> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.readfoxtalk.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # ‘Accuracy, above all’: Doug Bell walks FoxTalk contributors through journalism judgment - URL: https://www.readfoxtalk.com/accuracy-above-all-doug-bell-walks-foxtalk-contributors-through-journalism-judgment/ - Published: 2026-08-16T20:04:47.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-17T00:11:47.000Z - Description: The SPJ Colorado Pro president used case studies on news value, sourcing, ethics, headlines and preparation during a two-part Aug. 12 training session. - Author: Andy Green Doug Bell put a deliberately vague campus-news lead on the screen: a human rights activist had come to campus to discuss “a variety of controversial issues.” Contributor Dylan Früh spotted the problem. The lead should tell readers what the speaker actually said, he told Bell, not repeat a description they could have known before the event. Bell called it “the dreaded no news lead.” “News is new,” he said. “That's why we call it news.” Bell, president of SPJ Colorado Pro, led FoxTalk contributors through a two-part journalism training session Aug. 12\. A retired journalist and longtime journalism instructor, he moved through news judgment, writing, sourcing, public records, ethics, libel and privacy concerns, headlines and reporting preparation, often by giving contributors a case and asking them to make the call first. ## Give readers something new, then show where it came from Bell described news value through impact, timeliness, proximity, usefulness and conflict. The point was not simply to find the most dramatic detail. Reporters also have to ask what their audience needs to know and how the information may affect them. “What is the value to the audience?” Bell said. “Think about that every time.” Once reporters know what the story is, Bell reduced basic news writing to three letters: accurate, brief and clear. “Accurate, above all, must be accurate,” he said. He returned repeatedly to attribution. A reporter should be able to identify where each factual claim came from, whether that source is a person, a police report, a lawsuit, legislation, an open-records response or another document. “You should have a source for every fact in your story,” Bell said. He also warned contributors not to treat one official source as the end of the reporting. A police account may need to be supplemented by witnesses or the person accused. An expert may work for an organization with an agenda. An elected official has political interests. Documents can answer questions interviews cannot. Bell spent part of the session walking contributors through public-records and open-meetings tools in Colorado, presenting them as ways to keep reporting when public officials do not simply provide the information a reporter is seeking. ## Ethics can leave two careful editors with different answers One of the longest discussions started with a photograph. Bell showed contributors an image of rescuers carrying the sealed body bag of a 6-year-old boy who had been missing before his body was recovered from an Aurora pond. He asked whether an editor should publish it. The photograph could hurt the child's family and disturb readers. It could also give a community closure, document the work of rescuers and serve as a warning about the danger of open water around children, Bell told the group. The Aurora Sentinel published the photograph prominently on its front page. Bell said then-editor Dave Perry received multiple complaints and later wrote a column explaining why he had made the decision. Bell told contributors he would have made a different choice. He would have run the photograph inside the paper in black and white and used another image on the front page. “If I went and asked 10 editors, they would all have completely different thoughts about how they would use this,” Bell said. Bell organized the ethics discussion around the Society of Professional Journalists' four principles: seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent. His point was not that the code supplies an automatic answer. It gives journalists principles they can use to reason through a decision and explain it afterward. That idea carried into another case Bell described about a former reporter being removed from a speaking event. The reporter resisted the security officers escorting him out, and the confrontation itself became part of the news. “We don't become part of the story,” Bell said. “We report the story, but we don't in any way affect the outcome or become part of what's going on.” That does not mean avoiding difficult interviews or confrontations, he added. Reporters should ask tough questions when the reporting requires them. The line is between observing and questioning an event and changing the event through the reporter's own conduct. ## Accuracy follows the story into the headline Bell called headline writing one of his favorite parts of journalism, but he put accuracy ahead of cleverness. A headline has to be short enough to read quickly, informative enough to tell readers what matters and interesting enough to make them want the story. It also has to carry the newest development instead of making fresh reporting sound old. “No matter what, your headline must be 100% accurate,” Bell said. “You cannot exaggerate, you can't sort of fudge.” He recommended pulling out the important who, what and where, looking for expressive verbs and then stepping away from the finished headline before reading it again with fresh eyes. That last check can catch factual errors, accidental double meanings and wording that says something the writer did not intend. ## Preparation makes luck useful Bell ended with a story from his first newspaper job near Pittsburgh. His sports editor offered to drop him at a hotel where the Pittsburgh Penguins were announcing a new coach. Bell spent the rest of the previous evening learning as much as he could about the incoming coach. He arrived early. Before the other reporters showed up, a man in a loud sports jacket walked into the room and headed for the food. Bell assumed he worked for a television station and asked which one. The man told him he was the new coach. Bell suddenly had an exclusive interview. Because he had done the research the night before, he also had questions worth asking. He said the Associated Press picked up his story the next day. The encounter itself was luck, Bell told the contributors. Being able to use it was not. “That is probably the most important thing you can do, is be completely prepared by doing your homework ahead of time, knowing what questions you need to ask, and listening carefully to find out what else you need to ask,” Bell said. > **Correction (Aug. 16, 2026):** An earlier version of this article stated that Dave Perry received more than 40 complaints after publishing the photograph. The precise number of complaints could not be verified. The article has been updated to say he received multiple complaints.