# Sad, sorry journalism **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 27, 2023, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863 "2023-01-27T01:15:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cincinnatus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cincinnatus/32/7990_2.png) [@cincinnatus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cincinnatus)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/1 "2023-01-27T01:15:04Z")
Today‘s Washington Post had a story headlined, “FBI shuts down ransomware gang that targeted schools and hospitals” Three people whom the Post seems to want us to believe are technical reporting powerhouses covered this story. It appeared to be basically a handout from the government about taking down the Hive cyber-ransom gang. The reporting is pathetic. Nobody was arrested and no equipment was confiscated. The legal work seemed well done in stopping, probably only temporarily, the ransom gang. But nobody asked what was being done to stop the criminals from popping back up again. If they asked, they didn’t report it. The reporting was embarrassingly poor. Nobody asked where the money went. Who has the $100 million that was wrested from those whose computer systems were so unprotected that they had to pay to get their data back. A hundred million. Why would journalists not even ask about where the money is? If they did ask, why would they not report it? The story underhandedly points to Russia being involved. But nobody reported whether the reporters even asked about possible Russian involvement. Even worse, I’ll bet that at least two editors read this story, and they didn’t ask, either. As a former journalist, I think this kind of shoddy reporting is distressing. It is rampant from what is left of the local papers to the alleged top of the pile, the Post and the New York Times. I am so sad to see it. The papers talk about how their circulation has eroded. I think to a large extent they gave it away. Don’t report real news, cover the easy stuff, write about Washington handouts, and mostly handouts and pretty soon readers don’t see a reason to keep up their subscriptions. We all suffer the loss caused largely by lazy, bad journalism. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/2 "2023-01-27T01:23:02Z")
Washington Post has been going downhill for a while. Bezos may have turned it around financially, but it seems to have been at the expense of the quality of the writing. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/3 "2023-01-27T01:24:28Z")
The Post did some very good science writing about the pandemic. Much better than the NYT, which published an embarrassing number of misleading graphs and other materials. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/4 "2023-01-27T01:28:12Z")
Sounds like all they did was rewrite the DOJ press release. > **[U.S. Department of Justice Disrupts Hive Ransomware Variant](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-department-justice-disrupts-hive-ransomware-variant)** > > The Justice Department announced today its months-long disruption campaign against the Hive ransomware group that has targeted more than 1,500 victims in over 80 countries around the world, including hospitals, school districts, financial firms, and... “Reporting” is becoming more and more rare these days. Reporting takes time, effort, getting one’s hands dirty. It also requires critical thought and analysis. Many “reporters” lack many of these skills, probably because they don’t have basic educational training in journalism, research, grammar, etc. Add to it their editors many share the same lack of credibility and always push for instant deadlines just to beat competitors. Time is money! ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/5 "2023-01-27T01:52:56Z")
I read a headline online today that said used the word “flea” to mean they ran from police. Pitiful. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/6 "2023-01-27T01:54:27Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > “Reporting” is becoming more and more rare these days. Reporting takes time, effort, getting one’s hands dirty. It also requires critical thought and analysis. This X 1,000. Let’s not even talk about editing and grammatical errors. Every now and then I re-watch _All the President’s Men_ and weep… ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/7 "2023-01-27T02:05:44Z")
[Here](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/announcement-posted-hive-ransomware-groups-site-says-it-has-been-seized-by-fbi-2023-01-26/) is Reuters’ article on the same subject. I wonder if it’s any better. ---
**Author:** ![cincinnatus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cincinnatus/32/7990_2.png) [@cincinnatus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cincinnatus)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/8 "2023-01-27T03:07:36Z")
Same hand-out, apparently. I can’t tell whether it is naivety, ignorance or incompetence. None were curious enough to ask where the money went. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/9 "2023-01-27T07:35:03Z")
This story has been making the rounds lately: [![](https://i.imgur.com/YHdELkX.png) ](https://i.imgur.com/YHdELkX.png) The Earth’s core did not stop spinning. The core was thought to be spinning slightly faster than the mantle/crust, and now it is spinning at the roughly same speed. It may slow slightly more in the future, meaning that _relative to the mantle_ it will be going “backwards”. But in no sense does this mean the core has stopped turning and may go into reverse. It doesn’t help Michio Kaku went on the talk show circuit repeating this nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/10 "2023-01-27T09:07:42Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Let’s not even talk about editing and grammatical errors. Oh, this ! And it’s not just in the US. I have stopped counting the number of spelling mistakes in what are supposed to be the highest-standard French language newspapers where I live. A couple of months ago, I paused after reading the very first sentence of an article when I realized that I didn’t understand it. Bear in mind that it was an ordinary topic, nothing specialized or obscure. So, I re-read it and found out that there was a connective that was used incorrectly. As a result, not only was the sentence meaningless, but it was also impossible to guess what it _could_ have meant. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/11 "2023-01-27T10:08:03Z")
