Jeopardy! story is a case study for labelling opinion pieces
Letter from Trebek highlighted the need for clarity in headline
The category: media trust. Today’s daily double clue: opinion, not fact.
The correct response? What is this Toronto Star headline: “Alex Trebek can’t wait for rogue winner to lose.”
Indeed, that headline, published in the Star Monday on Johanna Schneller’s “What I’m Watching” column about Jeopardy! multi-time winner Austin Rogers, is not a fact. The headline should not have stated it as such. We have now amended this online and published a correction.
While the subject matter is literally trivia, this is an example of bigger questions about ongoing issues in the Star of not making a clear distinction between opinion and fact, as journalistic principles and the Star’s own policies demand.
As part of its ongoing trust initiative, the Star is moving forward to provide clear signposts to readers about whether they are reading news, analysis or opinion on all the platforms on which the Star publishes. I will write much more about this in coming weeks as these important measures come into effect.
The Jeopardy! column and its problematic headline provide somewhat of a case study on confusion between news and opinion and the need to clearly label opinion content so readers understand what is verified information and what is someone’s view.
Headlines in the Star generally should not express opinions unless they appear on articles published on clearly labelled opinion pages, or contain some wording or label to make clear to readers that the headline statement is not a verified fact.
We corrected the Jeopardy! headline because it did not signal to readers that the statement that Trebek “can’t wait” for Rogers to lose represents the opinion expressed in the column by the columnist.
Readers who came upon the headline — particularly as it first appeared on the home page of the Star’s website — cannot be faulted for reading this as a statement of fact. It is unclear what exactly it is.
What about the column itself? Does the endnote — “Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments”— make clear to you that it represents the opinions of regular freelance contributor Johanna Schneller based on her viewing of a particular TV show episode? Does having her photo on the article in the newspaper tell you clearly that she is expressing her own views, not facts? Given the comments of some readers who contacted the public editor’s office about this column, I am not convinced there is total clarity here. Going forward with the new labelling guidelines, we aim to be clear that reviews express reviewer’s opinions and perspectives.
To be clear, the article telling you that “Alex Trebek does not like nine-time winner Austin Rogers, a New York City bartender who, as of Friday, had racked up $332,400 U.S.” is Schneller’s opinion. In the column, Schneller expressed her observations of the dynamic between Trebek and Rogers, who has become a viral sensation for his comedic antics, big bets, big brain and long run. (Note: As of my writing Thursday, Rogers, 38, had wracked up 12 wins worth more than $400,000 U.S.).
“When Trebek tries to josh about Rogers — ‘He’s got hair, he’s got chutzpah, and he’s got broad-based knowledge’— he sounds defeated,” Schneller wrote. “When he says, ‘Austin has a bit of the showman in him,’ what he means is, ‘Austin, go away.’
“Many loathe him. But no one so much as Trebek,” Schneller stated.
Understanding that the column expresses the columnist’s views, strongly stated, and is not fact is important in light of the fact that Trebek himself has taken issue with Schneller’s opinions.
Following publication of the column, Schneller received an email from Alison Shapiro Cooke, director of communications for Jeopardy!, seeking correction.
“While travelling in the Galapagos Islands for the show, Alex Trebek was shown your story in the Toronto Star . . . and he wanted to issue a response,” Cooke said.
“Alex said, ‘Because you are a fellow Canadian I will respond politely . . . you are totally off base. Austin was fun to be with, and slightly irreverent.’
“I realize that perhaps you did not choose the headline, however, I wanted to pass along his note in the hopes the record may be corrected.”
While the writer and her editors found Trebek’s response to be somewhat “tepid,” they rightly took immediate action to publish his response with Schneller’s column.
As to the question of the relationship between the legendary Trebek and the upstart Rogers, who really knows? It is all a matter of perspective. In an interview with Vulture.com, published this week, Rogers expressed his own perspective that Trebek was “the stern taskmaster” to his “unruly yet worthy student who’s the class clown but also excels.”
“That was the role we played as antagonists and protagonists,” he said. publiced@thestar.ca