When a reporter refers to something as “too good to check,” it means that a story is so tantalizing that they’re willing to cut journalistic corners to make sure it gets to print.
This often results in dubious claims and outright falsehoods being reported as fact, an unsuspecting public momentarily tricked by journalistic sloppiness.
Rolling Stone magazine is wrestling with this problem, its editors scrambling to deal with the unraveling of a November exposé on campus sexual assault, titled “A Rape on Campus.”
The story’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, has also come under intense criticism, with the magazine’s editors admitting that they didn’t do due diligence gathering all the facts regarding the alleged campus rape.
If it turns out that the Rolling Stone article is totally false, or if it turns out that Erdely let the story get away from her because it was “too good to check,” it wouldn’t be first time that an eager reporter has unethically skirted corners to get a dubious story to print.
Here are five examples of when reporters rushed to get a story out before they had fully vetted the details of what they were reporting:
5. Oberlin College Racists
Journalists were shocked in 2013 when they reported that vandals had supposedly gone to great lengths to pull racially tinged stunts at Oberlin College.
The stunts included flying a Nazi flag and putting a “whites only” sign above a drinking fountain. Reporters wasted no time detailing the supposed “hate crimes,” and the story generating a good deal of press, but little was done in regard to investigating the persons responsible for the stunts.
A student later admitted that the whole thing was a hoax designed specifically to “get an overreaction.”
4. Racist Texts
Reporters in 2013 were shocked to learn that Micah Onditi of New Jersey was on the receiving end of terribly racist texts. As it turned out, however, the 16-year-old student, who also happened to be running for council president, was sending the texts to himself.
The truth of the matter didn’t come out until he had earned a significant amount of press.
3. ‘Kill the Gay’
A lesbian couple in 2011 claimed that someone had spray-painted “Kill the Gay” on their Colorado home’s garage door. The vandals also reportedly left a noose on the couple’s door.
Reporters were aghast. The FBI later reported that the women had spray-painted the message themselves. The two women were later charged with criminal mischief and false reporting.
2. The Parents Who Weren’t There:
A New York radio station successfully tricked the national media into thinking that an unreasonable neighbor slighted a gay couple and their child. As it turned out, nothing in the story was true.
From National Review:
Dayna Morales of Connecticut claimed in 2013 that an unkind customer where she waited tables had left a message on a receipt that read: “I’m sorry but I cannot tip because I don’t agree with your lifestyle and how you live your life.” The message was supposedly directed at Morales’ lesbian sexual preference.
The waitress got a great deal of media attention, including interviews on major news stations, and a whole lot of donated money.
However, it turned out that her story was a lie. The couple that supposedly wrote the unkind message came forward to clear their name, and it later came out that they had left Morales a generous 20 percent tip.
Of course, the fact of the case didn’t come out until after reporters had rushed to repeat Morales’ tale without first verifying it.
