Lesson from a media frenzy: the XDL Case
Last week, the French media community experienced a very embarrassing moment, with a large audience in France. If you are not French, this event has probably flown under your radar, but it showcases common problems in media and news dynamics. So, we include it for initiation as a hot case study in our Info-Com workshops.
Below is a summary of case study wrap-up.
Background
On October 12, 2019, last Friday evening, breaking news popped up, that a long tracked French fugitive had been arrested at arrival in Glasgow airport. It was a coup de théâtre in an 8 years old criminal case well known in France as the "fate of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès."
This man (XDL), disappeared in 2011, after presumably having killed all his family, wife and four kids, and buried their bodies under their home terrace. Some scary details uncovered by the police about the last day before the crime proved the careful planning of the murders, the "guy next door" profile - middle class with aristocratic roots, an apparently loving family, etc. - and the total mystery about his fate - Suicide? On the run? Alone or with help? New life? - all was a big honeypot to French media, classics, and tabloids as well.
Along the coming months and years, further investigations dug out intriguing aspects of XDL's personality, and regularly, claims by so-called witnesses, of him having been spotted somewhere around the world, with the subsequent unsuccessful police verification, kept the audience engaged in this case.
With time, the whereabouts of XDL became almost proverbial in France.
What happened on Friday, Oct. 12?
In the afternoon, tipped by an anonymous call, the French Police asked the Glasgow Police to check the identity of a passenger in a plane arriving from Paris presented by the "snitch" as XDL traveling under a false passport. XDL' s portraits and fingerprints samples being wired by French investigators to their Glasgow counterpart to allow identification.
Quickly, the Glasgow Police answered that the controlled passenger looked different, but there was a positive match on fingerprints. The French policemen then sent a team in Glasgow with a full set of fingerprints models and DNA samples to confirm the identity, and started investigating at the address written on the passenger's passport in the suburb of Paris.
Friday evening: Several French Police contacts of journalists informed them of the arrest in Glasgow of someone identified by local police as XDL. There was no official communication at this stage, neither by Scottish nor by French police or justice authorities.
Around 20:30, reputable French newspapers started making headlines, some still using conditional "Arrest in Scotland of someone suspected to be XDL," but many without: "How did the police found XDL."
At 21:00 a flash from the AFP, the famous French News Agency confirmed that - according to "sources close to the investigation," a man had been arrested in Glasgow and identified as XDL.
From then on, the conditional disappeared from most reports. The 24/7 News Channels entered in "breaking news mode" and started nonstop coverage of this event. Panels of experts were invited to imagine how XDL had managed to evade police search, change his look, and start a new life under another identity.
The French Police issued the first official press release at 23:00, prudently stating that "someone has been arrested [...] and there is an ongoing investigation to confirm his identity.”
Nevertheless, the news channels and sites remained on the "we finally got him" stance.
At the same time, signs of doubt were noticed here and there. Some journalists' contacts within the French Police insisted on the fact that the identification was based solely on local police first diagnosis but needed further confirmation, as the man denied being XDL, and his look was very different from XDL's when he disappeared. The investigation of the man's house in France raised even more questions, as the neighbors dismissed categorically the possibility for him to be XDL - they had known him for 30 years - and no matching prints had been found in his house so far.
Anyway, most of the French went to bed on Friday night, convinced that XDL's criminal odyssey had met an end.
Saturday morning, the media changed tune, reporting the growing doubts, and proposing - better late than never - to wait for the DNA test and official declaration on the case.
Finally, Saturday 17:00, the official Press Release by the Glasgow Police put an end to this act. After DNA testing, the arrested passenger was not XDL!
Then, started the next act: media introspection and debriefing of what will undoubtedly remain a school case of journalism blunder.
So, let's add our voice to this concert of ex post wisdom, in a hot wash up (this is honestly, a little bit contradictory with our recommandation to avoid rushing, but nobody’s perfect…)
The Question of the Sources
How many times is it necessary to come back to this topic? Again and again and again, as the quintessential job of media is to work with/in spite/against… sources.
External or internal (field jobs), official or not, trustworthy or not, like them or hate them… it’s all about the sources. The information collected from the sources may be transmitted in full or filtered, raw, or explained and commented with judgments, reservations, or warnings… (but not purposely altered or falsified, to stay within the journalist scope of responsibility, and not the militant or propagandist. This is another story…).
So, the perceived quality of the sources will determine if and how the professional media will transmit the information to the audience. And the seasoned professionals would add: “perceived quality and the number!”, “one equals zero.”
So what do we have in this “false alert” media failure?
A CLASSIC MISPERCEPTION OF THE SOURCES BY THE MEDIA:
SITUATION OF SOURCES AS PERCEIVED BY THE MEDIA
Multiple sources of information.
Reinsuring confirmation coming from other medias.
Feeling that the audience is very demanding.
ACTUAL SITUATION OF SOURCES
One single primary source (with direct access to the event point of origin of the information), duplicated, giving the illusion of multiple sources.
Spiral flow of information within the media system, operating as an amplifier of the weak signal received from the primary source.
The insufficiently confirmed broadcasting is in fact pushed by
systemic internal pressure (resources mobilisation, continuous coverage,…)
economical external pressure (fear of competitors)
not by the audience’s expectations.
LESSON:
Primary sources are the ones to be searched for crosschecking.
Secondary sources are… secondary, not useless but not strong enough a basis to build big on it.
And news coming from competitors (such as other news channels) must be cautiously taken to avoid to be victim of a self-intoxicating media system, recycling and amplifying the same single tune.
A little extra…
Extra care is required when considering remote primary sources, coming from place far in space, methods and culture. Here we have a funny illustration: When the report from the Glasgow Police about the matching fingerprints became known, it was attributed by some to a “Scotland Police” (Glasgow being a Scottish city indeed). This attribution entered the self-sustaining media loop, and somewhere on the spiral, it became: “Scotland Yard confirms the identity”. No one would dare to doubt about the conclusion of the legendary criminal police in London….