EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK -- S.J. Cahn

One of the worst things to happen to a journalist is getting beat.

Our job is all about learning information and getting it to our

readers. And finding it first is important, because news is always the

strongest when it’s “new.” So when someone else gets to a story, it

stings.

And then, of course, there’s the glare that editors -- me included --

shoot reporters as we storm from our offices to find out how the

competition got to the info first.

Earlier this week, one of our competitors, Times Orange County (while

part of the same family, there’s still a healthy rivalry, at least on our

scrappy side), ran a story first about closed-door Newport Beach City

Council meetings on the John Wayne Settlement Agreement. The matter was

important because it raised questions about the state’s opening meeting

laws, rules that journalists watch carefully to ensure no wrongdoing is

going on anywhere in our government.

On Monday, we huddled together to determine how we could get a fresh

angle to the story. And we decided it would make sense to find out if the

Orange County District Attorney was, in fact, investigating the city.

Tuesday, we had our story. Just one problem. Despite what we reported,

the Newport Beach City Council is not being investigated -- or as the

district attorney’s office put it, “looked into” -- for any violation of

state open meeting rules regarding discussions of the settlement

agreement, which installed those all-important flight caps on the

airport.

I’ll repeat that a different way to be clear. Despite a subsequent

correction we ran on Wednesday, the Newport Beach City Council is not

being investigated for violating the state open meeting laws.

Turns out, in our zeal to get a strong piece of this story, we made a

collective, poor decision. We ran with a source that wasn’t very strong.

Turns out the woman was about as weak as you can get.

Turns out she was flat wrong.

Unfortunately, our usual source at the district attorney’s office,

spokeswoman Tori Richards, was unavailable when we called. And a

surrogate, speaking for the office, led us down the fanciful road.

It’s a mistake that happens -- we like to think as rarely as humanly

possible here at the Pilot. But it’s also a good reminder that stories

need more than one source, or at the very least one solid, trustworthy

person who is named, on the record and accountable.

During Watergate, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein couldn’t just run

with information from “Deep Throat” for this very reason.

Or for this one: One of our good sources called to suggest that we had

written a story based on the words of a receptionist with the district

attorney.

Ouch.

What’s frustrating for me is that at the Pilot we have a

stronger-than-normal policy on sources. While many journalists -- those

in Washington, most obviously -- live by off-the-record sources and

officials speaking “on background” (they’re the ones who appear in print,

unnamed, with titles such as “senior White House official”), we have a

policy that sources need to be on the record in all but the most extreme

cases.

The policy is so strong that in my more than three years here, I can’t

recall a story we ran without a clear, identifiable source. And, believe

me, you get much more interesting information if you don’t force your

source to see the light of day.

So to make a mistake based on bad information is painful.

What is soothing is that we made the mistake on a story that could

have been extremely important had their been any misdeeds. It is among

our highest responsibilities to watch over our government, to make

certain that the people you elect are acting in your best interests.

And, despite this flub, we won’t stop watching, even if sometimes

we’re the ones who are making the mistakes.

* S.J. Cahn is the managing editor. He can be reached at (949)

574-4233 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .