Journalists should roll with the punches

Happy New Year Amy!

Aside from the box of Krispy Kremes some thoughtful coworker typically leaves in the breakroom, there aren’t many upsides for journalists coerced into working on New Year’s Day.

Most of the producers and reporters were finishing up their early morning shifts by the time I trudged in to start my day, and it was clear the weary silence I felt had settled over the newsroom hours earlier.

But on a day typically marked by predictable stories and almost nonexistent news, I perked up when a director came from the control room talking about “the kiss.”

I had a feeling this was going to be good.

As they generally do when something hilarious happens on camera, the media editors had already cut and published a clip from our live New Year’s Eve broadcast and were periodically playing it on demand for producers.

They’re starting a screening now.

While reporter Amy Thorpe describes the atmosphere of downtown Raleigh in the first seconds of the new decade, a man homes in on her cheek from the right side the frame and lands a New Year’s kiss. He had jumped a police barricade and climbed a set of risers to get there.

“Happy New Year,” the heavy-lidded man mouths to a befuddled Thorpe as he disappears from view.

After we all watched the reporter return the well wishes and play it off with laugh, we were rolling on the floor.

This kind of thing actually happens a lot in TV. Well, not necessarily the whole unwanted advances thing, but I’m sure almost every station has an internal archive of unforgettable screw-ups and unexpected occurences floating around for their own amusement.

Most of the time, this footage is never released to the public. But the kiss was broadcast on live TV. And that meant I could put it online — if it wasn’t already.

I love opportunities to pull back the curtain and show audiences what’s going on behind the scenes of the news.

Sometimes that can mean sharing hilarity. Other times, it can mean sharing your notes and providing transparency for your reporting.

The result is authenticity and honesty, and I think it’s something that can really attract and sustain readers, viewers and listeners, regardless of the medium.

But in the case of mistakes, taking yourself a little less seriously sometimes allows you to get ahead of the inevitable criticism. That’s what Scott Rosenberg argues.

The Washington Post drew substantial mockery for their stilted correction pointing out a mix-up over a Public Enemy song, mainly because their reaction was not one of good humor.

Instead, the Post followed the circle-the-wagons playbook more appropriate to a Watergate-level power struggle than a little pop-culture gaffe. It waited a week to post the correction, and it was the notice’s opacity and stiff tone, as much as the original error, that exposed the paper to ridicule.

Granted, corrections are never fun. I’ve written my share. Every single one of them is a mark on a news organization’s credibility, an admission that we failed to do our job.

But we can certainly learn from corrections. We can benefit from transparency and honesty. And we can gain from a few laughs at our own expense.

That goes a long way toward making up for what we’ve lost.

This won’t be the last funny or embarrassing moment we’ll have, nor is it the first. Despite our best efforts, journalists in general will continue to screw up, miscalculate and get it wrong.

But we can get better and better about dealing with those mistakes (or unexpected circumstances) in a more human and honest way. As a result, the response can have more impact than the event prompting it.

That’s why Amy’s reaction is even more hilarious than the kiss.