As a journalist I have to say, sadly, that must of what I have read here sounds all too accurate. Far too many reporters are young, inexperienced, or simply not of a mind-set to really dig out facts.
I have long been critical of modern-day journalism for exactly the point made in the original post, namely that once you have been the subject of bad journalism all reporting becomes tainted. The tragedy here is, in a free society, the media is critically important. Unfortunately as more and more people begin to question the ethics and accuracy of journalists, the approval of all journalism drops. With that comes the inevitable loss of critical oversight of government that is the press's true responsiblity.
Media outlets are partly to blame as well because of the tendency to reduce staff, rely more on wire reports and often hire people for the wrong reasons. I can tell you as a former televison reporter, on-air staff was hired for their looks not their talent or reporting skills.
There is also the dangerous blurring of actual news with infotainment and out right entertainment. It's all coming our of the same box or magazine or paper, so for many people it's hard to parse.
But that also points out that the viewers and readers bear some responsibility as well. How many people watch the local news because they "just love that anchor." And as consumers of information, I would say most people are really not very discriminating. We know this because we have ratings that reveal viewing and reading habits. These ratings are extremely consistent. They show people are much more interested in soft news, feature reports or outright gossip than hard news. TV and newspaper executives know this so we get more and more Lindsay, Brittney and Paris stories and fewer and fewer stories about the failure of the sub-prime market.
There is also the ominous trend toward using more and more government sources for stories. That is extremely dangerous and pretty much the opposite of how it should be done. All too often a reporter believes the government or official source is somehow unbiased; which of course they are not. Too much spin, too little digging into whether there really are WMDs.
I have said it many times but when you see something inaccurate in a story call the media outlet and let them know. They probably want to know about the mistake. You won't get any cheers from them, but it shows someone is paying attention. You can affect the quality and accuracy of additional reports.
Media inaccuracy is perhaps one of the most serious problems we have today and practically no one realizes it.
Jeff
I have long been critical of modern-day journalism for exactly the point made in the original post, namely that once you have been the subject of bad journalism all reporting becomes tainted. The tragedy here is, in a free society, the media is critically important. Unfortunately as more and more people begin to question the ethics and accuracy of journalists, the approval of all journalism drops. With that comes the inevitable loss of critical oversight of government that is the press's true responsiblity.
Media outlets are partly to blame as well because of the tendency to reduce staff, rely more on wire reports and often hire people for the wrong reasons. I can tell you as a former televison reporter, on-air staff was hired for their looks not their talent or reporting skills.
There is also the dangerous blurring of actual news with infotainment and out right entertainment. It's all coming our of the same box or magazine or paper, so for many people it's hard to parse.
But that also points out that the viewers and readers bear some responsibility as well. How many people watch the local news because they "just love that anchor." And as consumers of information, I would say most people are really not very discriminating. We know this because we have ratings that reveal viewing and reading habits. These ratings are extremely consistent. They show people are much more interested in soft news, feature reports or outright gossip than hard news. TV and newspaper executives know this so we get more and more Lindsay, Brittney and Paris stories and fewer and fewer stories about the failure of the sub-prime market.
There is also the ominous trend toward using more and more government sources for stories. That is extremely dangerous and pretty much the opposite of how it should be done. All too often a reporter believes the government or official source is somehow unbiased; which of course they are not. Too much spin, too little digging into whether there really are WMDs.
I have said it many times but when you see something inaccurate in a story call the media outlet and let them know. They probably want to know about the mistake. You won't get any cheers from them, but it shows someone is paying attention. You can affect the quality and accuracy of additional reports.
Media inaccuracy is perhaps one of the most serious problems we have today and practically no one realizes it.
Jeff
