A few hours in the life of a journalist...
Saturday, December 7th, 2024
Over the past month, a debate has been raging on my island about a proposed development project. I called up the editors at The Vashon Loop and said, “Is someone going to write about this in your December Issue?”
“Maybe you…” they said, “we like what you were talking about in a Facebook community discussion, can you flesh that out?”
My answer: “Sure!”
As it was an opinion piece, initially, I didn’t do a ton of research. I’d already seen the tenor of the Facebook discussions and I wanted to speak to “how” we do development, with regard to our mental/emotional approach, etc. But, along the way, someone emailed me a pdf outlining project details, presented as an FAQ written/provided by the project developer himself.
I took it at face value, because I knew the source, and that source knew its source, and the FAQ seemed very on point. As I was writing the article, a large colored flyer arrived in my mailbox from Vashon Household, delineating their accomplishments in 2024 and explaining their goals for 2025-2026. It matched well with the topic of my article, and so, that was another source that fell in my lap.
Last week was rather hectic, so my rough draft landed rather close to the publication deadline (which is today). But, we felt like I was on solid ground and everyone appreciated the rough draft, right up until someone said, “Where did that FAQ come from?”
Ah — authentication of a source. This is very important in journalism. Even though the world of journalism accepts the inherent imperfection of humanity. Even though journalists and publications are generally off the hook for errors, if they are honest mistakes and a proper correction follows notification of such an error. They are to be avoided!
And so, we pondered. And, as we pondered, I leapt around on Google trying to find this source document anywhere on planet Earth other than in my email inbox! The beauty of this was that I found more and more legitimate source information a la King County, newspaper articles, and so on. But, I couldn’t track down the origination of the FAQ document, when had been sent to me as a PDF attachment to an email.
In the end, the editorial team decided I’d need to revamp the entire article if I couldn’t prove the FAQ was accurate. Which I was willing to do, because now I had ample other documents from King County that were perfectly suited to the task, but I also knew the source was good and the FAQ was almost assuredly authentic. So, why couldn’t I find it anywhere?
My “dog with a bone” mentality set in…
That search resulted in multiple phone conversations with people in Switzerland, San Diego, Clallum County, my island home, and a friend who I thought was in Ecuador (but he’s now home and responded to me from Whidbey Island). For about two hours, I was on my headset, taking calls, placing people on hold, searching for phone numbers, returned calls, and asking multiple people “do you know so and so?”
The result?
I now know who produced the FAQ (the project developer), who he provided it to (the Affordable Housing Committee of the Vashon Maury Community Council), why it was provided (as review material prior to his public presentation at the VMCC Public Meeting on October 17th), who the Chair of the Affordable Housing Committee shared it to, who then shared it to another person, who shared it to the gentleman I spoke with on the phone today, and from whom it was eventually shared forward to my original source (who I spoke with today, in the early morning hours of Switzerland) — and then, of course, to me!
And so it goes!
Was all of this a waste of time, running around seeking verification of authenticity? Not by a long shot! First, of course — I proved the authenticity, so yay!
But secondly (and more importantly) in my conversations with all of these fine people, my relationships were strengthened, I created new ones (I’ll likely meet up for coffee next week with the 3rd person in the FAQ path of travel from origin to myself), and I had a fruitful conversation with a dearly valued wise woman who helped me see a new way to approach the article and the issue, overall.
And so!
A good journalist. A researcher, writer, and community advocate who you can trust. These people do as I and the editorial team at The Vashon Loop did. They do not cut corners when it comes to the veracity of their work. They do not easily give up, but chase down accuracy whenever possible, knowing if they can’t prove it — they can’t publish it. And, they do not go into an article with a hard and fast opinion or a “public manipulation” goal in mind. They remain open-minded and curious, learning along the way, and changing their article as honesty and increased awareness demand.
Welcome to my life, and check out The Vashon Loop’s website today, or in a few days, when their December Issue comes out.
I hope you’ll enjoy my article, and consider giving your support to The Vashon Loop (especially donations) as they are the only truly community owned newspaper on Vashon and they are a rare, rare, rare entity in WA State and the entire West Coast of America.
If we do not support our few remaining Independent Newspapers (or our favorite Substack Journalists), then they will eventually fade away entirely. As has forever been the case, our future is what we put our attention and energy towards.