Instructor bent after running out of air at 40m

[Lorenzoid]

Well, up to a point. I mean, what if the story was about someone who paralyzed in an automobile accident, and they said something like "we had planned for the road to be straight, but there was an unexpected curve in the road, and driving into that tree was a surprise but unavoidable".

Well said. I guess you already made the point in your comment above about a journalist at least being able to look out the window to see if it's raining. Any trained scuba diver should have been able to smell something fishy in the interview.

 

[doctormike]

Well said. I guess you already made the point in your comment above about a journalist at least being able to look out the window to see if it's raining. Any trained scuba diver should have been able to smell something fishy in the interview.

Yeah, I mean this discussion is a bit off topic, but since diving is so central to the story and since the reporter did spend some time on the details of the actual incident, it wouldn't have taken much effort on their part to run a draft past a local tech instructor or other expert before going to press.

 

[Diver0001]

I don't know much about journalistic standards, but how much technical knowledge should be required of a journalist in a case like this? This was presented more as a human interest story, focusing on the disability the accident left the diver with, than a straight report of a dive accident. The journalist interviewed the four participants, who are self-described "experienced" instructors, and who corroborated each other's story. Is more than that required by the standards of journalism?

Realistically, the only technical knowledge they need to have is the knowledge to phone someone and ask for a fact check. Do you think that the BBC have zero expert scuba divers in their contacts list?

@Storker I have a strong wish that journalists would do their work professionally. After all, one way or the other they are our window in the world outside our living rooms. What I see happening is that more and more so-called journalism is starting to lower the bar to Facebook click-bait standards. Even the BBC has now slipped off that cliff in my mind. So no, I do not have more faith in humanity than you do. As I said to Mike, to my way of thinking journalism is dead. If I want to read the news now I read Reuters, which is the only source of reasonably neutral news type facts that I can name.

Surprisingly the world isn't nearly as shocking and gloomy if you read a site that aims for a neutral reporting of the news without telling you what you should think about it. Not surprising at all, of course, is that this idiotic drivel about how dangerous scuba diving is was not on Reuters.

R..

 

[dmaziuk]

Yeah, I mean this discussion is a bit off topic, but since diving is so central to the story and since the reporter did spend some time on the details of the actual incident, it wouldn't have taken much effort on their part to run a draft past a local tech instructor or other expert before going to press.

I was under the impression that part of the reason editors exist is exactly to avoid the kind of embarrassment the publisher gets into when they publish a story that backfires like this. And the good ones come with very sensitive BS meters.

 

[Fibonacci]

So any response from Rich Osborn and friends or have they gone to ground?

 

[Lorenzoid]

Realistically, the only technical knowledge they need to have is the knowledge to phone someone and ask for a fact check.

Well that's easy to say, but is that the standard? Are journalists who base a story on what they are told in an interview by supposed professionals who experienced the event first-hand expected to call someone else in the profession and have them give their opinion of the interview? I ask because, never having studied journalism, I do not know.

 

[doctormike]

Well that's easy to say, but is that the standard? Are journalists who base a story on what they are told in an interview by supposed professionals who experienced the event first-hand expected to call someone else in the profession and have them give their opinion of the interview? I ask because, never having studied journalism, I do not know.

Well, I think that if you are interviewing an individual about a technical issue that you have no knowledge of, it makes sense to get an independent review of the draft before publishing. Obviously, someone serving as their own expert analyst raises all sorts of questions of impartiality, secondary gain, hidden agendas, cover stories, etc... If I was interviewing someone convicted of a crime, I wouldn't just publish their take on what happened without some sort of third party review.

 

[EdC]

I think it is a combination of the reporter being lazy along with the desire to write an inspiring story about this guy who can't be discouraged by this terrible curve ball that life has pitched him.

This story to a lesser degree reminds me of all the stories about the JFK Junior plane crash in which he killed himself, and two innocent women. The press fell all over themselves to give the impression that he was an advanced highly trained pilot when he was not experienced or competent enough to undertake the flight in those conditions.

 

[arew+4]

Hey those cave diving kids sold some papers. Give me 12 inches on a human interest scuba story.

 

[boulderjohn]

As a former journalism instructor, I can see a problem for the reporter in this story. The details of the dive were not what the story was about. They were just some background information leading up to the real story. The reporter perceived the speaker as an expert with no reason to lie about the details. The details didn't even need to be in the story for its true purpose to be served--the story could just have said the was injured in a diving accident. If the dive itself was the focus of the story, and there was a possibly conflict about what actually happened, then failing to check would be terrible journalism. In this case, I think it is understandable.