Seems like journalist are just making stories up at an ever increasing rate. NY Times & USA Today are among the latest major publications to be stung. What’s the solution to their problems? How do they fix their quality control problems in order to continue to pump stories out while not loosing their competitve edge? How do they repair their sullied reputations or do they even care anymore?
Funny thing. When a print journalist gets caught making up a story, they get fired and it’s considered a major scandal. When a television host gets caught making up a story, there’s usually no response at all from the network they work for. Remember Sean Hannity and the “gays are trying to get AIDS” nonsense? Double standard. Maybe the correct response for newspapers is to stop pretending that they care about journalistic ethics, just like everyone else has.
“Making up stories” is a bit strong for what happened is the problem. That’s certainly the pitch angle, I’ll grant you. But what actually seems to have happened is that these individuals plagiarized stories from a variety of sources and then fabricated the detail work to fill in the blanks and cover their tracks.
It’s not like Jason Blair was lying about there being a former POW that was receiving a lot of attention. Many of his quotes were even legit. He just yanked them from other people’s stories. It’s the same mindset as using Google to write a research paper basically.
I’ve heard a lot of things blamed for this. Journalistic corruption, a society of cheating, social engineering, blahdy blah blah blah. You know what it is? It’s the fact that quality doesn’t matter. Nobody gives a crap about an intelligent story that covers unbroken ground or provides new insight. They want a story on that thing that CNN was going on about last night, and they want it to fit in 4 inches of single column. The headline they might take some interest in QA’ing, since that’s all most people are going to read, but the story itself just needs to convey the message “Yeah, about that thing…” Which is a shame, because in the nightmarish realm of braindead pseudojournalism print sources used to give a small amount of actual depth, but now they just seem to be the day after summations of the parent networks.
Not what happened with a Sky News reporter who pretended to be on a submarine active in the Gulf, when it was actually docked in England. Can’t remember whether he resigned or was fired, one or the other. Sad postscript - found dead at home several months later, probable suicide.
Even funnier is when people call ‘nonsense’ on an actual story.
Might want to check out the following article:
USA Today Says Reporter Faked Stories
Funnier yet when you read the “actual story”. From your transcript:
Are you saying you believe this is an “actual story”???
Errr, unless you are contending that Mssr. Brown had a phony conversation with a figment of his imagination, then yes, it was an ‘actual’ story. Humorously enough, it was an ‘actual’ story that print media (Newsweek), yet again, jacked up.
Hmm, fair enough then. I was figuring this was similar to the Jason Blair scandal.
The Brown interview was, as he said himself, “a story about a story”. The “actual story” is the supposed trend that gay men are trying to get AIDs (which Hannity trumpeted and ITR champion called “nonsense”).
My question to you was: Do you believe that two case studies qualifies the “gay men are trying to get AIDs” story? Why is it not “nonsense”?
If you were trying to make a different point, I didn’t see it.
Hannity was just passing along what Newsweek had reported, if I understand correctly. Newsweek, as you may know, would be considered ‘print media’, being that you can buy their ‘web pages’ printed on paper! ITR was calling nonsense on what was at root a print media problem. The story actually happened (at least some gay dudes are trying to get the AIDS), and was blown out of proportion by…print media!
Errrrr,
By what standard is it “an actual story”? To me, when you say that something that something is a real and true story, that means that the journalist reporting the story is telling the truth. As Andrew Sullivan demonstrated, the claim that one quarter of new AIDS cases among gay men result from ‘bug chasing’ is a blatant lie, and Hannity had evidence it was a lie when he chose to report it as the truth. So why don’t you explain to me how it qualifies as “an actual story”.
I agree it was started in print media, but it wasn’t Newsweek, it was Rolling Stone. Newsweek had debunked the story, in print, and in the Brown interview.
It still seems as though you believe 2 cases make this story newsworthy. Is that correct?
Somebody call the police, we’ve been hijacked…
So I mixed up the two magazines involved. Doesn’t change the crux of the matter:
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Some gay men are (were, whatever), trying intentionally to get AIDS.
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Two print media sources disagree over the numbers involved. One says that two, and only two cases are involved, the other that ‘up to 25% [of new homosexual AIDS cases]’ are involved.
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Somehow, Hannity gets the blame for this. Not the original (print media) sources in question. Golly, but I do so wonder why!?
Sullivan, BTW, while he may be a great author on so many other topics, is a bit too ‘close to the story’ to be taken seriously with his ad hominem riddled rebuttal to the Rolling Stone piece in question, especially given his past history.
]<the last of this ridiculous hijack>
Rolling Stone is to blame for publishing this nonsense in the first place, but Hannity should also be accountable for running with it when he knew that the story lacked credibility (and don’t come back with “maybe he didn’t know” - it’s part of his job to vett the accuracy of his sources - do you think he was unaware of the debunking it received in other media?).
<end of hijack>
Back to the OP? How to prevent fabrications? Here’s a good idea:
This would work for the type of stories he mentioned. But the credibility problem goes further than that, IMO. What about the “hijack” example on this thread? What to do when mainstream media picks up on these stories, as Hannity (and others) often do? Are they just as accountable or not?
I suggest checking out The Daily Howler for some insights. Yes, they are left leaning, but also point out problems with the more liberal pundits/sources and non-political news coverage.
annaplurabelle, thanks for the link on The Howler. While it is left leaning (at least from what I’ve read so far), they do address problems with the press corps. I don’t know that McCain is the poster boy for Bush or the republicans that they hold him up to be, but that’s another story.
As for the OP problems, do we need to establish a clear punishment for these make believe journalist? Maybe banishment (including no book deals) would be an incentive to actually do their jobs.
As for the additional “domino” problem you provide the example for, I agree with it being a problem. But if we make it the responsibility of mainstream media to 100% verify every story’s credibility, then that creates additional problems including the time to do the investigation, costs, plus sources being hounded by scores of media types trying to verify a story. Maybe if we have a clear “punishment” established the problem will eventually correct itself (at least I would like to think it would).
Maybe the media just needs to do a better job of policing itself and stop rewarding those who break to rules of professionalism and ethics when it comes to accuracy.