Too many reporters, not enough news. Too many pundits, not enough topics. Barely-rewritten press releases are not uncommon and never have been. My bete noir example of bad reporting is Twitter reporting - _Elon Musk gets into tiff with Stephen King_ kind of stuff, which is nothing more than a series of tweets connected by algorithmically-designed sentences written at the 5th-grade level. That shit appears everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/12 "2023-01-27T11:19:37Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > It doesn’t help Michio Kaku went on the talk show circuit repeating this nonsense. His Wikipedia page describes him as a theoretical physicist and a “popularizer of science”. He’s failing on both counts. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/13 "2023-01-27T13:22:55Z")
I think there should be a law that reporters cannot ask “How do you feel…” of anyone under any circumstances apart from a health query. To me, that’s a lazy question. “How do you feel about the latest mass shooting?” - how the interviewee _feels_ isn’t news or newsworthy. “Gee, I feel really bad for their families.” Big fat hairy deal. Sorry - this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/14 "2023-01-27T14:49:54Z")
A lot of “science journalism” comprises nothing more than press release retreads. Drives me batty. Especially when the press release is looser with conclusions and impact than the actual academic paper. And on multiple occasions I’ve had writers concoct a quote and ask if they could stick my or a client’s name on it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/15 "2023-01-27T14:59:33Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Barely-rewritten press releases are not uncommon and never have been. Yeah, that’s absolutely lazy “journalism,” what I expect from smaller market papers as a last-minute space filler, not metros. Even in college, we would have been crucified by our editors were we not to take a press release and make some calls, get some additional quotes, do some fact-checking, add original content to it. But those were the idealistic days of youth, I guess, at a strong journalism school. And, yes, copy editing and proofreading does seem to have gotten a lot worse. There were always the occasional error but, man, it almost feels like every other article these days, especially online. I don’t expect journalists to be impeccable spellers and grammarians – many are not. Their main role is getting the story, calling people, knocking on doors, research, keeping relationships with sources, etc. But get some competent editors in there! ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/16 "2023-01-27T15:12:12Z")
To me, this is all an example of the “hollowing out” of an entire industry. In my opinion, this was done deliberately by those with the money and power to do it. They bought up papers and magazines and TV networks in order to squash unsympathetic coverage and analysis. The result being that a lot of seasoned talent got pushed out of the industry. What’s left is the B and C teams who don’t get a chance to hone their craft through mentorship. And leadership who serve their masters. But, that’s just my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/17 "2023-01-27T15:16:49Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > copy editing and proofreading does seem to have gotten a lot worse. Um … “do seem” … Whoops. (My excuse is that I only had “copy editing” there first and later added “proofreading” without changing the verb. And Gaudere. More of a “curse” than a “law.”) ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/18 "2023-01-27T15:16:54Z")
Modern “journalism” is just the “circuses” component of “bread and circuses”. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/19 "2023-01-27T15:23:26Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I read a headline online today that said used the word “flea” to mean they ran from police. Pitiful. No, that’s creative writing! A flea is hard to see and even harder to catch, so it’s effective imagery! 😉 > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > This story has been making the rounds lately: Science journalism as practiced in the general media is an especially pitiful sub-genre of bad journalism. Bad journalism generally combines elements of mangled facts, sensationalism, and bad writing. Bad science journalism contains all those same elements, except that mangled facts become “facts that the writer doesn’t even understand, at a basic level” combined with a comical attempt to “explain” said facts to the audience, who are presumed to all be pin-headed morons. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > It doesn’t help Michio Kaku went on the talk show circuit repeating this nonsense. Michio Kaku is the scientific community’s answer to generic bad journalism. Kaku’s particular _schtick_ is unsubstantiated wild speculation on areas of physics that tend to capture the popular imagination – multiple universes, FTL travel, that sort of thing. Gotta give the guy credit – when those wild speculations are published as books, allegedly by a well-known theoretical physicist, they pull in serious money. But they typically have no more scientific basis than any other science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863/20 "2023-01-27T15:28:27Z")
I don’t have access to the Post article since I didn’t sign up for the website. It seems fairly obvious that it’s hard to arrest ransomware perpetrators if they’re operating from Russia, which is apparently the case in at least some instances. And government hacking operations _have_ had some success in clawing back money from these sleazebags. From the BBC: “The Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed the FBI gained deep access to the Hive ransomware group in late July 2022.” “Officers were able to warn victims of impending attacks.” “They also gave more than 300 decryption keys to those hacked, saving them, they estimate, more than $130m (£105m).” > **[US hacks back against Hive ransomware crew](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64418723)** > > The US Department of Justice says its operation against the cyber gang was a 21st Century stakeout. That follows other operations which successfully got a percentage of ransom money back from the extorters. I can’t tell if the WaPo article is significantly less informative. But the implication that the Justice Department has barely done anything at all against these people needs more…facts. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sad-sorry-journalism/978863.md?page=2)