Allowing sources to see stories before printing

I agree with everyone, absolutely not.

However, I have done it.

I've covered a lot of teams for years. A while back, I'd interview a football coach while he was reviewing tape. They were blow outs every week, so at that point I knew what questions I was asking and he was just filling in the holes.

One night, he asked me to read my story. It uncovered a very disturbing fact. He read like a second grader. I couldn't believe it.

 

this is basic and the answer is never do it...you're just waiting for a disaster...I'm surprised it hasn't caused you problems already.

 

Don't do it. Don't consider it. Don't think about it.

Unless ...

Once, I wrote a story about a woman. Her husband was a fireman and coach. Three months earlier, he had died, along with eight others, when a furniture store burned. She hadn't spoken with any reporters. Couldn't do it yet. For some reason, she picked me. I promised to be careful, delicate and willing to explain why I wanted to know certain things and why they were important. She was terrific. Strong, patient, thoughtful. At the end, she asked to see the story before it ran. I hesitated and said that I'm not comfortable sharing. That my mother failed in teaching me that lesson. She said it was important to her. I explained that, in particularly sensitive stories, I have a simple rule: I'll answer questions about the story, read quotes, and even consider changes in some cases -- if I haven't shared the story. If I do share it, the deal goes away; I won't change a thing. Explaining that much has, in every other case, convinced the person to back off. This woman said she was OK with my terms. I hesitated again. She insisted. Said she just wanted to read about her husband before everyone else did. That it might make her feel close to him again. That she guessed she wasn't much for sharing, either.

I let her read it. She didn't ask me to change a thing. It's the one time I've done it.

I don't regret it.

 

That's the thing right there.

The answer is no. In general. For a thousand good reasons, both ethical and logistical in terms of getting the damn story in print. Never, never, never in anything even vaguely adversarial, or when covering an event or public figure, or when doing 90% of the stories reporters do on a daily basis.

But in a situation like babb described? You know what? I'd probably have shown her the story, too. I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge that what you're doing is highly personal to a source. That doesn't mean they should get to dictate the terms of the story. I can't put my finger on a blanket circumstance when it's OK and when it's not OK. It's almost never OK. But sometimes it's not that bad, and it won't affect the story, and it's the human thing to do, and sometimes that outweighs the journalistic thing to do.

ETA: I don't think the "idea" should be examined as common or even acceptable practice. In general, it's very, very good to have a strong policy against it. It should not be encouraged. It's the sort of thing an editor should shoot the hell down, if the reporter brings it to them. I'm just saying...I'm not a zero-tolerance person when it comes to the idea. It's one of those rules to which there actually are the (very, very) rare exceptions, and I think that's how it should generally be treated.

 

How many people have given questions in advance of an interview? I'm asked on occasion and I'm wondering other's experiences with it? I say no, because the people that ask should know better.

 

For 99.999 percent of the stuff we deal with, I would say absolutely not.

This may seem like a random .0001 example, but if I was doing a story about Dr. James Andrews doing surgery on an elbow, I could see going through the sequence of the things as he explained it to me to make sure I had understood it and that I had written it correctly. Like I say, pretty random.

 

I've had a few people ask over the years, and the answer has always been no. The idea is to have a conversation with them, not just a Q&A session, and it's difficult to get anything like a rapport going when you're just trading questions through e-mail (though there are times, such as intercontinental interviews, where e-mail is your only option).

They may or may not know better, though, so it's our job to accurately explain why that isn't an option.

 

Post of the Year. Of many years. Admirable. Ethical. Compassionate. My hat is off to you, noble scribe.

 

No.

No.

A thousand times no.

 

Well done. One of the few cases that warrants this practice. I dealt with something similar last year...a high school kid losing both of her parents. You have to approach those stories with a big heart...the aunt and uncle in this case have known me for a long time and were comfortable that I would handle the story/interview well. It's been the only time I've felt the need to give the subject of my interview a hug. Tough stuff. Tough kid.