Fair Comment
The Rule of Fair Comment may be defined simply as seeking comment from differing sides in a news story. It applies to all stories, but especially to stories that involve conflict, dispute, allegations, disagreement and argument. It is founded in the same basic principle underlying American jurisprudence: that individuals have a right to defend themselves in public against charges made against them. While jurisprudence begins with the assumption of innocence, journalism uses fair comment as one of several basic methods of verifying the accuracy of information and providing as truthful and thorough an account as possible.
The U.S. Constitution does not require press fairness under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Nevertheless, common law has long upheld an individual’s right not to be defamed, slandered or libeled by the publication of false or inaccurate information. Thus the Rule of Fair Comment has a positive and negative aspect. In a positive sense, it encourages verification of accuracy of information by asking firsthand sources to state their version of the facts. In the negative sense, it curbs the publication of falsehoods by the threat of libel suits.
In a general sense, the Rule of Fair Comment increases the credibility of the press. The power of a free press is directly related to credibility. As journalists, we are often required to write about topics we have little expertise in. People believe what they read in the newspaper not because they trust our superior knowledge, experience or ability to recognize truth over falsehood, but because we warrant our stories with a repeatable, transparent method. That method includes questioning firsthand sources and not printing hearsay, defined as someone repeating what someone else said.
Finally, fair comment doesn’t have much to do with balance, objectivity or neutrality. We are not gods. We are humans who struggle against our own biases to discern truth because we believe deeply the truth sets all of us free. Fair comment is integral to that struggle.
- Cristian Salazar and Jonathan Maslow, Herald News, April, 2006
The Disclaimer Policy
Reporting balance is our sina qua non. That means getting both sides of the story. We sometimes cannot reach news sources before deadline. But we must always try. It’s part of our contract with readers to make a good-faith effort to reach sources and to let readers know we have done so. Whenever we have tried to reach a news source and failed before deadline, it’s a good practice to include a concise sentence in the story to that effect.
It need not be complicated:
The mayor did not return a phone call Tuesday.
The company could not be reached for comment.
Di Carlo did not return repeated phone calls.
Attorney General’s Office spokesman Try Speaker said there would be no comment.
Placement of such a disclaimer within a story is up to the reporter, but it’s better to put it high, just after a sentence that would normally elicit fair comment.
The omission of this type of disclaimer sentence leads the reader to believe we did not try– and the credibility of the article and the newspaper suffers.
- Jonathan Maslow, Herald News, March, 2003
