This excellent and useful summary from Poynter of the initial false reports about Joe Paterno's death tell us so much about today's instant news world. (Since this story is almost a week old and since only what happens today seems to matter you may wonder why I would comment on it now. A week on Maui with family completely disconnected from the real world is my only excuse.)
The initial false report shows up first on a Penn State student website, Onward State. From there it spreads quickly to radio, to the social media world, to major news outlets including CBS and Huffington Post. Most are all spread the story without attribution--at least until the family denies that it is true.
I can't emphasize enough how important looking at an event like this for crisis and emergency communication professionals. This is not an aberration. This is how it works today in most news stories. Here are some quick summary points to keep in mind:
1) Initial reports are often false. It's a standard understanding of crisis events, but still communicators are often not properly prepared to deal with the initial false reports. Beginning the communication process almost immediately with correct information is essential, essential, if you are going to be seen as credible and if you are going to counter the false reports.
2) The spreadability depends on believability. In other words, if the false report fits the public and media's understanding of what is likely to happen or what is expected to happen, the false reports will speed so much faster. In this case, most knew of Paterno's illness. Reports of his death, while big news, were not unexpected (as it turned out the rumor was only a little premature). As an example, early reports during the BP spill about BP's culpability and carelessness were sped by reporting on previous events which gave it credibility. This means if your organization is already characterized or understood to be inept, unscrupulous, untrustworthy, any reports that corroborate that will be more believable and distributed more quickly than if the rumor runs counter to what current understanding is.
3) Mainstream and social media alike will report without verification. @breakingnews on Twitter spread the story as well as other major news outlets. The rule of thumb in today's media world is this: you can get hurt if you are wrong, but you will get killed if you are late. So, run with it. We need to understand that dynamic if we are going to participate in this instant news world. The crowd provides its own editing process--media outlets do not (in general). To be fair and to its credit, the Associated Press did not run with the story and took some well-deserved pride in its caution in this event as it did with the Gifford's shooting story.
4) The "crowd" edits. In this case, much to the credit of the New York Times, it was apparently Mark Viera of NYT who tweeted that based on info from the family the rumors were rumors. But, it could have easily (or easier) been the family, someone close to the family, someone who knew the family, someone who access to the truth and who countered the rumor. The point is that if the rumor is wrong, it is often remarkable how fast it gets corrected.
5) It's not easy to stop a horse once it gets out of the barn and is on the run. Sorry for my rural allusions. Although the correct information first appeared at 8:57, it took until 9:29 for Onward State to correct its report. The 45 minutes from its first incorrect report to its retraction is a lifetime in the instant news world. And while many of the outlets initially reporting the rumor started correcting it earlier, while Poynter doesn't investigate this element of the story, it is quite likely that the rumor continued to circulate for some time while the correct information gradually took hold.
The lessons for crisis and emergency communicators seem overly obvious and have all been made before: communicate quickly, monitor, be the correct source of information, respond quickly and aggressively to rumors, provide continual updates, engage and on and on. But all that is much easier said than done. As Cheryl Bledsoe reports on her experience in monitoring during the #SMEMWater drill, it doesn't take long to get overwhelmed: 11 minutes in her example.
