Getting It Right Before Getting It First Joel Achenbach can be reached by e-mail at achenbachj@washpost.com. Joel's book, It Looks Like a President Only Smaller: Trailing Campaign 2000 is available at Borders.com. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50149-2001Sep18.html

By Joel Achenbach Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 18, 2001; 1:40 PM

The paramount rule of journalism is: Get it right. That's more important than getting it first. It's more important than being clever or compelling or entertaining. Publish the truth and only then worry about the other stuff.

Unfortunately this nation is in the midst of an enormous, complex, developing crisis, one that's shot through with rumor and misinformation. Thus the first rule for readers and viewers: Be skeptical.

The misinformation began even as the attack was in progress, when we didn't know where the terrorists would strike next. As I drove toward the Pentagon I heard a radio report that the USA Today tower was enveloped in smoke, yet there it was before me as gleaming as ever. I was a block from the State Department when I heard that it, too, had experienced an explosion, but there was no smoke, no noise – no bomb.

For hours, we didn't know the dimensions of the conspiracy, how many planes were involved, whether those international flights coming toward us over the ocean were part of the plan. A week later, we are still scrambling to understand this gut-wrenching event. How many others were involved? Were other attacks planned? Are terrorists still lurking in America, ready to strike again?

This is a moment where information – good information – is precious. It's also a time to beware the bad information. National policy and our own psychic health depend on finding the truth.

Consumers of news should pay careful attention to the origin, the sourcing, of information, and then should have the patience to wait a day or two to see if the news holds up. The size of the headline does not always correspond to the credibility of the report. In general the news media have performed tirelessly, brilliantly even, during the past week. Even so there have been stumbles, some mistakes that snowballed into an avalanche of misinformation.

We all heard the uplifting story of the five firefighters rescued Thursday from the World Trade Center rubble. A few hours later it turned out they'd only been missing since that morning. That night one of our reporters in New York hiked at 2:30 a.m. through heavy rain to check out a late-breaking report of 10 policemen pulled from the ruins. It was a madwoman's hoax.

Many of us reported that two teams of armed men had been apprehended in New York trying to board planes in a second wave of terror. Turns out to have been one guy with a fake pilot's ID in his sock. The news media don't make these stories up, they get them from sources, who in turn are sincerely trying to disseminate what they think is the truth. But in times like this information has a hard time passing through pipelines without getting contaminated. It's like that game of "telephone": I'll whisper a phrase in your ear, you pass it down the line from person to person, and we'll see what comes out at the end.

Did you hear that amazing story about the guy who fell about 80 stories – who literally rode the rubble as one of the twin towers collapsed – and lived? Wasn't that incredible? Yes, and it was incredible for good reason: It wasn't true. (At least I think it wasn't true – you should also be skeptical of people who say that something isn't true!)

Monday the wires moved a story about a pair of human hands found on a New York rooftop. Get this: The hands were supposedly bound together, as if by the hijackers. Grisly indeed. Last night CBS reported that a second pair of bound hands had been found. I'll wager neither report is true – it's a spontaneously generating urban legend.

A much-reported detail last week was that someone phoned the White House as the attack was in progress and said that Air Force One was the next target. The White House said the phone threat was particularly ominous because the caller used language ("code words" said one account) indicating knowledge of the president’s whereabouts and certain internal White House procedures. The Secret Service took it seriously.

One prominent columnist raised the possibility that the terrorists have a mole in the White House. But again, it was more likely a prank, or a piece of misinformation, passed up the chain of command. These terrorists are not the type to phone in a warning. They are shadowy in the extreme, nonverbal, making no threats or demands.

In addition to misinformation, there's missing information. How did the hijackers take control of the planes? What was the fourth target – the destination of United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania? Why did the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 suddenly turn away from the White House and hit the Pentagon? For that matter, why has no videotape, not even something from a parking lot security camera, surfaced showing the flight path of AA-77? Why weren't more people warned that a hijacked plane was screaming toward the protected airspace over Washington?

There is, potentially, a larger piece of misinformation lurking out there. That's the hunt for the people responsible. All roads, says Colin Powell, lead to Osama bin Laden. Indeed the crime has his signature. There are some connections between the identified hijackers and terrorists associated with bin Laden's network. And in any case, bin Laden's time is up. Lock and load. That said, the government should make sure that the pursuit of bin Laden doesn't divert attention from other culpable parties. Get 'em all.

Keep in mind that when a government is on a war footing it has a special relationship with information. It has to build public support for what might be costly military operations. We're facing a remorseless and fanatical enemy spread out over dozens of nations. There's so much we don't know about this enemy – that no one knows. As a nation, we need to educate ourselves about who these people are, and what we can do to stop them – while remaining a free and open society. We need information from multiple sources.

We need to get it right.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

Answers

Actually, the whole WTC thing didn't happen. It was just a doomer hoax.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001