Big stories, little details

When Janet Cooke was caught in 1986 fabricating details of a story about drug users she wrote for The Washington Post, she fell into a trap that has tempted every journalist since Moses wrote the book of Genesis. The temptation is to focus more on the truth of the big story than on the accuracy of the details.

The big part of any story is its "gist" or its direction. Was Hurricane Bertha worse than expected or more of a false alarm? Was the church meeting sweet and unified or fractious and ugly? Is the drug problem near the nation's capital serious or is it getting better?

The irony for the journalist, and the accompanying temptation, is that it's entirely possible to get the big story right and still to be false in the supporting details. That's what Janet Cooke did. Her overall story was a faithful account. But in the process, she made up some fictitious characters and passed them off as real. So readers of the Post were trusting a liar to tell the truth. That's something good journalists avoid like the plague.

Which would you rather have right: the main direction of the story or the details? Which irritates you most if the journalist gets them wrong?

Consider this: Does it matter to you that Janet Cooke's name really is Janet Cooke, and that she was fired by the Post in 1987 rather than in 1986. Do such details matter so far as the main story is concerned?

But on the other hand, what would happen to your confidence in WORLD if you knew we regularly just made up details to the stories we include in our news pages-or even here on our opinion pages? Wouldn't that erode your confidence in our ability to get the big picture right as well?

Both aspects of the journalistic assignment are critical. You don't want a good reporter to fudge either on the main story or on the details. It's only when the two regularly complement each other that confidence grows and trust is enhanced. Fall off on either side, and disaster lurks.

Janet Cooke lost her job. Similarly, when it was revealed a few days ago that Newsweek reporter Joe Klein was indeed the writer of the best--selling novel Primary Colors, journalism ethicists worried about the impact. By almost everyone's account, Mr. Klein's book was an amazingly accurate reflection of the main themes and tones of the Clinton presidential campaign in 1992. Yet Mr. Klein insists now he made up the details; although wealthy now, he may no longer have some of the reporting assignments he used to have.

Meanwhile, a whole list of big name journalists still have their jobs; they get a lot of details right, but keep pointing in a totally false direction with their big stories.

CBS-TV anchor Dan Rather, for example, two weeks ago spent most of an hour trying to rewrite history in an interview with Cuban president Fidel Castro. By the Rather account, you are encouraged to believe that Mr. Castro never dreamed of taking Cuba down a Marxist road until several years after the United States had regularly snubbed his revolution. Cuba's current problems, Dan Rather suggests, are traceable more to U.S. policy than to the four decades of failed communist experimentation. Every detail in the documentary may have been technically accurate-but so what, if the main drift was false to the historical record?

Or take this, from the arts pages of The New York Times. In a review early this month of Disney's movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Times noted the violence (a lot), the profanity (none), and the sex (some suggestive dancing). Then, categorized with its other warnings, the Times included this ominous footnote: "The movie is sprinkled with Christian images, and there are specific references to God." There, for sure, is a demonstrably true detail. But where does the writer's direction mean to take you?

As you read the Bible as God's faithful revelation to human beings, you should be grateful that both the main story of the book, and all the supporting details, are absolutely trustworthy. If either element were missing, the Bible would be little more than pious advice. I hope you always also discover WORLD magazine to be like the Bible in that regard-trustworthy in its overall direction, and attentive also to all the details that spell out where the author means to take you. (Unlike God, we'll make mistakes.)

One great story has the right combination. It's the account of Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" of the Supreme Court's infamous 1973 abortion decision. Ms. McCorvey became a believer in Christ just a year ago, and her story is warmly told now on a 30--minute videotape produced and circulated by Donehey and Associates, P.O. Box 236, Fredericksburg, Va. 22404. The video probably still won't persuade a hard-core abortionist-but it is a well-done reminder how God chooses to work in unlikely ways. Included in the account is a surprising detail about the little girl in Dallas who first invited Ms. McCorvey to come to church to hear the gospel of God's grace. Call (800) 371-3404 for details about ordering the $24.95 video-and be sure to tell them you read about it in WORLD.