Trump “Startled by Loud Noises” Should be a Serious Wakeup for Journalism Ethics (Opinion)

This past weekend our country witnessed two terrifying events – the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, and the botched news media’s “race to first” to cover the story. Both of these events show everything that is wrong with out country, and I’m very concerned what will happen to this country if neither of these issues are corrected.

There is a severe political divide in this country, and it grows larger every day. News media outlets fan this fire for the sake of views/ratings, to secure better advertiser deals and more advertisement dollars. Ad Fontes Media has an excellent interactive chart highlighting this growing divide, where news media custom tailors their content and tone towards a specific demographic to increase views. It forms an almost perfect pyramid, where the more an outlet leans liberal or conservative, the less reliable the news reporting becomes. It doesn’t take long to figure out that as we stray further from unbiased reporting, and further from reliable information, the wider the political divide becomes.

Editor’s side-note: There seems to be a very open market for the most unreliable fringe content that maintains a healthy balance between left and right political bias. It would be interesting to see where Babylon Bee and The Onion fall on this chart, as that might be their sweet spot.

But a second, equally as concerning trend in this country is the news media’s throwing journalistic integrity out the window and releasing whatever they can as quickly as then can, then worry about publishing corrections and retractions later.

“Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles former president, crowd” is the headline used by Hagerstown’s very own newspaper the Herald-Mail. This headline in fact originated from USA Today, which is owned by Herald-Mail’s parent company, Gannett. It appears that this article was essentially syndicated across all of Gannett’s news media sites simultaneously, without any regard for accuracy. No, Gannett chose to get preliminary, unreliable information published as quickly as possible in an effort to get as many clicks (and therefore ad views) as possible. And then they never bothered to update the Herald-Mail article in a timely manner once more information was available.

Sadly, Gannett is not the only news media company taking this approach. From the New York Post’s compilation of headlines:

• CNN: “Secret Service Rushes Trump Off Stage After He Falls at Rally”
• Associated Press: “Donald Trump Has Been Escorted Off The Stage During A Rally After Loud Noises Ring Out In The Crowd”

These headlines are absolutely shameful, and do not accurately reflect what happened at all. While some may claim political bias, I believe the problem runs much deeper than a bias problem, but instead the willingness of these outlets to sacrifice quality for speed.

I was notified via text message within minutes of the incident of what happened. But I delayed publishing an article until I could verify it was indeed gunshots, that the gunshots had been verified as being directed at Trump, and also importantly that it wasn’t just an accidental discharge by police or Secret Service. Because I delayed in publishing this article until I had at least some preliminary facts, I probably missed out on a significant amount of web traffic, as no news outlet had published anything yet when I received the notification. And even once I did have verification, I only published a brief statement “Breaking: Former President Trump apparently grazed in shooting at PA rally” on RFHC’s Facebook page. It was not until 7:45 PM that I actually published an article about what happened. As a result, our article currently has only 30 views. But I would rather deliver accurate news to 30 people than carelessly inaccurate news to 3 million. In this “race to first” we’re sadly witnessing another race, a “race to the bottom” of quality standards.

To be clear, my ethics and publishing standards are what is currently preventing RFHC from gaining significantly more revenue than its current status. Even more importantly, I always work to write our news stories from an unbiased perspective, and unfortunately my refusal to include political bias in my articles in today’s hyper-partisan world has resulted in many claiming our news isn’t trustworthy – not because the news isn’t accurate, but because the tone of our news does not provide confirmation bias which other outlets provide. The harsh truth is that news media on both sides of the aisle are continuously fanning the flames of this political divide, and our country is not only a powder keg right now, but we’re probably about to explode because it’s become so heated. I truly fear what happens regardless of who wins the election this November, because without some serious change in course of the news media and politics in this country, everybody loses. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to be a lone voice of sanity in a wilderness of anger and hatred being fueled by the news media. This has got to stop, and if you’re in the news media industry and not trying to fix it, you’re part of the problem. I’m looking at you Gannett, USA Today, Herald-Mail, MSNBC, Fox, OAN, CNN, and every other news outlet out there engaged in this senseless quest for views and ratings. But you know what, I’m going to personally thank former Hagerstown news station WHAG/WDVM, now known as DCNewsNow, for their coverage of the attempted assassination. Their coverage has in fact been the least biased that I’ve seen online, and quite possibly the most in-depth. What was once a small local news station for Hagerstown, MD is now quickly becoming a powerhouse for Washington DC region and national news.

I never went to school for journalism, or writing, or even business. I have a computer science degree. I could happily live the rest of my days focused on cybersecurity, and never give any of this a second thought. I created RFHC because I saw a need for something better locally when it comes to media – and it just so happens that we found news as our sweet spot instead of entertainment (although we’re making a comeback there baby!) due to the growing need for trustworthy news, especially at a local level in Hagerstown. But now I see the problem is much larger than I realized, with very few news media organizations stepping up to address this problem.

As such, I really want to expand our coverage to include more regional and national news. But with limited time constraints and only two of us working on this part-time outside our day jobs, the only way I’m going to make that happen is through hiring a couple freelancers. And of course, the only way that happens is if RFHC starts seeing a significant revenue increase.

So, I’m going to do something I rarely do other than through strategically placed advertisements on this site. I’m going to start soliciting for more monthly supporters. It’s only $5/month, and you can cancel at any time. It unlocks a whole bunch of bonus features, but most importantly it helps us grow to the point that we can start seriously increasing our ability to report what’s happening in our community and in our country.

I hope you’ll join us and become a supporter, because we honestly and truly can’t grow without you. If you can’t become a supporter right now, at least become an email subscriber. It’s free to subscribe, and will greatly increase visibility of when we publish a new article.

Opinion article by Ken Buckler, President of RFHC. All opinions are his own, and do not reflect those of our clients or sponsors.