Off The Record?

When I first read Terry Moran's tweet about President Obama calling Kanye West a "jackass," my first thought wasn't whether the president had actually said so (after all, I think 98 percent of Americans, regardless of political belief, can agree on that). No, my first thought was of wonder about how Moran had heard about the quote so quickly ... and why a quote that involved such strong language from the president regarding a situation that drew so much attention was nowhere to be found when I searched the news wires and the internet.

When it came to light that the president made the remark minutes before a CNBC interview, I was even more confused about how ABC News employees had accidentally spilled the beans on the president's remark. At first I thought ABC had stumbled upon a CNBC satellite feed ... but this article clearly lays out how ABC Newsers heard the comment through a fiber optic line shared by the competing networks.

The article also addresses the journalistic concept of "off the record" ... something I wanted to address briefly here.

When it comes right down to it, the things that bind a journalist not to report something they've learned "off the record" are professional courtesy and personal/journalistic ethics. On any given story, a journalist only reports a fraction of the information they really know. In TV, part of that involves only being able to say so much in a 1:15 long story ... and part of it involves keeping your mouth shut.

Sources tell us things off the record for a number of reasons. Sometimes they're fearful of going "on the record" with it. Sometimes reporters just need a little taste of the back story to do a better job of telling the story at hand. And sometimes sources just like to run their mouths.

But anything that's ever said to a reporter is committed to memory, written down in a notebook or considered for use.

I don't really like talking to people "off the record" too often. In a way, knowing more of the story actually handcuffs a reporter ... and at times it can get confusing as to what is on the record and what is off.

When someone tells me something off the record, if it's pertinent to the story at hand and in the public interest, I'll do everything within my power to get them to go on the record with it ... or I'll do what I can to confirm it through another source.

Unless there's some clearly defined and overwhelming public and journalistic interest in publishing something a source told me off the record, then I'm not going to do it (and I can say to this day that I've never run with something I shouldn't run with before I got confirmation on it). The reason for that is simple ... journalists have to build trustful relationships with sources and with viewers/readers. It goes back to the professional courtesy I mentioned earlier.

If a reporter publishes information they learned off the record, they've likely just burned a bridge in a big way. You can't effectively do this job whilst going around and burning bridges. You'll betray the trust of your sources and you'll betray the trust of the people you're working for ... the viewers and readers.

Most reporters care greatly for their reputations ... I know I've worked extremely hard to build a reputation as a relatable, trustworthy and reliable reporter. I want to keep it that way ... and for better or for worse, that's where "off the record" comes in to play.