By Kelcey Sexton
On the morning of Sept. 16, 13 people were killed at the Washington Navy Yard, one of the victims being the shooter, Aaron Alexis. In the midst of the chaos that morning, some news organizations were forced to retract reports including misinformation given to them by sources. Two of those organizations, NBC and CBS, put out tweets identifying the Navy Yard shooter as Rollie Chance, a retired Navy Yard chief petty officer. One tweet from Chuck Todd, an NBC News reporter, said, “The confusion over the shooter name had to do with an I.D. card found near dead gunman; What led to bad initial reporting.” This came after the retraction of the earlier tweets naming Chance as the suspect due to law enforcement finding his I.D. at the scene.
According to an interview with The Huffington Post, Rollie said he was being forced to deal with the impact of the circulation of false information. “Not only did it impact me in terms of changing my way of life, it impacted my family, and also I lost friends at the Washington Navy Yard,” he said. In the interview, he said several of the shooting victims were his acquaintances and prior coworkers. He said he received a call around 11 a.m. or noon from ABC News asking whether he knew of a Rollie Chance with that phone number or address. “My first thought was, this must be a joke,” he told The Huffington Post. Chance also told Fox News that neither organization has come forward offering any apology. “I feel upset,” Chance said in the same interview. “I feel that my privacy was violated. I felt like my world was turned upside down. And now I’m left with trying to put it back together. And I’m thinking about my family, how it would impact my family. I’m upset. I feel that I was wronged.”
In my opinion, the fact that other news organizations opted to hold out on reporting the identity of the supposed suspect in the shooting makes this an ethical dilemma. During tragedies like the Navy Yard shooting, careful steps must be taken to ensure that the information being put out to the public is factual. Accurate information during times like that is critical. The aftermath of misidentifying a murder suspect does not only affect the organizations responsible. Due to CBS’s and NBC’s decisions, Rollie Chance faced false accusations of murdering 12 people, some of whom were friends or former colleagues, and was assumed to be dead as well.
During breaking news like this, however, it is also important that the public is kept updated on the situation and the new information arising from the scene. When trusted sources like the police give information to reporters regarding new leads in cases, reporters are of course going take this information and voice it to the masses. Social media platforms like Twitter make it possible to get that information out in seconds. NBC and CBS did what news organizations are expected to do; they reported what information they were given. They were loyal to the public in that it needed to know what progress the police were making. They were also not the only organizations to get facts wrong during the chaos surrounding the Navy Yard shooting, as one online Huffington Post article shows several tweets with inaccurate information, particularly regarding the number of shooters.
By reporting the suspect identity they were given, NBC and CBS broke no laws, although Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren told Chance “accusing someone of a crime is libel per se” but said she knew “they deeply regret [their mistake].” They also believed the information they obtained to be accurate, as Todd responded to one person’s tweet on the issue with, “we had multiple sources on this; wish a LACK of double sourcing were the reason for the error.” Furthermore, after it was realized the information was false, both organizations, holding themselves accountable, released statements announcing so and immediately deleted the tweets containing the information. Todd tweeted, “we are now NOT reporting name of shooter; retracting that report. deleting those tweets,” and Charlie Kaye, executive producer for CBS News, tweeted, “BREAKING. @johnmillercbs advises the initial reports identifying the suspected shooter as Rollie Chance are wrong.” Todd also went on in a string of tweets, explaining how NBC was misinformed. “The confusion over the suspect’s name comes from conflicting law enforcement sources. That’s why we pulled back,” he said.
No one wins, in my opinion, in this case aside from the news organizations, like CNN, that waited to report the correct identity of the shooter confirmed by the FBI. CBS and NBC as well as the reporters responsible have been ridiculed for the misinformation and their being forced to retract it soon after. Both organizations are also at fault in the eyes of many for the negative impact the reports had on Chance and those close to him. However, if in the future Chance seeks to take some sort of legal action against the organizations and succeeds, he very well could be considered a winner, but, according to NOLA.com, he would not comment on the possibility.
Though the effects of the tweets NBC and CBS reporters played an unfortunate part in Chance’s life, and even the lives of those close to him, I do not see any way around this occurrence. There is just no time to twiddle your thumbs and wait for the FBI to confirm information when reporting on breaking news. If a mistake is made, as it was, media are expected to take responsibility, correct it and report the correct information – that is exactly the way NBC and CBS handled the situation, and they reacted quickly. After coming to the conclusion of supporting the decisions of the NBC and CBS reporters, though I went into writing this thinking I would only disagree, my only criticism is of the failure of the two organizations to reach out to Chance afterward. Were I one of the reporters involved in the chaos on either staff, I believe I would have gone through with reporting the false information, but I would have most certainly contacted Chance in the aftermath to offer an explanation and an apology.