The evolution of news stories can be an uncertain experience for all concerned, from newsmakers to journalists to readers.
Consider the first reports in mid-May that the Bush White House had received nonspecific warnings before Sept. 11 that terrorists could be planning to hijack airliners.
Partisans inside and outside of Congress, but not only partisans, asked why the White House had not said anything earlier and whether it should have known more. The discussion was filled as much with political maneuvering as with known facts.
However, before long, the spotlight moved from the Oval Office to the FBI and the CIA, along with possible systemic shortcomings in the security agencies.
More recently, the memo written by Coleen Rowley, a lawyer in the FBIs Minneapolis office, confirmed fears that important information was not getting the timely examination it deserved.
What had begun as a sketchy story had become a national news story of substance.
The story took on another layer this past week. On Thursday, a report by The New York Times said the National Security Agency on Sept. 10 had intercepted two cryptic communications that apparently made shadowy references to Sept. 11, but that the agency did not translate and read the messages until Sept. 12.
Not surprisingly, some readers were angry, especially at the initial stories in May, and suggested that a bias in the press had taken aim at the president.
As more stories developed, I was reminded of the words of Bill Kovach, the chairman of Committee of Concerned Journalists, at a conference of news ombudsmen at the end of April in Salt Lake City. (At this newspaper, the ombudsman position is called public editor.)
Kovach, whose credits include Washington, D.C., bureau chief for The New York Times and the editor of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, discussed the way complex stories develop.
The individual reporter, he said, may not be able to move much beyond a surface level of accuracy in a given story. But the first story builds to a second, in which sources of news have responded to mistakes and missing elements in the first, and the second to a third, and so on.
Kovach continued: Context is added in each successive layer. In more important and complex stories, there are subsequent contributions on the editorial pages, the talk shows, in the op-ed accounts, and the letters to the editor or the callers to radio shows — the full range of public conversation.
Not that the public must blindly accept what is reported. On the contrary.
Reporters and editors, he said, need to urge the public to ask the most important question they can ask of a story — How do they know that?
Whether the story is about a routine City Council meeting or a leaked insider report at the White House, the public has every right and obligation to ask, How do they know that? And every right to doubt the credibility of a story that doesnt provide an answer.
The often-used, anonymous highly placed source in stories out of Washington might be acceptable from a reliable news organization initially, but the reporter needs to back up the information with hard facts — and identifiable sources — sooner rather than later.
In most cases, the public should demand to know the sources from the beginning, whether when reading a news story or listening to a talk show host.
In that way, when rumor fills the air, Kovach said, An educated public will be better able to understand and value the importance of a free and independent press.
The experience of getting from first reports to more detailed accounts of troubling subjects isnt always a comfortable one, but it can be credible. To make that happen, reporters and readers alike must ask the right questions.
