"Believed to be" is the fakest phrase in news
A strong Associated Press story is marred by an unnecessary risk. A lesson for us all.
Sometimes in life, we need workarounds. In the news business, “believed to be” offers reporters a back door to introduce shocking but unproven claims.
When you see the phrase “believed to be” in newsprint, you know two things to be true:
The information is not confirmed.
The information is too good to not use. Even at risk of inaccuracy.
Consider this story from the Associated Press: “Oklahoma sports ‘biological sex affidavit’ raises questions.”
The story is an attempt to square the circle between libertarian concerns about state overreach — why are teenagers having to attest to their biological sex? — and conservative efforts to prevent biological boys from playing girls sports.
The AP finds Exhibit A in J.D. Runnels, a football alum of the University of Oklahoma who wants his son James to play ball too.
But Runnels is unwilling to have his son attest to his biological sex, as the state of Oklahoma demands of athletes “from kindergarten to college.”
The best stories are conflict stories. This story offers several.
Will the Runnels’ love for football, or freedom, win out? Has a measure designed to protect girls sports instead created a monster, a state bureaucracy that turns sports parents off? It’s compelling stuff.
The AP reports:
“Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed the “Save Women’s Sports Act” into law in March, one of more than a dozen state laws across the country that target transgender athletes. It bans public elementary, middle school, high school and college athletes from competing on the sports teams of their gender identity if that is different from their sex assigned at birth.
“Oklahoma is believed to be the only state to also require the affidavit — what critics call a ‘gender oath’ — to play sports.”
In a story stacked with conflicts and equities, the AP should have stuck to the facts.
Talk about what has been done, and what the law says, and people’s reactions to it.
“Believed to be” was an unnecessary risk.
The AP wanted to get ahead of the conversation, but did not know for certain that the claim was true. So it kicked the ball onto the fairway.
A better approach would be: Write only what you know, for today’s story.
Then, do a survey of states. You can start with the “dozen state laws across the country that target transgender athletes.”
If Oklahoma is, in fact, the only state with a gender oath, AP would still be the first to report it. And then it would be ironclad.
Instead everybody gets to go to bed tonight, hoping for the sacred sound of silence. Hoping that some reader, or lawmaker, or policy expert, won’t find another “gender oath” somewhere and tell them about it, and trigger a correction.
But that’s not the only risk. The second risk is greater, and affects the news business as a whole.
The AP is a credible news source. Its reports travel the globe.
Today’s claim, that was “believed to be,” will be repeated next time, in the next newsroom, without that caveat.
No one will bother to find out of it’s actually true.
It’s “believed to be” true, and the AP said so. That’s good enough, right?
If you see the phrase “believed to be” in newsprint, ask the same question AP should have asked: Is it worth it?