Past tense tension

At midnight, the Indiana Daily Student hits its deadline. At that time, our reporters have to stop thinking about yesterday's news and start thinking about today's. \nUnlike other forms of media, newspaper news will always be slightly older than television, radio and Internet news. Newspaper staffs don't have the luxury of scrolling a crawl across the bottom of a page that the pope has died a minute after it has happened. The IDS can't tell its readers who will win Saturday's Little 500 races until the ink dries on Monday's paper. \nAnd once newspaper stories hit the printing press, the story must linger in the newsstand for 24 hours before a follow-up, update or correction can occur. \nLast Friday, Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom, famously known for his New York Times best-selling book "Tuesdays with Morrie," tried to compensate for the mortality of paper news, and in the process, jeopardized the credibility of his entire staff. \nLast week, Albom interviewed former NCAA Michigan State players Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson. He learned that the old teammates were planning to sit together at the Final Four game of Michigan State versus North Carolina, despite their busy NBA schedules. Although the game was slated for Saturday, Albom filed his column on Friday.\nBecause Albom assumed the teammates would follow through with plans, and because his column would not meet readers' eyes until it landed on front stoops Sunday, Albom wrote that Cleaves and Richardson sat together at the Saturday game in the past tense. \nThe blunder was that they actually had not. \nBecause of scheduling conflicts, the old friends never saw each other at the game. In fact, they never went. Albom gave his readers fiction, cloaked as news. \nAs a result of the false reporting, Detroit Free Press editors, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and Albom himself have issued public apologies. Albom said, "While our deadlines would have required some weird writing -- something like ... 'if Mateen and Jason stuck to their plans' ... it should have been done."\nYes, that would have been one option, but even if his deadline was set for Friday, it can't be blamed for this example of lazy reporting. In fact, his passive apology merely proves he doesn't accept responsibility, rather he blames it on the newspaper process. He's hoping his readers won't call him on it. \nWell, Mitch, we're the five people you meet in the newsroom.\nWe, here at the IDS, can attest that even if a deadline is two days in advance, there's time to make a correction the night before printing time -- not to mention the leeway Mr. Bestseller's list certainly enjoys in the office. There's no excuse for Albom's mistake, even in the constraints of our medium's tortoise pace. \nEvery time the media make a false claim -- whether the magnitude is of crucial or miniscule significance -- the credibility of all journalists absorbs the impact of one sloppy journalist's blow. \nNewspaper journalists are not in the business of competing with expedient dissemination of the television or Internet kind. Instead, we survive on our ability to pay closer attention to detail, focusing on the quality of writing and in-depth coverage. When the press attempts to overcome its inherent lag, we make inaccuracies, and we lose the trust of our readers. \nIf the media take pride in being the watchdogs for the people, they cannot bark pre-emptive news.