Verify, verify and, when you have — verify some more!

The death of Michael Jackson proved again the immediacy of the web in reporting news.
It also illustrated how susceptible even news organizations can be in believing a report before independently verifying it to be true.
When reports broke that Jackson had been rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles, the race was on between traditional media outlets — most notable the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times and CNN — and their cyberspace peers — most notable TMZ.com and myriad Twitter users — to be the first to declare Jackson dead or confirm a recovery.
As far as I can tell, TMZ.com was first to report the demise of the King of Pop, which is not surprising since TMZ has evolved from a celebrity-gossip website fighting with sites such as Defamer to becoming the leader in celebrity scoops.
Even as TMZ was reporting Jackson's death at the age of 50, the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post were working on independent verification and had, at the same time as TMZ's declaration, Jackson in a coma.
From my viewpoint, it appeared as though the three organizations did what is supposed to be done in journalism — verify before publishing.
TMZ's focus is solely on celebrities; therefore, it stands to reason it would be ahead of the pack in reporting on celebrities since it likely has unparalleled sources in the field. The Times and Post, of course, are news organizations with a far more widespread mandate. If the story was a political scandal, TMZ wouldn't even be participating (providing the scandal was bereft of lewdness and any connection to Hollywood), while the Post and Times and various others would be on the case.
Now, so farm so good.
A celebrity icon falls ill and dies and new and old media are covering it the old-fashioned way, working contacts and publishing online by the minute as new information is gleaned.
However, amid this frenzy were what I would call Twidiots, those among us with Twitter accounts who began posting false reports of other celebrities dying this day.
Just before Jackson was rushed to hospital, Farrah Fawcett's death from cancer was announced, leaving June 25 as a momentous day in celebrity obituaries. Earlier in the week, Ed McMahon, the legendary sidekick to Johnny Carson, died.
Perhaps this trifecta of tragic news was too much for some Twidiots as word spread virally that actor Jeff Goldblum had died following a fall while filming a movie in New Zealand.
The odd thing is this rumour was quickly being reported as a rumour on various sites compiled by the Google news aggregator.
Harrison Ford was then offered up as dying and the whole thing got out of control.
Turns out Goldblum and Ford were and are very much alive and safely at home in America.
But the frenzied competition online means spurious rumours can become a line or two that resembles fact.
But such eagerness to not fall behind isn't limited to the web.
Our paper was caught in a similar situation this week concerning a story about a man who was assaulted and dropped off at Royal Inland Hospital here in Kamloops.
Details were scarce. All we knew was the man was in serious condition with head injuries, that a truck had been seized from the parking lot of a former strip club and that two people were being questioned by police.
Word soon got out that the man may have been shot in the head. Though the police would not comment on the nature of the man;s injuries, our reporter heard from some sources that the man had been shot, so we reported what we called an "apparent shooting."
Turns out the man had been beaten about the head, and not shot.
Even though we qualified the injury in our story by adding "apparent" to shooting, my headline stated it was a shooting.
And that's not good enough.
Sometimes in this business, with a deadline staring at you, you take a chance.
As the Chicago Tribune realized in 1948, Dewey did not defeat Truman.
And, as I found that this week, a beating is not a shooting.
You live and learn, and what we learned here is that verification will trump all else.

Kamloops (Twice) This Week

So, it has happened.
Our community newspaper in Kamloops, one that was born in 1988 as a weekly and grew to a thrice-weekly publication in 1991, is taking a step back.
As of June 14, 2009, Kamloops This Week will become a twice-weekly publication as the Sunday edition is jettisoned.
This is not a surprise, as I have been awaiting this decision for months.
No, I did not have inside information. Heck, I was on vacation when I got the word.
But, when a number of other papers have done likewise and, so far, avoided massive revenue loss, it was, in my opinion, only a matter of time until the powers-that-be decided to add Kamloops This Week to the roster of papers that are now twice-weekly entities.
These include the largest community paper in the chain, the Surrey Leader, along with the Peace Arch (White Rock) News, Chilliwack Progress, Tri-City (Coquitlam) News and Penticton Western News.
It has been stated in our paper this decision will better position KTW as the newspaper industry continues its path through a very tumultuous time.
Maybe so, but the decision saddens me nonetheless.
To be clear, there are wiser minds than mine who make the big decisions in Black Press, and they obviously see this move as being necessary.
The cost of newsprint has essentially doubled in the past year, while the remaining costs of getting the newspaper to 30,000 homes in Kamloops is expensive.
But I grew up with ink on my hands.
Newspapers are in my marrow.
As a 14-year-old, I couldn't sleep on the night of Aug. 1, 1983, as I was anticipating with glee the arrival the next morning of the very first tabloid Province newspaper.
I would rush home twice a week to grab my local Abbotsford News, just to devour the headlines and stories and smell the newspaper ink, which to this day still offers my nose a waft reminiscent of potato chips.
I could recite, word for word, Jim Taylor's hilarious prose from his sports columns in the Vancouver Province and would pray to the almighty to spare me one-tenth of the talent that flowed from Denny Boyd's brain.
I was fortunate enough to land a job with that Abbotsford paper upon my graduation from journalism school in Edmonton.
And I was there when the paper jumped to three times a week from its twice-weekly mandate.
So, when your very passion is contracted, regardless of the reasons given, it is not, in my opinion, a positive.
It may be necessary, and it's a damn sight preferable to shutting down the entire operation, but it's still disappointing on so many levels.
This is simply common sense.
When the Rocky Mountain News closed, it was horrible news. When Heart could not find a buyer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and killed the print edition, leaving an online news presence with very few journalists, it was horrible news.
As it has been when the two Detroit daily papers decided to cut back home delivery to three times a week, and when the National Post announced a summer stint without its Monday edition, and when the venerable Victoria Times-Colonist decided to axe its Monday product for good.
Not healthy signs, for certain.
Cutting back on publishing dates while newspaper owners and managers the world over try to find a way to make an online newspaper profitable and hope the recession fades away and brings about more advertising revenue?
Well, maybe a step back here and there is necessary if the spawn of Gutenberg's invention is to resume galloping among those who crave a good lede, a great photo, pertinent information from city council, a recap of a sports team's triumph and a column that will stir all sorts of emotions within.
As usual, our staff will focus on turning out the best papers we can twice a week, along with continued constant stories, photos and video posted to our website at kamloopsthisweek.com.
We live in interesting times.