct 2011 @ 7:41am

Ooh shock
Love this article, itclearly demonstrates the fact that press is business, and business has no morals when profits are the goal. I have no interest at all in one person in another country's conviction of killing one person in another country a year or so ago, when thousands of children die weekly in Africa.
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