Opening the Freezer
Lesson 8.7
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... and our last, and most potent question that the news consumer should always ask themselves when confronted with whether or not the verification process worked...
Did the reporter open the freezer?
Did the reporter open the freezer?
In 2005, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Brian Thevenot, then a staff writer for the New Orleans' Times-Picayune was among a dwindling number of reporters left in the city to cover the historical event. During a stint in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which was filled with survivors of the Hurricane, Thevenot overheard a story from a National Guardsman that so many people had died at the center that they had to pile the bodies into an industrial-sized freezer. Thevenot dug deeper, and when he arrived outside the food service entrance which contained the freezer, he asked to see it. The guardsman on patrol wouldn't take him to it, telling him that not even he, after seeing the horrors of combat in Iraq could take it.
Thevenot took his word, and published the story, a copy of which is linked below
Katrina - 10000 Bodies in Freezer Original Story.pdfLater, he found out that the story was among the many that were based on rumor and myths that abounded in the chaos.
Thevenot published a correction, along with a reflection of the breakdown in the process of verification in the fall of 2006. (shown below)
American Journalism Review - Myth-Making in New Orleans.pdfThat same year, News Literacy was born as an undergraduate course. Howard Schneider, who is now known as founding Dean of the Stony Brook University School of Journalism, started to notice that students, when analyzing a news story, were saying things like, “I’m not sure this reporter opened the freezer…” when using news literacy techniques to evaluate news stories.
It has now become a catch phrase for news literacy courses nationwide: “ALWAYS ASK YOURSELF: TO WHAT DEGREE DID THE REPORTER “OPEN THE FREEZER?”
If not, why not? And if the reporter is relying only on arm’s length evidence, it’s up to you to decide if the report is reliable. Is there enough corroboration? Are the sources trustworthy?
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