Journalism in a sped-up world requires accuracy, steady skill

Growing up, I remember hearing about life’s major events first on the news. In seventh grade I woke up to get ready for school. It was still dark outside, and my dad had the news on. The anchor was announcing that two hijacked planes had flown into the World Trade Center.

Fast-forward to 2017, I don’t own a TV and I consume news via Twitter. The media landscape has changed and is changing. I always wondered what it was like being on the supply side of the news. HBO’s “The Newsroom” goes behind the scenes of a fictional news station, Atlanta Cable News (ACN), and its coverage of actual events in recent history.

In Season 1, Episode 4, Jim, ACN’s senior producer, puts his colleague Maggie on the assignment desk. As she monitors other news sites for stories, she receives an alert that triggers a dramatic response. She runs into the news producer and anchor’s office with Coldplay’s “Fix You” playing in the background. The news team assembles on a Saturday afternoon to report a shooting in Tuscon, Ariz., that left over a dozen individuals shot, one of whom was Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The breaking-news team takes over the air from the gossip news show that runs on Saturday afternoons. Will McAvoy, ACN’s night anchor, changes into his suit and sits at the news desk. Coldplay’s 2005 hit continues to play. The breaking-news banner runs across the screen, and McAvoy takes to the air. He announces, “A local Tucson newspaper reported that Arizona Congresswoman Gabbie … Gabrielle Giffords has been shot while holding a public event in Tucson outside of a grocery store.” As updates continue to roll in, Maggie receives an alert from NPR announcing that the congresswoman had died.

Seconds later Fox, CNN and MSNBC confirmed Giffords’ death, citing NPR as their source, but ACN refuses to report her death without confirmation from a doctor. The president of ACN angrily rushes into the newsroom. “Every second you’re not current, a thousand people are changing the channel to the guy who is,” he says. “That’s the business you’re in.” A few minutes later ACN (and the news world) gets word that Giffords is alive and being prepped for surgery. NPR, Fox, CNN and MSNBC had it wrong.

In 2011 Kathryn Mykle­seth, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s energy and business reporter, was in her first year in college at Arizona State University, studying journalism. When news broke of the Tucson shooting that involved Giffords and the subsequent events, it reinforced an important phenomenon taking over today’s news cycle: prioritizing speed over accuracy.

“When reporters race to be first like with Giffords, you lose sight of the mission to be accurate and provide the information in the right context where readers have a true understanding of what has happened,” Mykleseth said. “It doesn’t matter if you are the first to publish, if you’re wrong.”

The role of the reporter is twofold. On one hand, Mykleseth informs. And on the other hand, she plays Robin Hood, giving small voices access to a large platform. In August 2014 she picked up the energy beat at the Star-Advertiser. Mykleseth went from covering Wall Street for a niche online publication in a state that pays 17 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity to a print reporter for Hawaii’s largest daily newspaper in a place where energy anchors its economy and residents pay more than double the national average for electricity.

Less than a year after taking the job, NextEra Energy Inc. and Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. announced a proposed merger. In many ways she could not have been more perfect to cover the sale of one of Hawaii’s largest private-sector employers. She entered the scene unburdened by political views or obligations, primed for a crash course in Hawaii energy politics.

“In journalism your mission is to the truth, and different people have different versions of the truth,” Mykleseth said. “So you try to get as many voices in one story as possible. A good rule of thumb is to include at least three sources for every article. When I was covering Hawaiian Electric and NextEra, I often ended up citing double that.”

Along the way she learned about people, their roles and their positions on specific issues.

Now she has hit her stride covering energy and business in Hawaii. Her favorite story thus far is not directly related to energy. It was her interview with Nainoa Thompson, the Hokule‘a’s master navigator.

“He was such a genuine person,” Mykleseth said.

Lauren Tonokawa is head of the communications team at the Energy Excelerator. She’s a graduate of the University of Hawaii. Reach her at laurentonokawa@gmail.com.