The Times Editorial: Reliable news reporting

Published 11:26 am Friday, January 13, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at various news organizations this week for publishing information from an unsubstantiated report that Russia was holding compromising personal and financial information about him. It’s not the first time our president-elect has raised concerns about media coverage, and we are confident it will not be his last.

Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the report by U.S. intelligence officials.

Trump said the information was full of falsehoods and insisted that it was fake news, a term that has recently been getting a lot of attention.

Interestingly, the election that brought Trump to the presidency was amuck with false news reports.

Reports throughout the campaign alleged all sorts of sensational and misleading information about Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Much of the calamity was blamed on social media and how quickly news — real or fake — can be delivered to millions of people in an instant.

Established, reputable news organizations are concerned about the rise of false news and the blending of commentary and legitimate reporting, which has grown through cable news shows and cyber bloggers who weigh in on issues and candidates without any sense of fairness.

News reporting requires a great deal of care in examining facts and fairly looking at two sides of an issue. Through education, training and commitment to the ethical standards of the news industry, reporting by newspapers have long provided accurate stories on community, state, national and world affairs that help readers form opinions and sometimes swing into action to improve conditions that affect their lives.

Here, at The Times, we take reporting seriously. It is our profession and passion to report on our community and inform readers about people, government decisions and other issues and events affecting their daily life, as well as issues from the state and national level that impact us in many ways.

Reporting is at its root an act of gathering facts and asking questions of those who have the power to make decisions or have expertise and knowledge concerning issues.

Through the rise of cable news shows, blogging and special interest websites that promote ideologies, the lines have become blurred between reporting and commentary.

That is something, under the spirit of the First Amendment, that we strive to avoid.

Opinion and reporting are carefully separated each day in this publication – opinions on a variety of topics are published on this page and sports opinions are typically on the first sports page.

Both sides in the presidential campaign came out with fists swinging in their attempts to win the White House seat.

A lot of misinformation and distortions came alongside the campaigns. We stand by proven reporting practices that have served the public well through most of the history of the United States.

We encourage readers to rely on sources of reporting that are reliable and do not mix showmanship with serious reporting.