“Seek Truth and Report It ~ Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.” The preceding words appear on the website of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Whether you are a journalist, an independent blogger, or even a fiction writer, you need to make sure you have researched your facts for their veracity (truthfulness) before passing along statements that could otherwise mislead your readers. While this may seem like a simple and sensible rule for newspaper (or TV) reporters, it makes sense for writers of fiction as well.
All journalists need to earn and maintain the trust of their readers. If the writer is found to be printing un-truths, whether by error or on purpose, that trust will be quickly lost. If readers don’t trust or respect a periodical or news source they won’t patronize that resource. Advertisers won’t spend their money in support if readership or viewers go down. Your value as a writer plummets as you become a liability. Research your facts and attribute claims to the parties making them.
Satire, which often stretches, distorts or makes fun of the truth doesn’t belong with most serious news reports. People reading satirical humor should have a reasonable knowledge that the subject they are reading or hearing is distorted. It needs to be written as if it is a serious news item with subtle but definite humor thrown in. The purpose of satire is to poke fun and point out how “silly” or unrealistic a situation is. If you make a person the subject of your satire, you are making fun of them and they may very well be offended. Be careful that you aren’t sued for slander.
If you are a historical novelist then the surrounding setting and events for your story need to be accurate even if your main characters and situation is pure fiction. Your main plot winds up being a fictionalized version of events but the action occurring around your plot should be authentic unless you are developing some form of fantasy and possibly an alternate universe.
Even a contemporary fiction writer should be aware of real facts and work this into the story. For instance, the NYPD carries guns, tasers and nightsticks – they do NOT carry Star Trek type phasers. If the local you’ve chosen has an underground railroad, it’s okay to use it. Don’t place neighboring countries on other continents or such, it will turn your readers off.
Do your research and get enough facts right to make your writing real. And if you are writing a news story, verify those facts before you print them.
Writing Exercise: (1) Look up the popular items from the year of your birth – songs, books, fashion. Look up significant news items from the day you were born. You might be able to find this info on the internet and use a search engine like Google. (2) Either by using a travel guide, a magazine or the internet (virtual tours are fun), find out something about a city you have never been in and write a paragraph of doing an activity in that city as if you were really there.
Writing prompt: List the first 10 items you can think of that you associate with the place you grew up. Then list the first 10 items you can think of about the place you love now. What types of things were most prominent on both lists? Keep that in mind when you write a scene about a fictional town to make it seem real.
