A menudo hemos tenido que aconsejar a la gente que no crea todo lo que ve en las noticias. Aunque creo que los periodistas se esfuerzan de buena fe por esclarecer los hechos, es inevitable que se crucen cables y que a veces se transmita información errónea como si fuera verdad. A veces las noticias sólo contienen detalles insignificantes, como un nombre mal escrito, pero otras veces son cosas importantes las que alteran por completo la historia.
We recently ran into this issue when skimming over a quick fluff piece about a South Carolina man who was so hungry that he went rogue at a Waffle House. I checked it against another article about the same thing; in both it was presented as a basic human-interest story without any real analysis. That’s fine; at its heart it’s just meant to be a feel-good story about some shenanigans at a local greasy spoon. Certain details varied between the stories, though, and depending on which one has its facts straight the texture of the tale changes a little. That’s why we need to use it to talk about the dangers of taking news stories at face value.
¿Qué ha ocurrido?
Alex Bowen, un hombre hambriento de Carolina del Sur, relató su aventura en Facebook a altas horas de la noche del 29 de noviembre. Bowen, ligeramente ebrio, entró en un bar de gofres de West Columbia en busca de comida. Cuando cruzó la puerta, se encontró con un único empleado del tercer turno profundamente dormido en el mostrador. Más tarde se sugirió que otros empleados, aunque estaban de servicio, podrían haber estado detrás del restaurante tomándose un largo descanso.
Realizing he had the run of the place, Bowen took initiative and went behind the counter, firing up the grill himself. According to his story, he slapped together a “double Texas bacon cheesesteak with extra pickles,” which to his credit sounds delicious. Once it was finished he turned the grill off, cleaned up his mess, scooped up his snack, and left the restaurant as he had found it—minus a few sandwich ingredients, of course. He managed all that without waking the nearby snoozing employee, who reportedly got quite a talking-to after Bowen posted his handiwork on social media.
Bowen returned to the restaurant the next day and paid for his sandwich, in case anyone worried about the theft implications of this story. Spokespeople for the restaurant responded with good humor regardless; they expressed admiration for his talent on the grill, but also noted that no customers should be behind the counter for safety reasons.
That’s pretty much it. Altogether it’s easy fodder for soft human-interest journalism, and I found it a welcome break from a lot of the stuff dominating the current news cycle.
Excepto... Espera.
Como suele ocurrir cuando varias fuentes informan de una historia, algunos detalles de la aventura de Bowen se cambiaron y mezclaron. Dado que se trata de un artículo sobre un bocadillo de carne, puedo entender que los lectores reaccionen ante eso con un "¿a quién le importa?". Sin embargo, uno de los elementos poco claros de la historia es en realidad bastante importante, y hace que pase rápidamente de ser "una pelusa que te hace sentir bien" a "un descuido inquietante".
Bowen admitió que estaba un poco borracho cuando entró en el Waffle House. Ese estado de desinhibición le dio las agallas para ignorar al empleado que dormía, saltar sobre la parrilla y ocuparse él mismo del negocio. Mencionó en su post de Facebook que normalmente no es el tipo de persona que haría cosas así, pero es probable que muchos de nosotros estemos familiarizados con el concepto de "valor líquido". "Le doy todo el mérito a mi viejo amigo el vodka", dijo Bowen.
Aquí es donde las variaciones en las noticias marcan la diferencia: Nuestro protagonista fue borracho a un Waffle House... ¿pero cómo llegó allí?
One news source wrote that “In a hungry and slightly drunken stupor, Bowen said he walked to a West Columbia Waffle House early Thursday morning.” If so, that’s the most reasonable way he could embark on his unreasonable adventure. Whether he was in a nearby bar or just walked from home, more power to him for hoofing it somewhere to satisfy his craving.
Sin embargo, otra fuente sólo dice que "fue" a Waffle House. Entiendo que "fue" puede significar caminar con la misma facilidad que conducir, pero aquí es donde se complica un poco más (el énfasis es mío):
"Volví a salir a mi coche para buscar a los empleados", dijo Bowen. "No había nadie a la vista".
That’s supposed to be a direct quote from Bowen about his sandwich odyssey. If it’s accurate, that would mean his “old friend vodka” compelled him to get behind the wheel and drive drunk to Waffle House. The whole thing is a little less cute if there’s a DUI in the mix somewhere.
Una lectura más detenida del (francamente absurdo) número de comentarios dejados a Bowen en su post de Facebook muestra que vive aproximadamente a una manzana de la Waffle House, pero sigue sin estar claro si fue andando o no. Si fue en coche, aunque fuera por un trayecto tan corto, infringió la ley. No hay distancia aceptable para conducir ebrio, así que parece importante saber si eso ocurrió o no.
¿Cuál es la conclusión?
My gripe isn’t really with Alex Bowen. Nobody got hurt by his antics (except the employee who was penalized for sleeping), and I won’t climb on a high horse about drunk driving without even knowing for sure that he did. The guy’s Facebook wall is awash with props and congratulations, so for however long he gets to be the Internet’s hero, I’m happy for his limelight. May the tide of public opinion not turn on him as so often happens nowadays.
If he drove drunk, though, I feel like at least a few of those incoming high-fives should be rethought. Fortune smiled on Bowen repeatedly that night, but it’s never wise to bank on luck and it’s never permissible to drive over a BAC of .08. I can’t even say definitively that he’d had enough to put him past that limit—he was sharp enough to work an unfamiliar grill and rustle up a cheesesteak—but he emphasized he was buzzed enough to make unusual decisions, so it seems possible.
The complaint here is more about incoherent news reporting. It would really help if the various sources had similar narratives about the event, at least as far as crucial details go. While all of them applaud him as some kind of cat-burglar sandwich hero, some indicate that he walked to the restaurant and others note his mention of a car. After looking over his Facebook page, it looks like a lot of the material they used was scraped from the comment conversations he had with people in that original post. Maybe his story changed a little along the way when he realized the DUI implications, but journalists could have gotten in touch with him to determine the truth one way or the other.
In the end this tale is a little less carpe diem and more caveat emptor–buyer beware. I was all set to make some noise about drunk driving, since none of the news seemed to care about holding him accountable for a (possible) dangerous decision that takes thousands of lives a year. Now I’m not even sure if that happened. I don’t care about stepping off my soapbox, but that’s a pretty major detail to report correctly, wouldn’t you say?
It’s not always goofy stories about sandwiches where important facts get twisted, either. Thanks to the cutthroat competition spurred by the Internet, news sources rush to deliver whatever “facts” they can scrape up without taking the time to verify the information coming to them. It happens all the time, from fluff pieces to misquoted politicians to mass shootings. Mistakes happen regularly, and while you may doubt that matters for a harmless Waffle House story, it’s still an indictment of modern journalism that it seems so comfortable improvising the truth until it knows for sure.
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